by Unknown
And what will the conservative man say to women like Miss Belle Greene, who is officially the librarian of the late J. Pierpont Morgan’s library, but who was also his able lieutenant in all the work pertaining to his various collections?
And what about Mrs. M. E. Alexander, the pioneer woman in the New York real estate business, of whom it is recorded that she put through, for her employer, a $90,000 deal during the first two months (and the last) of her apprenticeship? Mrs. Alexander, after that pleasant demonstration of her fitness for the business she had chosen, went into it for herself!
And then there are the dressmakers and milliners—to call them by names too prosaic for their bewildering products. What is to be said of Lucille, Louise, Simcox, Mollie O’Hara, McNally, Farquharson & Wheelock (both women), Van Smith, the Fox Sisters, and a score of others like unto them who have proved themselves not only designers and saleswomen, but labor-managers as well? One of them, Mrs. Simcox, spoke for them all when she smilingly declared that a woman in her line of business would consider herself a failure if she were not clearing more than ten thousand a year.
What about play brokers and managers, like Miss Elizabeth Marbury? How many times does the gentleman with views on the financial inability of women think that that hard-working lady multiples our figure of $10,000 a year? And there are others in her profession, like Miss Alice Kauser, who forge along at a not too great distance behind.
Consider the growing horde of women decorators. Miss Elsie de Wolfe would think it a poor year if she did not clear $50,000 in profits. There are half a dozen more New York women—like Miss Swift, or Mrs. Rand, for instance, who are treading upon one another’s heels in achieving success in the same profession.
A little over a year ago a building was in course of construction upon Fifth Avenue. A woman had taken the land on forty-two years’ lease, and she was putting up the building. She was putting it up with earnings from her tea-rooms. It was only twelve years ago that Miss Ida L. Freese came to New York from Ohio, with no business training. To-day she runs her building, tea-rooms, a photographic studio and a farm, whence come the vegetables used in her restaurants.
When your true conservative smokes one of “Brennig’s Own” cigarettes does he realize that it is a woman’s enterprise which places it between his lips? Mrs. Brennig’s annual income—derived from her cigarettes—is one which has long ago tripled our modest $10,000 minimum.
When the reader eats “Mary Elizabeth’s” candy, or takes luncheon in “Mary Elizabeth’s” luncheon rooms, does he realize that twelve or fourteen years ago Mary Elizabeth Evans, a schoolgirl in Syracuse, began to put up home-made candies to help the family purse?
Even to the women who do not manage enterprises of their own, but who are valuable cogs in the great wheels of other people’s enterprises, ten thousand a year is no such unattainable goal. Mrs. Ray Wilner Sundelson, manager of an agency of the Equitable Life Insurance Company, is one of the highest salaried women in New York. She and fifteen thousand dollars a year have long been happily acquainted. And the management of a few department stores admit the presence of one or two women in their employ who qualify for this list—women buyers, department managers, advertising managers, and the like.
And there you are. In shop-keeping, hotel managing, teaching of singing and dancing, song writing, and in other branches of New York’s varied life, there are dozens of other women who earn, through their own talents or industry, at least $10,000 a year.
And we are only fifteen years advanced into the new century.
What will they earn when this century of marvels—with its great opportunities for women—draws to its close?
ANY PORCH
DOROTHY ROTHSCHILD (PARKER)
FROM SEPTEMBER 1915
Dorothy Parker’s first published poem
“I’m reading that new thing of Locke’s—
So whimsical, isn’t he? Yes—”
“My dear, have you seen those new smocks?
They’re nightgowns—no more, and no less.”
“I don’t call Mrs. Brown bad,
She’s un-moral, dear, not immoral—”
“Well, really, it makes me so mad
To think what I paid for that coral!”
“My husband says, often, ‘Elise,
You feel things too deeply, you do—’”
“Yes, forty a month, if you please,
Oh, servants impose on me, too.”
“I don’t want the vote for myself,
But women with property, dear—”
“I think the poor girl’s on the shelf,
She’s talking about her ‘career.’”
“This war’s such a frightful affair,
I know for a fact, that in France—”
“I love Mrs. Castle’s bobbed hair;
They say that he taught her to dance.”
“I’ve heard I was psychic, before,
To think that you saw it,—how funny—”
“Why, he must be sixty, or more,
I told you she’d marry for money!”
“I really look thinner, you say?
I’ve lost all my hips? Oh, you’re sweet—”
“Imagine the city to-day!
Humidity’s much worse than heat!”
“You never could guess, from my face,
The bundle of nerves that I am—”
“If you had led off with your ace,
They’d never have gotten that slam.”
“So she’s got the children? That’s true;
The fault was most certainly his—”
“You know the de Peysters? You do?
My dear, what a small world this is!”
FOOTBALL AND THE NEW RULES
WALTER CAMP
FROM SEPTEMBER 1915
With the actual preliminary football games of this season upon us, lovers of the game feel the necessity of becoming posted on the most important alterations in the rules. Spectators are not the only ones interested in this, for there are a great many players and some coaches who are by no means sure of even the most important changes.
The first addition to the machinery of the game which spectators will notice is the office of field judge. Last year this official was optional, but now he is obligatory. Moreover, the new rules have given the position of Field Judge a real significance by placing the watch of the time-keeper in his hands, with the idea that the linesman who kept time last year should concentrate his attention on the line-up during scrimmage. It is hoped that this new division of labor will make it easier for the officials to detect and penalize “off-side” play. Another rule, conceived with the idea of making things easier for the officials, and also to do away with the usual confusion in the last period of the game, is that which prevents the resubstitution of a player except at the beginning of a period. Last year everyone found it more or less annoying when, just before the end of the game, coaches sent in a whole army of substitutes. Aside from distracting the interest of the spectator, this indiscriminate mobilization on the side lines frequently resulted in the presence of a great number of non-combatants on the field of action when the ball was actually in play—an exceedingly confusing thing for the officials. Along these same lines the committee passed a note deprecating the custom of putting in substitutes for the purpose of conveying information to the team. The general practise of numbering the players was also recommended.
With regard to the conduct of the individual player, the penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct was changed from disqualification to a fifteen-yard setback, but flagrant misconduct is still punishable by disqualification. While this may seem to be too much power in the hands of the man with the whistle, it really ought to work out for the best interests of the game. Frequently, last year, when there was a reasonable doubt as to the actual intention of a player
to willfully break the rules, the official was forced to let the offense go unpunished rather than inflict the drastic penalty of disqualification. Under the new ruling he can placate his conscience by compromising on the fifteen-yard penalty.
Before the rules were changed last year, running into the full-back in any way, intentionally or unintentionally, was penalized. Last season “roughing” the full-back was a “penal offense.” This year the rule has been clearly divided into two parts. Running into the full-back is penalized by a fifteen-yard set-back, but “roughing” the full-back not only penalizes the offending team fifteen yards, but in addition, disqualifies the player committing the offense.
A rule which has been added in order to do away with unnecessary delay is that which instructs the referee always to bring the ball out fifteen yards, when it goes out of bounds, unless the captain of the side in possession of the ball requests a lesser distance.
This year’s rules ring the curfew knell on the practise which started last year of intentionally throwing the ball out of bounds. The old rule provided that when a forward pass went out of bounds it went over to the team not in possession of the ball, at the spot where it crossed the side line. This made it possible for a team, on its opponent’s forty-five yard line (though not in a convenient position to make a field goal) to signal for a forward pass and throw the ball out of bounds somewhere near their opponent’s five-yard line. As a forward pass can naturally be executed more accurately than a kick, the result was that the opposing team, forced to put the ball into play at this point, and denied the chance which they would have had to run back the ball if it had been kicked, found itself in an uncomfortable position. This seemed to give an unfair advantage to the team making the pass. So it has been ruled that a forward pass which goes out of bounds, whether it touches a player or not, is an incompleted pass. In other words, the ball comes back to the line of scrimmage and counts as a down on the first, second and third tries. On the fourth try, it goes over to the opposing team on the line of scrimmage.
Another addition to the rules specifies that the interference will no longer be permitted to bowl over the secondary offense after the whistle blows. This practise was greatly abused last year. A half-back, on the defense, seeing the play stop in the line, would relax, when suddenly he would be struck from the side or from behind by a member of the interference who had been detailed to cross over from one side of the line and take the secondary defense. This was not only dangerous to the players, but frequently, in the more important games, came very near resulting in bad feeling. The interference, under the new rules, must stop when the whistle blows, and no man, either on the offense or defense, can run into a player after the referee has blown his whistle.
Another bad trick practised by the interference last year was for them to drop before a player, and throw their legs at him so that their feet and lower leg would strike the player across the body or thighs. This has resulted in several injuries. There is already a rule providing that if a player strikes his opponent below the knee with his lower leg it is “tripping.” The ruling now reads that a player who strikes another with his lower leg above the knee costs his side a penalty of fifteen yards.
One other play has been legislated against. In this play the center would start to pass the ball back, hold it for a fraction of a second, and then snap it to another lineman, who would come around and carry it. This year, when the center makes the motion to snap the ball back, he must actually let it go.
One other rule has been most properly altered—the rule relating to a player touching a forward pass. Last year this rule was altogether too severe. When two men were both eligible to receive the pass, and one of them touched the ball, the second player had to keep his hands off it or be penalized. This seemed somewhat unjust, and the rule has been altered so that a case of this sort is simply an incompleted forward pass, with the loss of a down, but no penalty to the second player.
To be letter-perfect in these rules, and at the same time to have the sharpness of vision, the rapidity of thought, and the clearness of purpose necessary to rule under them, is the task of the football official.
Naturally men of this caliber are hard to find and the universally high quality of American football officials is due largely to the efforts of one man. That man is Dr. James A. Babbitt of Haverford. He is chairman of the committee on officials, and in this capacity handles the machinery necessary for the appointment of thousands of officials for the games played in the Fall. He is backed by a committee, but all the details of the work are due to the energy and tact of this one man.
• • •
When the great upheaval came several years ago and the rules were radically revised, it was not entirely the effect of this revision which brought about a marked improvement in the game. A large proportion of this improvement came from the more careful selection of officials. Three of these officials have been in the last year or two made an adjunct of the Rules Committee, in order that this Committee may, during its considerations, refer to them from time to time, and ascertain what difficulties were found in the code of the previous year.
The three officials working with the Rules Committee are Nathan A. Tufts of Brown, Wm. M. Morice of the University of Pennsylvania, and Wm. S. Langford of Trinity—all of them thoroughly experienced in the handling and conduct of big games. The Central Board of Officials is made up of E. K. Hall of Dartmouth, Percy Haughton of Harvard, Parke H. Davis of Princeton, A. A. Stagg of Chicago, C. W. Savage of Oberlin, Harris G. Cope of the University of the South, and [this] writer. These men assist Dr. Babbitt as far as possible.
WAR SCENES ACROSS THE CANADIAN BORDER
STEPHEN LEACOCK
FROM OCTOBER 1915
In Canada we are at war. Eighty thousand Canadian soldiers have crossed the ocean for the front. Some sixty-five thousand more are enlisted for Overseas Service and are training in military camps in Canada. At Valcartier beside Quebec, at Niagara and elsewhere there are wide tented cities of Canadian soldiers. The streets of our great towns are filled with men in khaki. Across the leading thoroughfares are broad white streamers that mark recruiting places,—for the fiftieth, the sixtieth, the one hundredth, and soon, no doubt, the one hundred and fiftieth battalion of the Expeditionary Force of the Dominion. About fifteen to twenty battalions,—an army division of forty thousand men,—are already on the fighting line. The others follow in a steady stream, that moves more strongly with every month and shows no ending. The regiments are filled as fast as their formation is announced. The mingled elements of which our Commonwealth is made up are reflected in them. There are French regiments from Old Canada speaking their own tongue, Highland regiments,—like that of Montreal, all honor to it, that fought at Langemarck,—troops of horse from the West, and Irish Rangers so called, after the Irish fashion, because they have never ranged and never been in Ireland. In single troop ships and in little fleets they move across the ocean. One great flotilla that sailed a year ago carrying the men of the first Valcartier camp was the largest military force that has ever, in all the world’s history, crossed the Atlantic Ocean. The forces that sailed with Cortes or Pizarro, or that came under Burgoyne or Admiral Howe, do not compare with it.
• • •
All this is being done among us with but little parade, or outward show. There is no need now for the tin glory of the militia camp. The people of Canada have reached the stage when their eyes can look through the mere pomp and circumstance of war and see the hard reality behind it. They have counted their dead. They are counting them every day with each fresh list of “casualties” that the telegraph brings from Ottawa. In the first year of the war Canada lost,—dead, wounded and missing,—10,870 men. From Halifax to Vancouver there is no village but has its name inscribed upon the roll of glory. You may see the record of it running in every country newspaper in Canada. “Killed in action in France, Such and Such a One, of Pleasant Vale, Ontario,” with the battal
ion and the regimental number. There is in it all the humble pathos of personal obscurity lifted a moment to the light. Without the war this man might have been moving among the yellow sheaves of wheat to the clicking of the reaper in an August harvest field, in some lost corner of Ontario. There is much in it that will bear thinking of.
Yet with the growing losses and the increasing sternness of the conflict the recruiting and the mustering under arms move only the faster. There is no turning back. There is no thought of peace. As some one said, the other day: “There are no Jane Addamses, thank God, among our women.” The spirit of Canada is rising to meet the danger as the sea bird rises before the blackening storm.
Those of us in Canada who can look back in retrospect for twenty-five or thirty years over the shifting surface of our politics, can see in what is happening the realization of our final destiny. In the past we scarcely knew what we were or what we meant to be; a “nation” seemed too large, a “colony” too small. In our debating societies young men argued the question “Shall Canada be Independent?” with such feeble warmth as they might; an imaginary tyranny was denounced with mimic rage; a benevolent chairman, perhaps, declared with a smile that the affirmative had won and Canada was declared “independent” with polite applause: after which the whole audience rose and sang “God Save the Queen” so lustily that “Independence” was blasted out of existence. But beyond the walls of the debating room independence never went.
• • •
Independence! What British people ever really wanted it? The full measure of independence needed by free men was acquired for the whole lot of us,—your people of the United States and our people of the British Dominions,—somewhere about the time of the Magna Carta. Our ancestors obtained it by means of yew-tree bows and quarter-staffs and a few lusty cracks over the head given to upstart princes who misunderstood Saxon freedom. Your so-called War of Independence was not really independence at all. It was a row: a first class family row: it sticks in my mind, as a professor, that Benjamin Franklin said that before 1776 he “had heard no one speak of independence, either drunk or sober.” But the quarrel,—chiefly through the stupidity of a German King,—was mismanaged and the two communities separated, each being just as independent as before, no more and no less. Since then they have run along side by side, each vastly superior, and each imitating the other. You copied our House of Commons. We stole your Senate. You invented a President, but in less than no time, we turned out the same article, imitated to a nicety, as a Prime Minister. Our separation is not so very great after all. And some day, I truly believe it, our diplomats will come together round a big table, fill themselves up with grape juice and, in the mad exhilaration of it, sign a compact that shall reunite America and England.