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“Why a German Victory Would
Be a Calamity for Suffrage”
“The Enemy To-day, as In the Past, Is the Prussian and Ger
man ‘Kultur, Which Means the Supremacy of the Male. To
Defeat the Germans Is the Woman Question of the Present
Time,” Says Christabel Pankhurst.
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©dra~d HJL =St wudiosny,
Miss Christabel Pankhurst, the Famous English Suffragist.
By Christabel Pankhurst.
HE enemy to-day, as in the past, is the
Prussian.
The enemy lis that Prussia, which,
having conquered and absorbed and corrupted
Germany—a subject only too apt therefor—now
attempts to conquer, absorb and corrupt all
Europe.
Against Prussianization it is worth while to
fight, it is a duty to fight to the very end. It
is only the xfiateriallsta who doubt that, And
the materialists are precisely those who have
already a bit of the Prussian in them! We
must not be deceived by the fact that these
materfalists cry out for a peace that means a
German peace because of the pain and the loss
of life that resistance to Prussianized Ger
many involves. It is because they are material-
Ists that they have no spiritual ears to hear
the command:
“Fear not them which kill the body and are
not able to kill the soul!”
How often have individuals and nations
heard the materialists urging: “Save your
skin and let the rest go!” The answer of the
peoples who find their liberty and their ideals
of civilization menaced by Germanism is this:
“Better be dead than German—better to sac
rifice the life of the body than to sacrifice
those things which make the soul life of man!”
It is, indeed, only those who have already
been part conquered by Prusso-Germanism and
are dazzled by its boastful pedantry, its heavy
materialism, {ts kultur, meretricious as well
as barbarous, its pretense of invinecibility—it
{s only they, we say, who even dream of any
sort of compromise with the enemy.
And let it be admitted that in most coun
tries there is a handful of spiritually anaemic
persons who find modern Germanism as at-
Appreciation of the American Man---By France’s Leading Feminist
By Mme. Catulle Mendes
ONCE had before my eyes a striking proof
I of the liberalism that we attribute to Ameri
can husbands, of the respect they have for
the will of their wives. It was a few years ago.
A charming young Italian woman was married
to an American who was passionately in love
with her, satisfying all her caprices and pre
pared to make any sacrifice to please her. She,
however, loved him ne longer, but loved. an
other instead, and wished to divorce him in
order to marry the other. The husband was
the only person who was ignorant of this state
of affairs. The young wife did not dare to say
anything to him, fearing to arouse his anger
and jealousy. She begged her friends, one by
one, to inform her husband of the decision
which she had taken, which she said was irrev
ocable. All of them refused, not having the
courage to inflict on a blameless husband a
grief which might be dangerous.
One of them at last accepted the mission.
T e eplsode tnok place in the country on a
teauidiul ests e in the vicinity of Paris. It
was afternoon. The husband, who amused
himself with photography, was in the act
of lo .king at a n wly impressed plate, raising
it a little above his eyes to see through it and
1. go 18 value, The friend came up and, be
ing too much embarrassed himself to make any
preliminary remraks, he blurted out: “My
poor friend, I have some bad news to tell you.
I f e that I ought to tell yoth how things stand
plainly. Your wife wants to obtain a divorce.”
tance, feeling very uneasy as to what would
happen.
tractive as the moth finds the candle.
Then there are certain snobs who fall an
easy prey to the calculated blandishments of
the Kaiser, who has for years industriously
received foreigners, especially those of self
importance (at the rate of twenty a week, it
is said), with the object of winning them over
to at least a qualified acceptance, conscious or
unconscious, of the German programme of
aggression. With snobs of all nations the
Kaiser, with his upturned mustache, thou
sands of uniforms, imperial pomp and all the
rest of it, has had a huge prestige.
His predominant airs and his regimental
fashion of government have appealed to cer
tain British political failures who evidently
experience an instinctive craving for Kaiserly
“efficiency” as the alternative to their own
inaptitude.
Snobbery, incompetence and servility the
world over are pro-German. To this list of pro-
German elements we may add second-rated
ness, which is inclined to answer to its sense
of affinity with the second+tate, flat-footed,
heavy-treading kultur evolved and ensued by
Imperial Germany.
The Kaiser seeks to find an opportunity for
Germanism wherever he sees particularism.
All groups, religious or political, are ap
proached indirectly, if not directly. That is
what is happening in Great Britain to-day. For
example, Roman Catholics, Jews, Socialists,
trade unionists and, last but not least, suf
frgists—each and all of these groups—are in
vited to put their own interests or their own
causes before the country, although the coun
try is the hope and the means of protecting
their interests and giving success to their
cause!
But the matter is very simple! It is not so
much that Germanism would gain by the suc
cess of such manoeuvres as that the groups in
The husband started suddenly and let his
photographic plate fall. But he controlled
himself immediately. Bending down, he picked
up the plate and resumed his former attitude
of inspecting it, then removed with his pail
some grains of dust, which had stuck to the
gelatine and said, simply: “All right.”
When he met his wife again at dinner
time, he announced to her that he would go
away that very evening, and that she was
free. He was merely a little pale, but his
voice and the expression of his face remained
calm. I looked at him, profoundly touched by
such dignity, and I thought that this demon
stration of love, so different from those to
which we are accustomed, was perhaps as
great and as full of devotion.
But to this idea that we entertained of
the American man before the war, the terrible
times through which we are ?ullng have
added a new light. They have lighted up ad
mirably and copleted the portrait of which
we only possessed the main features,
We perceived—with what infinite grati
tude and emotion!—all the delicacy of heart
of the American man, all the loyvalty of spirit
of which w were ignorant, or at which we had
only guessed. There has been revealed to us
what a noble feeling of human solidarity there
I 8 In the American business man, and also
what an astonishing instinctive, yet reasoning,
sense of psychology he possesses,
Refore 1 left Paris | had many revelations
of these feelings which are operating so pow
erfully and discreetly for our benefit. Some
question would lose by ylelding to Kaiserly
wiles disguised or undisguised.
Thus inasmuch as the Roman Catholic Church
should find any possibility of spiritual or ma
terial compromise with Germany policy it
would by so much be condemned now and
hereafter.
In so far as the non-German Jews should
further the purposes of the Kaiser they would
harm their own interests and would lose in the
eyes of the world far more than they could
gain in the eyes of the Germans.
As to the Socialists, that element among
British Socialists which has constituted itself
the apologists of German aggression and in
effect the accomplice of Germany, has already
brought injury to the good fame of the Social
ist movement which it will take long to undo.
And, what 'is more, the cause of Socialism,
especfally in every land outside Germany,
would suffer shipwreck as the result of a Ger
man victory, because the avowed German pur
pose is to create a gigantic system whereby
the labor of non-German peoples will be ex
ploited in the interests of the German people.
This exploitation will be far more severe and
resistant to all attempts to overthrow it than
the class exploitations within national borders
which Socialism condemns,
That trade unionists in the countries of the
Allies and those who are munition-making in
America shall go on strike in war time, is
ardently desired in Germany. But if as a re
sult of strikes, the Allies should want for coal
or shells and Germany should win, then trade
unionism and the interests for which it stands
would suffer the worst possible disaster. In
fact, the biggest labor question humanity has
ever know is this question of Germany's de
sire to impose political and economic subjec
tion upon the non-German world.
And if through ‘he shortsightedness, whether
of British trade unionists or of British em
ployers, Germany should be allowed to win in
this war, then would open the blackest and
most hopeless chapter of human history—the
blackest and most hopeless because it would
represent a horrible retrogression sealed by
the deadly efficiency of scientific barbarism.
If a Germany vietory would be an appalling
calamity for men, it would for women be in
finitely worse.
To defeat the Germans is the woman ques
tion of the present time.
German kultur means and is the supremacy
of the male. It is maleness carried to the
point of obscenity, as Mrs. Pankhurst ex
pressed it the other day. It is the rejection of
the principle of the equality and the political
co-operation of men and women.
The Germans themselves boast that they as
a people represent the male principle as
distinct from the female principle. In the
Allied nations the Germans discern what they
regard as the female principle in excess! Let
British women not be led astray by reports of
much-advertised German, laws concerning
motherhood! which do nol prevent a high in
fant mortality rate. Such laws do not prove
anything more than a determination to have
a large supply of sturdy German soldiers.
The dark and overwhelming fact remains
that the Germans intend (they have said it
often and clearly enough) to reduce the men—
and all the more the women!—of the non-
German peoples to economic and political sub
jection. Gomne would be the newly-won votes
of Danish women (for Denmark was long since
marked down for conquest!). Gone would be
in the other countries of Europe the very ma
chinery of voting for men and all the more for
women! Even if any European country long
remained nominally independent the decisions
of its electors would be subject to the will of
Germany, and so would not be in practical
effect decisions at all!
Suffragists in general and militants in par
ticular have once and for all realized that the
Prussian is, for them as for all others intent
upon liberty, the enemy--that the victory of
Sermanism would mean the death of Suffragism
and the hope of it.
A militant Suffragist is naturally the last to
ignore the hardships and difficulties that have
been encountered in the course of British
women's struggle for the vote, but those hard
ships and difficulties are literally as nothing
compared to the disaster to the Suffrage cause
—the deadly blow to our present liberty and
to our hope of greater liberty-—-that would
result from a German victory.
Therefore let us all, women as well as men,
whatever may be our religion or our polities,
unite for the sake of our particular interesfs
and beliefs, and for the sake of our common
citizenship and ideals against the enemy.
one said to me: “Since you are about to visit
the United States, go first and take a turn
about the Pavilion de Flore. It is there that
all the gifts sent from America for the benefit
of the war victims are received. It will inter
est you.”
" My guide decided nct to give me the time
to be astonished. He was Mr, Whitney War
ren, who Interests himself in this magnificent
work. But he repeats to me at every moment:
“But please do not speak of me. | ask it, I
eNv v ¥
We enater the Pavilion. Those piles of
boxes which I saw at the door were really
hardly anything. Inside here I see them to
the right, to the left, before me, piled up along
the bare walls,
“We have received millions of packages,”
M. Jarray, the director of the work, says to
me. “Come and see the unpacking.”
In another room innumerable shelves are
arranged, each labelled carefully with a de
scription of the caskets, including women's
clothes, children's clothes, socks, shoes, hats,
ete. There is something of everything, includ
ing heaps.of bed coverings, linen, preserves
and tobacco,
Tears came to my eyes as | saw these
things. How could | give thanks on behalf of
nll these poor people who, on thelr return to
their beloved country, after such atroclous
sufferings, will find a little comfort, thanks to
the impnise of American generosity, tireless In
fts sublime activity for the benefit of those
who are suffering for the salvation and the
honor of humanity,
Mixing Muscles and Brains to
Our Best Possible Advantage
Dr. Woods Hutchinson In One of the Most Helpful and
Important Articles of His Series, Advises Upon the Proper
Methods to Keep Fit in the Business of Life “Which is
Nothing But One Exercise After Another.”
By Woods Hutchinson,
A.M,M.D.
E are a bundle of exercises. Life is
just one muscular movement after
another, and when our muscles stop,
life stops and we stop. We do not exercise
to live, nor live to exercise, but we live be
cause, and in so far as we exercise. Life-with
out exercise is dead.
Qur ears have been stunned with such tor
rents of admonition, such cataracts of ex
hortation upon the healthfulness, the right
eousness, the absolute necessity of exercise
that we are in danger of coming to regard
it in the light of a melancholy duty and a
stern virtue—and loathe it accordingly. Al
most we- have succeeded in giving to exer
cise the flavor that the pedagogues have to
education, that it isn’t the real thing unless
it hurts.
Exercise taken even as a duty or a bitter
medicine is better than none. But nearly all
intefligent trainers and medical directors of
physical culture rnow declare that the really
wholesome and permanently helpful exercise
is that which either is or quickly becomes a
pleasure.
We .talk about some people taking no exer
cise whatever; but that is impossible. We
never can get quite “too lazy to breathe,” and
the amount of muscular work done every day
by our muscles of respiration, added to that
which our ever-beating heart turns out to
tals more than 100,000 foot-pounds, burning
up nearly a third of the heat units or energy
of our daily food, while the exertion involved
in “going through the motions” necessary to
earn all except the most indolent and “soft
snap” of livings burn up another third, leaving
only the minor part needed for a clean burn
ing draught to be supplied by our voluntary
or intentional efforts.
In fact, even we city dwellers get from at least
two-thirds to three-fourths of the exercise that
we need to keep us in health from our daily
occupations, and the excursions and incursions
naturally connected therewith. Many of us,
strange as it may seem, in shops and in
offices, are actualiy suffering from too much
exercise of one particular sort, or of special
groups or classes of muscles, or from the
wrong sort of exercise or strain, and can rem
edy half our troubles by intelligently correct
ing this.
It is often balancing up of unsymmetrical
muscular exercise and stopping of harmful
strains, with better ventilation, both of our
rooms and of our blood, that we need, rather
than violent feats of muscular effort, or any
very great addition to the total amount of our
muscular work.
Of course, there 1s no restorer of the body
balance, no flusher out of every nook and
corner of our system, no ventilator inside and
out equal to brisk and enjoyable movement in
the open air. And the more nearly we can
get our full requirement of this, the more
and better work we will do during the busi
ness hours of the day.
But until we become our own boss and
can intelligently plan for this, or our existing
boss becomes intelligent enough to see the
benefit in it for him, there is much that ecan
be done inside the harness and without seri
ously breaking the sacred office hours.
Mixing Muscles with Brains.
We hear much, and justly, of the importance
of putting brains into our work: but it is alse
a good thing to mix as much muscle with our
brains as we reasonably can, in even the most
intellectual and mentally strenuous of occupa
tions. Both muscle and brains will profit by
team play. You will not sharpen, but dull
your mind and restrict its powers of flight, by
neglecting your muscles, just as you will im
prove your body, not by letting your mind
rest, but by letting it work hard and happily.
You can keep up an excellent appetite on
brain work alone, and all you need muscle
work for is to keep you from getting bilious,
by flushing out the ashes of your brain work
and garbage-burning such parts of your food
as your brain can’t utilize. Fortunately, it 1s
fmpossible to divorce even the most Indoor
life, the most high-brow and transcendental
vocatlon from exercise, or from opportunities
for it. These lie around us, In fact, on every
hand, in enjoyable profusion, if we will only
take life naturally and happily. Exercise
must have been one of the things which Ste.
venson had in mind in his famous couplet:
“The world is so full of a number of things,
I'm sure we should all bg as happy as kings.”
Although we seldom realize it, we often
lose much, all our lives long, from our fallure
to properly mix our exercise with our busi
ness, our play with our work, and conse
quently go to extremes in both. Even inthe
happy days of childhood there is often some
thing almost frenzied about our romps and
scrimmages, our wild rushes and bounces In
every direction, our ilncessant and {rrepres
sible grasshopperlike activity, as if we were
on wires, and charged with explosives to boot;
our yells and war-whoops and deafening
shrieks llke an engine blowing off steam. Tt
{s a sober fact that not a few children will
Hterally play themselves sick, especially
when a number of them “get going” at once,
They sometimes seem to develop a sort of
“dancing mania” or “Jumping craze”-—such as
used to sweep across Furope In the Middle
Ages, after extreme religious excitement,
This is not the natural spontaneous hub.
bling over and effervescing of joyous, happy
childhood, but a morbid reaction and revulsion
from the monotonous confinement of the
schoolroom, with its enforced muscular inac
tivity and rigid discipline. Or from the re
pressive and depressing atmosphere of the
formal type of home, where children may “be
seen, but not heard” where ornaments are
more precious than health and happiness:
where the furniture is too nice to be played
with and curtains and draperies and potted
plants get most of what lttle alr and lght
there Is
A ceriain tyne of oldfashioned home, es
pecially If presided over by a “model house-
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Dr. Woods Hutchinson.
keeper” of the spotless sort, or by a strict
disciplinarian who has brought up his chil
dren in the fear of the Lord anfi of himself
might have been very good for their souls
and their morals, but it was terribly hard on
their bodies and their happiness, The same
was true of most temples of education up to
a couple of decades ago.
The natural, unspoiled, healthy child who
Is allowed to throw his arms and his legs and
his whole body into his school work, to “learn
by doing,” in modern phrase, and to bubble
over happily and musically at home with lit
tle restraint, indoors, as well as out, all day
long, will seldom go to these extremes of
riotousness and irrepressibleness or fiendish
ly incessant activity and destructiveness. But
the spectre of what he would do if he were
Just let loose has been raised with the double
result that we grown-ups think we are com
pelled to keep sitting on the lid to save our
property, our nerves and our comfort from
utter destruction. And when the explosion
after restraint does come, many children
plunge on, not merely to disturbances of the
peace and of the proprieties, which is a small
matter (the only way to keep laws human is
to rebel against them occasionally), but into
harmful excesses of overexertion.
It seems incredible, even ironic, in view of
the naturalness and overwhelming healthful
ness of play, but it is a fact, that a great
many, especlally city children, need less ex
ercise and play instead of more, and are
greatly improved in both health and temper
and appetite by being kept in bed for break
fast and induced to rest more during the day,
and feel better.
Incessant, irrepressible activity, Inability
to either keep still or within the bounds of
moderation and of reason, is often not a sign
of superabundant vigor, of surplus energy and
nerve strength, though in few rare infant
geniuses it may be this—but of nervous weak
ness and neurasthenia, technically known as
loss of power of inhibition. And this waste
ful “busy foolishness-—this perpetual sput
tering and leaking at the faucet—is by no
means confined to childhood. The child who
will make the most useful and successful man
is often inclined to be rather easy-going, or
even sluggish and dreamy in childhood, in.
stead of perpetually active and “into every
thing.” He is devoting his whole time and
strength to growing up, and not wasting any
of it in frivolous activity or useless speech.
Largely a Liver Question.
Ag to the other extreme to the conscientious,
modern parent, anxious to do everything imag
mable to give his child every possibility of
development, of self-expresston, and to incu
bate him into a genius willy-nilly, it may
be remarked that it s not necessary to turn
a child into an athlete, either physical or
mental, at the earliest possible period of in
fancy, nor to hang punching bags above his
cradle, or fashion his nursing bottle in the
shape of a dumbbell, so that he can fill up
his time with gymnastic “extrasizes,” to de
velop his arms and grip before he Is able to
sit up. These two-year-old contortionists ana
five-year-old finished acrobats are very won
derful while in the nursery, but they are
seldom heard of after they grow up, unless
they happen to be born of “circus families.”
Nor is there much blologic reason to be.
lieve that festooning the nursery walls with
couplets of Greek poetry and Sanscrit, Mother
(GGoose rhymes or teaching the baby to play
hide-and-seek in Hebrew will materfally alter
either his ultimate mental horse-power at the
age of eighteen or the range of his culture
and usable mental acquisitions at thirty,
There has been no better way devised for a
child to spend his time than simply in growing
up, and if you keep him healthy and happy and
and if you keep him healthy and happy and
rowing steadily, and give him the advantages
g’s intelligent society he will ultimately ar
rive at whatever intellectual or practical goal
he may be capable of reaching, no matter
what you cram or don’t cram into his head in
the meantime.
This same idea of utter separation, of an
tagonism between work and play, between
business and pleasure, between occupation and
exercise (that when one begins, the other
must stop), which has been instilled into us
since childhood, causes half our troubles about
healthful exercise in later life. Although in
our high-school and college days we may have
formed the habit and recognized the value
of “going In for” seme kind of exercise or
sport, and of keeping in training so as to keep
our heads clear for our studies, when we
enter bhusiness all that sort of childish fool
ishness is over and must be dropped at once
Business is business. Life is serious. And
now that we have become men we must put
away childish things, like sport and exercise—
except on rare half-holidays or in Summer
evenings after business hours. Any attempt
to combine our exercise with our work, or
to get athletic development out of it, or in
the intervals between it, to do or think or
dream of anything but business in business
hours, is frowned upon as indecoroug and
against .the rules of the game,
If you don't keep long hours you are not
really working; and if you allow anything to
distract your attention from strict business in
the office, the store or the factory you are
wasting your time. Thank heaven we are
getting over the worst of this insanity al
ready and are beginning to show signs of
lucid intervals in our business mania,. The
growth of the Saturday half-holiday as a per
manent institution, the open-air Sunday, the
regular observance of legal holidays, with
week-end trips and excursions into the coun
try or to the beach attached, are all encour
aging signs of the times and give hope of a
new wholesomeness and happiness for hu
manity.
But there still remains much to be done in
the way of officially recognizing that it is ad
missible, yes, good business policy, as well as
biological righteousness, to take advantage of
every opportunity that our business affords to
keep ourselves physically fit, and to manu
facture new ones as quickly as possible, “A
disordered liver predicts damnation,” as the
old phrase has it, and to let ourselves get
clogged and poisoned with waste products and
cooked air not only slows down our speed and
diminishes our output, but clouds and queers
our business judgment.
First of all, let us get a clear idea of what
dangers we are to avoid and what standards
to reach. The value of muscular exercise to
the busy city man is not to turn him into a
model of manly beauty or of athletic perfee
‘ien. hmt ¢t make him more efficient, more
enduring, happier and more successful at his
own trade or occupation or profession. Net to
make him capable of some sudden, spectacular
feat, or heart-breaking strain of endurance,
hut to enable him to run smoothly, steadfly,
comfortably, and meet and conquer emergen
‘histe farty or fifty years.
To keep ourselves fit and ready, not merely
for our routine work, but with “a link back”
for an extra strain or emergency, our eyes
bright, our skin clear, color good and tempers
cheerful, is quite enough and will wear longer
and give better results in the long run than
strenuous rounds of training or bursts of
flerce competition for cups and records.
Being an Athlete Not Necessary.
How much exercise, how much breezing lu'
the open is necessary to reach this ideal?
Less than we sometimes think. If we happen
to have started with a reasonable physique, or
can get ourselves during some vacation period
into a condition of elastic, responsive, phys
ical fitness, with limber joints and springy,
easlly moving muscles, even if they don’t look
like sausages or balloons, it is really surpris
ing what small amounts of hard muscular es
fort are needed to keep ourselves fit. Though
the muscles built the mind in the first place
and render its continued existence possible,
still the mind reacts powerfully upon the
muscles, and therq is good reason to believe
that keen, vigorous, successful mental work
reacts upon and helps to keep up a whole
some tone and elasticlty in the muscular sys
tem.
One reason for this i{s that we make so
much more muscular effort, do so much more
work with our muscles in even indoor occupa
tions than we usually realize. While we think
with our minds, every particle of expression
of our thoughts, yes, even of the formulation
of them to ourselves, is with our muscles.
Speech, gesture, writing, drawing, creating—
doing all these are musclar. And we do an
astonishing amount of our thinking with our
hands and even with our feet—or at least
their activities must run parallel.
In the case of busy, careworn housewives
the results were even more surprising, for rec
ords of six, seven and even twelve miles a day
are sald to have been zecorded by the re
morseless and incorruptible instrument. Not
a little, in fact, of the fatigue of the classic
and much pitied “tired business man”—who
Is a good deal of a humbug and really enjoys
himself keenly after his own fashion (taking
his business as the greatest game on earth)-—
is really muscular fatigue, rather than brain
fag. This fatigue is not so much the general
and symmetrical kind that gives the “com
fortably tired” feeling and makes yon sleep
well, but one-sided and local.
Just to take what might be regarded as @
rather trifling element and one very often
overlooked, quite a considerable share of
what we term “brain-fag” or nerve fatigue, i
really eyestrain. Have your far sight, o
astigmatism, or near sight corrected by proper
glasses, hold your letters or papers at the
proper distance and the right angle, so that
the light strikes squarely upon them over your
shoulder, and you will greatly diminish your
chances not onlv o hrain-fag, but of headache
and stomach disturbance, a combination which
in fact makes up one of the forms of so-called
billlousness, and not an uncommon one.
Another fruitful cause of fatigue ana depres
slon from Indoor work is cramped or faulty
positions of standing or sitting. We don't real
fze what a surprising amount of museunlar
work we are doing when we are just sitting
still, still less when we are standing still, The
only time when our hody muscles are com
pletely relaxed and at rest is when we are
Iying down. When we are sitting, the great
muscles of our hack and sides and shoulders
and neck are In constant contraction and often
under the most wearing strain, so that indeed,
incredible as it seems at first sight, flfl,
sitting still, except in the very best bala |
and supported of positions, i= often more fa
tiguing than walking about. Just as the most
utterly exhausing muscular efort known is
standing perfectly still and erect. Even the
strongest athlete can only pose living statye
tashion for a few minutes at a streteh. -