IRRIGATION, POLITICS, AND SECTIONALISM 89 



American woman, as well as man, of culture 

 and refinement is awaking to the untold 

 value of a lofty standard in matters of civic 

 and national importance, and has grasped 

 the pitch of politics with the strong hand of 

 a genuine patriotism, both find that, if defiling, 

 it will wash off, or at least that it does not 

 hurt them. The unpleasant fact that the 

 awakening feminine interest in politics brings 

 prominently into notice the New Woman as 

 she ought not to be, often to the further 

 defilement of what she claims to purify, must 

 'be accepted in the spirit which accepts the 

 evil with the good. 



As at this writing Western views of things 

 still claim eventual ascendancy, with wide- 

 spreading consequences to the entire civilized 

 world, it may not be uninteresting to know 

 what is the dominant Western view. It can 

 be summed up in one phrase culled from a 

 recent speech of one of the West's great 

 men : ' What's the use of paying attention 

 to foreign countries, any way ? We're big 

 enough to do as we please.' 



To such crude schoolboy utterances as the 

 above, the Many- Headed, maddened by long 



