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TAKES ISSUE WITH GIBBONS

Mrs. Peattie Discusses the Cardinal's Position Regarding "The New Woman."

Men Are Inferior to Women in Endurance of Pain and Resistance to Nervous Strain.

Some Plain Statements Relative to Motherhood -- Attitude to Be Assumed Toward the Criminal Classes.

Last Sunday there was published in the World-Herald an interesting interview, held by a young woman reporter, with Cardinal Gibbons. The subject discussed by these two persons was "The New Woman," whatever that may mean. Apparently it means, according to his eminence and the bright young reporter, the woman who is graduated by universities, who takes an interest in civic affairs, and who believes in science as much as she does in instinct.

Cardinal Gibbons has never approved of this type of woman. He has preached against her, and talked against her. IF he is correctly reported by his interviewer -- and, indeed, the interview bears every evidence of being truthful -- he says:

"As a Catholic, I am bound to disapprove of any so-called woman movement. The church of Rome exalts womanhood in the veneration it accords the mother of Jesus Christ, but in exalting a woman it still has regard for the special nature of her mission in the world, which is equal to man's though not identical with it."

His eminence refers, very evidently, to the mammal functions of a woman. She is elevated, he appears to think, in proportion as she exercises these. Napoleon, be it remembered, was of the same opinion. He respected most the woman who could bear the most children. He desired to have the women bear men in order that he might slay them. Cardinal Gibbons' reasons are, no doubt, less sanguinary. But he also appears to entertain the same idea. The woman he elevates above all others is distinguished because she bore a son in an unheard sort of a way -- a unique way, and one in which she set an example that no other woman has ever been able to follow.

IS BUT AN INCIDENT.

It seems then, that it is not for the truth, honor, industry, sobriety, intellectual development and spiritual growth that woman is honored or exalted, but merely because she can bear children. Now it is natural for woman to bear children. She does it as a matter of course. Sometimes she does it with joy and sometimes with sorrow, but in one way of another three-fourths of the women of the world reproduce themselves. But this is only an incident of their lives. They are responsible for their children only secondly. First comes their responsibility for themselves -- for their own lives, their own duties, their own destiny.

The age has passed when one sees the hand of God in an epidemic. Physicians are here, scientists have labored.

TAKES ISSUE WITH GIBBONS

Mrs. Peattie Discusses the Cardinal's Position Regarding "The New Woman."