AMERICAN WOMEN.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXI, Issue 8739, 13 February 1907, Page 1

AMERICAN WOMEN.

I Few popular institutions in I America have escaped violent attacks | by muckraking reformers, and now I the American woman, after being ac-1 eustomed for generations to extrava- ! gant adulation on the part of her | countrymen, finds herself the object | of fierce denunciation by scientists, | philosophers, and divines. At a 1 great congress of the leading Presby- | terian ministers at Cincinnati she is | being savagely criticised as lazy, | luxurious, selfish, loud, assertive, and ! useless. Professor Selby F. Vance, the occupant of the Chair of Theology at the Lane Seminary, the oldest theological institution in the West, said : The American woman of the present day is like those women of Bible times who crushed the life and soul of their men to get more jewels and raiment to decorate their persons and gratify expensive and worse than useless tastes.” Scientists bring even more injurious accusations against the sex. ! Speaking at a conference at the Lai- , versity at Chicago, Professor J, , Laurence Laughlin, Lecturer on Political Economy, accused the American woman of “wiggling.” He said that the absence of the sense of form manifested itself in general “ slouchiness,” not only in dress and i manner, but in the study, the in- | tellect, the language, and the though 11 of the nation at large, ” I Particularly noticeably was the American woman’s manner of walking. Her “ wiggling,” swaying mbvements, said the lecturer, made her tbs laughing-stock of Europe. 1 New York ladies indignantly deny the accusation that they are “ wigglers,” but profess the utmost unconcern as to the opinions of the political economist of Chicago. Leaders of society have been interviewed, and cite Mrs Stuyvesant Pish, who has recently returned from Europe, and who declares that American women have the best figures of any women in the world, and are, therefore, entitled to wear the best costumes. In respect both of style and fashion of dress, and the manner of wearing it, Mrs Fish says that her American countrywomen surpass all other women in the world, including even the Parisiennes. So economists and divines do not matter.