Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 164, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 July 1916 — TALKS ON LOVE AND MATRIMONY [ARTICLE]

TALKS ON LOVE AND MATRIMONY

Miss Helen Keller, Blind and Dumb, Says All Women Should Marry. PICTURES HER IDEAL OF MAN Must Be Handsome, of Course, but Doesn’t Have to Be Rich or Possess a College Education — Glories in Her Family. Chicago.—Love is a topic that Miss Helen Keller avoids in interviews. Yet this sightless and dumb prodigy, who has overcome her human handicaps—almost—has some unique opinions on this absorbing theme, writes Harriet Ferrill in the Chicago Tribune. She pounded them out on her fingers and the face of her teacher, Mrs. J. A. Macy, who has been with her for twenty-nine years. An eager face, lips that are ready to laugh, and a flashing, alert mind helped along the interpretation of her love sentiments.

“I am not telling my I'ove affairs,” she spelled into the palm ,of her teacher’s hand. “They are not for publication,” although she admitted many proposals as a “star” —and possibly one heart affair. There is said to be a certain young man who is attentive at this time. Will Be a Master Man. The master of the house in ideal conditions such as are sensed by Miss Keller in a new day is not of the common species. He will be a master man, willing to permit his wife to be the disposer of the household supplies and the real “boss.” “Every household should be ruled by a bi-cameral government —a congress and a senate—such as the United States gave the Porto Ricans,” she said. “The woman should, of course, be the house of representatives of the family. In this government there will be no filibustering, I hope, nor lobbying. “Thus, the man would propose all vital measures and the woman would dispose them. She would control the disposal of supplies principally, as women did among some of the primitive tribes.”

This ideal state of matrimony, however, Miss Keller does not expect until woman is economically free. So long as man is the “money bags,” this future marriage system will be missing. A happy interest flashed in her sightless eyes when she was requested to describe her ideal man. “Of course, he will be handsome for eugenic reasons,” she said with a smile. “He doesn’t have to be rich. I am paying my own passage through the world and dm proud of it. “And the ideal man doesn’t have to be possessed of a college education. He must be one who thinks straight. Many men have obtained an education by their own efforts, for example, Mark Twain, one of my ideal men. For he was broad humanely, tender, yet strong, and full of humor. “Every marriage should have love and both man and woman should pever lose sight of the happiness of their children. The state should pay for the upkeep of each child; for there is no greater service to the state than a woman’s gift of a child —a greater service than the building of a warship. Besides, warships are no good without men. Woman furnishes the absolutely necessary supply—men. Her services are fundamental in war time or out of war. “All women should marry if they'

can get anyone to marry them.” Her teacher laughed her out of her seriousness. “Yes they should,” she insisted. “It’s essential for the race — and evolution in the world.” One of the glories which Miss feller delights in is the glory of family. A great-great-grandfather pf hers was one of the first colonial gtJf; emors of Virginia—one of the Spottswoods, and this is a cherished name. She is a cousin of the southern hero, Robert E. Lee, and counts the Adamses and the Everetts on her ancestral tree. Her mother, Mrs. Katherine Adams Keller, is with her, busily darning stockings and mending shirtwaists. A Mildred Keller Tyson, lives in Montgomery, Ala., her native state, and a brother, Phillips Brooks Keller, is an engineer. Miss Keller was a student and admirer of Phillips Brooks when she was nine years old and she Insisted upon giving her brother that name, her mother said.