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husband as I want, since June 28.”
And so being the Governor’s Lady, particu
larly a very busy Governor’s Lady, is not all
pleasure. To every silver lining there is a
cloud, and in Mrs. Slaton’s case it is. for one
thing, the preoccupation of her husband.
Then there i* another feature unpleasant
for a person whose heart is sympathetic and
tender. Men arid women with troubles come
By ADA PATTERSON
cial tone to her position, she explained. Th'
same realization came when she visited th'
Fifth Regiment camp at Saint Simons, in com
pany with the Governor, and when everythin,
was very formal indeed.
“It was very pleasant then,” she said. “They
gave me a gorgeous, full-dressed corps of es
corts, who were courteous and formal. Th'
whole affair was impressive. And the Fifth
Regiment Band was delightfully kind to play
a special conceit for us through the military
meal that was spread for us. It was a glo
rious occasion.”
Another affair, not quite so formal, when
Mrs. Slaton was made to realize that she was
the Governor’s Lady, and a public personage,
was the barbecue of the Weekly Press Asso
ciation, at LaGrange, to which she was invited.
“Another glorious occasion,” she said.
From her talk of the barbecue, Mrs. Slaton
drifted into a discussion of the quaint old
Ferrell’s gardens near LaGrange, explaining
in detail the ornate display of flowers and
shrubberies that make the gardens typical of
the formal ante-bellum landscapes. This she
did by way of introducing the statement that
there are many wonders in Georgia.
“And since I have come into the mansion,
and am the Governor’s wife, I am learning
much and seeing much about the State that
causes me to glory in it more than I have ever
done,” she said. “It is the very greatest State,
I am beginning to think. There is so much
that is interesting, and so much that is beau
tiful, ami the most delightful people alive.”
Mrs. Slaton has no plans, she said, for a
“career” as the Governor’s Lady. She will go
on taking care of the mansion keeping all
show of formality away from her administra
tion of that official establishment, receiving
her friends and the Governor’s visitors with
her own old graciousness.
Of course, Mrs. Slaton didn’t say that. She
merely said that she would go on living as she
had lived all the time. Which, if you know
her, you will know is analogous to saying just
what was said about her graciousness and in
formality and housewifeliness.
There is no social program. The one social
event in which the mansion has figured was
the inaugural reception, which was altogether
official. It is likely that there will be no more
su> h grand occasions for some time.
Altogether, it seems that Mrs. Slaton’s am
bition to make of the Governor’s mansion “just
a home” is being realized.
Prefers a Cell
To Nagging Wife
A MAN appeared in the Police Court of Yon
kers, N. Y., and told the judge he wanted
to be sentenced for a term in the work-
"I would consider it a great favor, your hon
or,” he said, “for I want peace. I’ve been mar
ried for twenty-four years and our married life
has been one long battle of chatter.”
The judge investigating, found that what the
man’s wife had chattered about was the hus
band’s failure to support his family. It seemed
that the family life was one long song with her
as chief soloist, and that the burden of her song
was “Why won’t you, an able-bodied man, work?
Why won’t you work? Why won’t you work?”
The woman had no trouble in proving that
her song was a true one, but Adam like the man
who wanted to go to the workhouse, made a
counter move. He told the judge he was bring
ing home money for family comforts, but that
without waiting to find out whether he had any
she began the refrain, “You won’t work.” No
doubt most men and some women who read
that news from Yonkers remarked to them
selves, or the family audience, the only audience
that can’t escape:
“Here’s a man driven to the workhouse by
his wife’s tongue.”
At least there is something to be said in the
wife’s favor. She achieved her purpose. She
drove her spouse tQ work even though it were
in the workhouse. That is a considerable at
tainment when all about us we see the wreck
of human endeavor, the multitude of things
begun but left unfinished.
Why shouldn't a woman tell plain home
truths to a husband who won’t support his fam-
. ily? Why should she sit silent while the head
of the hoiise in also sitting silent and the butch
er and grocer are clamoring at the outer gates?
Why in a country where the press has the right
of free speech, the preacher can tell a com
munity it is going to perdition, a lawyer can
tell a witness he is a liar and the person he is
opposing that he is a menace to the public weal,
should not a wife tell her husband he lacks
energy if he does?
The joke about the nagging wife ought to be
out of fashion. Beneath every abiding fashion
or custom there is a solid basis of common
sense which is the wisdom that wears. There
is no common-sense cornerstone for the nagging
wife joke. Nagging is incessant admonition, a
kind of continuous performance of truth telling.
Like the whirl of a constantly flying wheel or
the piano practice of the persistent maiden next
door, it is likely to get upon our nerves. There
is nothing to be said for it as a cure for ner
vous strain.
But as murder is justifiable as a means of
self-defense, so nagging may be justified in ex
treme cases. There are some situations in life
when patience is no longer admirable. The
woman who stands at the washtub while her
husband lies in a drunken stupor in the corner
and a brood of little children pull at her skirts
IS carrying the doctrine of non-resistance too
far. Her family affairs would be better were
she to submit less and energize more. If she
had her unlordly lord arrested for drunkenness
and non-support or if she feared his reactionary
violence and made a new home for herself and
children far from his bestializing influence, she
would be a far more admirable figure than as
a tear-dripping-lnto-the-washtub-figure. and for
it her children would be more prone to call her
blessed.
But if her instincts and training and what
she deems her principles, all point away from
this- course, what else can she do but talk, talk
to her husband, and talk very much to the
point? Always in her heart is a hope that some
argument of hers may finally sink into his soul
anil stir his conscience. Meanwhile she does
all she can. She keeps on talking. And who
that is fail- minded and wishes humanity well
i*n blame her? If there is an alternative leS
sVme male or female Solomon arise and a*»
nounee it. - - _ f
was found necessary to substitute the patent
sweeper and the straw brooms. If, when Sato,
the patrician butler of the Slatons, escorts
you into the parlor, you are forced to wait just
a minute or two on the arrival of your hostess,
you may be sure that she will be candid in
her apologies—telling you about the hair
dresser, or the interview with the cook, or the
difficulty she had in compounding the gum
arabic preparation in which to wash the lace
dress.
You will hear, above all, that the Governor's
mansion is the most delightful place imaginable
in which to live during the hot months. That
will surprise you. The mansion is downtown,
set among tall buildings of commercial tone, in
a locality where the midday sun causes the
pedestrian to sniff scornfully at thoughts of
the nether region. And your hostess, maybe,
reads the incredulity in your face.
Immediately she will launch into eulogies
of the ante-bellum architecture that is the style
of the mansion, showing you how it was built
for coolness, and how it invites breezes and
ventilation. The ceilings are high, windows
are everywhere, the angles of the house are
pitched so that the rooms are accessible to
wind from every direction.
But it is so hard to keep the Governor’s man
sion spotlessly clean. Of course, you may be
own desires. Mrs. Grant, coming to live with
her in the mansion, also finds a keen delight
in directing affairs of the household. And the
two, it can safely be said, are housekeepers
and home executives than whom there are no
more efficient.
As a result the mansion is most immaculate
and pleasant. The windows of the two parlors
are curtained with great folds of white cloth
that were improvised for the inaugural recep
tion. but that invested the apartments with so
desirable an appearance of fjeshuess and dain
tiness that they were allowed to remain. Just
What the cloth is, you will know if you are a
when he rushes directly from the table after
the evening meal, and shuts himself in his
study to read or write or think.
“Of course I am tremendously interested in
all the affairs of legislation, and the policies
that he stands for or opposes. But I hardly
think it is m.v part to discuss matters of state
with him. or to intrude during the time of his
deliberations. Bo X haven’t seen as much of my
to the Governor’s wife with their stories of dis
tress. thinking that surely the Governor will
listen to her intercession. Such persons have
come to the mansion to see Mrs. Slaton, or have
written the most appealing letters. And every
day these communications come is made less
cheerful for the Governor’s Lady.
“Of course these appeals can reach the Gov
ernor only through the regular channels, by
means of the Prison Commission and the other
ways that the law prescribes," she explained.
"But I can not but help being touched and
distressed whenever one of these appeals come
to me.”
It is upon occasions like these that Mrs.
Slaton comes to realize there is a sort of pffi-
HEARST’S SUNDAY AMERICAN. ATLANTA, GA„ SUNDAY, AUGUST 3, 1313. 3 b
1 —■ ..... ■ ■■ —
IV
lrs. S
laton Lii
kes Her Jc
>b as “The Governor’s Lac
if
Frankly Enthusiastic, Mistress of the Staid Old
Executive Mansion Plunges Into Mammoth
Household Duties, Still Finding Time for
Official Pleasures and Her Many Friends.
By TARLETON
LIKE it.’
.This from Mrs. John M. Slaton at the
end of an hour’s chat about her five
weeks’ existence as the Governor’s Lady.
She likes it all—the official occasions with
their show of resplendent uniforms and pretty
formalities, the delicate courtesies that Georgia
men and women instinctively pay to Georgia's
Governor and his Lady, the thrill of a personal
interest in the affairs of State, the custodian
ship of the State’s mansion. Perhaps the last
most of all.
Mrs. Slaton was frankly enthusiastic when
she said she liked her “job”—as enthusiastic as
a girL She has found new interests, new sit
uations, and new acquaintances, has learned
much about Georgia that she confesses was
new to her. She is gleeful in the telling of
it.
“And why shouldn’t I be frank and truthful
and say that I like the life in the mansion,
and am proud of my place, and of my husband?”
she asked, naively. “I do. It’s no lack of dig
nity to say so, is it?”
But with all her new interests, Mrs. Slaton
the Governor’s Lady is no different from Mrs.
Slaton the private hostess and immaculate
housewife.
jfou knew Mrs. Slaton, of 427 Peachtree
street and of Peachtree road? You will feel
at home and welcome in the mansion at
Peachtree and Cain streets, then. You will
be greeted with the same informal hospitality
that gave the Slatons in private life the name
of the most delightful entertainers. Yon will
hear comfortably intimate chats about how
many times the vacuum cleaner has been util
ized on the parlor carpets, and just when it
COLLIER.
sure that, with the Slatons as its occupants,
and with Mrs. W. D. Grant there to tutor her
daughter in the art of housekeeping, the man
sion will be spotless. It is, but at the cost of
eternal vigilance.
The Governor’s mansion, you see, is a sort of
anachronism. All around it have grown up
tall apartment houses, or hotels, or store build
ings. Across the street is a steam laundry.
These things make for smoke and grime. Then
there is the perpetual stream of automobiles
along Peachtree street, with a consequent cloud
of dust. Housekeeping in her new home is no
matter of play for Mrs. Slaton, entailing cease
less work and supervision. Mrs. Slaton found
that the mansion brought new difficulties.
So much is said of the mansion because it
is her tenancy of it that delights Mrs. Slaton
most of all the features of her new life.
“It Is very interesting,” she said. “I have
never lived go far downtown before, and the
life and rush that is continually in evidence on
all sides is enthralling. Late at night the
electric signs are blazing all around us, and
lights are burning in all the buildings, and al
ways something Is happening. It makes us
feel secure and well protected, as dwellers in
isolated places seldom feel.
“And then the mansion itself Is the most
interesting and delightful place imaginable."
With her own home on Peachtree road, and
the residence she occupied with her mother,
Mrs. W. D. Grant, at Peachtree and Pine
streets, both in perfect order for years, it was
pleasant for her to come into a new establish
ment which she might shape according to her
MRS. SLATON BARES HER JOYS—
And since I have come into the mansion, and am the Gov
ernor’s wife, I am learning much and seeing much about the
State that causes me to glory in it more than I have ever done.
It is the very greatest State, I am beginning to think. There is
so much that is interesting, and so much that is beautiful,
and the most delightful people alive.
AND HER SORROWS—
Of course these appeals for help can reach the Governor
only through the regular channels, by means of the Prison
Commission and tne other ways that the lav/ prescribes. But
I can not help being touched and distressed whenever one of
these appeals come to me.
woman and a visitor to the mansion. If you
are a man, you get the impression that it is
very cool and soft, and would make an indis
creet shirtwaist even if it is good for curtains.
Each of the curtains is draped and made
fast by big bows of pink ribbon. Sirs. Grant
made these decorations herself, dozens of them,
placing thus the stamp of her individuality on
the house. Pink is her color, and her posses
sions of every kind are gay with it.
Mrs. Grant is as much interested as her
daughter in the affairs of the mansion. Her
own servants are pressed into service to clean
the brass and the woodwork and the carpets.
Out on the lawn are two marble figures that
were brought from her home farther out
Peachtree street to enliven the rather severe
ensemble that is produced by the plain old
mansion and the unadorned front yard.
With it all, Mrs. Slaton and Mrs. Grant find,
they say, that their life in the new sphere is
not different from their existence in the pri
vate home. New problems in housekeeping
there are, but they really are not significant
of a great change. Then, too, there are so few
occasions of official nature that Mrs. Slaton
feels, she said, a very private person, as she
always has been.
“Except that we are very busy,” she re
marked. “There is not much time for calls and
for social affairs, with the Legislature in ses
sion, and with the Governor deep in work.
“He is busy. Sometimes I hardly see him,
Mrs. John M Slaton
the First Lady of
Georgia, snapped by
a Sunday American
staff photographer at
the Executive Mansion.
The other picture
shows Mrs. Slaton
and the Governor
returning from an
official call.