eted and practically applied today,
has failed to reach that great end. Now, woman is confronted with
the necessity of emancipating herself from emancipation, if she
really desires to be free. This may sound paradoxical, but is,
nevertheless, only too true.

What has she achieved through her emancipation? Equal suffrage in a
few States. Has that purified our political life, as many
well-meaning advocates predicted? Certainly not. Incidentally, it
is really time that persons with plain, sound judgment should cease
to talk about corruption in politics in a boarding-school tone.
Corruption of politics has nothing to do with the morals, or the
laxity of morals, of various political personalities. Its cause is
altogether a material one. Politics is the reflex of the business
and industrial world, the mottos of which are: "To take is more
blessed than to give"; "buy cheap and sell dear"; "one soiled hand
washes the other." There is no hope even that woman, with her right
to vote, will ever purify politics.

Emancipation has brought woman economic equality with man; that is,
she can choose her own profession and trade; but as her past and
present physical training has not equipped her with the necessary
strength to compete with man, she is often compelled to exhaust all
her energy, use up her vitality, and strain every nerve in order to
reach the market value. Very few ever succeed, for it is a fact that
women teachers, doctors, lawyers, architects, and engineers are
neither met with the same confidence as their male colleagues, nor
receive equal remuneration. And those that do reach that enticing
equality, generally do so at the expense of their physical and
psychical well-being. As to the great mass of working girls and
women, how much independence is gained if the narrowness and lack of
freedom of the home is exchanged for the narrowness and lack of
freedom of the factory, sweat-shop, department store, or office? In
addition is the burden which is laid on many women of looking after a
"home, sweet home"--cold, dreary, disorderly, uninviting--after a
day's hard work. Glorious independence! No wonder that hundreds of
girls are willing to accept the first offer of marriage, sick and
tired of their "independence" behind the counter, at the sewing or
typewriting machine. They are just as ready to marry as girls of the
middle class, who long to throw off the yoke of parental supremacy.
A so-called independence