Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 135, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 June 1911 — NO PLACE FOR FATHER [ARTICLE]

NO PLACE FOR FATHER

Bathroom Nook Only Place in Which Family Head May Find Privacy

The English home with its lack of "proper” heating and also its sad lack of ventilation and bathtubs is no more a marvel to the American woman than the American borne is to the English woman. The latter freely admits that the conveniences of the American home are beyond compare, but there Is one serious defect that is always commented on. This is set forth by 'Mary Mortimer Maxwell in the National Review (London). "There is no place for father. Burejy there must be some truth in this, for so many British women have called attention to tbe fact that we have no privacy in our homes, and have pointed to the shortcomingi of pretty strands of beads serving as doors, and to the fact that the bathroom is the only sanctuary, tbet> Indianapolis News remarks. This is borne out by observations In many cltlet. A former official In Indiana is well read in history. He also has a family. He freely admits that he absorbed his history lying with pillow in the bathtub, safe beyond the reach of the growing children. This Is Just what Mary Mortimer Maxwell is speaking about when she says: "But the member of the American family to whom my thoughts turn Id greatest sympathy in regard to the lack of privacy and the denial of the opportunity for the cultivation

of individuality is the father—he who pays for everything, buys the house with his own sarnings or hires it, and yet generally has not so much as a corner that is his very own. It is called 'his house.’ It has many rooms. There are the drawing room, the living room, the library. There are numerous bedrooms •ng dressing rooms, but if he really desires solitude, there would seem to be nothing for him but to lock himself up in the bathroom. Sometimes you hear the members of an American family speak of father’s den,’ to be sure. Why, just before I left America a New York friend, when she was showing me through her new hwse, said to me, ‘This Is my husden,’ showing me into tbe sunniest and brightest room in the house. My eyes rested upon antimacassars and tea cosies, a copy of 'Poems of Passion.' an embroidery frame, a train of ’choo-choo cars,’ and a box of such American confections as my soul delights in a&d which no manly man could possibly be seen eating. I looked about for rows of curious pipes, for a horribly dusty and disorders! writing table, a lounging jacket—out at elbows,, but, ob; so comfortable after the workaday Coat —a copy or two of a sporting paper; but not a sign of such mute witnesses to masculine ownerhlp of tbit room did I sex

"It’s the sunniest room In the house,’ went on that wickedly selfish little American woman, ‘so the children and I spend a great deal of time here.’ "I have been shown through'other American homes where the husbands had their ‘own’ dressing rooms, .their ‘own’ hanging cupboards, and have noted with surprise the complexion balms, bodkins with pink bebe ribbon ready for running through lace, bonnet whisks and cut glass powder boxes lying upon die chiffonier along with military brushes and safety razors. *1 do believe in separating dressing rooms and separate dressing tables;' the fond wife would gush, and then she would show me her husband’s ‘own 'hanging' cupboard,’ which, being fitted up with a new kind of patent trouser stretcher which she found exactly the thing for keeping her skirts in nicest order, she had taken possession of up to the farthest and darkest corner, where a pathetic and lonely greatcoat might hang on a solitary peg.” Does this thing, after all, make the path to the divorce courts popular? Our British critics sometimes think so. Men ure brutish folk at the best, and sometimes do like to be alone.