Life — December 16, 1909 — page 10: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Husbands’ Correspondence Bureau (No Connection With Any Other Establishment) S we have already stated, a delega- tion of the most prominent woman suffragists recently called upon us for the purpose of getting us to declare ourselves on woman suffrage, and while, on general principles, we would rather remain silent, we have never been known to shrink from our duty, and under the circum- stances we feel that we can no longer withhold our views We do this with the full knowledge that what we have to say may shock a great many ultra conservative people, but we shall never- theless proceed, conscious of the fact that we are about a hundred years ahead of the times, and that in common with Bruno, Gallileo and other great men we shall probably be misunderstood. But we are here to do our duty, not only by our narrow-minded and large and growing clientele but to pos- terity. We may say, right in the beginni that since the dele; tioned—numbering some of the somest and statliest women we have ever had the rare fortune to behold—called upon us, we have modified our views somewhat. We should like also the priv- ilege, in common with all of the really great minds, of changing these views from time to time, as circumstances may warrant. But at present we unhesitatingly say that we are in favor of woman suffrage, with certain limitations. This may come as a surprise to many, but we are fully prepared to explain and defend our po: tien. In the first place, in spite of all state- ments we hear from time to time from scoffers and satirists and alleged humor- ists, to say nothing of psychologists and other small intellectual fry, we wish to state that we still believe in the power of love. Gentle, loving and trusting hearts are coming together all the time, in spite of adverse conditions. At the risk of appearing foolish, we want to say that we firmly believe in kissing and billing and cooing—in fact, all the en- ation we have men- hand. dearing terms known—and all the depths of sentiment there are to keep us going. We couldn't conduct our business for a moment if it weren't for this same senti- ment. It's the only foundation we have. We dislike to be too personal, but as ave already felt it advisable to hint, tried life has not been with- tits thorns. We have had troubles of our own and we know whercof we speak. And from the depths of our own expe- rience we shall have to admit t when it comes right down to real life, some how, in our own home, we have never been able to find a real good substitute for a woman who understands her busi- ness. We have tried it often—we have had to—but it has never worked Our own wife no doubt has her good points, if any one with more patience and omniscence than we have can find them. We repeat that we speak of her more in sorrow than in anger, but there have been many occasions in the past when we have looked for her in vain at critical moments, and we are therefore well qualified to speak on the woman suf- frage question from a practical stand- point and to say that nothing so far as we know so mitigates and alleviate: baby at certain dark presence of a woman. moments as We have been forced in bringing up our family to adopt other expedients, but none of them has worked properly. There has alw ing. We have sat up a good many nights over this problem, and have walked the floor with it, but woman, trusting, loving been something lack- and uncultured woman is the only solu- tion that we have found up to date. If iny other, in the course of our midnight researches, we will an- to the world in double quick we come across nounce time As our business brings us in touch with the matrimonial situation all over the country, we are familiar of course with the argument that children are not really necessary, and that when women have reached their ideals they will be able to get along without them. Our own experience has been that children, as they grow up, are a great and growing source of comfort when our wife is gadding about the country, We don't have to do much in order to ex- cite their sympathy for our lonely con- dition, and in the absence of our better half at some convention or card party they help us amazingly over the rough places. Oftentimes in this way we have been able to pour our pet grievances into the ear of a young and innocent child when, if there wasn’t any, we should probably be writing about it to the news. papers or telling it to a lawyer On the other hand, since we have had the opportunity of meeting some of our leading suffragists face to face, and see. ing how altogether good looking they are, we must confess that we wouldn't do anything willingly to take away from their charm nd so we desire to go on record as being in favor of a cor ited woman's suffra amy. We see no reason why those women who want to be suffragists should ination of lim- nd limited polyg- There have been moments in the past ’” comicbooks.com