BOOK I_Woman's Voice

Woman’s Voice

WOMAN’S VOICE

AN ANTHOLOGY

_By_

JOSEPHINE CONGER-KANEKO

[Illustration]

BOSTON

THE STRATFORD COMPANY

1918

The STRATFORD CO., Publishers

Boston, Mass.

The Alpine Press, Boston, Mass., U. S. A.

Dedicated to

THE SPLENDID WOMEN OF ALL NATIONS AND ALL AGES WHO HAVE VALIANTLY STRIVEN

TOWARD THE BROADER FIELDS OF THOUGHT AND ACTIVITY FOR THEIR SISTERS AND

FOR MANKIND AS A WHOLE

EDITOR’S PREFACE

Just now, when the world is going through the most significant period of

human history, it is well that woman’s voice be heard above the tumult.

For upon woman’s activity may rest the salvation of the race.

This Anthology is not an attempt at literary effects so much as it is

an attempt to present seriously woman’s viewpoint of life to a nation

standing on the verge of—it knows not what!

So new is the voice of woman in the affairs of life, that in time of

stress or panic it must become insistent to be heard or heeded. One book,

by one woman, regardless of its strength or purpose, could not have the

effect that one book by “crowds” of women could have. That is why this

volume has come into existence. It literally is the voice of “crowds of

women.”

Those whose words are quoted here are representative women, leaders

in their various organizations, representing hundreds of thousands of

individuals. Many of them are among our foremost writers, artists,

teachers, actors, orators and organizers—some of them combining several

of these qualities.

“Woman’s Voice” might easily have been two or three times its present

size, but that would have meant a publication too expensive to reach

the thousands of readers of moderate means to whom this work is an

immediate, special appeal. Future editions of this Anthology will be

revised and enlarged until we finally shall have a perfect volume which

will take its place in every home as a standard household classic, along

with those other books of strong human appeal which every home possesses.

Much of the material in “Woman’s Voice” is covered by copyright, and

special permission has been granted the editor to reproduce it here.

Many very good things were taken from exchanges (more or less obscure

publications), and in such cases the original source of their appearance

was difficult to trace. However, in each instance attempt has been made

to give credit where it is due, and the editor hopes she has made no

serious failures in this respect.

The many publishers and publications, as well as authors and artists

represented here, have been very kind in their co-operation to make

“Woman’s Voice” a success, by granting permission to use these selections

from their output. Special mention is given them elsewhere.

It is the editor’s hope that this volume will circulate very largely in

the small towns and country districts of our nation. I want the millions

of women who are feeling, and thinking, but who are as yet inarticulate

upon the larger affairs of life, to find their need and their voice in

this volume. I want that great isolated sisterhood, many of whom have

never read a book by a woman on social questions, to have this volume

in their homes—and always near at hand; on the sewing table, or in the

kitchen cabinet, where it may be referred to between cake-baking and

bread-making times. I hope the children in these homes will memorize

the verses in this book, and recite them at the Friday afternoon

“Literaries,” in their schools.

I hope the club women will make constant use of this volume in their club

work—in the preparation of programs, and in roll calls. For the things

quoted here deal with the most vital issues of the times, as well as

with the most intimate personal emotions and needs of the individual,

and are presented by responsible and capable women. Also, they show the

growth of race progress through woman’s efforts—how she has struggled and

won educational rights; how she has struggled and won political rights;

how she has struggled and won matrimonial rights, and rights for her

children, and for the world’s workers. How she is struggling still to

bring about an ever higher and fuller life for today and for the future.

And in all this she needs your help, you in your isolated corners; for

not until every nook and cranny is active and comes to the front, can our

nation attain to those heights for which our womankind is so valiantly

working.

When woman’s voice is heard the world around, mankind will hearken to her

cries and heed them.

INDEX OF AUTHORS

PAGE

Adams, Abigail, 32

Addams, Jane, 28, 61

Alexander, Mrs. R. P., 90

Allen, Carrie W., 168

Allen, Elizabeth Akers, 111

Anthony, Katherine, 1

Anthony, Susan B., 33

Archer, Ruby, 102, 254

Atherton, Gertrude, 44, 273

Austin, Mary, 160

Bachi, Mme, 163

Barker, Elsa, 268

Barnard, Anne Morton, 104, 161

Barnes, Florence Elberta, 189

Barnhart, Nora Elizabeth, 158

Barnum, Gertrude, 5

Barr, Amelia E., 163, 164

Bartlett, Lucy Re, 51

Barton, C. Josephine, 81, 121

Bass, Mrs. George, 38, 252

Beacon, Virginia Cleaver, 278

Beals, May, 272

Beard, Mary Ritter, 1, 204

Belmont, Mrs. O. H. P., 15

Birney, Elizabeth Cherrill, 192

Blackwell, Elizabeth, 199

Bloomer, Amelia, 286

Bocage, Mme. du, 163

Booth, Eva Gore, 184

Brandreth, Paulina, 278

Breshkovskaya, Catherine, 270

Brewer, Grace D., 132

Brower, Pauline Florence, 83

Brown, Rev. Antoinette, 35

Brown, Marion, 225

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 104, 241

Burr, Amelia Josephine, 155

Butler, Josephine, 157, 171

Cairo, Mona, 119

Campbell, Helen, 85

Cannon, Ida M., 264

Carbutt, Mary E., 103

Carr, Edna Elliott, 223

Cipriani, Charlotte, 207

Cleyre, Voltairine de, 237

Clifford, Mrs. W. K., 161

Cobb, Frances Power, 292

Cockran, Mrs. Burke, 15

Colet, Louise, 164

Colquhoun, Ethel Maude, 145, 172, 182

Comer, Cornelia A. P., 141

Conger, M. Josephine, 46, 177

Cook, Coralie Franklin, 2

Cook, Elizabeth, 56

Cooper, Elizabeth, 206

Cotton, Mrs. R. R., 36

Daggett, Mable Potter, 6, 88, 226

Dargan, Olive Tilford, 215

Davies, Mary Carolyn, 139, 283

Deardorf, Neva R., 4

De Ford, Miriam Allen, 37

Deland, Margaret, 294

Dick, Mrs. Fred, 62

Dix, Beulah Marie, 233

Dix, Dorothy, 159

Dorr, Rheta Childe, 123

Doty, Madeline Z., 218

Douglas, Winona, 115

Downing, Agnes, 294

Downy, June E., 287

Edgar, Mary S., 243

Eliot, George, 161, 162

Eulalia, Infanta, 274

Fawcett, Millicent Garrett, 263

Fee, Mme, 293

Field, Mary, 217

Flahaut, Mme. de, 163

Flexner, Hortense, 107

Fuller, Gertrude Breslau, 36, 108, 171

Gaffny, Fannie Humphrey, 2

Gage, Matilda Jocelyn, 15, 289

Gale, Zona, 24

Garrison, Theodosia, 155, 182, 291

Gilman, Charlotte Perkins, 120, 142, 280

Girardin, Mme. de, 161

Grove, Lady, 85

Gruenberg, Sidonie Matzner, 89

Guerin, Eugenie de, 293

Haile, Margaret, 244

Haines, Marion Gertrude, 192

Hale, Beatrice Forbes-Robertson, 16

Hallam, Julia Clark, 116

Hamilton, Cicily, 45

Harland, Marion, 112

Harper, Ida Husted, 34

Harrison, Elizabeth, 91

Hartley, C. Gasquoine, 124, 154, 211

Henry, Alice, 72, 160, 203

Higgs, Mary, 65, 182

Hillis, Mrs. Newell Dwight, 142

Hoblitt, Margaret, 237

Hollins, Dorothea, 266

Holly, Marietta, 25

H. R. H., 274

Houdetot, Comtesse d’, 161

Houston, Margaret Belle, 100

Hoyt, Helen, 137

Hultin, Ida C., 170

Hutchins, Emily J., 5, 204

Irwin, Inez Haynes, 272

Israels, Belle Lindner, 36, 186

Jameson, Anna, 164

Kassimer, Ada M., 114

Keller, Helen, 53, 209, 265

Kelly, Florence, 86

Kenton, Edna, 71, 268

Key, Ellen, 83, 125, 143, 189, 234, 248

Kiper, Florence, 84, 171

Knowles, Josephine Pitcairn, 148, 208

La Follette, Mrs. Belle Case, 22, 69

Lagerlof, Selma, 52

Laidlaw, Mrs. James Lees, 47

Lambert, Mme. de, 162

LaMotte, Ellen N., 228

Lathrop, Julia, 91

Laughlin, Clara E., 68, 169, 264

Lawrence, Mrs. Pethick, 126, 180

Lazarovick-Hrebelianovich, 240

Lebedeff-Kropotkin, Sarah, 224

L’Enclos, Le, 161

Lespinasse, Mlle. de, 293

Lewis, Lena Morrow, 23

Lloyd, Caro, 63

Lowe, Caroline A., 19

Lowell, Josephine Shaw, 267

Lyttleton, Hon. Mrs. Arthur, 51, 205, 253

MacLean, Annie Marion, 175

Macy, Mrs, 210

May, Florence, 260

Maintenon, de, 161

Maley, Anna A., 227

Malkiel, Theresa, 44

Marsden, Dora, 186

Martin, Mrs. John, 274

Marwedel, Emma, 210

McCracken, Elizabeth, 69, 90

McCulloch, Catherine Waugh, 43

McDowell, Mary, 249

McKeehan, Irene P., 285

Meynell, Alice, 31

Millay, Edna St. Vincent, 138

Miller, Emily Huntington, 116

Monroe, Harriet, 94, 180

Montefiore, Dora B., 20

Montessori, Maria, 195, 249

Morgan, Angela, 167

Morgan, Lady, 17, 201

Morton, Honnor, 185

Mott, Lucretia, 146

Motteville, Mme. de, 164

Natahlie, Countess, 162

Necker, Mme, 164, 293

Newman, Pauline M., 251

Nichols, Clarina Howard, 150

Nordica, Mme, 183

Norton, Grace Fallow, 176

O’Hare, Kate Richards, 119, 183

O’Reilly, Mary, 258

“Ouida”, 3, 113, 162, 202

Pankhurst, Sylvia, 12

Parce, Lida, 74, 174

Parker, Adella M., 152

Parsons, Elsie Clews, 170, 248

Pease, Leonora, 79

Peck, Mary Gray, 39

Pethick-Lawrence, 126, 180

Peyser, Ethel R., 30

Philip, Elizabeth, 142

Pompadour, Mme. de, 164

Porter, Mrs. C. E., 68, 133

Potter, Frances Squire, 255

Powers, Rose Mills, 231

Putnam, Alice H., 116

Putnam, Emily James, 184

Putnam, Helen G., 69, 86

Repplier, Agnes, 79

Reyband, Mme, 164

Richards, Ellen H., 184

Richardson, Bertha June, 202

Ridge, Lola, 193

Rieux, Mme. de, 163

Robins, Elizabeth, 42

Robins, Margaret Dreier, 180

Robinson, Ethel Blackwell, 81

Royle, Emily Taplin, 185

“Ruth”, 277

Sage, Mrs. Russell, 3, 170

Sand, George, 163

Schoff, Mrs. Frederick, 87

Schreiner, Olive, 41, 172, 289

Sellers, Sarah, 289

Shaw, Anna Howard, 1, 51

Simmons, Laura, 117, 277

Snow, Mary, 191

Sonza, Mme. de, 293

Sorringe, Katherine Parrott, 11

Stael, Mme. de, 164

Stanton, Elizabeth Cady, 206, 248

Stern, Meta L., 11, 250, 286

Stewart, Anna Bigoney, 194

Stewart, Ella S., 34

Stobart, Mrs. St. Clair, 55, 144

Stone, Lucy, 147

Stoner, Winifred Sackville, 71

Swanwick, Mrs. H. W., 205, 264

Tarbell, Ida, 63, 124, 195, 266

Teichner, Miriam, 39

Thomas, M. Carey, 10, 102, 149, 176, 208, 262

Thomas, Mrs. Leonard, 80

Turczynowicz, Laura de, 227

Tweedie, Mrs. Alec, 126, 162, 206, 286

Twining, Luella, 23

Valois, Margaret de, 162, 163, 293

Van de Water, Virginia Terhune, 91

Van Vorst, Mrs. John, 57, 96

Varnhagen, Rachel, 138

Wald, Lillian D., 70

Warwick, Countess of, 253

Wedgewood, Julia, 47

Wentworth, Eleanor, 245

Wentworth, Marion Craig, 215

Wharton, Edith, 73, 294

Widdemer, Margaret, 144, 156, 242

Wilcox, Louise Collier, 7

Wilde, Lady, 262

Wilkinson, Margaret O. B., 151, 173

Willard, Emma, 196

Willard, Frances E., 250

Wilson, Marjorie, 221

Wollstonecraft, Mary, 37, 87, 121, 146, 274

Young, Laura P., 62, 67

Zetkin, Clara, 222

INDEX OF SUBJECTS

PAGE

BOOK I

THE WOMAN MOVEMENT

A Generation Ago, Deardorf, 4

A Great Life, Harper, 34

A Lady Rebel, Adams, 32

A Pageant of Great Women, Hamilton, 45

A Prisoner in Bow, Pankhurst, 12

A Spade’s a Spade, Peyser, 30

A Woman’s Question, Thomas, 10

Allegory on Wimmin’s Rights, Holly, 25

All Methods Employed, Belmont, 15

Because They Cannot Vote, Stern, 11

Call to Social Service, Bass, 38

Clearing Up the Muss, Fuller, 36

Coming Into Her Own, Gaffny, 2

Feminism a Tree, Forbes-Robertson Hale, 16

For Woman Suffrage, Addams, 28

Freedom of the Women, Wilcox, 7

From “The Convert”, Robins, 42

Gibraltar of Our Cause, Anthony, 33

Glory in Power, Cockran, 15

He Shall See the New Woman, Daggett, 6

Legislative Responsibility, Hutchins, 5

Man Cannot Represent Woman, Brown, 35

Mankind Our Neighbor, Cotton, 36

Most Brilliant Period, Shaw, 1

New Woman, Montefiore, 20

Our Common Interests, Lewis, 23

Out of the Dark, Gage, 15

Plea of the Women, Sorringe, 11

Prayer of the Modern Woman, Conger, 46

Price of Liberty, Peck, 39

Revolt of Women, “Ouida”, 3

Rights, Privileges and Capacities, McCulloch, 43

Sisterhood of Women, Cook, 2

Submission, Teichner, 39

Story of Katie Malloy, Lowe, 19

Suffrage a Means to an End, Stewart, 34

To Raise the Standards of Life, Barnum, 5

Unanimity of Needs, Anthony, 1

Universality, Israels, 36

What Is This Government? La Follette, 22

Wisdom Comes with Freedom, Wollstonecraft, 37

Woman’s Awakening, Beard, 1

Woman Has Helped, Twining, 23

Woman Has Justified Herself, Morgan, 17

Woman on the Scaffold, Meynell, 31

Woman’s Right, Schreiner, 41

Woman’s Weak Dependency, Atherton, 44

Women, Gale, 24

Women to Men, De Ford, 37

Women’s Qualifications for Suffrage, Sage, 3

Working Woman’s Awakening, Malkiel, 44

BOOK II

THE HOME

Cannot Replace the Home, Wald, 70

Child at Home, The, McCracken, 69

Domestic Home Destroyed, Parce, 74

Domestic Strife, La Follette, 69

Home, The, Young, 62

Home Influence, Tarbell, 63

Home of the Workingman, Henry, 72

Honest Partnership in the Home, Dick, 62

Hotel “Home”, The, Wharton, 73

Immorality and the Home, Laughlin, 68

Inefficient Home, The, Young, 67

Lovers of Home, Shaw, 51

Man, Woman and the Home, Kenton, 71

Market Value of Home Labor, Putnam, 69

Mother and Child-Character, Stoner, 71

Perpetuate the Ideal, Porter, 68

Poor and Good Housing, Cook, 56

Spirit of the Home, Bartlett, 51

Then—Back to the Home, Lloyd, 63

War and the Home, Addams, 61

Where She Lived, Van Vorst, 57

Woman and the Primitive Home, Stobart, 55

Woman’s High Achievement, Lagerlof, 52

Woman’s Place, Lyttleton, 51

Woman’s Sphere the Home, Keller, 53

Women’s Lodging Houses, Higgs, 65

BOOK III

THE CHILD

Announce Her Maturity, Barnard, 104

Blot on Civilization, Lathrop, 91

Call of the Unborn, The, Robinson, 81

Child, The, Repplier, 79

Child and Parental Youth, McCracken, 90

Child Labor, Archer, 102

Children Innumerable, Kiper, 84

Child Slavery, Fuller, 108

Children’s Ward, Flexner, 107

Consideration for Others, Alexander, 90

Cotton Mill Child, The, Van Vorst, 96

Crusade of the Children, Houston, 100

Cry of the Children, Browning, 104

Equality in Fitness, Putnam, 86

Factory Child, Monroe, 94

Fettered Little Children, Carbutt, 103

Fewer and Better Children, Campbell, 85

For Father’s Amusement, Harrison, 91

Government and Child Life, Schoff, 87

Ideals of the Child, Gruenberg, 89

Little Beloved, Pease, 79

More Woman’s Work, Thomas, 80

My Little Son, Brower, 83

Need the Vote for Children, Thomas, 102

Nursery A University, Barton, 81

Parental Duty, Key, 83

Quantity Versus Quality, Grove, 85

Reason and the Child, Wollstonecraft, 87

Rising Value of a Baby, The, Daggett, 88

Teaching the Child Citizenship, Van de Water, 91

Where Women Have Voted, Kelly, 86

BOOK IV

THE MOTHER

Adolescent Child, Hallam, 116

A Good Mother, Wollstonecraft, 121

Ancient and Modern Mother, Tweedie, 126

Collective Motherhood, Dorr, 123

Companion Mother, Tarbell, 124

Factory Worker and Motherhood, O’Hare, 119

Fatherhood Cannot Be Motherhood, Kassimer, 114

Functions Identical, Putnam, 116

I am the Mother-Heart, Brewer, 132

Mother, Simmons, 117

Mother, a Creator, Barton, 121

Mother’s Influence, “Ouida”, 113

Mother, The, Pethick-Lawrence, 126

Mother, The, Harland, 112

Mothers, Gilman, 120

Parental Respect for Rights of Child, Key, 125

Passionate Instinct, Miller, 116

Rock Me to Sleep, Allen, 111

Price, The, Douglas, 115

Wise Mothers, Cairo, 119

Woman and Mother, Hartley, 124

BOOK V

LOVE AND MARRIAGE

A Man Never Gets Over It, Comer, 141

A New Stimulus to Marriage, Stobart, 144

A Possible Utopia, Knowles, 148

Art of Loving, Key, 143

Ashes of Life, Millay, 138

Confidante, The, Barnhart, 158

Cry of Man to Woman, Hartley, 154

Flirt, The, Burr, 155

Greatest Love, Varnhagen, 138

I Can Go to Love Again, Widdemer, 156

Love that Pales, Wollstonecraft, 146

Love Songs, Davies, 139

Marriage a Partnership, Hillis, 142

Marriage and the Labor Market, Thomas, 149

Marriage Laws of 1850, Nichols, 150

Marriage Not an Assurance of Support, Henry, 160

Marriage of the Friends, Mott, 146

Marriage the Sole Means of Maintenance, Butler, 157

Mirandy on the Monotony of Domesticity, Dix, 159

Old Suffragist, Widdemer, 144

One of the Best Things, Gilman, 142

Overheard in the Marriage Congress, Parker, 152

Postponing Marriage, Colquhoun, 145

Preventive of Divorce, A, Wilkinson, 151

Price of Love, Austin, 160

To Love on Feeling Its Approach, Hoyt, 137

What Is Love? Philip, 142

When Love Went By, Garrison, 155

When Marriage Meant Bondage, Stone, 147

BOOK VI

WOMAN AND LABOR

Bondwomen, Marsden, 186

Changed Condition of Tomorrow, Wilkinson, 173

Development Through the Choice of Work, Kiper, 171

Economics and the Home, Colquhoun, 182

Exploitation of Workingwomen, O’Hare, 183

Housewife, Morgan, 167

How Is She Housed? Higgs, 182

Lady, Putnam, 184

Left-Over Women, Colquhoun, 172

Morality and Woman in Industry, Laughlin, 169

One-Fifth of the Woman Population at Work, Thomas, 176

Orchards, Garrison, 182

Sex-Parasitism, Schreiner, 172

Simple Right to Live, Robins, 180

Sisterhood in Labor, Hultin, 170

Song of the Working Girls, Monroe, 180

Success Through Work, Nordica, 183

Unequal Distribution of Labor, Morton, 185

Wasted Energy and Talent, Sage, 170

Woman and Social Betterment, Richards, 184

Woman and the Dinner Pail, Gore-Booth, 184

Woman in the Home, Allen, 168

Woman’s Awakening, Conger, 177

Woman’s Demand for Work, Butler, 171

Woman’s Place, Fuller, 171

Woman’s Wages, Pethick-Lawrence, 180

Woman’s Work in Woman’s Way, Parce, 174

Women Are Going to Work, Parsons, 170

Women Who Sit at Ease, Norton, 176

Women Workers in New England, MacLean, 175

Working Woman Speaks, Royle, 185

BOOK VII

EDUCATION

Aim and End of Education, Ridge, 193

A Moral Crusade, Blackwell, 199

A Plan for Improving Female Education, Willard, 196

Democratization of Learning, Cipriani, 207

Educating Children, Montessori, 195

Educating the Daughter, Knowles, 208

Education and Votes For Women, Cooper, 206

Essentials in Education, Snow, 191

Equal Advantages of Education, Stanton, 206

Greatness of Froebel, Haines, 192

History of Woman’s Education, Beard, 204

Intellect Wins, Tweedie, 206

Intellectual Women of Rome, Morgan, 201

Mothers’ Library, Birney, 192

Mother’s Task, The, Tarbell, 195

Old and New Schools, Barns, 189

Plan for Improving Female Education, Willard, 196

Power of Education, “Ouida”, 202

Professions Educational, Lyttleton, 205

Social Education Important, Keller, 209

Soul Murder in the Schools, Key, 189

Standards Raised by Women Teachers, Stewart, 194

To Reach the Divine, Marwedel, 210

Traditions Upset, Hutchins, 204

Vision Realized, The, Richardson, 202

Vocational Training for Girls, Henry, 203

Woman’s Struggle for Educational Rights, Swanwick, 205

World of Scholarship a Man’s World, Thomas, 208

BOOK VIII

WAR AND PEACE

Babies Bred for War, Field, 217

Breeding Machines, Wentworth, 215

Deserter, The, LaMotte, 228

Devonshire Mother, Wilson, 221

Early Morning Funeral, Carr, 223

Last Racial War, Zetkin, 222

Prayer of the Toilers, Powers, 231

Prussians in Poland, Turczynowicz, 227

Red Easter, Brown, 225

Righteous Wars, Dix, 233

Rising Value of a Baby, Daggett, 226

Russian Women in Time of War, Kropotkin-Lebedeff, 224

These Latter Days, Dargan, 215

War Cripples, Doty, 218

Wars Will Cease, Maley, 227

BOOK IX

CLASSES

Abolish “Dependent Classes”, Lowell, 267

After the Fight, O’Reilly, 258

Breadth of Woman Suffrage, Fawcett, 263

Break Down the Wall, Key, 248

Breaking Up in Violence, Laughlin, 264

Breshkovskaya, Barker, 268

Class Intolerance Passing, Parsons, 248

Class Legislation, Thomas, 262

Despair, Lady Wilde, 262

Enslaved, The, Warwick, 253

Factories Instead of Homes, McDowell, 249

Fool’s Christmas, The, May, 260

Glad Day of Universal Brotherhood, The, Willard, 250

God and the Strong Ones, Widdemer, 242

Happy Warrior, Hollins, 266

Inequality for Women, Lyttleton, 253

Lore of the Woods, Archer, 254

Moses, the Strike Leader, Potter, 255

My Sister’s Heritage, Edgar, 243

New Sense of Justice, Stanton, 248

Of What Use Is It? Cannon, 264

Old Comrade, Beals, 272

Organized Woman Labor, Bass, 252

Our New Aristocracy, Atherton, 273

Outcasts, Wentworth, 245

Out of the Darkness, de Cleyre, 237

Poet’s Task, Hoblitt, 237

Poor Sex, Swanwick, 264

Revolutionist, Breshkovskaya, 270

Servant Class, Kenton, 268

Servitude, Montessori, 249

Socialist Prayer, Haile, 244

Two Sides of the Shield, Lazarovick-Hrebelianovich, 240

Voice of Labor, The, Irwin, 272

Voteless Sex, Stern, 250

Woman’s Labor Organizations, Tarbell, 266

Women and the Oppressed, Browning, 241

Worker’s Right, Keller, 265

Working Girls Must Cooperate, Newman, 251

BOOK X

MISCELLANEOUS

Contrast, A, Simmons, 277

Custom, Sellers, 289

Dare We Judge? Brandreth, 278

Difference, The, Schreiner, 289

Doomed Men’s Message, Davies, 283

Dress Reform, Bloomer, 286

Giving Up Her Name, Tweedie, 286

I Heard the Spirit Singing, Downy, 287

In Passing, “Ruth”, 277

Mary and Magdalene, Beacon, 278

Purse and the Soul, Stern, 286

Road Song, McKeehan, 285

Sheaf of Quotations, 293

Thanksgiving, Garrison, 291

The Unfair Status, Gage, 289

Two Storks, Gilman, 280

Women Run in Molds, Cobb, 292

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

The American people today may be likened to the onlookers of a great

drama. A drama so tremendous, so spectacular, so tragic, that it

surpasses anything the mind of man has hitherto conceived. The onlookers

of this drama naturally are absorbed with its immediate movements. With

its broad meanings they are intensely concerned, but beyond these they

have no interest. Their vision for detail is clouded by the flare and

vastness of the apparent. What lies beneath, above, about, are only

incidentals and of no immediate consequence to them.

But the “incidentals” of the present war are, for the careful observer,

to say nothing of the professional drama critic, the chips which show

what is taking place as the result of the flare and the noise, and the

tragedy. One of these incidents is the coming of woman into realms of

activity which not for a million years—that is to say, never before—have

been opened to her.

Under the stress involved in winning a world peace, this fact is scarcely

noted, and is not understood in its full meaning. But the moment peace is

declared it will become a question of vital importance, involving as it

does all lines of human endeavor—labor, commerce, philosophy, literature,

agriculture, law, education, and the crafts as well as the arts.

The conservative mind, freed from the absorption of war, will turn with

startled gasp to discover that one half of the race has been shaken out

of the rut of ages, and is spilling itself helter-skelter, into every

department of social achievement. And the conservative mind will ask with

child-like frankness if the women are equal to the responsibility and the

opportunity which has been thrust upon them.

“Woman’s Voice” has been compiled in anticipation of this awakening on

the part of the multitude, as an answer to its wondering inquiry.

That women have themselves long yearned toward the broader paths of

effort and usefulness is manifest in the utterances of those who have

learned the art of self-expression. That they fully comprehend the

meaning, hardships and blessings of the broader life, is plainly shown in

their wide-spread printed word. “Woman’s Voice” is an effort to collect,

in what may be called at once a brief and an exposition of woman’s

entrance into the world of general endeavor, the wisdom of the women who

have studied conditions with an earnestness and efficiency which renders

them peculiarly fitted to speak for themselves upon the questions most

closely touching themselves and their children.

For ages untold only the voice of man has dictated the conditions under

which the rest of the world should live, including women and children.

All the poetry, all the philosophy, all the wisdom of the ages was

presented in man’s words, and from man’s standpoint. Woman, dumb,

untutored, and handicapped by an adverse public opinion, another creation

of the solely masculine mind, held to her chimney corner as helpless in

the face of petty and colossal injustices as the children she bore.

“Woman’s Voice” portrays the effort of women to get away from this now

apparent social mistake. Women have spoken and will continue to speak,

for, if we are to proceed speedily and with the least possible resistance

into the new order of things, education is still essential. There are

millions to whom the apparent is not apparent, and whose eyes must be

opened before the democracy for which the world is paying in blood and

agony can become a reality.

I believe “Woman’s Voice” should be in every home in the nation, and

in all nations where society is affected by the conditions which have

brought women away from the hearth-stone into the market-place. As a

digest of the best thought of representative women the world over, it

will be read when the multiplicity of volumes from which it is quoted

are passed by. It will be read not only for its seriousness, but for its

poetic sentiment, and its sprightly comment on the every-day things of

life. Its usefulness to club members and to workers in the equal suffrage

campaigns will be invaluable, but it is to the average housewife and

mother that I trust it will make its strongest appeal. To the women who

have more or less dimly felt, but who have not as yet found a voice or

an avenue through which to develop or express this feeling about things

which so much concern them and their children. I am hoping, also, that it

will fall into the hands of thousands of theorists who are opposing, for

no reason except their own ignorance about it, the advance of women in

the coming world-democracy.

Briefly, but earnestly, I wish to thank the publishers, editors and

writers who have made this Anthology possible through their permission to

reprint from books, magazines and articles the matter contained herein. I

have endeavored in all instances to give full credit to all of these, and

if errors happen to occur in this regard they are unintentional, and only

the result of the initial publishing of a work as new and comprehensive

as this one. Also, if any name has been omitted whose observations should

have appeared in this book, it is only because it was impossible for a

very busy editor to fail to miss some very worthy writers. In future

editions these can be gathered up, until we have a volume or many volumes

which may be perfectly representative of the woman’s voice of the world.

JOSEPHINE CONGER

Compiler “Woman’s Voice”

BOOK I

The Woman Movement

THE WOMAN MOVEMENT

The Most Brilliant Period

By Anna Howard Shaw

(American contemporary. Former president of the National American

Suffrage Association. From a series of articles in “The Metropolitan.”)

The winning of the suffrage states, the work in the states not yet won,

the conventions, gatherings and international councils in which women of

every nation have come together, have all combined to make this quarter

of a century the most brilliant period for women in the history of the

world.

Woman’s Awakening

By Mary Ritter Beard

The awakening of women to the low social status of their sex is the most

encouraging fact of the century.

Unanimity of Needs

By Katherine Anthony

(Author of “Mothers Who Must Earn,” and “Feminism in Germany and

Scandinavia,” from which the following is taken.)

The woman movement of the civilized world wants much the same thing in

whatever language its demands are expressed. In more or less unconscious

cooperation, the women of the civilized nations have from the first

worked for similar ends and common interests. Beyond all superficial

differences and incidental forms, the vision of the emancipated woman

wears the same features whether she be hailed as _frau_, _fru_, or

_woman_. The disfranchisement of a whole sex, a condition which has

existed throughout the civilized world until a comparatively recent date,

has bred in half the population an unconscious internationalism. The man

without a country was a tragic exception; the woman without a country

was the accepted rule. The enfranchisement of the women now under way

has come too late to inculcate in them the narrow views of citizenship

which were once supposed to accompany the gift of the vote. Its effect

will rather be to make the unconscious internationalism of the past the

conscious internationalism of the future.

Coming Into Her Own

By Fanny Humphrey Gaffny

(American contemporary. President National Council of Women. From a

speech delivered at the celebration of Miss Anthony’s 80th birthday.)

The Christian world reckoned by centuries is just coming of age.

Therefore women are beginning to put away childish things and to realize

the greatness of womanhood.

The Sisterhood of Women

By Coralie Franklin Cook

(From a speech delivered at the 80th birthday celebration of Susan B.

Anthony.)

Not until the suffrage movement had awakened woman to her responsibility

and power, did she come to appreciate the true significance of Christ’s

pity for Magdalene as well as of his love for Mary; not till then was the

work of Pundita Ramabai in far away India as sacred as that of Frances

Willard at home in America; not till she had suffered under the burden of

her own wrongs and abuses did she realize the all-important truth that no

woman and no class of women can be degraded and all womankind not suffer

thereby.

The Revolt of Women

“Ouida” in Lippincott’s

(See page 113)

The whole human race is involved in the results of the present revolt and

reaction amongst women; if turned back upon itself by mockery it will

burn and bite on unseen, and find its issue in mad sins, wild frivolity,

and all the anarchy of voluptuous abandonment; if rightly met, if rightly

guided, it may become the noblest and highest revolution that has ever

broken the chains of effete prejudices, and let out human souls from the

darkness of ignorance into the light and glory of a day of liberty.

Women’s Qualifications for Suffrage

By Mrs. Russell Sage

(See page 170)

Twenty years ago I did not think that women were qualified for suffrage,

but the strides they have made since then in the acquirement of business

methods, in the management of their affairs, in the effective interest

they have evinced in civic matters, and the way in which they have

mastered parliamentary methods, have convinced me that they are eminently

fitted to do men’s work in all purely intellectual fields.

A Generation Ago

By Neva R. Deardorf, Ph. D.

(Department Public Health and Charities, Philadelphia. From “Annals of

the American Academy.”)

Woman’s place in the crowd of a generation ago was immediately back

of her masculine kinsfolk. Here she enjoyed protection from the rough

elbowing of the crowd, though in return for this shelter she forfeited

her liberty and was expected to devote all of her physical strength and

mental energy to pushing some particular masculine protector to the

front. Some times her efforts were appreciated, frequently they were

taken for granted, since etiquette favored a covert manner of pushing.

But the rules of the game have changed. Partners and co-laborers are

taking the place of lords and masters. Farmers, professors, clergymen,

politicians, in fact, husbands of every calling are coming to see the

advantage of having a wife beside, instead of behind, them. They now take

pride in a wife who enjoys an outlook on the world which enables her

to help far more intelligently and effectively than did the wife of a

generation ago.

To Raise the Standards of Life

By Gertrude Barnum

(American newspaper woman. Speaker and writer in the cause of organized

labor.)

The attitude of men toward women, economic, social, political, reacts

upon man and society. In recognizing this, the man with the scythe is

a length ahead of the man with the cap and gown, the cassock or the

check book. The awakening to a sense of the economic interdependence and

fellowship of men and women, has made the trade unionist the first to

recognize the justice and wisdom of “universal suffrage,” and annually in

convention the American Federation of Labor declares:

“That the best interests of labor require the admission of women to

full citizenship—not only as a matter of justice to them, but also as a

necessary step toward insuring and raising the American standards of life

for all.”

Legislative Responsibility

By Emily J. Hutchins

(See page 204)

The most obvious effect of the vote is that it puts women upon a plane

of political equality with other normal adults.... Universal suffrage

stands for a certain recognition of the stake that all human beings,

irrespective of sex, have in the general welfare, and destroys a false

sense of sex limitations. By virtue of their new standing in the

community women assume an equal responsibility with men, for both good

and bad legislation.

He Shall See the New Woman

By Mabel Potter Daggett

(From “What the War Means to Woman,” in “Pictorial Review.”)

You see, when her country called her, it was destiny that spoke. Though

no nation knew. Governments have only thought they were making women

munition workers and women conductors and women bank-tellers and women

doctors and women lawyers and women citizens and all the rest. I doubt

if there is a statesman anywhere who has learned to unlock a door of

opportunity to let the woman movement by, who has realized that he was

but the instrument in the hands of a higher power that is re-shaping the

world for mighty ends, rough-hewn though they be today from the awful

chaos of war.

But there is one who will know. When the man at the front gets back

and stands again before the cottage rose-bowered on the English downs,

red-roofed in France and Italy, blue-trimmed in Germany, or ikon-blessed

in Russia, or white-porched off Main Street in America, he will clasp her

to his heart once more. Then he will hold her off, so, at arm’s length

and look long into her eyes and deep into her soul. And lo, he shall see

there the New Woman. This is not the woman whom he left behind when he

marched away to the Great World War. Something profound has happened to

her since. It is woman’s coming of age.

The Freedom of the Women

By Louise Collier Wilcox

(In “The Woman’s Journal.”)

When woman knew that on her strength devolved the care of race,

She crept into her cave to sleep and told her man to face

The prowling outer dangers, and the dark and fearful odds,

The thunder, beasts, and lightning, and the wrath of all the gods;

For at her heart she carried the future and its cares,

And the freedom that she needed was more precious far then theirs.

So she watched her babe’s eyes open, and the little limbs grow straight,

And she taught him all the lore she’d learned, and what to love and

hate;

And she trained the little body, and she led the little soul,

Till another woman took him to lead further toward the goal;

Then the mother smiled in anguish, though she laughed at age and cares,

For the freedom that she wanted was a longer one than theirs.

When the work of life grew harder and men bowed beneath the yoke,

Of needs too great to master, and lusts too deep to choke,

She worked and slaved and tended, she wrestled with the dearth;

She harnessed up herself to beasts, to till the barren earth;

And she planted in her garden and she weeded out the tares,

For the freedom that she wanted was more beautiful than theirs.

But when she saw man bestial and content with earthly things,

She scourged herself in cloisters, and she wept and prayed for wings.

Then she nurtured heavenly visions and she held aloft the cross,

To show eternal values amid life’s gain and loss.

And she pointed to the radiance round the crown the god-man wears,

For the freedom that she wanted was a holier one than theirs.

Then she smiled from out her shelter while her men coped with the world;

Her strength she made of weakness, and about her heart she curled

The tendrils of dependence and his little children’s love;

And she showed him what a home was in her gathered treasure trove.

All the time her eyes were smiling with the smile the seer wears,

For the freedom that she wanted was the freedom of his heirs.

Still her heart grew great and greater, and her eyes she would not blind

To the suffering of the victims, to the needs of all mankind.

And she knew her safety futile and her children’s stronghold weak,

Till the least, last one is sheltered, and there’s none astray to seek.

So she looked far down the ages to the good that all man shares,

For the freedom that she wanted was a broader one than theirs.

And she knew her man short-sighted, since he had not borne the pain,

The slavery, drudgery, darkness, the glory and the stain

Of womanhood and motherhood. How could he love the race?

As she who bore and nurtured, God’s instrument of grace?

So she ceased to coax and wheedle, and commanded as one dares

Whose only love of freedom is a higher one than theirs.

...

She stands, now, hand upon the helm, to help him govern life,

And she steers her world, his equal, in love, in peace, in strife;

She owns her strength and wisdom; and he may read who runs,

That she must demand her freedom from his daughters and his sons.

Neither beneath nor over, but equal in her place,

The freedom that she’ll die for, is the freedom of the race.

A Woman’s Question

By M. Carey Thomas

(A contemporary. President of Bryn Mawr College. From an address at the

College Evening of the National American Suffrage Association.)

Woman suffrage is first of all a woman’s question. We cannot remain

indifferent. The issues involved are so overwhelmingly important, first

of all, to us as women caring as we must for all other women’s welfare,

and second, to us as citizens of the modern industrial state. I am

sure as the result of repeated experiment that it is only necessary

for generous and unprejudiced women to realize the present economic

independence of millions of women workers, and the swiftly coming

economic independence of millions upon millions more women workers for

woman suffrage to seem to them inevitable from that moment.

No one can maintain by serious arguments—that is, by arguments that are

not pure and simple distortion of fact—that the ballot will not aid

women workers, as it has aided men workers, to obtain fairer conditions

and fairer wages. All working men and all men of every class regard the

ballot as their greatest protection against the oppression and injustice

of other men. It is only necessary to ask ourselves what would be the

fate of any political party whose platform contained a plank depriving

laboring men of the right to vote.

Because They Cannot Vote

By Meta L. Stern

(See page 250)

Industrial organization and political activity constitute the two

powerful arms of the labor movement. Men are free to use both their arms.

Women are struggling with one arm tied.

The Plea of the Women

By Katherine Parrott Sorringe

(In “The Woman’s Journal.”)

Standing before you with suppliant hands,

Mothers and wives and daughters, we

Sue for the justice long denied;—

Give us the vote that makes us free!

She who went down to the gates of death,

Joyful, to fling the life-doors wide,

Mother of statesman, soldier, saint—

Set this crown on her patient pride!

She, your comrade, who steadfast stood

Shoulder to shoulder, through storm and night,

Held up your hands till victory pealed—

Grant her this prize of well-fought fight.

Who trips laughing across your life,

Light of your love, your soul made fair?

Give her this pledge of a father’s faith,

Flower o’ freedom to deck her hair!

Mothers and wives and daughters, we,

Shall we ask in vain, with suppliant hand?

We, who are children of the free!

We, who are builders in the land!

A Prisoner in Bow

By Sylvia Pankhurst

(A leader of the Suffragette movement of England. The following, quoted

from “The Woman’s Journal,” is an account of one of her imprisonments in

the London jails.)

My eight days’ license had expired. The police were massed outside the

Bromley Public Hall where I was speaking, waiting to arrest me. Numbers

of detectives in plain clothes within were amongst the audience; the

people hissed and howled at them and they threatened them with sticks.

At the close of the meeting, the people, declaring that I should not be

arrested, crowded down the stairs and out in a thick mass with men in

the center of them all. The police rushed at us, striving to break our

ranks and to force a way through to me.... Policemen were on every side

of me. Two of them gripped and bruised my arms, dragging me along. The

crowd followed, calling to me.... The policemen dug their fingers into my

flesh. One of them took out his truncheon and grasped it tight against my

hand and arm. The back of my left hand was bruised from it all next day.

Several women rushed up to me and were arrested, and one girl who did

not know any of us, or what the trouble was about, called out: “Oh, you

should not hurt her,” and was taken into custody. They dragged me into a

Cannon Row police station....

So, hatless, and without so much as a brush or comb, I was taken back to

gaol to begin my hunger, thirst and sleep strike. When I reached my cell,

the same cell in the hospital in which during February and March I had

been forcibly fed for five weeks, I began to pace up and down.

A woman officer came to me and said I must not make a noise.... I took a

blanket from the bed and spread it on the floor to deaden the sound of my

footsteps, lest any of the other women prisoners should hear them and be

kept awake.

Then I walked on and on, five short steps across the cell and five short

steps back, on and on, and on.... As the hours dragged their slow way I

stumbled often over the blanket that wrinkled up and caught in my feet.

Often I stooped with dizzy brain to straighten it. The walking, the

ceaseless walking, when I was so tired, made me grow sick and faint. I

was stumbling, falling to my knees, clutching, as one drowning, at the

bed or chair. Sometimes I think I slept an instant or two as I lay, for

sleep seemed to be dogging as I walked.

It was cold, cold and colder, as the morning came, as the sombre yellow

faded and the gray sky turned to violet—such a strange brilliant violet,

almost startling it seemed through those heavy bars. Then the violet died

into the bleak white chill of early day.

In the day time I still walked, but sometimes I had to rest in the hard,

wooden chair, and then I would be startled to feel my head nod heavily to

one side. My legs ached, the soles of my feet were swollen. They burned,

and I thought of the women of the past who were made to walk on red hot

plough shares for their faith. After the first few days I remembered that

tramps rubbed soap on their feet to prevent their getting sore. I rubbed

soap on mine and found that it eased them a good deal. Each time I took

my stocking off to do this I noticed that my feet had grown more purple.

My hands, too, were purple as they hung at my sides. My throat was

parched and dry. My lips were cracked. On Wednesday I fainted twice, and

afterwards there came and stayed till I was released, a strange pressure

in the head, especially in the ears. There was a sharp pain across my

chest. That evening I asked to see a doctor from the home office. On

Thursday afternoon he came. On Friday there was no more likelihood of my

sleeping. I lay on the bed most of the day burning hot, with cold shivers

that seemed to pass over me as though a cold wind was blowing on my face.

In the afternoon I was released and came back to the little red-roofed

house under St. Stephen’s church and the kind hearts of Bow.

Out of the Dark

By Matilda Jocelyn Gage

(From “Woman, Church and State.”)

Although England was Christianized in the fourth century, it was not

until the tenth that the Christian wife of a Christian husband acquired

the right of eating at table with him.

All Methods Employed

By Mrs. Oliver H. P. Belmont

(In “Harper’s Bazar.” President of the Political Equality Association of

New York, a leading spirit in the Congressional Union, an organization

whose tactics have caused it to be called the militant wing of the

suffrage movement.)

Woman suffrage is a war on ignorance, prejudice and vice. To attack

certain gigantic forces, a people must take any and every line open to

them. If the Germans had attacked Warsaw from but one side, that great

city would still be under Russian rule. I believe, therefore, that women

in fighting for their suffrage should use all lines approaching the

enemy. I personally am working along all roads of attack, for I feel that

where one method may fail, another may succeed.

Glory in Power

By Mrs. Burke Cockran

(In “Harper’s Bazar.”)

Suffragists are born, not made. There are many women whose brains will

never respond to suffrage argument.... And yet I am convinced that these

women, when they do receive the vote, will not only use their power

judiciously and conscientiously, but will eventually glory in it.

Feminism a Tree

By Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale

(Well-known English actress. Author of “What Women Want,”[1] from which

the following is taken.)

... Feminism is a tree, and woman suffrage merely one of its many

branches. Some of these branches are essential to the life of the tree,

others are not. Some grow strong and put forth shoots in their turn,

others blossom prematurely, wither young, and drop from the trunk.

Meanwhile the tree towers up into the sun with its crown of sturdy

growths, and its abortive shoots lie forgotten in the shadow below,

leaving hardly a scar upon the great stem to mark their death. Only few

people see this tree as a unit. All who do know that woman suffrage is

one of its essential growths. But the majority still concentrate their

gaze upon one branch or another, whichever seems to them most fair, and

the parent tree is lost to sight amid the multiplicity of its offspring’s

leaves. Suffrage has rallied to its march thousands of conservative women

who are indifferent, or even opposed, to some newer branches of the tree,

while those who are absorbed in certain later and eccentric growths are

sometimes amusingly contemptuous of the older limbs. They forget that the

topmost crown could not flourish if the wide boughs below did not help

the tree to breathe. They are sometimes, too, in danger of forgetting

that if the great roots of the trees were not anchored deep in the soil

of woman’s nature itself, in her motherhood, her strong tenderness, and

her service, the whole growth would perish.

[1] Frederick A. Stokes Co.

Woman Has Justified Herself

By Lady Morgan

(English. From “Woman and Her Master,” published in Paris, in a

“Collection of Ancient and Modern British Authors,” 1840.)

Notwithstanding her false position, woman has struggled through all

disabilities and degradations, has justified the intentions of Nature

in her behalf, and demonstrated her claim to share in the moral agency

of the world. In all outbursts of mind, in every forward rush of the

great march of improvement she has borne a part; permitting herself

to be used as an instrument, without hope of reward, and faithfully

fulfilling her mission, without expectation of acknowledgment. She has,

in various ages, given her secret service to the task-master, without

partaking in his triumph, or sharing in his success. Her subtlety has

insinuated views which man has shrunk from exposing, and her adroitness

found favor for doctrines which he had the genius to conceive, but not

the art to divulge. Priestess, prophetess, the oracle of the tripod, the

sibyl of the cave, the veiled idol of the temple, the shrouded teacher

of the academy, the martyr or missionary of a spiritual truth, the armed

champion of a political cause, she has been covertly used for every

purpose, by which man, when he has failed to reason his species into

truth, has endeavored to fanaticize it into good; whenever mind has

triumphed by indirect means over the hearts of the masses.

In all moral impulsions, woman has aided and been adopted; but, her

efficient utility accomplished, the temporary part assigned her for

temporary purposes performed, she has ever been hurled back into her

natural obscurity, and conventional insignificance.... Alluded to, rather

as an incident, rather than a principle in the chronicles of nations, her

influence, which cannot be denied, has been turned into a reproach; her

genius, which could not be concealed, has been treated as a phenomenon,

when not considered as a monstrosity!

But where exist the evidences of these merits unacknowledged, of these

penalties unrepealed? They are to be found carelessly scattered through

all that is known in the written history of mankind, from the first to

the last of its indited pages. They may be detected in the habits of the

untamed savage, in the traditions of the semi-civilized barbarian! And

in those fragments of the antiquity of our antiquity, scattered through

undated epochs,—monuments of some great moral debris, which, like the

fossil remains of long-imbedded, and unknown species, serve to found a

theory or to establish a fact.

Wherever woman has been, there has she left the track of her humanity, to

mark her passage—incidentally impressing the seal of her sensibility and

wrongs upon every phase of society, and in every region, “from Indus to

the Pole.”

The Story of Katie Malloy

By Caroline A. Lowe

(Well-known as a speaker on the Socialist and labor platforms. From a

speech before the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives,

Sixty-Second Congress.)

The need of the ballot for the wage-earning woman is a vital one. No plea

can be made that we have the protection of the home or are represented by

our fathers or brothers....

What of the working girls, who through unemployment are no longer

permitted to sell the labor of their hands and are forced to sell their

virtue?

I met Katie Malloy under peculiar circumstances. It was because of this

that she told me of her terrible struggles during the great garment

workers strike in Chicago. She had worked at H——’s for five years and had

saved $30. It was soon gone. She hunted for work, applied at the Young

Women’s Christian Association and was told that so many hundreds of girls

were out of work that they could not possibly do anything for her. She

walked the streets day after day without success. For three days she had

almost nothing to eat. “Oh,” she said, with the tears streaming down her

cheeks, “there is always some place where a man can crowd in and keep

decent, but for us girls there is no place, no place but one, and it is

thrown open to us day and night. Hundreds of girls—girls that worked by

me in the shop—have gone into houses of impurity.”

Has Katie Malloy and the five thousand working girls who are forced into

lives of shame each month no need of a voice in a Government that should

protect them from this worse than death!

The New Woman

By Dora B. Montefiore

(In “The Progressive Woman.” English Contemporary. Writer and speaker on

woman and labor problems.)

Pausing on the century’s threshold,

With her face toward the dawn,

Stands a tall and radiant presence;

In her eyes the light of morn,

On her brow the flush of knowledge

Won in spite of curse and ban,

In her heart the mystic watchword

Of the Brotherhood of Man.

She is listening to the heartbeats

Of the People in its pain;

She is pondering social problems

Which appeal to heart and brain.

She is daring for the first time

Both to think—and then to act;

She is flouting social fictions,

Changing social lie—for Fact.

Centuries she followed blindfold

Where her lord and master led;

Lived his faith, embraced his morals;

Trod but where he bade her tread.

Till one day the light broke round her,

And she saw with horror’s gaze,

All the filth and mire of passion

Choking up the world’s highways.

Saw the infants doomed to suffering,

Saw the maidens slaves to lust,

Saw the starving mothers barter

Souls and bodies for a crust.

Saw the workers crushed by sweaters,

Heard the cry go up, “How long?”

Saw the weak and feeble sink ’neath

Competition’s cursed wrong.

For a moment paused she shuddering;

Hers in part the guilt, the blame—

Untrue to herself and others,

Careless to her sister’s shame.

Then, she rose—with inward vision

Nerving all her powers for good;

Feeling one with suffering sisters

In a perfect womanhood.

Rising ever ’bove the struggle

For this mortal fleeting life;

Listening to the God within her

Urging Love—forbidding Strife.

Love and care for life of others

Who with her must fall or rise.

This the lesson through the ages

Taught to her by Nature Wise.

She had pondered o’er the teaching,

She had made its truths her own;

Grasped them in their fullest meaning,

As “New Woman” she is known.

’Tis her enemies have baptized her

But she gladly claims the name;

Hers it is to make a glory

What was meant to be a shame.

Thinking high thoughts, living simply,

Dignified by labor done;

Changing the old years of thraldom

For new freedom—hardly won.

Clear-eyed, selfless, saved through knowledge,

With her ideals fixed above,

We may greet in the “New Woman”

The old perfect Law of Love.

What Is This Government?

By Mrs. Belle Case La Follette

(American contemporary. Wife of the United States Senator, Robert La

Follette. The following is from a speech on suffrage, given in Boston.)

What is this government that we women have been taught to think of as

something so remote from our interests, so unrelated to the immediate

personal preoccupations of our daily lives? There are three great matters

in which we are all concerned: religion, education and government. In

religion men and women share equally (indeed, men sometimes are content

that women should do more than their share). In education it has come to

pass that both men and women participate equally, though that was not

always so. It is less than two generations that our universities and even

our high schools have been open to women upon the same terms as to men.

But government is considered as man’s exclusive province—a limitation

that has narrowed the lives of the women, that has robbed the children,

and that has reacted most injuriously upon the State. For with what

matters does government concern itself? Why, with matters that touch

intimately home happiness and home prosperity, with laws and regulations

that guard and further human lives.

Woman Has Helped

By Luella Twining

Woman always has figured prominently in every movement and transformation

that has changed the conditions of human life.

Our Common Interests

By Lena Morrow Lewis

(American contemporary. Writer. Speaker. Former member of the National

Executive Committee of the Socialist Party. Editor “The Seattle Call.”)

Every argument in behalf of man suffrage applies with equal force to

woman suffrage. Men and women have more in common as members of the same

species, belonging to the same human family, than they have differences,

because of the incident of sex. To deny woman the ballot because of her

sex is virtually to repudiate her right and claim as a human being. That

a difference does exist between men and women is on the other hand a

strong argument in behalf of woman suffrage. The giving of the ballot to

woman will not rob man of his just rights. The admission of woman into

the political arena will do away with male supremacy, which is injurious

to man, breeds tyranny and results in injustice to woman. Justice to

woman does not mean injustice to man. Our common interests as human

beings, and our differences as men and women both demand political power

and social rights for women the same as for men.

Women

By Zona Gale

(Contemporary American writer and suffragist. In “The American Magazine.”)

They looked from farm house window;

Their joyless faces showed

Between the curtain and the sill—

You saw them from the road.

They looked up while they churned and cooked

And washed and swept and sewed.

Some could die and some just lived, and many a one went mad,

But it’s “Mother be up at four o’clock,” the menfolk bade.

They looked from town-house windows,

A shadow on the shade

Rose-touched by colorful depths of room

Where harmonies were made.

Within, the women went and came,

And delicately played.

Some could grow, and some could work, but many of them were dead.

“We must be gowned and gay tonight when the men come home,” they said.

They looked from factory windows

Where many an iron gin

Drew in their days and ground their days

On the black wheels within,

Drew in their days and wove their days

To a web exceeding thin.

And they suffered what women have suffered over and over again.

And it’s “Double your speed for a living wage, ye mothers and wives of

men!”

They looked from brothel windows,

And caught the curtain down.

A piteous, beckoning hand thrust out,

To summon or clod, or clown.

They named them true, they named them true,

The Women of the Town.

Some could live and some just died, and most of them none could know,

And it’s “What if the fallen women vote?” from the men who keep them so.

Allegory on Wimmin’s Rights

By Josiah Allen’s Wife (Marietta Holly)

(American contemporary. A philosopher who uses the humorous story to

carry her message to the reading public.)

“Wimmin haint no business with the laws of the country,” said Josiah.

“If they haint no business with the law, the law haint no business with

them,” said I warmly. “Of the three classes that haint no business with

the law—lunatics, idiots and wimmin—the lunatics and idiots have the best

time of it,” says I with a great rush of ideas into my brain that almost

lifted up the border of my head-dress. “Let a idiot kill a man; ‘What of

it?’ says the law. Let a luny steal a sheep; again the law murmurs in a

calm and gentle tone, ‘What of it? They haint no business with the law,

and the law haint no business with them!’

“But let one of a third class, let a woman steal a sheep, does the law

soothe her in those comfortin’ tones? No; it thunders to her in awful

accents: ‘You haint no business with the law, but the law has a good deal

of business with you, vile female; start for state’s prison! You haint

nothin’ at all to do with the law, only to pay all the taxes it tells you

to, embrace a license bill that is ruinin’ to your husband, give up your

innocent little children to a wicked father if it tells you to, and a few

other little things, such as bein’ dragged off to prison by it, chained

up for life, and hung, and et cetery.”

“‘Methought I once heard the words,’ sithes the female, ‘True government

consists in the consent of the governed. Did I dream them, or did the

voice of a luny pour them into my ear?’

“‘Haint I told you,’ frowns the law on her, ‘that that don’t mean wimmin?

Have I got to explain again to your weakened female comprehension, the

great fundymental truth that wimmin haint included and mingled in the law

books and statutes of the country, only in a condemnin’ and punishin’

sense as it were?’

“‘Alas!’ sithes the woman to herself, ‘would that I had the sweet rights

of my wild and foolish companions, the idiots and lunys!’

“‘But,’ says she, ‘are the laws always just, that I should obey them thus

implicitely?’

“‘Idiots, lunatics! and wimmin! Are they goin’ to speak?’ thunders the

law. ‘Can I believe my noble right ear? Can I, bein’ blindfolded, trust

my seventeen senses? I’ll have you understand that it haint no woman’s

business whether the laws are just or unjust; all you have to do is just

to obey ’em. So start off for prison, my young woman.’

“‘But my housework,’ pleads the woman. ‘Woman’s place is the home. It

is her duty to remain, at all hazards, within its holy and protectin’

precincts. How can I leave its sacred retirement to moulder in state’s

prison?’

“‘Housework!’ and the law fairly yells the words, he is so filled with

contempt at the idea. ‘Housework! Jest as if housework is goin’ to

stand in the way of the noble administration of the law! I admit the

recklessness and immorality of her leavin’ that holy haven long enough

to vote; but I guess she can leave her housework long enough to be

condemned, and hung, and so forth.’

“‘But I have got a infant,’ says the woman, ‘of tender days. How can I

go?’

“‘That is nothin’ to the case,’ says the law in stern tones. ‘The

peculiar conditions of motherhood only unfits a female woman from ridin’

to town in a covered carriage once a year, and layin’ her vote on a pole.

I’ll have you understand it’s no hinderence to her at all in a cold and

naked cell, or in a public court room crowded with men.’

“As the young woman totters along to prison is it any wonder that she

sithes to herself—

“‘Would that I were an idiot! Alas is it not possible that I may become

even now, a luny? Then I should be respected!’”

For Woman Suffrage

By Jane Addams

(From speech favoring a suffrage amendment to the Constitution, before

the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, Sixty-Second

Congress. Prior to the enfranchisement of the Illinois women.)

As I have been engaged for a number of years in various philanthropic

undertakings, perhaps you will permit me, for only a few moments, to

speak from experience. A good many women with whom I have been associated

have initiated and carried forward philanthropic enterprises, which were

later taken over by the city, and thereupon the women have been shut out

from the opportunity to do the self-same work which they have done up to

that time. In Chicago the women for many years supported school nurses

who took care of the children, both made them comfortable and kept them

from truancy. When the nurses were taken over by the health department of

the city the same women who had given them their support and management

were shut out from doing anything more in that direction. And I think

Chicago will bear me out when I say that the nurses are not now doing as

good work as they did before.

I could also use the illustration of the probation officers in Chicago

who are attached to the juvenile court. For a number of years women

selected and supported these probation officers. Later, when the same

officers, paid the same salary, were taken over by the county and paid

from the county funds, the women who had had to do with the initiation

and beginning of the probation system, and with the primary and early

management of the officers, had no more to do with them. At the present

moment the juvenile court in Chicago has fallen behind its former

position in the juvenile courts of the world. I think the fair-minded men

of Chicago will admit that it was a disaster for the juvenile court when

the women were disqualified, by their lack of the franchise, to care for

it.

The juvenile court has to do largely with delinquent and dependent

children, and I think there is no doubt that on the whole women can deal

with such cases better than men, because their natural interests lie in

that direction....

The establishment of a sanitarium for the care of tubercular patients in

Chicago was begun by some philanthropic women, and later on, when these

also were put under the care of the city, these women were shut out,

save as they were permitted to do some work through the courtesy of the

officials. Sometimes the officials are very courteous to them and glad to

have their assistance; sometimes they quite resent the suggestions from

them, claiming it is “up to” them to take care of the city affairs, and

that women are only interfering when they try to help.

So, it seems fair to say, if women are to keep on with the work which

they have done since the beginning of the world—to continue with

their humanitarian efforts which are so rapidly being taken over by

the Government, and often not properly administered, that the women

themselves will have to have the franchise.

The franchise is only a little bit of mechanism which enables the voter

to say how much money shall be appropriated from the taxes, of which

women pay so large a part. When a woman votes, she votes in an Australian

ballot box, very carefully guarded from roughness, and it seems to us

only fair to the State activities which are so largely humanitarian that

women should have this opportunity.

A Spade’s A Spade

By Ethel R. Peyser

(In “Judge.”)

She’s treated by him like a queen,

She’s helped across the streets,

She’s given every courtesy

That every woman greets;