Atlanta Georgian. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1912-1939, May 11, 1913, Image 54

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Social Problem Copyright, 1913, by the Star Company. Hreat Britain Rights Reaarvsil How Two Wives Solved a Great ‘Mr. Cohen had a vision. He seemed to see eight hungry children walking up his steps three times a day chorusing ‘You sent our pop to jail; you must feed us.” 0UI8 DRUCKER was down In Ludlow Street Jail, where New J York sends ihe gentlemen who Observe the curious fact that Mrs Cohen Is already accepting the thing as certain. “The Womans Justice Which Will Rule the Future” won't pay up their alimony and other gentlemen who won't pay less un usual debts. Mr. Drucker owed Mr. Samuel Cohen a matter of $19, and Mr. Cohen, falling to collect, had sent Mr. Drucker to Ludlow .lull for two weeks to wipe out the debt. Mr. Cohen wouldn’t get any money by doing It. nobody would get any money and Mr. Drucker wouldn’t be able to make any money for his wife and children while in jail, but that was the law, and Mr. Cohen at least got satisfaction of a sort. Mr. Drucker, pacing his cell, pon dered over the foolisnuess of a law i hat puts a man who owes money in a place where it's impossible to make any mouey Mrs. 1 trucker and the eight little Drucker children were all sitting It <> m e thinking much the titime thing. Nobody knows better than Mrs. Drucker lmw hard it is to keep eight, children from being hungry. Yet here was Mr. Drue ker in that foolish jail—and the truth Is that there was not a thing to eat in the house! Now it can readily be seen that neither the Druckers nor Cohens are what is called “Important people.” No ono outside of their own little sphere would even have heard of them if It hadn't been that Mrs. Drucker, much worried over the sit uation, suddenly encountered a real ly important idea. When an unim portant person gets an important idea they become noteworthy—like a coal Bcuttle that Is full of diamonds or a piece of old paper with a son net by Shakespeare in his own hand writing. Hence this raising of the Druckers and the Cohens into the limelight it was very late—or very early— when Mrs. Drucker got the idea, Not long alter "Rap, rap, rap" went somebody on the Cohens’ door. Samuel Cohen sat up In bod. His wife, her curl-papers awry, sat be side him. They stared. It was half past five o’clock lu the morning. Rap, rap, rap. Mrs. Cohen pointed to the door. “Go, Sam.” she commanded. Shaking in Ills red buthrobc with yellow stripes, Mr. Cohen obeyed. From behind the door he peeped into the hall at the wife of lamis Drucker. Mr. Cohen tried to shut the door. Mrs. Drucker pushed past it. She strode into the room. Her daughter Martha foliowcil. They sat down without invitation, but with a deter mination to stay so strong as to be audible. "You put my husband in jail and taken our support from us,” said Mrs. Drucker, “Now support us!" "Go, woman!” said Mr. Coheu. But Mrs. Coheu stopped in her task of taking down her curl papers. “You have how many children?” she asked. "Bight,” answered Mrs. Drucker. ‘‘This is Martha, the oldest. The youngest isn’t weaned yet. We're coming to live with you unless your man gets my man out of jail.” Mr. Cohen retreated into a closet. He came out in street attire. “I’ll have the police lock you up," he said. He w-ent out Soon the stairs creaked. In came Mr. Cohen and a policeman. “Get along here. You're disturb ing this man's peace!" cried the po liceman. “He disturbed mine! He locked my man up because he owed him something he couldn’t pay!” Everybody talked. “Talk it over among yourselves,” the policeman advised at last in de spair, and the stairs creaked again. They talked until it was time for Co hen to go to work. "i’ll be back soon and bring the other seven,” Mrs. Drucker assured Mrs. Cohen. Mrs. Cohen, preparing her two for school, permitted a tear of self pity to trickle down her cheeks. ‘Ten children in this flat, and we were crowded before," she sighed. “There’11 be a clatter irorn morning .till night And the cost!” ~ That evening Mrs. Drucker came back bringing most of the children with her, five to be exact. The Cohens, sitting at their quiet evening meal, paled as they heard the de termined tramp, tramp of six pairs of feet on the stairs, heard Mrs. Drucker’s unmistakable rap upon the door, heard the childish voices in long sustained speech. “We haven’t had a thing to eat since you sent Pop to jail," was the burdeH of their cry. For five minutes they sat at tin' (able, the meal interrupted, their ap petites gone. Then Mrs. Cohen re peated her order of the morning. “Let them in. Sam.” Mrs. Drucker marched in as a general marches at the heud of his army. She deployed the army to various points of vantage: “Here, Martha, take Pearl and sit on that chair by the window. Aaron, you stand by the door and let no one get out. Give me the baby. Eva, and you take that stool by the stove.” Mr. Cohen profaned. Mtb. Cohen placed her hands on her temples and burst into tears. Mrs. Drucker and (lie children sat and looked at the table. “It’s justice. Your husband owed me the money,’’ said Cohen. "He didn't,” cried Mrs. Drucker. But that doesn’t matter. You've pm biin away where he can’t earn any thing and you've got to feed us, yes. and when the month’s out at our flat, you’ve got to sleep us!” Cohen started to walk the floor. But Martha was in his way to the window and when he turned to walk the other way he tripped over Eva. Baffled, he went hack to his chair. "Go out and lake a walk, Samuel," his better half issued her command. "This woman and I will trv t"> sei- tle It.” Gladly Cohen es caped. “My wife's a smart woman, most as smart as I am,” he said to a friend, whom he met. on tlie corner. "She'll tix her.” When he ascended the stairs an hour Inter quiet had fal len upon his home. The enemy, lie thought, hml re- treated before his valiant wife, but the characters in the drama had merely shifted. Mrs. Drucker sat opposite his wife at the 'able drink ing a cup of tea. His wife looked up with a glance that Cohen well knew. “Sam," she said, “You’ve got to go and get that man out of jail. It’s the cheapest. You’ll save money by It.” “But 1 won’t. He owes me that money. I’ll make him work it out. He’ll stay there fifteen days. I’ll teach him to cheat me." "Sam!” The tone was quelling. The flow of Cohen's eloquence was dammed on the instant. "Sam, if you don’t go and get that man out, I’ll leave you and I’ll take the chil dren with me. What's more, we’ll stay.” Mrs. Drucker straightened the boy’s cap. “If you don’t," she said, "we’ll all be back to breakfast.” The next morning l.ouis Drucker, paled, chastened but grateful, was back at his home and his tailor shop "That fellow came and got me out.’’ he said. “He had to pay to do it. It cost $2 jail fee. $2.40 capture fee, 75 cents poundage and 18 cents mileage. Yes, it’s all paid and he paid it and it nearly killed him, but I’m out.” "That's woman's law.’ said Mrs Drucker. assorting the family laun dry for Monday. "Surely It’s woman's law and its right,” she went on. If a man's got enough money he ought to support the family of the man lie’s sent to jail, and if a man kills auother one he ought to be made to support his family all his life.” "It was woman’s law.” agreed Mrs. Cohen. And that's what makes this article important enough to print. What is this “woman’s law” that pushed aside the man-made laws that fitted the case. Here an eminent Now New York jurist tells w hat he thinks it is. W HEN Mrs. Drucker forced the man who put her husband In jail to feed her children she reached out with one hand Into the "custom of the bygone patriarchate and with the other she touched the very near future when an entirely new conception of justice will reign and women will be its guardians. In the ancient patriarchate when a man was killed by another, or was injured by an other, his wife, widow or children could claim and certainly get certain compensations. In our civilization if a man kills another man the law executes or imprisons him, but the widow and children must go to almshouse or asylum If they cannot support themselves. The Ideal law, of course, would be to make. I lie murderer w ork the rest of his life to sup port the family lie had w ronged. But In that case would not be the murderer’s own innocent family stiffer? Why should they suffer any more Ilian the murdered man’t family? There is utterly no reason. The old idea of the "sins of the father being visited,” etc., is morally wrong and brutal. We are getting a finer, newer concep tion of justice. Soon, I believe, we will work out the problem I have .outlined so that neither family be come paupers or are left in want, and at the same time the guilty will be adequately punished. We are approaching this state. For instance, a man Is arrested for not supporting Ills wife and children. We put him in jail for it. But his wife and children are not supported any more by him while in jail than out of it! What an idea of justice! Now, however, laws are being framed which will make such a prisoner work while in jail and the payment for this work will go to his wife. Mrs. Drucker did not know it. but she was really applying the old com mon law that a man might send a man to jail because he owed him something, lint lie was responsible for his keep. Generally adopted and carried to Its extreme, her principle of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and bread suppleld for bread denied, would lead to a confused sense of property rights and to an anarchy of possessions. Cohen was within his rights. Probably Drucker deserved to go to jail. Cohen could have had Mrs. Drucker arrested and could have arranged to send the children to an institution, but he may have been a humane man. But his wife was hu mane and wouldn’t permit him to do so. It gives us a vision of the future a new matriarchate. Mrs. Cohen and Mrs. Drucker sitting in Die kitchen settling a i>oint on which their husbands fought, is a prophecy of tiie success of a female board of arbitration. By Judge Wauhope Lynn, (The Di. i inguished Mrs. Drucker and Mrs. Cohen settled the matter on the common ground of household necessities. That is what government will be when women share in It—simply an extended housekeeping. The principles of the well reg ulated household will reach into all branches of the government and better them. To illustrate this: I was walking along the clean streets of Denver recently, keeping a wary eye on the sign, “Don’t expectorate,” for I sometimes chew tobacco. A neat, we$(- dressed woman passed me and I heatd her speak “to a street cleaner. She spoke in a kindly, admonitory way. "George.” she said, “that culvert back there is quite filthy. That must be kept as clean as the rest of the street. Will you please attend to it at once?” New York Jurist) George did, and I looked after the neat young woman with admiration. I had not noticed that the culvert was un clean. With woman’s keen eye for detail and her. beautiful sense of fitness, she knew. 1 learned that she was a street inspectress. One day there came up before me in court 200 policemen. There was chaos about street signs. Some were hung too low, some too high, some were too large. The men tried and bungled and lumbered Into court. Women with their eye for form and proportion would have settled that without coming into court. Certain Inharmonies in the law they will adjust. For instance, as man made the laws there are strange inequalities and inconsist encies about the property rights of woman. The woman who has no children has fewer rights in a property sense than the woman who has. The law regards the last as a whole woman, the first as half a woman. The young woman usually receives a larger allotment of property than the old one. These crookednesses women will speedily straighten and we need not fear for long the confusion of property rights which will at first ensue. Mrs. Drucker’s Portia-like wisdom has made me a stronger suffragette. With their help I have no doubt that the just principle of mak ing a man who has widowed a wife and or phaned a family work for both State and that family will be carried out. If, for example, a man’s earning capacity in prison is $1.20 a day, 60 cents of that should go to the State and 60 cents to the family he has bereaved. More than anything else, though, Cohen’s lost case and Mrs. Drucker’s victory are im portant, because It shows us the feminine viewpoint applied to the problem of harmon Izing the law with the conditions of life Every law is the result of a human prompting Her human prompting was for the welfare of her children. She took the short cut to it. Women will do that when they have c. nart in the administration of the law. Mrs. Drucker and the Whole Eight Drucker Children. Why the Dog, Not Man, Is the Most Highly Educated Creature in the World By Rene Bache. M OST people would say that man was the most highly educated of living creatures. But such is by no means the fact. It is the dog that de serves thus to be characterized. The dog has undergone certain educational processes to which man has never been subjected. So extraordi narily effective have these processes been that to-day the brain of the dog is bigger by something like one- fourth than that of a wolf of equal weight and size. As everybody knows, dogs are the direct descendants of wolves. Bin let us see, to begin with, exactly what is meant by this statement. For the precise significance of it is not generally understood. Scattered over the earth are many species of the genus eanls. Wherever any of these species has been found possible to tame, it has been domesticated. The species which have proved susceptible of domestication are called dogs. Those which, like the coyote, have proved incurably wild are called wolves. That is ail the difference there is between a dog and a wolf, at the start. But the difference between the wolf and the dog as we find them to-day is enor mous. The former is an enemy of man: the lajter is his most faithful and devoted friend. it is all a matter of education. But in order to realize how through education the dog has been evolved from the wolf, we must go back to a period long before the earliest dawn of the most primitive civilization—to the days, in short, of the Troglodytes, or Cave People. For it should be understood that the dog was the first domesticated animal. It was certainly domesti cated tens of thousands of years before the horse or the sheep or any other living creature. Furthermore, its domestication was accomplished at the outset by women, in all likelihood, who brought home occasional wolf pups and raised them as pets. , Wolf pups of any breed are rather inclined to be fierce when they have got beyond early puppyhood. But this fact necessarily resulted in a weeding out of the fiercer ones, those of gentlest disposition being saved, to become in their turn the parents of other puppies, destined to undergo the same process of selection. It was through such artificial selection that the fiercer wolf qualities were gradually eliminated. Doubt less the reason for taking so much trouble in the breed ing of the earliest types of dogs was that primitive man found them very useful. They may have been more or less serviceable in the chase, but their principal useful ness was doubtless for guarding the cave or other dwell ing against surprise by an enemy. Primitive man was himself a rather ferocious animal. We see to-day plentiful evidences of the survival of this ferocity in crimes of violence, and most strikingly in the fact that civilized nations, for the settlement of their disuptes, customarily resort to the expedient of wholesale murder and equally wholesale destruction of property, calling it “glorious war.” Primitive man knew no such thing as peace. He was in constant apprehension of attack by people of near by and rival settlements. By night and day he w as obliged to be on the alert, lest he be killed, his children mur dered, and his women carried away. Hence the value to him of a four-footed guardian who could be counted u[>on to be always on the alert and ready to give a prompt alarm in case of danger. Such was the beginning of the domestication of the dog. And it should be realized that the breeding of the animal was conducted, and has ever since been con tinued, on lines wholly different from those considered in the breeding of any other creature. Horses, cattle, sheep, pigs and chickens are bred solely for the improve ment of physical qualities—for speed,, size, strength beauty, wool-bearing, egg-production, etc. The dog, on the other hand, has been bred chiefly for the improve ment and development of its moral qualities and intelli gence. Probably this has been going on for at least, 100,006 years. During all that period, from generation to gen eration the gentlest and most intelligent dogs have been selected for breeding. And as a result, we have in the dog of to-day the most faithful and devoted friend we know—an animal which in certain respects is on the much higher level than ourselves, morally speaking. Undeniably, the virtues which iif human beings we re gard as highest and noblest of all are loyalty and unsel fish devotion. In these respects a good dog is superior even to the best human being. With him a disregard of self goes so far that at any time he is ready to lay down his life foe his master. His love and devotion are abso lute and unqualified. Human beings have never been bred for intelligence. Neither have they been bred for the improvement of their moral qualities. It is all chance medley from generation to generation, so that the son of a philoso pher and philanthropist is just about as likely as any body else to turn out a useless degenerate. It is inter esting to consider what the human race might be like to-day, and to what heights is might have arrived, if it had been subjected to a process of selection for moral and mental attributes, like the genus canis, for 100,000 years.