In the exhibition of fine paintings it is important to have the
benefit of proper light and shadow. So it should be in the study of
questions. Those who look at the new woman through the distorted lense
of false education or prejudice, see the monstrosity such as we have
pictured in the public press. They see Dr. Mary Walker, whose dress
offends our sense of propriety; they see the ranting woman on the
platform, or suffragettes throwing stones through plate-glass windows,
and defacing costly specimens of art. These no more represent the
genuine new woman I indorse, than does the goggled-eyed, kimbo-armed
dandy represent true manhood. Fanaticism marks every new movement,
every life has its defect, the sun its spots and the fairest face its
freckles.
The new woman is not to be judged by exceptions, nor is she to be
measured by the standard of public sentiment. Public sentiment has
often condemned the right. It ridiculed Columbus; put Roger Bacon in
jail because he discovered the principle of concave and convex glass;
condemned Socrates, and jeered Fulton and Morse. It pronounced the
making of table forks a mockery of the Creator who gave us fingers to
eat with, and broke up a church in Illinois because a woman prayed in
prayer meeting.
Hume said: "There is nothing in itself, beautiful or deformed. These
attributes arise from the peculiar construction of human sentiment and
affection; the attractiveness or repulsiveness of a thing depends very
much upon our schooling."
Prof. John Stuart Blackie wore his hair so long that it almost reached
his waist. Seated one day in front of a hotel in London, a bootblack
halted before him and said: "Mister, will you have a shine?"
Professor Blackie replied: "No, but if you will go wash that dirty
face of yours I will give you the price of a shine."
The boy went but soon returned with his rosy cheeks cleansed, saying:
"Sir, how do you like the job?"
"That's all right; you have earned your sixpence," said Prof. Blackie
as he held out the coin.
The bootblack turning away said: "I dinna want your sixpence; keep it,
old chap, and have yer hair cut."
The long hair of Professor Blackie was as offensive to the boy as the
dirty face of the boy to Professor Blackie. One had been schooled to
short-haired men, the other to cleanly children.
I have in my presence now scores of persons, who believe the sale of a
negro on the auction block in the South to the domination of a white
man was wrong. I did not think so in my youth. My schooling was that
Japheth was a white man, Shem a red man and Ham was black; that it was
a divine decree that the descendants of Japheth should dwell in the
tents of Shem and send for the children of Ham to be their servants,
thereby supporting the white man in his dealings with the black and
red races. As the Bible was used to justify slavery, so it is quoted
today in favor of the liquor traffic, and against the new woman
movement. Yet it's the Bible that has given woman her broader liberty.
It was the Bible that broke the chains that harnessed woman to a plow
by the side of an ox. In the vision of John, a woman is crowned with
stars, the burnt-out moon is her footstool and the wings of a great
eagle given to bear her above the floods that would engulf her.
The viewpoint of schooling has much to do with our convictions and
prejudices. When the bicycle craze first came upon us, women bicycle
clubs were formed throughout the country. Wheels were made specially
for woman, and to facilitate the pleasure and comfort, bloomers were
worn by women in all our cities. The fat and lean, tall and short, old
and young wore bloomers. At that time if a man from the country
neighborhood where I was reared, one given to dancing, had gone to
Chicago and seen these bloomer-clad women, he would have thought the
whole sex disgraced. And I must admit I didn't like the bloomer girl
myself. I can appreciate the Yankee farmer who lived between Boston
and Wareham, Mass. A young woman who lived in Boston had a friend in
Wareham, and donning her bloomers she mounted her wheel and started
for the village. Passing several diverging points, and thinking
possibly she had missed the right road, she decided to inquire at the
next house. Seeing the Yankee farmer at the front gate she rode up,
dismounted and said: "Sir, will you please tell me, is this the way to
Wareham?"
The farmer, with eyes fixed upon the new garb, said: "Miss, you'll
have to excuse me. I can't tell you, for I never saw anything like
them before."
I said our opinions are based upon schooling. Let the man from the
dancing community leave Chicago, go back to Kentucky, attend a country
ball, see a young woman with low neck dress and short sleeves, in the
arms of a man she never met before, and he thinks her the picture of
propriety, as well as grace and beauty. Yet the bloomer girl was
completely clad from her chin to the soles of her feet while the other
is so un-clad that when a woman, now noted for her great work among
the unfortunate of New York City, was a society leader, and was
passing through her library to her carriage one evening, her little
son said: "Mama, you are not going out on the street looking that way,
are you? Why, you are scarcely dressed at all." The mother realizing
as never before, the immodesty of her attire, returned to her room,
changed her apparel to what met the approval of her boy, and has never
since worn a decollete gown.
Let a respectable woman in this town stand on a street corner
to-morrow, and utter an oath; she would shock every one within sound
of her voice. A man can "cuss" to his satisfaction and, if not a
church member, the community is not shocked. Let a young woman seeking
a position in a public school in one of our cities, call a member of
the school board into a saloon and order beer set up for two; would
she get the position? Not much. Not if the community found it out, or
the remainder of the board who were slighted. A man can invite a dozen
men into a saloon, order drinks for the company, and thereby help to
win the position he seeks. In the city where I reside a young man can
get drunk and howl like a wolf through the streets, yet if he has
wealth and family influence, in ten days he can attend a social
gathering of the best society. Let a young woman step aside from the
path of right and she is hurled to the depths of the low-land of
vices.
Some years ago a young man died in our city whose family name was
honored and whose father was wealthy. The young man went the pace that
kills and in the very morning of life died a victim to his vices. A
long line of carriages followed him to our beautiful cemetery, his
pall bearers were from the leading families of the city; flowers
covered his grave and the daily papers paid a tribute to the young man
cut down before the river of life was half run.
Soon after, a poor girl died in one of the wicked dens of the city.
She had been left an orphan in early life without a mother's love to
guard and guide her, she went astray. Two carriages followed her to
the stranger's burying ground. In one were two of her kind; in the
other the pastor of the church of which I am a member. He afterward
said to me: "We had to get two negro men at work near by to help lower
her body into the grave."
No wonder woman cries out against these standards, these peculiar
constructions of human sentiment. Public sentiment demands of a man
that he shall be physically brave. If a woman appeals to him for
protection, his bosom must heave with courage like the billows of the
ocean, though he quake in his boots. Yet the woman he defends will
endure pain without a murmur, which would make the man groan for an
hour. When my wife is ill it takes about two days to find it out; she
does not seem so cheerful the first day, and the second, she will
admit she is not so well. Let me get sick, and the whole family will
know it in half an hour.
I know a woman will scream if a mouse runs across the floor, but give
her a loved one to defend, let supreme danger come and she's no
coward. John Temple Graves tells of a Georgia girl so timid she was
afraid to cross the hall at night to mother's room. She married a
worthy young man and by industry and economy they paid for a cottage
home. He began to cough, and the hectic flush told his lungs were
involved. The doctor advised a change of climate.
"We'll sell the home," said the little wife, "and go where the doctor
advises, for the home will be nothing to me if you are gone."
They went to Florida and knowing they must husband their small means,
she took in sewing. A few months later the doctor advised a higher
altitude. They went to a little city in the Ozark mountains. Here
again she plied her needle, wearing upon her face by day a smile to
cheer her husband, while at night her pillow was wet with tears as she
heard him coughing his life away. After several months she was
informed by physicians that but one chance in a hundred remained, and
that was still further west.
"I'll take the hundredth chance," she said, and on west they went.
Soon after, in the far-away city he died; she pawned her wedding ring
to make up the price of tickets back to Georgia. There the little
widow buried her dead by the side of his mother, and after planting
her favorite flowers about the grave, she turned away to face the
duties of life, and though a dead wall seemed lifted before her, she
met each day with a smile and hid her sorrow beneath the soul's altar
of hope.
Man has won his title to courage upon battlefield, and yet the
battlefield is not the place to test true courage.
"The wife who girds her husband's sword,
'Mid little ones who weep or wonder,
And bravely speaks the cheering word,
E'en though her heart be rent asunder:
Doomed nightly in her dreams to hear
The bolts of death around him rattle,
Hath shed as sacred blood as ere
Was poured upon the field of battle."
When elbows touch, ten thousand feet keep step together, martial music
fills the air, the shout of battle is on, bayonets glitter in the
sunlight, the flag flutters in the breeze, and the general commands,
men will shout and rush into battle who without these stimulating
influences would be going the other way. I remember when a boy how
whistling kept up my courage in the dark. It is told of General Zeb
Vance of the Confederate army, that while leading his forces across a
field into an engagement he met a rabbit going the other way. As the
hare dodged around the command, General Vance lifting his hat said:
"Go it, Mollie; go it, Mollie Cotton-tail; if I didn't have a
reputation to sustain I would be right there with you."
For Christine Bradley, the eighteen-year-old daughter of the Governor
of Kentucky, to stand on the dock at Newport News, against the customs
of centuries and facing the jeers of prejudice, baptize the battleship
Kentucky with water, required as blood-born bravery as coursed the
veins of the ensign who cut the wires in Cardenas Bay, or the
lieutenant who sunk the Merrimac in the entrance to Santiago Harbor.
Because she dared to violate a long-established custom by refusing to
use what had blighted the hopes of many daughters, sent to drunkards'
graves so many sons, and buried crafts and crews in watery graves, the
Woman's Christian Temperance Union presented her with a handsome
silver service. I was chosen to make the presentation speech, which I
closed by saying: "Heaven bless Christine Bradley, who by her example
said:
I christen thee Kentucky,
With water from the spring,
Which enriched the blood of Lincoln,
Whose praise the sailors sing.
I christen thee Kentucky,
With prayers of woman true,
That wine, the curse of sailors,
May never curse your crew.
I christen thee Kentucky,
And may this christening be,
A lesson of safety ever
To sailors on the sea."
Now if public sentiment has made such a mistake in the allotment of
virtues, why may it not have made a greater mistake in the allotment
of spheres? It has been well said: "God made woman a free moral agent,
capable of the highest development of brain, heart and conscience;
with these are interwoven interests that involve issues for time and
eternity, and God expects of woman the best she can do in whatever
field she is best fitted for the accomplishment of results for the
world's good." If a young woman is fitted to preside over a home, and
some young man desires to crown her queen of that realm, she can find
no higher calling in this world. There is nothing on this earth more
like heaven than a happy home. I can give to a young woman no better
wish than that the future may find her presiding over a home made
beautiful by her character and culture, and safe through her
influence.
But if a young woman is qualified like Frances E. Willard to better
the world by public life-work, or like Florence Nightingale or Jane
Addams to relieve the suffering of thousands, then she should not
confine herself to the limited sphere of one household. I believe in
the call of capacity for usefulness in both sexes. There are men who
are called to be cooks; they know the art of the caterer. There are
men fitted to be dressmakers; they know the colors that blend and the
styles which give beauty to dress. There are women who are fitted for
science, literature and medicine. Some of the best cooks we have are
men; some of the best writers and speakers are women. Abraham Lincoln
never did more by his proclamation to free the slave, than did Harriet
Beecher Stowe with "Uncle Tom's Cabin." William E. Gladstone never did
more to endear himself to the people of Ireland by his advocacy of the
home-rule, than has Lady Henry Somerset endeared herself to the common
people of the "United Kingdom," by turning away from the wealth,
nobility and aristocracy of England to devote her great heart, gifted
brain and abundant means to the elevation of the masses, the
reformation of the wayward, and the relief of the poor.
There is a fitness that must not be ignored. Frances E. Willard would
never have made a dressmaker. It is said she did not know when her own
dress fit, or whether becoming; she depended upon Anna Gordon to
decide for her. But by the music of her eloquence and the rhythm of
her rhetoric, she could send the truth echoing through the hearts of
her hearers like the strain of a sweet melody. Worth, of Paris,
France, would not have made an orator, but he could design a robe to
please a princess and make a dress to fit "to the queen's taste." Then
let Worths make dresses, and Frances E. Willards charm the world by
their eloquence.
Yonder is a boy. His soul is full of music; his fingers are as much at
home on the key-board of a piano as a mocking-bird in its own native
orange grove. His sister is a mathematician; she solves a problem in
mathematics as easily as her brother plays a piece of music. Because
one is a boy and the other a girl, don't make the girl teach music and
the boy mathematics. What God has joined together in fitness, let not
false education put asunder.
Recently I read of a man whose father left him a large business.
Though an exemplary man he could not make ends meet in a business out
of which his father had made a fortune. The man worried himself into
nervous prostration. While he remained at home for rest, his wife took
charge of the business and made of it a great success. I say let that
woman run the business and the man take care of his nerves.
I know a minister who is a good man, but his strength is in his limbs.
He's an athlete, but turn him loose in a field as full of ideas as a
clover field of blossoms, and he can't preach a good sermon. Let Dr.
Anna Shaw enter the same field and she will gather blossoms of thought
faster than you can store them away in your mind. Some one in my
presence may believe the man should keep on preaching and Anna Shaw go
to the sewing-room and run a sewing machine; but I say if the man's
strength is in his limbs, and Doctor Shaw's in her head, let the
preacher run the sewing machine and Doctor Shaw preach the gospel of
righteousness, temperance and judgment to come. If God fitted Anna
Shaw's brain and tongue for the platform, it would be unwomanly in her
to make herself the pedal power of a sewing machine. We want
successful, useful men and women; and in fields for which God has
fitted woman, don't be afraid to give her the freest, broadest
liberty, or be uneasy about her unsexing herself. She has entered two
hundred fields in the last one hundred years. Yes, I guess one more
field must be added, for I saw a woman a few years ago in an
occupation I had never seen one engaged in before. In a city where I
lectured a beautiful, intelligent young lady was running the elevator
of a hotel, and I was completely "taken up" by her.
Of all the new fields entered by woman you cannot point to one where
she has degraded her womanhood, or one that has not been blessed by
the touch of her influence.
It is true there are fanatics among women as there are among men, but
if the extreme woman goes too far, the average woman will call a halt
every time. Fifteen years ago I could stand on Michigan Avenue,
Chicago, in the evening and within a half hour count twenty young
women, dressed in bloomers, riding bicycles. Now one may go to
Chicago, spend a year and not see one. Woman is safe enough.
Some are uneasy lest woman will go beyond her sphere, but I am not so
much disturbed about the future of woman as I am of man. Upon virtue
and intelligence depends the future of this republic. Have men all the
virtue? Go to the saloons; are they frequented by women? No; _men_. Go
to the gambling halls; are they crowded with women? No; _men_. Go to
the jails and penitentiaries; are they full of women? No; _men_. Go to
the churches; are they crowded with men? No; mostly by women. What
about intelligence? Have men all the intelligence? Two girls graduate
from high schools to one boy. I am glad to be living now; one hundred
years hence, if I were to be born again, I would want to be a girl.
Woman goes to the door of death to give life to man and man should be
willing to let her seek out her own sphere for usefulness.
Not long since I read a book called "The New Woman." It was a novel by
an Englishman. In it the author takes a beautiful young girl, about
eighteen years of age, through a "Gretna-Green" experience with a
young man of twenty. She is the daughter of a widow; he, the only son
of a wealthy London merchant. They run away and after a month's search
are found by the father of the young man in southern France. The girl
is sent home to her mother; the young man sent to India in order to
get him far away from his wife. The novelist makes the young man a
noble character, who is determined to prove himself worthy of his
wife, and he toils to send her means for support. The young wife
becomes a mother, and the young husband toils the harder to care for
his wife and babe. When time hangs heavy on the hands of the young
mother, she is invited to join a woman's club. Here she imbibes the
spirit of the new woman. She soon neglects her child and appears
before the public for a lecture. She wears a low neck dress, paints
her cheeks, blondines her hair, smokes cigarettes and drinks wine. A
millionaire in India, who loses his own son, adopts the hero of the
novel, dies and leaves him the great estate. Then the young man
hurries back to his wife. He arrives in the evening, but finds she is
not at home; she is delivering a lecture in the opera-house. He awaits
her return; a storm rages outside; at a late hour she enters the door,
throws off her wraps and stands before her husband, with blondined
hair, painted cheeks, and eyes red with wine. He stares, then starts
toward her, when she brings him to a halt by her strange manner. He
asks, "Is not this my wife?" she answers, "No, I am the New Woman."
She refuses to let him see their child, drives him out into the storm,
then goes to her room, disrobes and lies down to dream of great
audiences and applause.
It is an insult to any intelligent reader. Where is the woman, who was
a sweet, modest young mother, and who today is a public speaker, who
has neglected her child, driven her husband without cause into the
street, blondines her hair, paints her cheeks, drinks wine and smokes
cigarettes? She would be hissed from the platform. The author simply
shows his extreme prejudice in an abstract attempt to prove that to be
a new woman means the surrender of all womanly graces.
Let me give you, not fiction but real history, that I may present to
you the kind of new woman I indorse. She was born in the State of New
York, was well educated, and at proper age married a young physician.
They moved to a western city, where for a while the young physician
did well; but in an evil hour he commenced to drink. Like many a noble
young man, he was too weak to resist the power of appetite, and soon
his practice left him. His wife, the mother of two boys, secured a
position in the public schools and by her ability, won her way to a
principalship. The husband wandered away, while the brave wife and
mother remained with her children, but followed her husband with
letters of loving appeal. After long separation he was taken seriously
ill in the far Southwest. She left children, home and school work to
go to his bedside. Her watchful care brought him back from the very
door of death, and her prayers were answered in seeing him forsake the
cup and hide for safety in the cleft of the Rock of Ages. He returned
with her to their home, but soon after passed away. She buried him
beneath the green Missouri sod, planted flowers about the grave, paid
him tribute of her tears, and returned to her work.
In the course of these years she had joined the Woman's Christian
Temperance Union and was recognized as one of its greatest leaders.
Several years ago I gave an address in Hot Springs, Ark. A card was
presented at my door, which bore the name of the heroine of my story.
Going to the parlor I said: "What are you doing here?"
"My boy has been very ill with rheumatism and I have been here with
him for several weeks. He is better now and I return to my work
tomorrow."
Months later she was called again to the bedside of this son, and with
all the tenderness of mother-love, he was cared for until he too
passed over the river. Again she took up her work on the platform,
where she inspired many young women to do their best in life, and
called many to righteousness. She was the salt of the earth, the
embodiment of nobility, the soul of truth; and not only her own state
but the whole country is better because she lived.
Ask the author of the novel for the _real_ to his story; he cannot
name her; she does not live in England or America. Ask me for mine and
I answer Clara C. Hoffman, for years the associate of Frances E.
Willard as national officer of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union,
and state president of the white ribboners of Missouri.
In a magazine article an author said: "Out of one hundred and
forty-five graduates of a certain female college, only fifteen have
married." A Chicago editor quoted the statement and asked: "Is it
possible education breeds in woman a distaste for matrimony and home
life?" In the first place, I would answer: "You never can know how
many are going to marry until they are all dead."
Another explanation is that the average school girl goes out of school
at that impulsive age when "love acts independent of all law, and is
subject to nothing but its own sweet will," no matter how many years
father has toiled to give her the comforts of life, nor how many
sleepless nights mother has spent to give her rest. She meets a young
man; he is handsome, dresses well and talks fluently. She falls in
love, and sees in "love at first sight," the "inspiration of all
wisdom." In a week, though she knows nothing of the young man's
character or disposition, she is ready to say to her parents: "I
appreciate all you have done for me: I love you devotedly, but I have
met such a nice fellow; he has asked me to marry him, and I have
accepted; ta-ta!" She's gone. If her parents ask about the prospect
for a living, she answers as did the young girl whose father said:
"Mary, are you determined to marry that young man?"
"I am, Father."
"Why, my child, he has no trade, no money, and very little education;
what are you going to do for a living?"
She replied: "Aunt is going to give me a hen for a wedding present.
You know, Father, it is said one hen will raise twenty chickens in a
season. The second season, twenty each, you see, will be four hundred;
the third season, eight thousand; the fourth season, one hundred and
sixty thousand; and the fifth season, only five years, twenty each
will be three million, two hundred thousand chickens. At twenty-five
cents each they will bring eight hundred thousand dollars. We will
then let you have money enough to pay off the mortgage on the farm and
we will move to the city."
To a girl in love, every hen egg will hatch; not a chicken will ever
die with the gapes; they will all live on love, like herself, and
everything will be profit.
The college girl cannot marry at this impulsive, air-castle age. She
must wait until she gets through college. By that time she is old
enough for her heart to consult her head, and her head inquires into
the character and capacity of the young man. Beside this, it has been
the custom for women to look up to man, and when the college woman
looks up, quite often she doesn't see anybody. Young man, if you want
the college girl you must "get up" in good qualities to where she will
see you without looking down.
I believe this higher education for women will tend to arrest the
recklessness by which life is linked with life at the marriage altar.
There is a legend among the Jews that man and woman were once one
being; an angel was sent down from Heaven to cleave them into two.
Ever since, each half has been running around looking for the other,
and the misfits have been many at the marriage altar.
These misfits remind me of an experience when I lectured for the
Colfax, Iowa, Chautauqua, some years ago. Frank Beard, the famous
chalk talker, was there and on Grand Army day he was on the program
for a short talk. I was seated by Mr. Beard while the speaker who
preceded him was telling war stories of his regiment and himself.
Frank Beard said to me: "Well! I guess I can exaggerate a little
myself." It was evident he intended to measure up to the occasion.
After getting his audience into proper spirit for the manufactured war
story, he said:
"I was in the war myself and had a few experiences. At the battle of
Shiloh, I was lying behind a log, when I saw about forty Confederates
come dashing down toward me. My first impulse was to rise, make a
charge and capture the whole forty. But I knew that would not be
strategy; generals did not manage a battle that way with such odds
against them, so I determined to make a detour. Perhaps some of you
young people do not know what a detour means. It means, when in such a
position as I was, to get up and go the other way. So I detoured. The
chaplain of our regiment detoured also; he could detour a little
faster than I, and was directly in front of me when a shell caught up
with me and took my leg off just above the knee. You may notice I walk
very lame." (Which he did just then for effect). "Well, the same shell
took off the chaplain's leg, and we tumbled into a heap. The surgeon
came up, and having a little too much booze, he got things mixed; he
put the chaplain's leg on me and my leg on the chaplain. We were in
good health, and the legs grew on all right. When I recovered, I
concluded to celebrate my restoration to usefulness, so I went into a
saloon and said to the bartender, 'Give me some good old brandy.' He
set out the bottle, and I began to fill the glass, when that
chaplain's leg began to kick. The chaplain was a very ardent
temperance man, and the first thing I knew, that temperance leg was
making for the door, and I followed. But what do you think? As I went
out, I met my leg bringing the chaplain in."
That's a very absurd story, a rather ridiculous one, but if the
surgeon had made the mistake Mr. Beard charged, he would not have made
any greater than is made every day at the marriage altar. Young women,
I would not silence the love songs in your hopeful hearts, but I would
have every betrothed girl demand of her lover not only a loving heart,
but a well rounded character and a reasonable store of useful
knowledge.
A writer on this question said: "This progress of woman lessens mother
love in our country." Is that true? Before the opening of a southern
exposition, a mother of four boys applied for and was engaged as chime
bell ringer. Perhaps some saw in the selection a woman as brazen as
the bells she would ring. On opening day she played, "He who watches
over Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps"; on New York day she played,
"Yankee Doodle" and "Hail Columbia;" on Pennsylvania day, "The Star
Spangled Banner;" on Kentucky day, "My Old Kentucky Home;" on Maryland
day, "Maryland, my Maryland;" on Georgia day, "The Girl I Left Behind
Me;" on colored people's day, the airs of the old plantation; on
newsboy's day, "The Bowery" and "Sunshine of Paradise Alley;" then
"Nearer, my God, to Thee," "Rock of Ages, Cleft For Me," soothed the
tired Christian heart. One afternoon she took two of her boys into the
belfry-tower; one seven, the other about three years of age. When they
tired of the confinement, the older boy said: "Mother, can we go out
for a walk?"
"Yes, son, but don't let go little brother's hand."
She was so absorbed by the music of her bells she did not notice the
passing of time until the night shadows began to gather. Then her
older boy came running up in the tower crying, "Mother, I've lost
little brother!"
She quit her bells and running through the grounds set every policeman
looking for her boy; then she hurried back to her bells and began to
play "Home, Sweet Home." It is said the bells never rang so clear and
sweet. Over and over again she played, "Home, Sweet Home;" some
wondered why the tune did not change. At last, while trembling with
dread and eyes filled with tears, she heard a sweet voice say, "Mama,
I hear de bells and I tome to you." The mother, turning from the
bells, clasped the child to her bosom and thanked God for its safety.
It is said everything is undergoing a constant change, but until the
chime bells ring in the eternal morning mother love will live on, the
same unchanging devotion. Several years ago I stood on Portland
Heights, Oregon, in the evening, and saw Mount Hood in its snow-capped
majesty, when the stars seemed to be set as jewels in its crown. If
you ask me by what force that giant was lifted from the level of the
sea till its dome touched the sky, I cannot answer you, but I know it
stands there, a towering sentinel to traveler on land and sailor on
the sea. So mother love, which no one can solve, exists as unchanging
as the love of God; broad enough and strong enough to meet all the
changing conditions of time.
While I did not make this lecture to include the suffrage question, I
cannot turn away from the new woman without a word about the ballot
for women. It is no longer a question of right, but whether or not men
will grant the right. This I believe men will do when the sentiment of
women is strong enough to force the issue. "Taxation without
representation" is no less a tyranny to women than to men. I was the
guest of a wealthy widow, who paid more taxes than any man in the
county, yet a foreigner, who had been in this country less than three
years, who had not a dollar of property nor a patriotic impulse, laid
down the hoe in the garden, and going to the polls, voted additional
tax upon the woman he worked for; and the saloon influence upon her
two boys, while she had no voice in what taxes her property, or what
might tax her heart by the ruin of a son. There being no question
about woman's right to the ballot, there should be no hesitation on
man's part in bestowing the right.
I now turn from the new woman to the old man. I do not mean the man
old in years; for him I have only words of honor and praise. I mean
the man set in old ways and habits that neutralizes the progress and
wastes the forces of the republic. At the door of this old man lie the
causes of commercial disturbances, depression in trade and recurring
panics more than in the causes stressed by partisans for political
effect.
We should never have hard times in this country. We live in the best
land beneath the sky. It has been well said: "This is God's last best
effort for man." We have soil rich enough to grass and grain the
world. Our vast domain is inlaid with gold, silver, iron and lead of
boundless worth. Deep in the bosom of Columbia are fountains of gas
and oil, sufficient to light and heat our homes for a century to come.
Within these healthful lines of latitude is room enough not only to
house all the peoples of the earth, but to sty all the pigs, stable
all the horses, and corral all the cattle of the world.
To have all these gifts crowned with sunshine and shower, free from
pestilence and famine, we are the most prosperous and should be the
best contented people on the earth. In such a land there should be
perpetual peace and plentiful prosperity. Yet we have hard times after
hard times, and panic after panic. Why is this? If I could tell you
why, it would repay for the time and money spent to hear this lecture.
During the great panic in the nineties Mr. W.C. Whitney of New York,
wrote a letter to a leading New York daily in which he said: "There
are just two causes for this panic; too much silver and too much
tariff." I do not disparage these two problems, but I do say Mr.
Whitney had a very narrow view of a panic. Like many another man, he
had a thorough knowledge of certain things and was totally ignorant of
others.
A Chief Justice of the United States was riding in a carriage with his
family when a shaft broke. It was not broken short off, but shivered
by contact with a post. The Chief Justice had no strings and was in a
dilemma. A negro boy passed by, dressed in rags, whistling a merry
tune. The great jurist hailed the boy, saying, "Boy, have you a
string?"
"No, boss, what's de matter?"
"I have broken the shaft of my carriage," said the Justice.
"Yas, sir, I guess you is, boss. Is you got a knife? If you is, I
think I can fix it for you."
Taking the knife, he jumped the fence and cut withes from a sapling,
with which he lashed a lath to the shaft.
"I guess da'll git you home, boss."
"That's a good job," said the Judge; "why didn't I think of that?"
The boy replied: "I don't know, sir, 'cept some folks know more than
others."
That boy did know more than the Chief Justice of the United States
about mending a broken shaft. I think I know a thing or two about
panics which Mr. Whitney did not seem to have learned. Let me give you
two causes for panics. They are not all but they rank with Mr.
Whitney's.
First, the extravagance of the people. When times are good and money
plentiful, people are extravagant. They buy everything and pay
enormous prices. A horse, Axtell, brings his owner one hundred and
five thousand dollars; a two-year-old colt, Arion, one hundred and
twenty-five thousand. A town site is located in a barren waste and
lots sell at ten to one hundred dollars a front foot. All kinds of
wildcat schemes are promoted, and the people bite at the bait. An era
of extravagance is on and "sight unseen" investments are made. Several
years ago my brother said to me: "Are you going West soon, as far as
Kansas City?" When I replied that I was he said: "I have never been in
that city but I have two lots there I wish you would look at and
ascertain their value." He advised me to call on a certain real estate
agent, who would show me the lots. When I called on the agent a little
while later, he informed me the lots could not be seen until a dry
spell took off the water. Two lots my brother never saw and never
sold; decidedly "watered stock."
A man with a thousand dollars buys a five thousand dollar lot. He
knows he can't pay for it, but there's a boom and he expects to sell
for six thousand before the second payment is due. He doesn't sell.
When he can't sell he goes to the bank to borrow money to make the
payment; he finds there many more in the same condition as himself.
The banks see the trouble coming and will not loan. When the banks
refuse to loan the depositors get scared and take their money out of
the bank. During that great panic in the nineties three hundred
millions of dollars were taken out of circulation within four months
by depositors who were scared. Then the country gets flat on its back
with a panic. A friend said to me, during the great depression: "Don't
you think it will be over soon?" I replied: "Let a man have typhoid
fever until reduced to a skeleton; let the doctor call some morning
toward the close of the long siege and say, 'The fever is broken, get
up and go to work.' Can the man obey the doctor? No; he must have
chicken-broth and gruel, and slowly regain his strength." So when a
panic comes we must creep out, and we were so deep in the nineties it
took a long time to recover.
When a panic comes however, the extravagance ceases; everybody gets
stingy. A man with five thousand dollars doesn't buy a five thousand
dollar lot. He doesn't buy anything; his wife must wear the old
bonnet, and his church assessment is reduced. Then the tide turns and
the country recovers from its extravagance. But when times get good,
crops are fine and money plentiful, the people begin again; women
spending their money for dry goods, men for wet goods; another era of
extravagance is on and another panic coming.
Mr. Whitney said: "Too much silver and too much tariff." All the gold
and all the silver money in this country would not pay the old man's
drink and tobacco bill for five years. We drink, smoke and chew up all
the money in this country, gold, silver, and paper, every seven years.
Last year we spent about six millions for missions; one hundred and
fifty millions for churches; two hundred and seventy-five millions for
schools; and eighteen hundred millions for intoxicating liquors and
tobacco. Awake, O Conscience! and pour out thy saving influence for
the healing of the nation.
We live in a marvelous country. What this republic has accomplished in
one hundred and thirty-eight years, is the wonder of the world. At the
close of the Revolutionary War those who survived were poor, wounded,
bleeding people, occupying only the eastern rim of a wilderness waste,
while wild beast and wilder Indians roamed the mighty expanse to the
western ocean. From the penniless poverty of then, has come the
wonderful wealth of now. Where the tangled wilderness choked the
earth, now fields of golden grain dot the plains, carpets of clover
cover the hillsides, cities hum with the music of commerce, while
rivers and railroads carry rich harvests to the harbors of every land.
Emerson wrote better than he knew when he wrote:
"So I uncover the land, which of old time I hid in the west,
As the sculptor uncovers his statue, when he has wrought his best."
Yet grand as this country has grown to be, "the eagle of liberty can
never reach the pinion heights its wings were made to measure," while
the shell of wasted resources to which I have referred bows low its
head. Money won't save us. Babylon had her gold standard; her images
were made of gold. Media, Persia, had her free silver standard; her
images were made of silver. Rome had her gold, her silver, brass and
iron; yet they were all dashed to pieces on the world's highway. "In
the hollow of the hand of God is the destiny of this republic," and we
cannot buy Him with money. The wealth that satisfies the ruler of
nations is character.
Some one said a few years ago, and it went the rounds of the press:
"The question during the Civil War was, shall we have two governments
or one; now the question is, shall we have any?" I quote to you with
as much confidence as any mortal ever proclaimed a truth: "This
republic will never fail or fall until God deserts it, and God will
not desert it until we desert Him."
"Come the world in arms,
We'll defeat, and then pursue;
Nothing can our flag destroy,
While to God and self we're true."
I am not one of those who believe our war with Spain was an accident.
For Dewey to cross that dead line at midnight; when morning dawned to
find mines of death behind him, an enemy's fleet of eleven ships
before him, these supported by shores belted with batteries; and yet
within six hours sink or disable every ship in the fleet, silence the
forts, lift the star spangled banner in triumph to wave, and not have
a warship sunk, nor a sailor killed, means more than the mere skill of
a Commodore. Some one may say we had a better navy. Spain didn't think
so. Before the war the Spanish papers said: "The United States is
bluffing. She can't go to war with us. She has only twenty-five
thousand soldiers, and they are kept out west to control cowboys and
Indians. Then the South is waiting for an opportunity to break out in
rebellion." Columbus discovered America in 1492; Spain didn't discover
the United States until 1898.
Do you ask what we are to do with the Philippine Islands? I cannot
tell you what is best, but I do know we didn't want them. The day
Dewey sailed from Hong Kong to Manila Bay, if Spain had said to the
United States: "Here are the Philippine Islands, we would like to make
you a present of them," the United States would have replied, "We
thank you, but decline the offer." Not one man in ten in this country
would have voted to take them. But the next day we had them, had
fought to get them; and I believe the same superhuman power that took
from Spain, the Netherlands, Flanders, Malacca, Ceylon, Java,
Portugal, Holland, San Domingo, Louisiana, Florida, Trinidad, Mexico,
Venezuela, Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chili, Argentina,
Uruguay, Paraguay, Patagonia, Guatemala, Honduras, San Salvador,
Nicaragua, Porto Rico, Cuba, and "then some," took away from Spain the
Philippine Islands and gave them to us, that the home, the church and
the school might be established in the Islands.
Perhaps some of you think I am getting off my subject. I am not; I am
talking now about the _old man_, Uncle Sam, and his mission in the
world.
It is the opinion of many that we are under no obligation to the
islands of the sea, but these conservative souls should not forget
that we are not only citizens of the United States, but of the globe
on which we dwell and of the universe of God. The world in which we
live, lives because of the light and heat it receives from other
worlds. If the rolling sun in the heavens is under obligation to
furnish light for our pathway, heat for our soil and warmth for our
blood, are we not under obligation to carry the light of civilization
to the people whose shores and ours are washed by the same waters? If
the full orbed moon is under obligation to pour its silver into our
nights, and lift the tides until our rivers are full, are not we under
obligation to lift the tide of hope in the heart of oppressed
humanity, and pour the light of intelligence into the night of
ignorance? Did God give us this grand country, with its boundless
resources, for us to draw our ocean skirts about our greatness and
pass by our bruised and bleeding neighbor, lying half dead on life's
Jericho road? If so, then call back our proud eagle of liberty from
its pinion flight through the skies of national achievement, and make
our national emblem the barnyard fowl that crows in the day dawn as if
creating light instead of noise, and then runs for his roost when the
shadows fall.
The Bible says we are fellow workers with God. What does this
fellowship imply? It means there are some things we can't do, which
God must do for us, and some things we can do He won't do for us. He
puts the coal in the earth; we must dig and blast it out. He puts oil
beneath the soil; we must bore into its wells and pump it out. He
gives us the earth and "the fullness thereof;" we must do the sowing
and reaping. He puts electricity in the air; we must bridle, saddle
and harness it. He empties the clouds into the basins of the earth and
gives us oceans, gulfs and lakes; but we must build boats to ride
them. He puts humanity on the earth and bids us love our neighbor as
ourselves.
Who is my neighbor? Some seem to think only those who live in our
immediate community. I read of a minister of a city church who called
upon one of his country members for a contribution for foreign
missionary work. The country brother said: "I don't believe in foreign
missions, and I must say, 'No'."
"Brother," the pastor said, "the Bible says you should love your
neighbor as yourself."
"I do love my neighbors."
"Who are your neighbors?"
"Those whose farms adjoin mine, and perhaps, those whose farms adjoin
theirs."
"How far do you own eastward?"
"To the third fence yonder."
"How far do you own toward the west?"
"About a half mile?"
"How deep do you own into the earth?"
"Well, I never thought of that, but about half-way, I guess."
"Well, my brother, I am asking you to help your neighbor China, who
joins your line below."
* * * * *
I have a friend with plenty of this world's goods, and not a child.
When approached by the ladies of the Foreign Mission Society he said:
"I do not give to foreign missions; when you want anything for home
missions I'll help you." Perhaps he would; but many of that class are
represented by a colored man of whom I heard a Methodist bishop tell.
He said to a friend: "Dat wife of mine is got money on de brain; it's
money, money all the time. I can't go whar she is, but she's axing me
for money. She's jest sho'ly gwine to run me to the lunatic 'sylum ef
she don't quit her beggin' me for money."