OCR Text |
Show Headlifil926 (Fein) I ! I By ELMO SCOTT WATSON "Ma" and "Peaches" and Pola, Countess, Helen, Suzanne, Marie and Alniee and Trudy 'hat chance In the news has a man? Headline Writers Anthology. ttUKTHKR he likes It or vrtjBjHi not, Mr. Homo will Imve ftSJ Q W 10 "limit tnilt the llt?llJ l,?JLLLr liners of 192G were most-feSsSs' most-feSsSs' 'y wmen. 11 is dubt-l&J&L dubt-l&J&L ful lf tlie fen. ale of tlie 1 n"B species, either collectively collective-ly or individually and more especially espe-cially individually ever before claimed bo much newspaper space as they have in the year Just closing. Think hack over the last twelve .months and see lf you can write down a list of men's names that appeared more frequently and-more repeatedly j In the columns of our newspapers than these : oeiuuue aiii-i or, .-moc j AlcPherson, Helen Wills, Suzanne ! Leuglen, Countess Cathcart, Mrs. Ed-i Ed-i ward Browning, Queen Marie of Rumania, Mrs. James Ferguson, Pola Negri, Joyce Ilawley. You may not remember all of them , -nor recognize them under those rather formal titles. Hut the headline writers, who have lo say It in words of one syllable and who are informal, If jiothitig else, have made It ensy for us. So when they spoke of Trudy and Helen and Suzanne, or "Ma," ii - j V u L Li "Peaches, l oia and Aimee, we knew instantly whom they meant. And in this democratic dem-ocratic land, where titles mean little or nothing, everybody soon been ni e aocus-1 aocus-1 oined tc. refer ring casually tr Countess o i Queen and sayin; "Marie" was n sign of u n d u i Suzanne Li-.iylen. f.llnjl ja,.j . y at till. I "Joyce Huwley? Never heard of her," you say? It' you do, it's because ! "Hath Tub Girl" was a more strik- lug phrase in the headline boys' hook of synonyms. , Not ihe least interesting fact in connection with the preponderance of the feminine motif in Ihe news of the year is that nearly every type of activity was represented. Whether tills can be regarded as significant of the increasing importance of the "new-woman" "new-woman" Is something for the philosopher phi-losopher to consider, as is the question ques-tion of journalistic ethics involved in the amount of space devoted to the sensallunal news provided by some of these women headliners. Tills article has do other . purpose than to deal with the facts that exist and not with the philosophy, thereof. And one existing fact In nearly every big news siory of (he year big in the sense that It commanded tlie widest public attention was the aptness of the old French saying, "Cherehez le femme." The America of today, which finds In sports one of lis major interests In life was given two of its greatest (.port thrills of tlie year by women. One of them was when Gertrude Ed-' Ed-' erle, a stocky Brooklyn (X. Y.) girl, swum the English channel. She was the Hirst worn- an to do that, she did It In record time. And for weeks the words "Trudy" "Tru-dy" and "channel "chan-nel swimmer" were fixtures In the headlines. A little later "'Mil-He "'Mil-He Cade' was substituted ' for "Trudy" when Mrs. Ethel Corson Cor-son duplicated Miss E d e r I e's feat. Then mere man figuratively end literally got In the swim again and before long having your name bracketed with "channel swimmer" swim-mer" was no more a sign of distinction distinc-tion than being appointed chairman of the resolutions committee. For a woman, or perhaps two, had made the big splash in this sort of news and after that more man .could hardly cause a ripple In public attention. As for the other sport thrill, it was provided by a slim young Californmn, named Helen Wills, nicknamed "Little "Lit-tle I'oker Face," and a woman of France, named S.izanne Lenglen, whose (lashing personality has made the world realize that a tennis court can be an arena for the ultimate In sport drama. For weeks last spring such international questions as debt funding were as nothing compared to the international question of Helen vs. Suzanne. When that question was settled, the crown of "Tennis Queen" settled a little more firmly on Suzanne's head. I'.ut Helen, unlike so many vanquished, van-quished, did not fade from the headlines head-lines after her defeat at Cannes. Although Al-though appendicitis kept her out of the tournament at Wimbledon, It kept her in the headlines. But her bad luck which caused her to default her title of American woman tennis champion cham-pion brought back into the headlines another woman who had been there often until the California star came up out of the west and the headline hoys were grateful because Mrs. Mal-lory's Mal-lory's first name was five-lettered I Molla. No sooner had all of this happened and been temporarily for-I for-I gotten than Suzanne (lamed into the headlines again ns the first tennis star lo upset all tlie most sacred traditions tradi-tions of amateur sport by turning professional. Although we don't take our polities as seriously as we do our sports, women governors are still enough of a ' novelty to he news almost any day in the year. So Mrs. Nellie Tayloe ' Boss, 1 1 i e governor of Wyoming, and ' Mrs. James Ferguson,- the governor ! of Tovmk. have been news ever since ' - -' - W ; J they took the oath of office two years ago but It wasn't until 1020 that a woman governor was "big news" for days and weeks and months. And the woman governor of Texas was that, perhaps, because be-cause she mixed sports and politics poli-tics that is to uiiii. cade. .y. e niaae winning the governorship gov-ernorship a sporting proposition In which "you bet your opponent that you'll beat him by so many votes and if you don't you'll withdraw from tlie race. And, of course, if there's a short synonym for your name like "Ma," it's all the easier to be news. But even though 1020 did mark the passln" of women governors for both Mrs Boss and Mrs. Ferguson were defeated we stljl have women of enough prominence in politics to make their chances good for being news in 1027. There's Mrs. John u . Stanley the new congresswoman from Kentucky, whose campaign for office -as based upon a situation similar to the Ferguson case in Texas. And Mrs. Fdlth Nourse Bogers of Massachusetts Massa-chusetts Mrs. Florence Kahn of California Cali-fornia and Mrs. Winifred Mason Huek of Illinois, who occupy seats in confess con-fess vacated by the deaths of men relatives, have during the past year been in the news from time to time and probably will continue to tliero. Alice Boosevelt I.ongworth .-Alice" I" lie leo"es- lKI,tPr of .-T B ") who is looked upon as a potential po-tential power in politics, is always nP"v and as the presidential year of qoS approaches and there's I a fe of he candidacy of her husband, M-bo-Ws I.oimworth. she may become big news almost any tln.e. Women In sports, women in polit e. I nn ideal combination to make rd in -ilv women In the fine nrts would,, t be as B either of the two. But i.'-0 rlan Talley, a Kansas City girl, famous fa-mous overnight as a new star In the Metropolitan opera firmament and her name in the headlines. It saw also people paying the unheard of price of $50 a seat to hear Baquel Meller, a Spanish song interpreter, and some of the leading poets of the country ar rayed In hostile camps over the authenticity au-thenticity of the poems by Nathalla Crane, the Brooklyn child poet. Edna Ferher, winner of the Pulitzer Pulit-zer novel prize In 1924, with her book, "So Big," may or may not repeat In 1026, but she got into the headlines again just the same. She wrote an- j other novel, "Show Boat," In which there were references to a famous In-1 In-1 diana politician who didn't care for them. So he threatened damage suits and that made Edna Ferber and "Show Boat" news of considerable DroDortions. If you consider the mo- vies as one of the fine arts It Is I appropriate to mention here the screen's contribution contribu-tion to women in the news. It wasn't Mabel N o r m a n d, nor Peggy Joyce. She was divorced only I once during the j whole 30o days of 1 1920. But Pola Negri how can ... n. vou keep l-oia out of the news? In 1024 she had the whole country worried about that reported engagement engage-ment of hers to Charlie Chaplin. In 1925 she just marked time, It seems. But In 1020 she became engaged to Rudolph Valentino and when the "great lover" died Pola's well-advertised grief was headlined for days. So much for the classifications. Another An-other interesting thing is the fact that the "really big" news stories wherein where-in women were concerned In 1920 re-f re-f those class!- iue l vj urn ficatlons. They are news stories that just happened and they're news-well, news-well, because they're news. Perhaps in the case of Alinee MePherson, the "disappearing evangelist," the element of religion has something to do with it That may be also true ef Mrs. Frances Stevens Hall, wife of a New Jersey minister, whose murder trial Is looked upon by "murder trial fans" as one of the greatest in history. As 'a personality; though, Mrs. nail herself her-self Is rather subordinated to another the "Pig Woman," Jane Gibson. I Then, of course, there's the 'moral I element involved. And speaking of u orals it was a woman headllner who added "moral turpitude" to our vocabulary. Surely you remember Countess Cathcart. If for no other reason you may recall that she was at Earl Carroll's famous party where the guests looked upon wine in which sat Jovce Hawley. And when Joyce arose from this baptismal fount, the headline writers united to christen her "Bathtub Girl." "Bathtub Girl" didn't hold the newspaper spotlight very long, nor riM "Sunshine Girl." which-was an other name for Mary Spas, the first 102G love of Edward Browning, Brown-ing, the millionaire. million-aire. For her Cinderella Cin-derella dream ended when -reaches" took ,u,r place and reaches'" career nns been news. Perhaps It isn't exactly fair to unpen Marie of sjj' ' ' ' """'4 Pi "V 6 jrV , If Koumania to list SelIle Tnjioe Ri her with these eadliners who are headliners more ec-vu-e of notoriety than because of put she was the latest of the vW headliners to occupy columns and columns of newspaper space for weeks ;7wel-ks and she was the insplra-on insplra-on for a remark by a witty American . mere man. it must be artnu.ted-Will artnu.ted-Will Iloc-rs. v,lo Ml.l that Ainerl-a j mld he gra.efu, 'j'- for no other reason than that she ! ,ve Aimee and 'Peaches- off the I ;-,:,,,,, p;1,e and buck nmone the want i ads." |