That the New York State Federation should be called upon to attest its
love, devotion, and admiration for Mrs. Croly and her wonderful work
among women, is a privilege we appreciate, and I shall try in a few
simple, honest words, to explain a little of what her influence has
been to the New York State Federation. We all know she was an
organizer and founder, but it is well to repeat those words, although
I think there is little danger that we shall ever forget them. From
all over the State have come messages to me from different members of
the federation, expressing their love and obligation to Mrs. Croly for
what she has done for them individually, and for the State. One letter
said:
"I shall think of her always as that lovely, sweet-tempered
woman who, under the most trying circumstances, never lost
her temper, or felt she was at all aggrieved. She took it in
the right way, and was just as lovely and kind at the close
as at the beginning."
I saw her at Friendship, a little town in the northwestern part of the
State, before the meeting at Buffalo, and there we had a long talk
about matters of Federation interest. She gave me some good advice in
her own gentle way, that I shall never forget, and I am only too glad
to have this opportunity of saying it helped me to carry through that
convention as I could not have done otherwise.
What was the secret of her power as an organizer? I think this--she
saw the little spark of good in each woman, every woman she came in
contact with, and even in those she did not come in personal contact
with. She knew it was there and she had the ability to call it forth,
and that magnetic influence drew them together, so that they realized
that they could do more in large numbers than they could as
individuals. Knowing our power, she urged and encouraged us to do our
best. When with her we did not feel as though we had a "specked" side.
I think it was just that that gave her power and influence in the
clubs she founded, to make them live and be a greater power than ever
they could have been without her memory and example set before them.
She has done good work, and started us on a task that she saw had
practical possibilities, and now we can carry out those ideas of hers,
and give them force in years to come. It may take a long time, but we
will keep on being patient, cheerful, kind-hearted, and considerate,
as she was. Let us therefore be grateful we had her as long as we did.
She was for us a grand inheritance, and let us appreciate it.
Address by Carrie Louise Griffin, President of the Society of American
Women in London
If I could only command that physical self as I would like to, I would
tell you how grateful I am to be privileged to speak, and how much I
think we have to be thankful for to-day, in the life of our dear one,
which was given us.
I am new in this club, and, as most of you know, my friendship with
Mrs. Croly is not yet three years old, but I have been singularly
privileged and honored in loving her, and in the love which she gave
me.
She came into my life (I must be just a little personal for a moment)
as our first luncheon, in our little Society of American Women in
London, was about to be given. The president of Sorosis had written to
London saying: "Do you know that Mrs. Croly and Mrs. Glynes are to be
in London, and I think they would help you?" Bless her, and Mrs.
Croly: she came as a benediction to the few of us who were then
novices in what we were doing. I can never tell you what a benefit she
was to us in the difficult work we had undertaken. You have given me
exceptional privileges in coming among you, and I am grateful for the
help you have been to me, but I would say to you--and you have given
me this privilege--I have never met a woman who seemed to have
recognized the birthright in women as the birthright in men, to create
that link which binds our powers to our intellect. It seems to me that
it was with Mrs. Croly as it was with our late Majesty, Queen
Victoria, that she was an influence, perhaps, rather than a power. She
conceived great ideas and passed them on for the executive work of
others to fulfil. I can assure you she was everything to us. Her
English birth gave her an instinctive insight into English character.
English women seemed to know and understand her, as she knew and
understood them, and there has been no finer link between the women of
America and the women of the Old World than Mrs. Croly. It was my
privilege to be with her personally a great deal while in London, not
only when she stayed in my own house, but when I have gone back and
forth with her as her guide to the many functions we attended
together. We can all be proud of her. Wherever she went she was not
only hailed as the pioneer woman, but also as one who did honor and
credit to the name of American womanhood, for, although born in
England, she still claimed that she was an American woman, as you
know.
I shall never forget a little picture she gave of herself one day.
She told us of her life in her home in a little town in the north of
England. Her father was a Unitarian, and often had classes in his
house for teaching the working people. His views, as you may imagine,
were quite contrary to the views of the orthodox Church of England,
and the people there rebelled, stoned the house, and wanted to turn
them out of the town. The mother said to the father: "I wish you would
take little Jennie by the hand, in her white frock, and lead her out
to the people; perhaps when they see her they will not throw stones."
That was her earliest memory of that little English town. Later, I
believe, they left in the night and came to America, in order that
they might live out the courage of their faith.
At our luncheon Mrs. Croly said: "I want English and American women to
love each other. I remember with pride and honor my English birth. I
can see my little room now--a small room with a lattice window over
which the roses grew, and as I stood at the window on tiptoe, I could
look into the old-fashioned garden below. I stood on an old chest. In
the winter my summer frocks were kept there, and in the summer my red
woollen dress. I loved it; it was beautiful, and it made me love
England. When I am in England and I hear anything not quite kind about
America, I am sorry and my heart aches, and if, when I am in America,
I hear something not quite kind about England, my heart aches again,
because I love it all."
In talking with Mrs. Croly, she said to me, "I hope some day you will
come to a General Federation." Quoting Matthew Arnold, she said: "If
ever the world sees a time when women shall come together, purely and
simply for the benefit and good of mankind, it will be a power such as
the world has never known." And she said, "There you will find it." We
had talked about it and looked forward to seeing it together, but that
will never be. It was her hope and dream that there should be such a
General Federation of clubs as to bring in the women of the Old World
with the Federation of Clubs in the New, that we might stand hand in
hand together. She said to me, "I think you are narrow in your
society--its members are only Americans." We have often talked this
over, and have decided that in order to strengthen our centre we must
keep it, at present, to American woman; but it may be possible to have
an associate membership--the thin edge of the wedge looking toward the
realization of her dreams.
Address by Cynthia Westover Alden, Vice-President of the Women's Press
Club, and President of the International Sunshine Society
Mrs. Croly has left us. Yet I cannot think of her work as ended, of
her mission as closed. You may go over every line she ever wrote, you
may recall with, microscopic exactness every word she ever spoke,
without finding one single grain of bitterness towards any human
creature. Her active life was such as must find the ripe continuance
of its activity in the better country whither she has preceded us. I
feel that there is no hyperbole in applying to her memory the striking
words of Lowell's Elegy on Dr. Channing:
"I do not come to weep above thy pall
And mourn the dying-out of noble powers;
The poet's clearer eye should see in all
Earth's seeming woe, seed of immortal flowers.
"No power can die that ever wrought for truth;
Thereby a law of Nature it became,
And lives unwithered in its blithesome youth,
When he who called it forth is but a name.
"Therefore I cannot think thee wholly gone;
The better part of thee is with us still;
Thy soul its hampering clay aside hath thrown,
And only freer wrestles with the ill.
"Thou art not idle; in thy higher sphere
Thy spirit bends itself to loving tasks,
And strength to perfect what it dreamed of here
Is all the crown and glory that it asks."
The women of America owe much to Jenny June. By example she showed
them that the career of letters was open to them. Her style, cheerful
and vivid, sometimes epigrammatic, always entertaining, was her own.
It could not be copied, it could not be imitated, it stood by itself;
her career, filled with a large measure of the courage of her success,
belonged in the broadest sense to women as women. How many worthy
ambitions that career has stimulated to fruition we know not, and
never shall know. One thing, however, is certain--that if you deduct
from the literature of America the names of women who have followed
Mrs. Croly's example and have been cheered by the fact that she did
not fall by the wayside, you leave a void that never could be filled.
How consciously they have been affected by Mrs. Croly's blazing path I
cannot tell; but the influence has been none the less real and none
the less powerful.
Woman's battle for literary recognition will not have to be fought
over again: it belongs to the past. The old contempt of editors and
publishers, aye, and of readers as well, has gone to join slavery and
polygamy and human sacrifices in the chamber of horrors. But we can
never forget the woman who braved that contempt, and faced it down by
achievement that could not be ignored. Mrs. Croly belonged to the
period of that early struggle. In her sweetness of temper she lent to
its very asperities the charm of a tournament, overcoming evil with
good, and triumphing at last over prejudice which thousands of women
had feared to face. We loved her for herself. We are sad in spite of
ourselves that she has gone. But we shall only remember her as one of
the greatest benefactors of woman in literature; one of the most
delightful of all the delightful characters that we have ever known.
"This laurel leaf I cast upon thy bier;
Let worthier hands than these thy wreath entwine;
Upon thy hearse I shed no useless tear--
For us weep rather thou, in calm divine."