The labor world. [volume], August 31, 1912, Image 14

About The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current

Image provided by: Minnesota Historical Society; Saint Paul, MN

                
Has been. Please notice the tense.
For now we have changed all that. It
is not with the agitation for woman
suffrage that this article is concerned,
although that agitation has had a pow­
erful influence upon the interest in
WITHwhichcampaignatoUncle
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By A. C. MURCHE80N.
Jk MERICAN women, in one im
portant particular at least,
have long lagged behind their
A A. English cousins. (If this be
treason, ladies must make the most of
It. Let them suspend sentence, at any
rate, until the scribe has developed his
point.) Whereas for a generation or
so, long before the word "suffragette"
oecame a part of the language, the
svives. sisters and sweethearts of Brit­
ish statesmen and near statesmen have
.lot only been taking an intelligent in­
terest in the political fortunes of their
men folk, but have actually afforded
them practical aid in electioneering.
Cn this country the woman who under­
stood politics, even enough to sustain
a breakfast table conversation over the
presidential outlook, has been one of
the rarest birds in captivity.
V*
1«—Miss Helen Varick Boswell, prssidsnt of National Woman's Republican as­
sociation. 2.—(From left to right) Mrs. Charles D. Blaney, Mrs. H. M. Wil
marth and Miss Jane Addams. Photo by American Press Association. 3.—
Women suffragists marching to the Chicago Progressive convention. Photo
by American Press Association. 4.—Miss Mary Dreier, president of Na­
tional Women's Trade Union league. 5.—Mrs. Annie H. Pitzer, Colorado
delegate to Democratic national convention. Copyright, 1912, by American
Press Association. 6.—Mrs. Robert H. Elder, enthusiastic Progressive. 7.—
Mrs. Rose Pastor Stokes. 8.—-Mrs. J. Borden Harriman, founder of Wo
man's National Wilson and Marshall organization. Photo by American
Press Association. 9.—Mis* Anna A. Maley, Socialist candidate for Wash­
ington governorship.
politics which the women of the United
States are now displaying. The most
significant feature of women's partici­
pation in the campagn of 1912 Is the
facility with which they are accepted
by all parties as co-workers with men
in the common cause of democratic
government and with which individuals
form their political affiliations on the
basis of personal preferences rather
than because the party of their choice
has "done something" for woman suf­
frage.
Women Leaders of Progressives.
The most prominent woman in
American politics today is Miss Jane
Addams, head worker of Hull House,
Chicago. If the comparison with Eng­
land in the opening paragraph gave
offense to any patriotic American wo­
man, let it be said now, by way of
reparation that, though the American
women's interest in politics is of later
date than that of Englishwomen, there
is no one in the British feminist ranks
who commands from all—militants
and antis alike—the respect and admi­
ration which are accorded by her coun­
NICARAGUA'S REVOLUTION CLAIMS THE LIMELIGHT
The upper left hand corner picture shows a line of Nicaraguan regulars, the
lower left hand a fort near Managua, the capital. Both are copyrighted
by the Keystone View company. At the right is seen the United States gun­
boat Annapolis, landed marines and bluejackets.
congress and presi­
dential on his
hands, not only had
Sam been unable take
a vacation, but he has been obliged to
add to his chores by doing police duty
lr the Caribbean and the Pacific. First
it was the Cuban rebels, then the mal­
contents in Nicaragua, that' made, it
necessary for the navy to ''take up the
white man's burden" in those Latin
American republics Whose political
quarrels, as hot as their
climate^ have
again
led
to revolution.
I 1
trymen and countrywomen to the bril­
liant sociologist who seconded the
nomination of Theodore Roosevelt at
Chicago.
Miss Addams, who was a delegate at
large to the Progressive convention,
was one of twenty women who had
votes there, while five sat as alter­
nates. Nine states—New York, Massa­
chusetts, Illinois, Colorado, Georgia,
Utah, Tennessee, California and Mich­
igan—were represented by women.
One of them, Mrs. Charles D. Blaney,
had been a Roosevelt delegate from
California at the Republican conven­
tion. "The first citizen of Illinois" is
what the Addams enthusiasts—and
Chicago is full of them—call Miss
mm. My*
Ad­
dams. Her activities as head of
a
great social settlement bring her^nto
close and practical relations with most
of the problems with which the Pro­
gressive program of "social justice"
,,
The landing of bluejackets and ma­
rines from the gunboat Annapolis at
Corinto, the principal Pacific port of
Nicaragua, Wa!s requested by the gov­
ernment itself, which admitted its in­
ability to spare for the protection of
American property any of the forces
with which it was operating against
the rebels under Generals Zeledon and
Mena. The first of these is in general
command of the rebels, who call them­
selves Liberals the second is a former
minister of war.
Nicaragua traces most of her recent
troubles to the ambitions of Jose Ze
laya, who ruled the country despotically
for sixteen years and was deposed
from the presidency and sent into exile,
in 1910, through the Intervention of
Secretary Knox. This fierce and blood­
thirsty dictator impoverished his coun­
try by wars of conquest, having the
ambition to make himself the greatest
force in Central America. After his
downfall it was hoped that the coun­
try's shattered finances might be re­
paired through the refunding of the
national debt and the conclusion of a
loan to be sanctioned by the United
States government. But the treaty in
accordance with which the loan was to
be effected failed of ratification by the
United States senate, and the financial
embarrassments of the Diaz govern­
ment provoked another revolution.
Not only Nicaragua, but the neigh­
boring republic of Honduras, is in dire
straits, partly on account of the fail­
ure of
crops,
but largely because busl-
ness men in both countries ©ounted,^:.
^.r-
Vm#
•/M:
AT LAST THE MEN SEEK WOMEN'S KELP IN POLITICS
deals, and she Is expected to do yeo­
man service in speaking and writing
during the campaign. She, with Mrs.
Blaney, Miss.'Frances Kellor of New
York and Miss Jean Gordon of Louisi­
ana, were named members at large of
the Progressive national committee,
being the fliret women to be so distin­
guished in American politics.
Orgahizer of Women's Trade Union.
Another student of social conditions
who is enlisted in the Progressive army
for the Batue of Armageddon Is Miss
Mary Dreier of Brooklyn, who was a
confidently upon the ratification of the
loan conventions. The loan sought for
Nicaragua was $10,000,000, and the
Morgan syndicate and, later, the Whit­
ney Central Bank of New Orleans, of­
fered to make it under the terms of
the treaty. With their shelving, how­
ever, the demoralization of commerce
and industry set in at opce, and it was
then predicted that the two republics
would be in dire straits within a few
months. These predictions are now
fulfilled by actual conditions in both
countries, especially in Nicaragua. In
the latter republic the revolution, which
it was feared would follow the rejec­
tion of the treaties, has begun under
the leadership of General Mena, who
called his followers into the field when
his resignation was demanded.
So great is the need for outside help
that the American National Red Cross
has begun to purchase food supplies
for destitute Nlcaraguans, drawing
upon the coihmissary department of
the Isthmian canal commission.
Nicaragua is the largest of -the Cen­
tral American republics with the ex­
ception of Guatemala. It once belong­
ed, after the separation from 'Spain, to
the short lived Mexican empire of
Iturbide. Its population of'about half,
a million consists chiefly of Indians,
negroes and people of mixed blood.
The number of descendants of Span­
ish settlers is only 17,000. Although
possessed of magnificent natural re­
sources, the development of the coun­
try has lagged, the inhabitants seem­
ing to prefer fighting to agriculture or
manufacturing. Efforts to encourage
immigration have been unsuccessful.
The capital, Managua, which was
bombarded by the rebels, is the second
city of the republic, with a population
of 30,000. The soldiers of the regular
and rebel armies are not much to look
at, judged by American and European
standards but, like most ..Latin Amer­
icans, they are good fighters, and the
revolutions are often bloody^
For many years the chief Interest of
this country in Nicaragua lay in the
possibility of building an interoceanic
canal through its territory, by way of
the San Juan river and Lake Nica­
ragua. Commodore Cornelius Vander
bllt, in 1849, obtained from the Nica­
raguan government a charter to con­
struct such a canal, but the conces­
sion lapsed because of the nonfulfill­
ment of the conditions. It was the be­
lief that the Nicaragua route was the
best that led to the conclusion with
Great Britain lof the Clayton-Bulwer
treaty, which secured to the United
States the right to run the canal
through the Mosquito protectorate, a
British possession, on condition that
the neutrality of the waterway be
guaranteed. The Nicaragua route, in­
deed was in 1901 declared by a com­
mission appointed'' by President
Kinley to be "the most practicable and
feasible," chiefly on account of-the
financial difficulties in the way of ac­
quiring the Panama franchise. It has
been hinted that, in case of European
dissatisfaction with: American man­
agement of the Panama canal, the
Nicaragua project maybe revived, this
timewith the tackin^otto
mmm
ttWW.VAW^iX
S
Mq,-
iV/^T
delegate at large from New York. She
is a woman of means who has devoted
herself to the improvement of women's
working conditions and to this end has
organized the National Women's Trade
Union league, of which she is presi­
dent.
Mrs. Robert H. Elder, wife of a
prominent New York lawyer, was
elated at taking part in the convention.
She says it is glorious to be in politics.
But the Progressive women are not
the only active politicians of their sex.
The Socialists have long received wo­
OMETHING like 4,000 camps of
boy scouts have been scat­
tered over the country this
summer, and many thousands
of boys have enjoyed the opportunities
afforded by them for healthful exercise
in the open under the direction of
scout masters who are no less solici­
tous of their moral and intellectual
than of their physical development,
for, as Colonel Roosevelt, who is hon­
orary vice president of the Boy Scouts
of America, has said, the movement
"is in its essence a practical scheme
through which to Impart a proper
standard of ethical conduct, proper
standards of fair play, consideration
for others and courage and decency to
boys who have never been reached and
never will be reached by the ordinary
type of preaching, lay or clerical."
This moral purpose of the scouts is
insisted upon by all the leaders of the
movement, who are impatient at the
misunderstanding of those critics who
have derived it as making for mili­
tarism. One of the main reasons for
the recent visit to the United States
of General Baden-Powell, the founder
of the order, was to remove the im­
pression that the scouts were soldiers
-in the making and to impress upon the
public the fact that the boys were be­
ing trained merely for good citizen
'ship. These are some of the injunc­
tions which he lays upon the scouts:
"To learn cooking and camping and
how to look' after themselves in the
wild, whether on water or on land.
"To be manly, chivalrous fellows, es­
pecially by doing good turns daily,
however small, to the weaker and
smaller.
"To join together as troops. or pa­
trols in doing public service as a mat­
ter of duty and not with any idea of
being rewarded."
Following out this last injunction,
the boy scouts have allied themselves
with various movements looking to­
ward the improvement of civic condi­
tions. They have done excellent serv­
ice in the "cleanup" movement and for
the associated reform of .fly extermina­
tion. They have joined in the agita­
tion for a safe and sane Fourth and
are How to be utilized to. prevent fires
in town and country, in the latter par­
ticularly, by care in making and ex­
tinguishing their campfires.
The purpose of the scout masters
and others in authority is not to make
heroes of the youngsters, but* manly
men, good citizens, ready to take the
initiative -In civic work instead of
waiting for somebody else to say
"Come on!" Nevertheless the policy
of "doing good turns" every day, which
is one of General Baden-Powell's. pet
ideas, does work out particularly in
these outdoor experiences of the
scouts, in some 'deeds that the average
person regards as heroic. Only a few
months ago the property of a public
institution .in New Jersey was saved
from destruction' by lire through the
alertness of two boy scouts, who were
th* only persons o|i the sc^ne who re-
^/y..
h.
-v
men into their councils on an equality
with men, and this summer a woman,
Miss Anna A. Maley, a lecturer and
writer, was nominated for governor by
the Socialists ,of Washington, who
profess their belief in her election.
Mrs. Rose Pastor Stokes, whose hus­
band is a candidate on the Socialist
ticket for mayor of Stamford, Conn.,
is hardly more active in politics now,
though she is herself running for a
school commissionership, than she has
been for years in agitating for the
benefit of New York wage earners.
Women Working For Wilson.
Not only had the Democrats women
delegates at Baltimore (of whom Mrs.
Annie H. Pitzer of Colorado Springs,
sister of Speaker Champ Clark, was
one),- but they now have a. full fledged
woman's national Wilson and Marshall
Boy Scouts--Good Citizens In the Making
To give proper acknowledgment to
such deeds of courage the national
council of the Boy Scouts of America
has authorized an "honor medal" to be
conferred upon any scout who is
shown to have saved another's life at
the risk of his own.
The boy scout "movement, which now
counts about 300,000 boys as adherents,
has been indorsed by President Taft,
who became honorary president Colo­
nel Roosevelt, who became vice presi-
5f
Photos by American Press Association.
Boy Scouts In Camp Near NewYork.
dAt and later chief scout citizen, as­
suming in the latter' capacity direc­
tion of those activities pertaining es­
pecially to the' training of boys in "citi­
zenship ana social service, and by
ErnestKliiompsbn Seton, -chief scoutl
Glfford
Pinchot, formerly,
chief
forester
the UniUdStatea, becomingchief
sir-
organization, with headquarters in
New York, which will work through"
out the campaign for the success of
the Democratic ticket. Its chairman
and founder is Mrs. J. 'Borden Harri­
man, well known in New York smart
society, a member of the woman's de­
partment of the National Civic federa­
tion and an indefatigable worker in
the movement to secure pure milk for
New York city.
Republican Women Organized.
That the Republicans are following
the example of the Democrats and the
Progressives in making a strong bid
for women's votes and women's influ­
ence in the present campaign is indi­
cated by the activities of the Nation­
al Woman's Republican association
and the affiliated New York State Wo­
man's Republican association. A few
weeks ago Miss Helen Varick Boswell,
president of the former, and Mrs. John
Francis Yawger, president of the lat­
ter, both of whom had been attending
the convention of the General Federa­
tion of Women's Clubs in San Francis­
co, met in Seattle and mapped out a
plan of campaign for the country.
Miss Boswell is a woman of organis­
ing ability. She has long been engaged
in women's club work and a few years
ago went to the isthmus of. Panama,
at the request of the canal commis­
sion, and organized in the canal zonje
a federation of women's clubs. She
was for-a time connected with the WQi-r
fare department of the National Civic
federation and has spoken for Repub­
lican candidates in previous campaigns.
scout woodsman of the boy scouts, as­
sumed charge of the work relating t«
the development of trees and othet
natural resources.
The photographs here reproduced
are of the largest camp of boy scouti
in the neighborhood of New York.
EDWARD QUAYLE.
GAMBLING PROFITS.
Three brothers who ran for thirty
years_the casinosof Coburg, Aix-ies^
Bains and Pau have nested $150,000,000..
The present lessee.of the gambling tan
bles of the Bellevue and Municipal
ca
sinos of Biarritz "is a former
publle
house keeper/ He clears *400,000
a
and 4s worth ^6,000,000* A*
casino.like that
Dinan
yea*
'SimiM?
hak-f
former cafe waKer.