The Young Man and the World

by Albert J. Beveridge

Particularly is this true of political life and career. A man who must be lifted to distinction by his wife's apron-strings, does not deserve distinction. In the end, he does not get it—the apron-strings usually break, and they ought to break. It may be stated as a general truth that a man is never helped by the active participation of the wife in his political affairs.

There are notable exceptions, just as there are to every rule. But as a generalization this statement is accurate. Men resent that kind of thing in politics. They want a man who aspires to anything to be worthy of that thing on his own account. They want their leader to be a leader; and no leader is "managed" in politics by his wife. They are right about it, too. But whether they are right or wrong, that is the way they feel.

So the only help which a woman can be to a man in politics is just to be a wife in all that that term implies. And what greater help than that could there be? She who impresses the American millions with the fact that she is the ideal wife and mother has made the strongest, subtlest appeal to the nation. But she cannot do this by "mixing up in politics," by trying to plan and manage her husband's campaigns, and so forth. For the people's instinct is unerring. We Americans are a home-making and a home-loving people; and as a people we adore the American wife and mother—the maker and keeper of the American home.

So you attend to your politics or your business and let your wife attend to hers; and she will be happy and glad to make your home the exclusive scene of her activities if you will only be man enough to do a man's full part in the world and leave no room for a woman of spirit to see that you are not doing a man's full part, and, therefore, to try to help you out.

I sometimes think that the propaganda that woman is the equal of man, and that it is all right for her to take on man's work in business and the professions, is due not so much to an abnormal development in her character as it is to a decadence in our manhood. At least I have always observed that the wife of a really masterful man finds her greatest happiness in being merely his wife, and never attempts to take any of his tasks upon her. And why should she assume his labor? Her natural work in the world is as much harder than his as it is nobler and finer.

Speaking of politics, I have always thought men, young and old, ought to consult their wives and families about how they cast their ballot. What right has any man to vote as he individually thinks best? He is the head of the family, it is true, but he is only one of the family, after all. This Republic is not made up of individuals; it is made up of families. Its unit is not the boarding-house, but the home.

The Senate of the United States is the greatest forum of free debate on earth; but the counsel of the American fireside is far more powerful. Wife and children have a vital interest in every ballot deposited by father and husband—an interest as definite and tangible as his own. Every voter, therefore, ought to discuss with wife and children, with parents, brothers, and sisters, all public questions, and vote according to the composite family conviction.

No greater method of public safety can be imagined than for the American family to "size up" the American public man, and then have the voters of that family sustain or reject him at the polls, according to the verdict of the household. If such were the rule, only those men who are of the people when they are first placed in public office, and who keep close to the people ever after, would be elected to anything.

Such a method, too, would insure a steadier current of national policy, subject to fewer variations. There would not be so many fads to deflect sound and sane statesmanship. So by all means, young man, begin your career as a citizen by making your wife a partner in every vote you cast.

Nobody denies that men and women should have equality of privilege and equality of rights; but equality of duties and similarity of work is absurd. The contrary idea was beautifully satirized in the now famous toast: