SNAP SHOTS
Middleton, George
Snap Shots Books, Art, Drama By George Middleton Denver, March 20.—The Segregation bill was laughed to defeat in the House yesterday. Mrs. Agnes Riddle attacked it on the ground that "fallen m n...
...The corrective force of thoughtful laughter"—what a marvelous phrase...
...No matter how one may feel in the treatment of the social evil the point remains of the effective use of "thoughtful laughter...
...D., Professor of Social and Political Science in Brown Un'iversity...
...It becomes a philosophy of life once one has come under its spell...
...Just before the roll call on the bill, Mrs...
...On the other hand he looks with favor upon the growing independence of women for he believes it to be "important that women, unhampered by economic considerations, be allowed the determining voice in deciding who shall be the fathers of their children, in order to insure a free choice among those who are most vigorous physically, morally, and mentally...
...Riddle arose and said: "Let him among you who is without sin cast the first vote...
...Sexual vices and diseases seem to be sapping the physique of the race and destroying mutual confidence and love in the domestic circle...
...By James Quayle Dealey, Ph...
...But there would be no men left," objected Mrs...
...Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, pp...
...To Meredith there was always a "Comic Spirit" hovering over us all and the minute we were false, the Spirit "shook with volleys of silvery laughter...
...We are indebted to George Meredith, more than anybody else, for popularizing its philosophy, not only in his brilliant novels but also in the celebrated Essay on Comedy...
...No one voted...
...He does not say, even by implication, that "woman's place is the home" nor that "higher education is unqualifying woman for family duties...
...His hope lies in a safer environment for the family and the home...
...Saturday Night...
...Yet the author sees a way out of the difficulty and that, fortunately, by a path which leads not backward, but forward...
...There is nothing like it...
...THE ABOVE dispatch, as published in the New York Times, is interesting in many ways...
...Representative Biles announced his willingness to insert a section providing for her suggestion...
...That conditions are growing more favorable to the attainment of a high ideal of family life is his contention...
...For the wife of the author of The New Democracy has been playing an active part in the recent disturbances...
...Dealey stakes his faith to come as the result of more fundamental reforms than any to which he has made reference, will enjoy the masterful way in which he marshals the various social movements, reforms, and activities of the present and makes them seem to be moving toward a common goal,—a nobler family life.—C...
...It becomes quite a real person...
...The conspiracy of silence among church, school and home, with reference to prostitution and kindred evils, is being broken up...
...THIS LITTLE BOOK makes no claim to being an exhaustive study of any aspect of the family...
...The House burst into laughter, which lasted ten minutes...
...Nobody has denied it unless he is himself lacking in that precious gift...
...Literary Notes The Family in Its Sociological Aspects...
...From the sociological standpoint the mere teaching or preaching of great principles makes little impression on most people unless they are living under conditions favorable to those principles...
...It's quite an idea to keep this ever in mind and really look up to this imaginary person when we do what we should not in all the small things of life...
...It is rather a confession of the faith of one sociologist in "the essential integrity of the American family" and of his belief that "there is a trend toward a highly ethical monogamous marriage...
...but when we lived and spoke truthfully the Spirit was still...
...Agnes Riddle attacked it on the ground that "fallen m n should be segregated the same as fallen women...
...Not the laugh of contempt but the mental smile when people about us "wax pretentious" or step out of their true proportions...
...137, 75 cents...
...Education is losing its artificial character and is once more seeking to ally itself with the home...
...How much of life would be simplified if we could only laugh at the right time...
...And the above shows, too, that women have a sense of humor...
...Nobody but a woman could have "got over" the above...
...but I comment on the fact lest the anti-suffragists fail to see the value of women in public life...
...It trains them in personal hygiene, in sex morals, in the recognition of duty to state and society, and aims so to refine their personalities as to eliminate unconsciously the bestial elements derived from a lower civilization...
...and I am sure that in the legislative halls of Denver the Comic Spirit was working overtime at masculine pretentiousness...
...The demand for the labor of women and children in poorly paid industries is ominous for racial vigor, and the crowded condition of modern urban environment weaken the ties of kinship and make impossible the close domestic circle of homely fellowship like that depicted in Burns's Cotter's...
...Race suicide' and an alarming increase in the divorce rate seem to be closely allied factors in weakening the sanctity of home ties...
...A sense of humor is needed in public life with all its pretentions and assertions, and why keep out of it a large share of those possessing it...
...The confession is prefaced by an historical sketch of the family and of the institution of marriage which is brief but is given in enough detail to show the foundations of the writer's optimism and is accompanied by a carefully selected list of reference books...
...That there are "social conditions and forces which are so retarding the progress of the modern family that it would be comparatively easy to depict the situation so black that only pessimistic conclusions could be drawn" is not denied...
...L. H. * * * "ASTONISHINGLY TRUE," is Bertha Poole Weyl's comment on Albert Edwards's novel, Comrade Yetta...
...There is real drama in the final phrase —and a great deal of truth...
...It looks forward to the maturer life of its students and seeks to prepare them for civic and economic usefulness and domestic responsibilities...
...Weyl knows of what she speaks when she says that the story "gives one an admirable insight into a phase of New York life which is but little known...
...The portrayal of the shirt-waist strike is very vivid...
...Of course, it is merely a flippant argument in favor of suffrage but it is put on that level to meet the ponderously funny arguments with which we meet at every turn the objectors to female enfranchisement...
...Righteous warfare is being waged against low wages which force undue postponement of marriage, against rapacious landlordism, against the exploitation of children in industry, and against employers who "in their eagerness to produce results lose sight of the human element and fail to safeguard the life, health and morals of their employees...
...Even those who look for the changes upon which Dr...
Vol. 5 • April 1913 • No. 16
