XIVON PUBLIC DUTIES
One of Mary E. Wilkins’ delightful heroines remarks, in speaking of certain would-be leaders of social reform in her village: “I don’t know that I think they are so much above us as too far to one side. Sometimes it is longitude and sometimes it is latitude that separates people.” “This is true,” says President Roosevelt, “and the philosophy it teaches applies quite as much to those who would reform the politics of a large city, or, for that matter, of the whole country, as to those who would reform the society of a hamlet.” But the active woman of to-day—and much more the woman of to-morrow—is not in danger of separating herself by either latitude or longitude. She is eager to help, and meets her problems half-way with outstretched hands. She is taking hold of all sorts of municipal matters and workingagainst unsanitary conditions, defective sewerage, poor drainage, impure drinking water and the practice of making backyards, alleys and even streets the dumping-ground of those who are too negligent, or too indolent to consider the appearance of their immediate locality.
“The poor ye have always with you,” and as Dr. Babcock has said: “To take care of the lower orders is essential to social safety, though the words, ‘Inasmuch as ye did it to the least of these,’ had never been spoken, and the thought of helping humanity should be some little comfort, though the recognition of a ‘cup of cold water’ had never been dreamed of. To help poor children to learn to sew cannot compromise you in any way. To prick your finger in the sewing-school and draw one little red drop, is in the line of the world’s redemption, at least from ignorance and incapacity.”
But to this mission of woman from simply altruistic motives we can add that divine commission entrusted to Mary at the door of the sepulchre on that Sabbath morning nineteen hundred years ago, so that she is working everywhere to lift little children out of degradation, to teach them, to make of them good citizens,to abolish child-labor. And is it not true that every woman working in a quiet way for the improvement of those in her immediate neighborhood is manifesting the spirit of the scriptural injunction, “Bear ye one another’s burdens”?
“The women’s clubs of the period, with their classes for intelligent study of the great questions of the day, are creating a new political economy,” says the Hon. Carroll D. Wright, late chief of the Bureau of Labor Statistics in Washington, and no man in this country is better fitted to judge of the economic conditions that attend any great movement. One of the significant features of the club movement is that our deepest thinkers, our most far-sighted men recognize in it one of the great forces of the age. It is all well enough for one or two brilliant women writers who pride themselves on belonging to no women’s clubs whatever, to direct their powers of sarcasm against the movement and to flippantly observe that women’s clubs are a fad, or to inveigh against our taking ourselves seriously. We can even bear that Mr. Bok or Mr. Cleveland should warn his readers against being led unwillingly into public life, to the utter neglect of buttonless husbands and starving children; thesethings are outside the pale of serious consideration.
What does the earnest, thinking woman who reads Drummond’s “Ascent of Man” and Ruskin’s “Unto This Last” care? What does the woman who is studying the great humanitarian problem of to-day—whether singly or in classes—mind if a magazine writer who cares more for brilliancy than for accuracy takes her to task because she takes the fact of organized effort for bettering present conditions, and ministering to great human needs, seriously? For men who think and read and observe what is going on in the world to-day, men who come nearest to seeing what are the present economic forces and whither they are tending—such men are the quickest to recognize women as an important factor in the world’s progress, and are the most cordial in extending a hand-clasp of sympathy and “God-speed” to any specialized movement among us.
The day has gone by when it is fair or safe to arraign men for conditions which hedge in a woman; by which I mean that the men of this country are ready and willing to extend a helping hand to women who really want anything.When the women of this country or any part of it rise up and declare in a body that they want the ballot, for instance, they will get it; for it is not the men who are keeping it from us. When the women of America come forward ready for concerted action on any subject, the men are with them as a rule. Of course this refers to mankind collectively, not individually, and I leave it to any woman if the men of her household are not, as a rule, quite in sympathy with her outside interests and work. The average man sees in some measure the value of the club movement. The thinking man and the one who sees below the surface in this restless, changing, hopeful age goes farther and recognizes that with all our shortcomings and superficialities we have at heart an unquenchable desire to do our part of the world’s work; moreover, that there is a tremendous psychological significance in the banding together of several hundred thousand women all actuated by the same purpose, even if the movement be slightly chaotic and not always well directed.
The fact that thousands of earnest club-women all over this great country are studying its social conditions is of tremendous significance. We beganin club life by studying literature, present and past. Then we took up history, and from comparing causes and effects in the past we naturally come to studying the economic conditions of to-day. Once take up this question and we become a powerful factor in its evolution. Women can create and maintain public sentiment, and it is the thinking women who usually become club women. The new political economy, which means the care and culture of mankind, to-day demands our attention. There are many phases of it, but most of our studies bear upon it in one form or another. It is not pleasant to hear about women who make shirtwaists for forty-eight cents a dozen and ruffled skirts for nineteen cents apiece, and thankful—poor creatures!—to get even that. It is heart-breaking to hear of the girls who work in laundries at three to six dollars a week, and at a risk of having hand or foot crushed in the mangle. It is quite heartrending to be told of the hardships that befall a girl who has lost her hand and must find some way to earn her scanty living. But when we are told how we can help these conditions the matter becomes practical. When we are shown that by patronizing bargain countersand buying cheap shirtwaists and petticoats we encourage these conditions, and it is explained how we can improve matters for the laundry girl, then our feelings have not been harrowed in vain.
When we come to realize that it rests with us to create a demand for better conditions we are ready for our part of the work. We may deplore the existence of “yellow journals,” but if we buy them we encourage their sale and contribute to their support. We may believe the sweatshop to be a pet institution of Satan, but if we buy its products we are encouraging the men who keep up its existence. One of the most hopeful auguries for the future of the concerted “woman movement” is the fact that it has definitely recognized its duty with respect to industrial conditions. Thousands of women and children are suffering from the lack of intelligent sympathy as well as from scanty wages, impure air, improper food and all the other things that are attendant on grinding poverty. Shall we—because fate has cast our lot in happier conditions—ignore these sisters of ours? Shall we not, rather, set about the earnest study of our duty in the premises?
You remember the story of Henry Ward Beecher, who hired a horse at a livery stable to go for a drive. Before starting he said, “That is a fine-looking animal; is he as good as he looks?” The owner replied, “Mr. Beecher, that horse will work in any place you put him and do all that any horse can do.” And Mr. Beecher eyed the animal still more admiringly and remarked, “Well, I wish to goodness he was a member of my church.” Now, that is the way we ought to work if we would find all that modern opportunities mean for us individually—“Work in any place we are put and do all that a woman can do.” But not restlessly, strenuously.
The truest and best philanthropic work tends to broaden the sympathy and widen the conception, if not of the brotherhood of man, at least of the sisterhood of woman. There is really no end to it—this question of what women may accomplish for the public good. And one of the most hopeful signs of this close of the nineteenth century is that women are no longer content with hiding their light under a bushel. They think very little about the position of the light, so that it is shedding bright rays over the dark places of the earth.
There is still here and there a woman who feels that she is of no value because she has not money or some special gift. Let her take heart. Whatever she is of herself, whatever she can do in the way of personal service, is of inestimable value. There is nothing else to compare with it. Christ gave Himself. It is the highest gift, and its noblest form is personal service in small things.