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Helen Keller Says All Women Should Marry

Creator: Harriet Ferrell (author)
Date: June 9, 1916
Publication: Chicago Daily Tribune
Source: Available at selected libraries


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DESCRIBES HER IDEAL MAN

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Famous Blind and Dumb Girl Breaks Rule and Discusses Love and Matrimony.

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Blind and Dumb Girl Breaks Rule and Discusses Love and Matrimony.

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RAPS NAPOLEON AND T. R.

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BY HARRIET FERRILL.

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Love is a topic that Miss Helen Keller avoids in interviews. Yet this sightless and dumb prodigy, who has overcome her human handicaps -- almost -- has some unique opinions on this absorbing theme.

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She pounded them out on her fingers and the face of her teacher, Mrs. J. A. Macy, who has been with her for twenty-nine years, yesterday at the Virginia hotel, where she is stopping for the convention.

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An eager face, lips that are ready to laugh, and a flashing, alert mind helped along the interpretation of her love sentiments.

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"I am not telling my love affairs," she spelled into the palm of her teacher's hand. "They are not for publication," although she admitted many proposals as a "star" -- and possibly one heart affair. There is said to be a certain young man who is attentive at this time.

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Will Be a Master Man.

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The master of the house in ideal conditions such as are sensed by Miss Keller in a new day is not of the common species. He will be a master man, willing to permit his wife to be the disposer of the household supplies and the real "boss."

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"Every household should be ruled by a bi-cameral government -- a congress and a senate -- such as the United States gave the Porto Ricans," she said. "The woman should, of course, be the house of representatives of the family. In this government there will be no filibustering, I hope, nor lobbying.

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"Thus, the man would propose all vital measures and the woman would dispose them. She would control the disposal of supplies, principally, as women did among some of the primitive tribes."

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Describes Her Ideal.

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This ideal state of matrimony, however, Miss Keller does not expect until woman is economically free. So long as man is the "money bags," this future marriage system will be missing.

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A happy interest flashed in her sightless eyes when she was requested to describe her ideal man.

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"Of course, he will be handsome for eugenic reasons," she said with a smile. "He doesn't have to be rich. I am paying my own passage through the world and am proud of it.

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"And the ideal man doesn't have to be possessed of a college education. He must be one who thinks straight. Many men have obtained an education by their own efforts, for example, Mark Twain, one of my ideal men. For he was broad humanly, tender, yet strong, and full of humor."

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NIX on Napoleon And T. R.

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"Do you admire Napoleon?"

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"No," she pounded on Mrs. Macy's palm, "nor Bismarck, nor T.R. T.R. is a boisterous politician. True statesmen are dug from a vast patience. T.R. is not patient, not statesmanlike. I should never marry a man like T.R.

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"Every marriage should have love and both man and woman should never lose sight of the happiness or their children. The state should pay for the upkeep of each child; for there is no greater service to the state than a woman's gift of a child -- a greater service than the building of a warship. Besides, warships are no good without men. Woman furnishes the absolutely necessary supply -- men. Her services are fundamental in war time or out of war.

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Believes All Should Wed.

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"All women should marry if they can get any one to marry them." Her teacher laughed her out of her seriousness. "Yes they should," she insisted. "It's essential for the race -- and evolution in the world."

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One of the glories which Miss Keller delights in is the glory of her family. A great great grandfather of hers was one of the first colonial governors of Virginia -- one of the Spottswoods, and this is a cherished name. She is a cousin of the southern hero, Robert E. Lee, and counts the Adamses and the Everetts on her ancestral tree.

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Her mother, Mrs. Katharine Adams Keller, is with her, busily darning stockings and mending shirt waists. A sister, Mrs. Mildred Keller Tyson, lives in Montgomery, Ala., her native state, and a brother, Philips Brooks Keller, is an engineer. Miss Keller was a student and admirer of Philips Brooks when she was 9 years old and she insisted upon giving her brother that name, her mother said.

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