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Show Howe About: Women Wives Good Behavior . Bell Syndicate. WNU Service. By ED HOWE THE roving correspondent of the Kansas City Star once called on me and said: "The women all say you are a woman hater. How about it?" ... I said I wasn't, and that all the women didn't say so. In support sup-port of this statement, I gave him a letter from a woman In Texas, but he made no reference to it iu the two columns he wrote about me. The woman said: "I am barely nlne-Isen, nlne-Isen, and have a deformed body. I 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, I have a wicked and fast temper, but you have taught me to control it for my own benefit. Tour constant teaching that one should behave for one's own sake, as a matter of profit, because be-cause it Is finally the easiest and best way, I have been able to understand un-derstand and practice with more success than any other." Early man had a strong disposition disposi-tion to whip his wife, and often did. I have seen a picture in an old book of an angry husband entering en-tering the house carrying a switch, and of his wife cringing and begging beg-ging for mercy, as I did as a 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 me.) 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 remedied. reme-died. As far back as the time of Sile-rius 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 it didn't look well. Silerius objected to the custom. Any reproof of women today sets them screaming as though the reproof were a beating. 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 a spring. The modern bank, hotel, railroad and school are merely cogs In the wheel of civilization civiliza-tion as It 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 behavior, be-havior, as is a useful machine or system lightening our labors and our worries. If I should marry again (I have about as much notion of it as of being born again) I think I should relieve my friends of the bother of a public ceremony. In our extravagant extrava-gant and wasteful American way, marrying has become more troublesome trouble-some than a fire. The bride is worn out, the father bankrupt, and all those who read the prenuptial notices In the newspapers are disgusted. dis-gusted. There Is also the trouble of attendance on the ceremony and reception, re-ception, to say nothing of presents. Men especially do not wish to attend 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. Wby would it not be a good idea to give half the present amount wasted on weddings to starving old soldiers, the poor, union labor organizations, 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 collections 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 a book, and which I happened to encounter: "The wisdom of the past," he says, "is not to he undone in the present by a 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 experienced experi-enced of editors. In a recent Issue one of them writes an article explaining ex-plaining how members of the board make their selections. I should say the board acted wisely In deciding on this article for publication, since It interested me, and probably Interested In-terested olliers; here was first class editorial Judgment. But the same issue contained an article I have decided Is the weakest I have ever seen printed In a publication of distinction; dis-tinction; so far as I am able to Judge as reader and editor. It failed at every point. . . . The work of the best men Is f rr-jiuently so weak that It amazes me. |