117

A WORD
WITH THE WOMEN

(By Elia W. Peattie.)

Many packages of excellent, clean and
warm baby clothing have been sent to
this office for distribution in Hayes
county, and have been forwarded to Mrs.
Bell Dye, the self-appointed nurse in
that drouth stricken community, where
the crop of humans seem in such disproportion
to the crop of edibles if
anything further is sent in may be forwarded
direct to Pallsade, if it be an
express package, or to Hayes Center, if
it be a letter, addressed to Mrs. Dye
Will the many women who responded
to this call for help for our western
neighbors except my thanks for this
prompt and cordial co-operation? One
has a growing sense of confidence in
the unity of Omaha women. Every
year there is more concert of action, and
consequently more opportunity of work
of the altruistic sort.

The bill for raising the age of consent
was presented to the senate in an absurd
and mutilated condition, but one
of the legislators who has the passage
of the bill much as hear sends assurance
that this was an error which will
be remedied and that the sympathy of
both houses is with the bill It is to be
hoped he is correct The manner in
which the bill appeared reflected poorly
upon the earnestness and good judgment
of the men who offered the amendments.
If the bill is defeated let it be
by a direct vote in a dignified manner.
It is not the sort of measure that good
men will trifle with, or vent their legislative
jests upon.

The treatment which the cigarette bill
has received has been shameful. As it
now stands it prohibits the manufacture
on sale of cigarette paper in this state.
All of which means that the cigarette
manufacturers and dealers have profited
by the measure, and, in the event of the
passage of the bill, will have a monopoly
in the making of cigarettes-which is,
possibly, just what the legislator who
proposed the measure intended from the
first. The bill is an impossible one.
Even as framed in the beginning it
offered an unjustifiable interference
with personal rights, and proposed a
measure which could never be enforced
and which would add to the disrespect
for law which is becoming an ever-increasing
sentiment as the outcome of
the creation of puerile laws. But even
so, there was a hope that the bill had
been honestly proposed. This seems not,
however to have been the case It was
a polite way of holding up the manufacturers
of and dealers in cigarettes,
and force them to divide their profits.
It is another instance of that misuse of
misrepresentation which is forcing patriotic
Americans to ask the question if
republican governments may not degenerate
into republican mobs. For it is
easily possible for the men of a republic
to degrade their autonomy into a government
in which the outward form of
order shall be preserved, but in which
the passions of men shall run riot, knowing
no master save that of will, using
party as a bludgeon, office and representation
as opportunities for plundering
those who ignorantly or craftily
elect them.

But enough of all this It is the Sabbath.
To even the scoffer something of
test and sweetness comes with the day.
The streets are almost silent. The stores
and shops are closed. The people pass
and repass each other as they walk
toward their different house of worship
One cannot help wishing they
were all going the same way. Yet it is
possible that liberty of conscience, like
liberty of government, must be sustained
by jealousy and not by confidence.
A long, long day the Sabbath,
full of quiet hours-the home seeming
dearer than on other days the books
looking more inviting, the wearing tasks
put out of sight and mind. A blessed
institution, looked at from any point of
view is the Christian Sabbath. For the
peace of it fails on falls on the weary mind the
rest pervades the tired body, and over
the[?] it comes a calm, if not a joy.