The San Francisco call. [volume], May 24, 1895, Page 8, Image 8

About The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913

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8
APOTHEOSIS OF WOMAN AT THE CONGRESS
Women! women! women! Legions of
them, swarms of them, floods of them in
undated the Woman's Congress at the
three meetings yesterday afternoon. They
crowded the seats and jammed the aisles.
They packed the galleries of the First
Congregational Church and they over
flowed the platform. The chancel was
filled with them, the organ loft was
thronged and the corridors were alive with
them. It was a woman's congress with a
vengeance— an apotheosis of women — and
the temerarious man who ventured into
the wilderness of spring millinery, per
fume and balloon sleeves was lucky to es
cape even with the loss of his antagonism
to woman suffrage.
And no man who attended the congress
yesto rday was bold enough to declare that
he had not experienced a change of heart
on the suffrage question. He might have
gone there a skeptic as to the necessity or
probable efficacy of woman's exercising
the franchise, but when the speakers in
the congress had finished there was little
left of him and nothing of his previous
convictions. In the language of the Jersey
farmer, he was a "gone gosling."
"Politics" was the theme, and the pot
boiled merrily on a red-hot fire of feminine
oratory against the old — the present —
order. The Rev. Anna Shaw, who is also
s bachelor of medicine, announced her
ardent desire to be a policeman to begin
with. She twisted her wrist as she swung
an imaginary billy on the hydra-headed
■wrongs of which she complained, and the
most near-sighted could easily see what she
would make, if given the opportunity. She
inveighed bitterly against the liquor traffic
and described the Government as a mod-
em minotaur in a labyrinth of saloons
calling upon the mothers of the country
to furnish forth on each new year 100,000
young victims to take the place of those
ehe claimed were yearly sent to destruction
by rum.
Miss Fhaw was terrific in her denouncia
tion of the obstinacy or the incompetency
of man, she did not know which, in the
direction of municipal affairs and sug
gested, what to her was the only remedy,
woman with a big W.
And Miss Susan B. Anthony. What a
grand reception she got from the crowds.
They applauded loudly at each of the ses
sions at her appearance on the platform,
and grew positively wild in their enthu
siasm at some of her very positive state
ments. The grand old "new woman" was
enough of a woman to appreciate the ova
tions, and during the entire day smiled and
beamed and bubbled over with joy at the
bucccss of the congress and the interest it
had excited.
But it was not the visitors alone who
made such an impression on the vast audi
ence. To Miss Sarah Severance of College
Park fell the honor of making the big hit
of the day and the session so far. Her ad
dress was so filled with unctuous humor,
bo exquisite in its irony, so clean in
its thru?ts at sham and pretension and
popular assumption, that she was encored
and encored again and, what is more, was
compelled to respond. Miss Severance is
the most convincing humorist in the West
to-day, and that means the country.
Not one of the speakers but handled her
subject in the most perfect manner. Mrs.
Alice Moore McComas, Mrs. Nellie Bles
sing Eyster, Mrs. Phillip Weaver, Mrs.
Ada C. Bowles, Mrs. Mila Tupper May
nard, all furnished burning thoughts on
the political aspect, and the other ladies
who joined in the discussion of the papers
presented struck the nail on the head
every time. They hammered diligently
away at old notions and never struck a
feminine thumb — which is more than the
"old" woman can say.
So great was the crowd last evening that
there was a great deal of talk about an
overflow meeting. Over 3300 people were
crowded into the church, and more than
1000 stood hopelessly in the streets half an
hour before the meeting, still half an hour
too late to reach the promised land of seats
within. It was decided, however, that no
overflow meeting would be held, and the
poor outsiders were fain to be content with
the prospect that the congress lasts two
days longer.
To-day and to-morrow the congress will
meet in the church, as it has been fully
proved that Golden Gate Hall is entirely
too small to accommodate the crowds that
press to the shrine of the priestesses of the
new women.
WEEDS AND FLOWERS.
Miriam Mlchelson Finds Both of
Them In the Woman's Con
gress.
One of the cleverest women in the con
gress said a very true thing the day it
opened.
"The new woman," said Eliza Tupper
"Wilkes, "has come, and with her her cari
catures; the exaggerations, the cranks who
accompany every movement and itali
cize it."
The speakers of the congress, of course,
are the flowers of this strange new plant
which has grown up in the United States.
That there should also be weeds and wild
varieties of the same species is not surpris
ing.
The women who are talking to thousands
of people every day at the First Congrega
tional Church are of three kinds: those
who are actuated only by conviction, those
who love notoriety for its own sake and
those who have the brains and ability to
think clearly and to act honestly and sin
cerely and to talk entertainingly.
The first class embraces those well-mean
ing followers, v.-hose tactless enthusiasm is
across which all reformers must bear; the
second comprises those to whom insignifi
cance is worse than death, and the third is
the soul of new womanhood, the model
which others will see and copy, the fittest
which will survive, the best and strongest
argument for woman suffrage.
Miss Anthony has convictions so strong
that they have outlived and triumphed
over ridicule, failure, vituperation and old
age. She has seen the world grow up to
her ideas, and now she occupies a unique
position in women's affections. Miss An
thony is a woman of strong intelligence,
of enduring friendships, of wide experi
ence. Like other veterans she loves to tell
of the battle she has won, but this is done
so impersonally, so modestly and with
such honest feeling, that even he who does
not approve of the victory must needs ap
plaud the victor.
HiSB Anthony has talked on various sub
jects in the congress, but for her all roads
must lend to the one destination. In her
opinion woman suffrage is vital, is immi
nent, is the step which must be taken be
fore further traveling is possible. Miss
Antnony's style of address is not at all
elegant. It is unmistakably sincere; it is
destitute of pretentious airs and graces; it
is thoroughly seif-unconscious. She deals
with practical things in a homely way. If
»be is at a loss for a word she is not at all
ashamed to ask for it ; if she loses the
thread of her argument she acknowledges
it; if the phrases and fashions of modern
Floods of Femininity Inundate the First Congregational Church to Learn Something
Concerning Politics and the Home.
topics are strange to her she uses her own
good sense to make principles of her own.
She never quotes from a book or an author.
She tells you what this man said to her,
what that woman said about her and she
has not spared the women of the congress
the history of their early heresy.
She has something to say and says it
forcibly and simply. But she is an actor,
not a talker — a woman of sense rather than
a woman of brains.
The Rev. Anna Sbaw has both sense and
brains. She is an impulsive, enthusiastic
speaker; her voice is full and very pleas
ant. Miss Shaw must be very good-na
tured and quite as quick-tempered. She is
impatient of shams, of cowardice and of
the patent, stereotyped objections to
woman suffrage. She has no particular
reverence for man's opinion simply be
cause it is man's. She speaks quickly and
clearly, using vigorous words, deadly sta
tistics and excellent judgment in the choice
of argument. She is always ready to speak,
and she is happiest in discussion, for she
is able to compress a thought into few
words, to pick out the sentimental flaw
in sentiment and to see the ridiculous side
of things.
Miss Shaw is original, quite fearless and
there is something very human about her.
She is the comedy element of the con
gress, but her humor is not undignified,
and when she is serious there is not a
woman in the hall whose speech is so ef
fective.
Charlotte Perkins Stetson is not so hu
man as Miss Shaw, nor so blunt as Miss
Anthony. Her comedy is largely face
comedy and her tragedy is too serious.
Yet she is the most graceful and the most
logical speaker in the congress. She knows
how to give weight to her words, and her
words are worthy of significant utterance.
Mannerisms and affectations aside and
Mrs. Stetson has not the self-unconscious-
ness which dignifies every utterance of
Miss Anthony and Miss Shaw, and which
is the redeeming feature of public speaking
for women. Mrs. Stetson is the pleasantest
and cleverest speaker of the congress.
Like Miss Anthony and Miss Shaw, she
never reads from a paper; her address is
delivered in a far-reaching, well-pitched
tone; there is not the appearance of effort
which detracts from one's pleasure in
most women's speaking, and she knows
when she has reached the logical end of
her subject and when it will be most effec
tive to stop.
If the women of the congress could vote,
these three women are the ones on whom
they would bestow political honors. The
speakers whose addresses are remarkable
only by reason of their egotism or their
ignorance would no doubt be solicitous
office-seekers, but they would not be
chosen to represent a body which includes
women of intellect, of good taste, of good
sense, of brains and of heart.
Miriam Michelson.
THE MORNING SESSION.
Feminine Views on Politics to Fit
the Needs of the
Day.
The First Congregational Church, with a
comfortable capacity for 3000 people, was
crowded yesterday morning when the
fourth day's session of the woman's con
gress was called to order. Half an hour
later the church was jammed.
"Politics in the Home" was the general
subject, and it was very evident that the
women and many of the men of San Fran-
Cisco were eager to hear the views of the
members of the woman congress on such
an all-absorbing topic.
The first paper, "Is the Family the Unit
nf th«» at? ?'• w»* intm«t» f ) tr. ♦ if. ™™
«*vr™ 11- m intrusted to the care
Of Mrs. Alice Moore McComas of Los An
geles, who was introduced by the president
as one of the most indefatigable and sue
cessful workers in the cause of woman in
*ho Stite
««Tw«iia i;i-» ♦«.»„«, *„ a » a \x
I would like to say a word," said Mrs.
McOomas, "which I have not as yet had
the opportunity to utter. On behalf of the
woman's parliament, the Friday Club and
my own club, the Woman's Suffrage Club
of Ins Antrploa 1 trhv* vnn an invitjtmn
*«\uSiA '"^SLfit «• * 6 « you an invitation
to hold your next congress in Southern
California.
ÜBS. J. li. THABF OF THE AUXILIARY BOARD.
"We receive the message with great
pleasure," said the president.
Amid the wannest kind of applar.se,
Mrs. McComas plunred into the middle of
her subject. She said, in part:
Of all : the institutions of government the
family is the oldest. Historians do not a?ree>
as to the exact process of ■ its formation, but
they all admit that from the family has come
every institution of civil : government. These
historians tell us -how," in early .times, groups
of individuals were formed into families, and
nrftin from these ' little groups of families and
kinsfolk clustered around & spring or along a
flowing stream, where they built their rude
huts and drank from the same water and tilled
the same soil, and finally grew into the state
or 'community.: at., first called r "Tunescipp«.."
We trace the progress of government from the
patriarchal : family, the Tunescippa, the one
hundred, the Councils, th« Saxon conquest,
the rule of the court of nobles, the military
reign, the shire, the parish, the ., Norman con
quest, with its feudal system, the divine right
of kings, : and ; finally our „ own colonies and
States, through revolution to evolution, until
to-day we have at least ft semblance in Amer
THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, FRIDAY, MAY 24, 1895.
icaoffree institutions and constitutions, the
highest existing form of government for man
kind. History shows that the family life of a
State colors the deeds and misdeeds of the gov
ernment of that State: as the family so the
State is; from the family life comes the na
tional life. It is needless to point to certain
States in our Union to illustrate this assertion.
It is a wise State that recognizes the impor
tance of the highest form of family life and,
from that potential factor, develops the funda
mental principles of an ideal government—
tnat almost indefinable something for which
we. as Americans, are striving.
Throuch all the evolution 6f Government
there has been but a proportionately slight
evolution of the family in the governing ser.se.
The "head of the fumily" is still popularly
supposed to be the man.
while the broad-minded, liberal-spirited
woman hns no disposition to take from man
any of his honor*, as a man, there are certain
reasons why she does not recognize innn as her
head. There are still those, however, who
think, because the family is the oldest human
institution, it should stand undisturbed as an
j unchangeable fixture in the moving universe;
j JJ 1 ,? 1 *" c mvi * l t , f me^,' 1 . ie « vi . th J, nat * M ™ in "
But it is absurd to' ignore the principle of
I evolutionary progress and improvement In one
afSff'fl&KKßS jfe^fw&ti"
•■ patriarch family to-day than we have with
j the Tunesclppa, the feudal system, priestly
! mummeries fabled heavens and hells, bloody
sacrifices, the wattle hut, the wooden plough or
the breech clout of barbaric ages. The family
: civilization must keep pace in evolution with '■
' the national civilization,
Ou * present civilization, however, counte- j
; nanc , es many wrongs. While it has made for- :
' ward strides in art, literature, invention and
scientific discovery, the body politic is full of ;
, social corruption and; economic disease. It is
th« victim of wild extravagance on the one
hand and abject penury on the other; and not
until these evils are eliminated and a more
equable standard of public wealth established
can we call ourselves civilized. But when the
whole family is recognized as the living em
; bodiment of a civilized government, there may
1 be a possibility of improving conditions which
now bring a slur upon our boasted love of . Jus
tice and Independence. The gradual emanci
pation of womanhood in the family will build
up manhood in the State. Nothing short of
this will enable women to hold power and in
fluence in the State. > - -
One of the most potent causes of the present
unrest and disorganization in our social ; and
industrial fabrics is the lack of self-control in
the people. Lack of moral responsibility in
families; the ', disposition , even among chil
dren, to overreach each other, is the result of
the common greed and excessive competition
which exists everywhere.- The temptations for
a life of ease and luxury are hard to resist and
graded {i O f°e.Xr h Hfi^nYWe'S
temptations wrong in* one sense. It is in
herent in all human nature to love the beanti
ful and the comfortable. -'■- As long as « these
privileges are obtained without dishonesty
and deceit it. improves the family and th«. in
dividual. But is it: right that we should have
in this land or plenty-this land where we are
told "every man is born free"-such conditions
of inequality as exist in the matter of wealth
and poverty, comfort and misery? . • - :
;Is it right for a few people to ■ lire in . almost
royal splendor while the many arc battling for
a pittance with which to keep soul and body
together? Can it ever be recognized as right
for a fractional part of this great Nation to own
and control the natural and acquired means of
sustaining human life while the multitude beg
for work even at the smallest compensation;
and receive only charity from those who iiave
pre-empted their rights to an independent
livelihood? Is it just that one Man's labor
increase* another man's wealth while the
laborer remains in poverty, and as a. result
sinks almost to the level of the beast of burden?
Until women in the family— ofttimes the
burden-bearers— realize this monstrous con
dition of affairs, and revolt against it in num
bers sufficient lo overthrow »uch glaring injus
tice, the State wjll remain as it is!
Why do 1 say women must do this? Because
the men have r.ot succeeded in doms it alone!
This new element must be brought into activ
ity. With the co-operation of men who realize
their need, it will, if wisely utilized. re-organize
our social and political systems.
So, the awakened woman reads the signs of
the times; is realizing the necessity of a larger
REV. ANNA H. SHAW.
field of action for herself and a broader train
ing for the family which is committed to her
charge. In the ideal families, even now to be
found among us, father and mother are work
ing together; the mother not less gentle, the
father not less firm, both combining their power
to rear to manhood and womanhood citizens
who will carry forward the highest interest of
the family which find their ultimate realiza
tion iii the perfectly developed nation— the
nation which is to build G«d's kingdom upon
earth. The state needs woman's help; the
greatest men of the state are calling for her
wise councils and swift intuitions. God
speed the woman who bravely lays aside her
natural shrinking from publicity and comes
forward to combat the present elements of dis
order, and even dishonor, that are insidiously
creeping into our American institutions. She
is responding to a divine call.
We are looking with hopeful hearts toward a
peaceful time when there will be more father
hood in the family and more motherhood in
the state ; when men and women, standing
Bide by side in the home life— that will also
mean a pure political life— will rejoice as
never before in true liberty. This time will
come only when governments cease to be in
strumentalities in the hands of kings, princes,
lords and bosses for the perpetuation and
support of tottering thrones, despotic mon
archies and rotten republics; when kings and
popes and lords and millionaires cease to be
parasites and plunderers and step down into
the rank and file of honest men ; when govern
ments shall be conducted not for the ag
grandizement of the few, but for the common
■welfare of the many. Then war shall cease.
Then that other fierce war — less bloody, but no
less fata! to human weal— the war of "com(
tive interests, in which men struggle to build
up self by downing and robbing their fellow
men,- shall also cease.
From the homes, from the firesides, let moth
ers' voices be heard in response to the bugle
blast that is sounding loua and clear for vol
unteers in the great cause of justice and hu
manity. Let the family, in the father with the
mother, the son with the daughter, join the
mighty hosts that are inarching from the old
to . the new— hoping for universal justice, uni
versal fraternity, universal equality to rule
supreme from the family— a permeating unit,
to the state, the sovereign power, guided by
the first law of earth and heaven united,
"Peace on earth, good will to man."
"My Quaker spirit moves me to say
something," said Miss Anthony, rising at
the conclusion of the paper.
"We are glad," said the president, "that
the Quaker spirit moves her."
"Ralph Waldo Emerson," began Miss
Anthony, "once said that men are what
their mothers made them. All of this
crimination about men and business
affairs and political affairs only Bets forth,
as in a mirror, the work of the mothers of
the United Stales. I want to say, as I said
in the late anti-slavery days, the very fact
that there was a nation of people willing
to live without protest against an institu
tion that bought and sold human beings
as chattels in market made it impossible
for these same human beings to be honest
or just in any other direction ; and I want
to say to you to-day that just as long as all
men conspire together, to rob women of
their right to a voice in the Government,
to rob women of a just share in the pro
ceeds of the labor of their own hands,' to
rob women of their right to individual ex
pression and to have that indivividual
1 cx P reßS on / counted in the ballot-box so
'■ Ion 5 .as m en are content to usurp the
rights, powers, privileges, earnings and
proceeds of the labor of one-half of the
people, it will be utterly impossible for
those men to be just to each other. They
will rob each other whenever they get. an
opportunity, because there is planted; in
their heart of lipirtc thio ■»4«m4la or rhi«r
CinfnrinP 3f"3?*lTT PT ln V ip . r ™..»«
}?£„ Principle , of their right to ; possess
themselves of and to own and control the
i possession of the women of the world,
"Now, the men in politics are maneuver
ing to gain ends by maneuvering, instead
! SS^^teT'She^xT^.'^-^J
I Patterning after the example of : the
i mothers in the home. Do not blame these
~ j boys in politics, the men ": in business,
i They are but carrying out on a larger
| scale the same maneuvers that their
mot hers taught " •,-,-"•;£•■-•/■".. • .
m". T VkT.- 4. , ■'■ . • . • „
, Alrs - Kline wanted to emphasize the
statements made by ■ Miss Anthony, al
though she rather excused the mother's on
the ground that their environment was not
such that they could bear properly bal
anced children.
Mips Sarah M. Severance of College Park
was called upon to pive her views on
"Suffrage and Safeguard."
After a few preliminary remarks of a
general nature concerning the argument
of men against the suffrage question about
"Dragging women down into the filthy
pool of politics," Miss Severance ventured
the assertion that woman was already sub
merged, and then she went on to describe
the pitiful condition of the little Johnnie,
the six-year-old son of the mother of the
land, wading through the political life.
Her satire was pointed and the audience
enjoyed the picture she drew.
"As little Johnnie walks the streets,"
she continued, "he remembers what his
mother has told him about being good and
noble and pure. But mother has no con
trol of the streets. On every side of little
Johnnie are traps that no mother has ever
sanctioned. He sees the very vices against
which she has cautioned him, and John
nie b»gins to think that mother i 3 a good
woman, but that woman do not under
stand that men must be measured by
man's gta.^dara. And so Johnnie goes
and does the very thine his mother has
| urged him not to do. He would risk his
life by fire or flood for her, but very few
boys are jroinp to measure their lives by
woman's standard.
"Why should not women vote? They
say it would drag woman down to the
le%'el of men. The anti-suffragists are very
complimentary to men, you sec. Well,
men are on all levels, home are in the
aepths and some are on the heights. We
I live with them 365 days in the year, and
j we go hand in hand with them to our mu
tual profit. Then what is there about poli
tics to change the nature of men and
i women in that one election hour of the
year? There is nothing degrading in poli
tics. Politics is the science of government.
It is God's law as to the correlation of
human beings. Nobody is degraded by
politics. The degradation comes by lear
ing it to the degraded.
"They say that if women should vote it
would take away a certain indefinable
grace that hedges around every woman.
Well, if the blush and the bloom about
which' you hear so much is to be
taken away, the sooner woman is un
bJushed and unbloomed the better for her.
And, as for woman's wonderful angelic
qualities, we have no authentic woman
angels, and it pains me to confess that the
only angels with whom I am acquainted
are Michael, Gabriel, Ariel and Sandalfo,
all glorilied men."
Miss Severance then went on to recite to
the congress some of the things the women
had asked the Legislature and the Gov
ernor of California to do for them. They
had asked that the age of consent in «irls
be raised to 18, and that a law be passed
to protect the cigarette boy from himself
and the paper-coffin nails which he
smoked. Both of them had failed for want
of the Governor's signature. They had
sought to have the lovely eschscholtzia
adopted as the State flower.and the matter
was referred to the very hard-worked Com
mittee on Public Morals, and after that
committee had duly sat upon the golden
poppy and declared it a highly moral
flower the Governor had failed to attach
his signature to it.
The effort of the Civic Federation to have
created a municipal investigating commit
tee, after the nature of the Lexow commit
tee in New York, was dwelt upon, as was
their final nnsuccess and the failure of the
movement to put a suffrage amendment
before the people of the State.
"A bill was passed," she continued, "to
place before the people of the State of
California a constitutional amendment to
allow the women to exercise the franchise
in the State of California and it failed.
Now, what position shall we take? What
must be the effect upon men in thus deny
ing to woman what they would rather die
thaii lose themselves — the power of self
government? What must be the effect
upon humanity of classing the mothers of
humanity with the most degraded of the
land ? We are not to blame for this condi
tion of things. It is a matter of inherit
ance. It has come to us from the dark
ages, from a time when politics meant lit
tle but war and plunder, and later it was
war and taxes. But politics has expanded,
until it covers every earthly interest. The
men have enlarged their boundaries in
proportion, but woman is still attached to
the middle ages. What a good tiling for
man and woman it is that he should dwell
in the nineteenth century and she be liv
ing in the year one.
"One of the first arguments against
giving the vote to woman," she said, "was
the best one — 'woman cannot sing bass,
therefore she cannot vote.' On top of this
they had piled another — 'woman cannot
sing bass, therefore she should not sing at
all. And so they bring in boys to sing
alto and soprano in the high" ritualistic
churches and the Chinese theaters to-day."
Miss Severance then related some highly
humorous stories of th* advent of women
into song in the most elaborately unctuous
manner. She brought down the house
time and time again. Then she returned
to the suffrage question again.
"About this amendment," she said,
"what shall we do? There are many men
who are always ready to share their every
gain with US. Shall we, by our apathy,
paralyze their friends or deliver the people
into the hands of their worst enemies —
every divekeeper, every saloon-keeper in
the State?"
The londest kind of applause followed
the last word of the speaker, every one in
the big auditorium joining; in. Miss Sev
erance had decidedly made the nit of the
congress, and the audience was disap
pointed at the time limit which had cut
her off. Everybody wanted to hear more,
and one woman in the gallery voiced the
sentiment of all when she moved that Miss
Severance be given ten minutes more for
any remarks she might choose to make.
"I move, before you nut that motion,"
said Mrs. Armstrong, "tn.it this Woman's
Congjess of California will pass a resolu
tion of protest so strong against our Gov
ernor, who refused to sign the bill raising
the age of protection, that no Governor
will ever dare refuse to sign such a bill
hereafter."
There were loud cries for Miss Sever
ance, interrupted by a voice from the body
of the church, "Why can't woman fight?"
"She can," replied Miss Shaw, whose
qnick ear had caught the inquiry, "but she
does not want to. She has other means of
training her ends than by righting."
Mrs. Ada Van Pelt echoed that senti
ment, as did Mrs. Sarah Pratt Carr, who
stated that if it were not for the women
there would be no men. and it certainly
was of as much importance to the state
that men be produced to fight as to be shot
down.
Miss Phcebe Couzins told a little anec
i dote of revolutionary days of a conversa
tion between a Britisher and General Put
nam. The Britisher hsd ventured the
assertion that 5000 English redcoats could
overrun the colonies in no time. "Old
Put" replied to this that "he didn't know
about the men, but he would stake his life
| that the women cf the colonies would beat
I out their Briti-h brains with their ladles
j and their broomsticks before they had gone
half through the country."
All the ladies present seemed of the
i opinion that "Old Put" knew what he was
J talking about, for they applauded his his
torian most heartily.
The next paper, "The home as a Polit'
cal Influence," was read by Mrs. Nellie
SIRS. WILKES.
Blessing Eyster of this City and was re
ceived with much pleasure.
There are two places, said the speaker.from
which we grasp the round world, the altar and
the hearthstone. From those we touch all
apes. Just as we might see. had we but vision
clear enough in the acorn th* branching oak
with hundreds oi summers murmuring in its
~» ™ S ' S 2 n the eround and seed-plot of homo
we may hare a prevision of the best conditions
of this world or the other.
Home is the seminary of all other institu
tions. There he the roots of all public pros
perity, the foundations of the state, the germs
of the church.
There is to be found all that in theohild
mates the future man and woman; all that in
the man and woman makes the good or bad
citizen There Ik no joy in life, there is no
misery in life like that growing out of the dis
positions which eon»ecrat«> or'deseerate a home,
and the state is but an aggregation of homes.
How shall we define politics? Pur* and
slmpl*it is the science of civil government or
| the management of the city, the state, the
, nation. It may be wise, prudent, sagacious
I an* discreet or it may be artful, cunning or
unscrupulous. It may be in form monarchi
cal, despotic or republics.!!. It must be one of
the three or affairs will go haphazard.
' Now, if the family is the unit of the state, if
from the home issues influences which shape
the polity by which that state is to be gov
erned, what should be the character of the
homes which possess such almighty power?
lien father and mother are in intelligent ac
cord, when they teach their offspring that the
basis of all public law is private virtue, that
the love of home is the foundation of a love of
country, that to defile the body by the falsely
so-culled "small vices" of alcoholism and to
bacco poisoning is to fetter and clog and
destroy the nerve channels .through which a
healthy sentiment should flow without any
obstructions, they do more for the anchorage of
our beloved national union than aught else.
Mrs. McComas of Los Angeles told the
audience about an interesting young gen
tleman of 22 who told her as a reason that
women should not vote that no one was tit
to hold the ballot who could not back it
with bullets. Miss Severance narrated an
anecdote about a young man, consump
tively inclined, who had the same
thinj:. "And his lunjrs were in such a
state that I think I could have fought bet
ter myself," said Miss Severance. Mrs.
Armstrong said that from the remotest
periods of history women had shown that
they could fight, if necessary, and Mrs.
Cruzan added words to the same effect.
Mrs. Sarah B. Cooper then introduced
U, G. Hubbard of Columbus, Ohio, the
president of the Peace Association of
Friends in America.
"Apropos of bullets," said this gentle
man, "I have been lecturing for the last
forty days in California in the interest
of arbitration versus bullets. I have also
been offering peace literature gratis to any
student who would write on peace and ar
bitration." Mr. Hubbard then offered
documents on the same subject gratis to
any lady of the W. C. T. Union who would
study, write or speak on peace and arbitra
tion.
"If you read the documents yon'll very
soon come to the conclusion that it is very
foolish for human beings to be splitting
one another's heads about boundary lines,
and when the women vote we shall have
no need for bullets— we shall have ballots."
Mrs. Eyster then told of a dream she
had of a legislative Utopia, where legis
lators promptly passed good bills and re
pealed bad ones, and hoped that the day
would not be far distant throughout the
land when that dream would become a
reality.
The appearance of Miss Anna Shaw,
reverend and bachelor of medicine, was
greeted with loud hand-clappings and
waving of handkerchiefs, and every person
present settled herself and himself as
comfortably as possible to hear what she
had to say on " The City and the
Home."
I know of no institution, said Mis 3 Shaw,
more dependent upon just and righteous gov
ernment than the home. Whatever tends 10
degrade government tends to degrade the
home; and especially is this true in regard to
city government— municipal government ; and
one of the interesting features of the present
hour is that all over our country in the na
tion'? municipalities women are organizing
themselves together in good-government clubs
to devise ways and means by which the city
can be better governed. This is a preparation
for the time when they will have some power
and some voice in the government of the city.
The home is the only institution in the world
in which the people having its responsibilities
and obligations upon them are absolutely left
without any power to control or regulate its
conditions. All men engaged in various kinds
of business have the power of the ballot, by
which conditions can be rcgulati-d, controlling
the life of their business, while women, wboae
principal business in the development of home,
the rearing of children and the development
of society at large, are left absolutely without
the power to direct and develop the home in
the same way.
Now, then, if it is the uniform business of
women to rear homes and bring up children, It
is the right of women to have the power of
building up homes and to rear children. But,
in this country no person has that power who
is not possessed of the ballot.
I live in Philadelphia, continued Miss Shaw
and I want to show you that men are incapable
of managing and controlling city governments
by themselves. I am not assuming that they
are not just, or that they are not honest, or
that they do not try. I believe they are honest
and just and that they do try. But they have
made egregious failure, and'the failure is not
through want of endeavor, but through lack of
ability.
Then Miss Shaw went on to show how in
her own town of Philadelphia th* mem
bers of the Board of Public Works had
failed utterly to comprehend street-sweep
ing, and she argued from this that women,
who knew how to handle either end of the
broom with equal facility, would bring
about a desirable and remarkable change
in this direction if given membership on
such boards. The new Mayor of New York
had shown his wisdom in this particular
by appointing two women on the Board of
Street Commissioners. Had he appointed
twenty women instead of two, said the
speaker, he would have shown a great deal
more wisdom.
For the reason that women knew more
about the training of children than men,
Miss Shaw argued that they should have
places on all school boards, and she in
stanced the case of Mrs. Claflin of Quincv
Mass., and showed how that woman had
brought about some remarkable reforms.
In the Police Department women are cer
tainly more interested than men, continued
Miss hhaw. Take the city of Xew York, for m
eiance. For years the policemen of that city
have been filling their purses with the lowest
vices of the women of the city. A gentleman
said to me the other day "If you women vote
you will have to be policemen," and I said I
have never aspired (o office in my life, but If
I wanted k favor or could make my selection I
would rather be a policeman in the city of
New York than be President of the United
States.
There has been one office I have longed for
and that is the office of policeman. What we
want in Ban Francisco ana in every other city
in the country is good women on tLe police
boards. If they were there, there would not
be one-thousandth part of the immorality
We have sot to have women on the police
board before Stales will be puntied. The cit
Yale's
Skin
Food
Removes wrinkles and all traces
of age. It feeds through the
pores and builds up the fatty
membranes and wasted tissues,
nourishes the shriveled and
shrunken skin, tones and invig-
orates the nerves and muscles,
enriches the impoverished blood
vessels, and supplies youth and
elasticity to the action of the
skin. It's perfect.