The Dispatch News

"CIGARETTE GIRL"
ONLY A SYMPTOM

WOMEN'S CLUB LEADER ANALYZES MODERN SOCIAL
TREND.

THE HOME IS THE SOLUTION

BY MRS. L. H. JENNINGS
President of the South Carolina State Federation of Women's Clubs, Writing in Public Service Issued by the North and South Carolina Public Utility Information Bureau.

Colleges, newspapers and the public generally are considerably agitated at present over the "girl and cigarette" problem. There are those who inveigh bitterly against the habit and declare with finality they shall not smoke. Others grant them the same privilege in this matter as men enjoy.

It is the belief of many leaders of thought that smoking is a matter of morality while with others it is only manners or taste. A few days ago I noted a statement by Mr. A. T. Allen, Superintendent of Public Instruction of North Carolina, to the effect that all the colleges would sooner or later follow the example of Bryn Mawr and establish smoking rooms for their girls. I disagree with Mr. Allen and unqualifiedly disapprove the practice of girls smoking.

But the fact remains that girls do smoke and it is far saner to face a fact than to inveigh against a theory.

Smoking on Increase

Girls and women are smoking to vastly greater extent today than they did ten years ago, and so far as I can see there is no reformer's dictum that can stop them. As to whether it is wrong for a girl to smoke I leave it to the reader's personal view for discussion of that particular phase of the matter is not my purpose.

As I see it, girl smokers are a product of changing social order, and I am not blaming the war for it. There is now in process a most radical revolution—or evolution, if you will—in society. That evolution is natural and would have come war or no war; perhaps the war did hasten it and give it momentum. But the "pedestal woman" is gone. The change now in process is the breaking down of distinctions between the sexes.

Maid of the Future

On this point the recent statements by Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, noted suffragist leader, are significant. Said Mrs. Catt: "Within a half century every able-bodied woman will be at work, helping her husband to make a living for the family. Economic pressure on the men of the household will make it necessary for wives to enter employment and it will take the combined efforts of all to make both ends meet. And electricity will be the housemaid of the future."

With such a development in process it is, therefore, safe to conclude that smoking by women is merely a symptom and not a "disease." But the growth of the practice focuses, or should focus, the thought of the nation upon the very root of the whole matter and that is the home. Girls are the product of the home and what the homes are the girls will be. I would not concern myself so much about one particular practice, but I would urge the wisdom of looking into home conditions and then let the girls take care of themselves.

Survey By Federation

The General Federation of Women's Clubs has just made a survey of approximately half a million homes throughout the country amounting to a cross-section of American home life. The general conclusion reached from the canvass is that the American home at present is neither meeting its requirements nor fulfilling its opportunities and that women and girls no longer will endure drabness and drudgery.

Mrs. John D. Sherman, President of the General Federation, truly says: "In the heart of the home-maker performing her daily tasks in the old and wasteful way lurks a discontent, a sense of injustice, a resentment over the drudgery involved in home-making. Over other inadequately equipped home-makers spreads an apathy and resignation which argues arrested growth and an indifference to standards of living."

Housewife's Dread

A preliminary report of the survey says: "The housewife does not mind washing stacks of dishes under the glow of an electric globe, but the task doubles or trebles if she must do it by the smoky dim light from a kerosene lamp. She does not mind sweeping the lower floor of the house if she knows that at the end of her task she can sit down and chat via the telephone with a neighbor five miles away."

In no uncertain terms does Mrs. Sherman declare that the public utilities have become the most important single factor in home-making.

"And," she adds, "the fact we now wish to get into the mind of the American woman public is that public utilities—water, sewer, gas, electric light—are vital parts of the American home organizations."

Home is the Solution

The campaign under way by the Federation is for the purpose of raising home standards. Relieved of drudgery, the housewife has more time to devote to the thought and care of her children and more time to improve herself and fit herself for motherhood. I believe we cannot over-estimate the damage to human life caused by drudgery in a drab home.

A cheerfully lighted, easily operated home, is the best guarantee against poorly-reared children.

So the question as to whether or not girls who smoke are morally culpable does not seem to me the vital point. In the midst of this social upheaval it behooves us to guard the source of all inspiration—the home; for, from that will be determined not merely individual habits but the moral standards of the nation.