The Nome daily nugget., 1934-12-24
Howe About:
Women Wives Good Behavior
By ED HOWE
o. Bell syndicate.-wNU Service.

NdE F0Vlng correspondent OI tne
 l Kansas City Star once called on me and said: "The women all say you are a woman hater. How about itT' I said. I wasn't, and that all the women didn't say so. In sup port of this statement. gave him a letter from a woman in Texas, but he made no reference to It in the two columns he wrote about me. The woman said q am barely nine teen, and have a deformed body. am familiar with you through the Kansas City Star, and I want to give the devil his due, for you are the writer who has done me most good. Being a cripple, have a wicked and fast temper, but you have taught me to control 1t for my own benefit. Your constant teaching that one should behave for ones own sake, as a matter of profit, be- cause 1t Is finally the easiest and best way. have been able to un- derstand and practice with more success than any other"
 Early man had a strong disposl- tion to whip his wife. and often did. I have seen a picture in an old book of an angry husband en- tering the house carrying a switch, and of his wife cringing and beg glng for mercy, as I did as child in the presence of an angry father. (In this old picture, also, is the figure of a woman evidently the wife's mother, who begged for mercy, too, as my mother begged for mercy for mel
 Wives have taken the switch from the hands of brutal husbands. Men have granted equal rights, but the women are still screaming as though regularly whipped. Men of today submit to the gross absurdity of police women, stateswomen, but the women are as busy as ever in telling of wrongs long since reme- died.
 As far back as the time of Sile- rius women insisted on rights that were actually wrongs. Silerius, In his memoirs, tells of one of his wives going barelegged, although she was of considerable age, and 1t didn't look we'll. Silerius objected to the. custom. Any reproof of women today sets them screaming as though the reproof were a beat ing.
 Men of the present generation are the heirs of the experience of men of an older time. Thus we have learned of the greater convenience of obtaining water by turning a tap, instead of a more troublesome Journey to spring. The modern bank, hotel, railroad and school are merely cogs in the wheel of civiliza- ton as 1t goes round endlessly, and Is slowly improved because of the disposition of men to seek greater conveniences. A clean, dependable man is a development of good be- havior, as Is a useful machine or system Tightening our labors and our worries.
 If I should marry again q have about as much notion of 1t as of being born again. think I should relieve my friends of the bother of public ceremony. In our extrava- gant and wasteful American way. marrying has become more trouble some than fire. The bride is worn out, the father bankrupt, and all those who read the prenuptlal notices In the newspapers are dis 1gusted. There is also the trouble of attendance on the ceremony and re ception, to say nothing of presents. Men especially do not wish to at- tend or buy, and for days previously are glowered at by wives who know they are trying to get out of it; for wives love weddings.
 Why would 1t not be good idea to give half the present amount wasted on weddings to starving old soldiers, the poor, union labor or ganizations, railroads and bankers In distress.
 It would be a great convenience to me If some of the army of writers now useless would devote their time to reading, and print collec- tions of the occasional good things found in novels, essays, histories and the mass of writing of every kind. I thank James Truslow Adams for a sentiment he lately buried in book, and which I happened to encounter: "The wisdom of the past" he says, "is not to be undone In the present by few telephones, motor cars or radios"
 One of the best of our monthly magazines has a board of editors to decide what shall go in. and what kept out. These men must be among the best and most experi- enced of editors. In recent issue one of them writes an article ex-