"Where he goes and how he fares,Nobody knows and nobody cares."
"Where he goes and how he fares,Nobody knows and nobody cares."
"Where he goes and how he fares,
Nobody knows and nobody cares."
Along with the question of what will become of the men put out of business by prohibition, comes the question, what will the farmers do with their corn if distilleries are closed? Less consumption of whiskey means more consumption of cornbread and that means more corn. Less consumption of whiskey means greater consumption of bacon, and more bacon means more corn to feed hogs. When a liquor advocate said to an audience of farmers: "If this state goes dry what will you farmers do with your corn," an old, level-headed farmer shouted: "We'll raise more hogs and less hell."
Prohibition means more of everything good, and less of everything bad; more manhood, less meanness; more gain, less groans; more bread, less brawls; more clothing, less cussedness; less heartaches and more happiness. Turn saloons intobake shops and butcher stalls, distilleries into food factories, breweries into stock pens, and the country will be a thousandfold better off than feeding its finances by starving its morality.
This question lifts itself head and shoulders above every other question touching practical politics today. You nowhere read of a nation going to destruction because of too much gold or too little silver, too much tariff or too little tariff, but always because of the vices of its people. The nation that bases perpetuity upon moral character will endure with the stars, while walls thick and high as Babylon's will not save a drunken republic.
"Vain mightiest fleets of iron found,Vain all her conquering guns,Unless Columbia keeps unstainedThe true hearts of her sons."
"Vain mightiest fleets of iron found,Vain all her conquering guns,Unless Columbia keeps unstainedThe true hearts of her sons."
"Vain mightiest fleets of iron found,
Vain all her conquering guns,
Unless Columbia keeps unstained
The true hearts of her sons."
Beautiful Constance of France was dressing for a court ball. While standing before a mirror, clasping a necklace of pearls, a spark from the fireplace caught in the folds of her gown. Absorbed in her attire, she did not detect the danger until a blaze started. Soon, rolling on thefloor in flames, she burned to death. When the news reached the ballroom the music hushed, the dance halted, and "Poor Constance! Poor Constance!" went from lip to lip, but soon the music started and the dance went on. While I am talking now the youth, beauty and sweetness of American life is in peril from the flames that are kindled by the licensed saloon. From an inward fire men are being consumed and homes destroyed. Will we say, "Poor Columbia!" and keep step to themocker'smarch to the nation's death; or will we put out every distillery and brewery fire and make this in reality "the land of the free and the home of the brave?"
In the name of all that is pure and true and vital in national life, I plead with every lover of home and country to come to the help of the cause that must succeed if this republic is to live. I plead with Christians in the name of the church, bleeding at every pore because of the curse of drink. If everyone whose name is on a church roll would step out in line of duty on this question, very soon God would stretch out His arm and save this republic from the liquor traffic. God has been ready a long time; His people havenot been ready to do their part. Too many Christians are like the horse Sam Jones used to tell of.
He said: "We have a horse in my neighborhood in Georgia, which if hitched to a load of stone or cotton balks and won't go a step; but in light harness in the shafts of a race cart he will pace a mile in two-thirty. We have too many Christians who are like this horse; they trot out to church Sunday morning, but hitch them to a prayer meeting and they won't pull a pound."
Dr. McLeod, the stalwart Scotch preacher, on his way to a session of his church had with him a small hunch-back member of his church, a dwarf in size but an earnest worker. Crossing a certain stream a storm struck the boat and the waves were sending it toward the rocks. A boatman at one end said:
"Let the big preacher pray for us."
The helmsman at the other end said: "No, let that little fellow pray and the big one take an oar."
Oliver Cromwell, going through a cathedral, came upon twelve silver statues. Turning to the guide he said: "Who arethese?"
The guide replied: "Those are the twelve apostles, life-size and solid silver."
Cromwell said: "What good are they doing as silver apostles? Melt them down into money and let them be of some service to the country."
We have too many silver statue church members who need melting down and sending out to help save our republic from the fate of other nations that have perished through their vices. We need more men with moral courage to voice and vote their convictions. When the slavery question was agitating the country Henry Clay stood for a compromise he believed would help to solve the question. Many of his friends in the South censured him, and sent him letters calling him a traitor. He arose in the Senate to speak, it is said, looking pale from the effect of the censure he was then receiving day by day. Addressing the Senate he said: "I suppose what I shall say in this address will cost me many dear friends." A reporter said: "He hesitated as if choked with emotion at the thought of losing his friends." Then with the majesty of greatness and magnetism of manner he proceeded, saying: "Iam charged with being ambitious. If I had listened to the soft whisperings of ambition I would have stood still, gazed upon the raging storm and let the ship of state drift on with the winds. I seek no office at the cost of courage or conviction. Pass this bill. Restore affection to the states of this Union and I will go back to my Ashland home; there in its groves, on its lawns, 'mid my flocks and herds, and in the bosom of my family, I will find a sincerity I have not found in the public walks of life. Yes, I am ambitious, but my ambition is that I may become the humble instrument in the hands of God, in restoring harmony to a distracted nation, and behold the glorious spectacle of a true, united happy and prosperous people."
There is a grandeur in the mountain that lifts itself above the hamlets at its base, and bearing its brow to the threatening storm clouds says to the forked lightning, "Strike me!" but grander is the man who can stand 'mid the allurements of the world's honors and say: "I would rather be right than President." Dare to do right and what you do will have its reward.
"Shamgar, what's that in thy hand?"
"Only an ox-goad."
"Come dedicate it to God, and go slay those Philistines."
"David, what's that in thy hand?"
"Only a sling and a little stone from the brook."
"Come dedicate them to God, and go kill the giant."
"My little lad, what's that you have?"
"Only five loaves and two little fishes."
"Come, dedicate them to God; they'll feed thousands and you will have baskets full left."
My brother, what's that in thy hand? Only a little American ballot. Come dedicate it to God and home and native land, go cast it against the licensed liquor traffic and your life will bear fruit which the angels will gather when you have "finished your course" and "kept the faith."
You are soon to have the local option test in your county. If I could do one thing I could make the victory for the home overwhelming. You know if the saloons continue they will have their victims in the future as they have had in the past. You know too their victims will come from the youth of your county. Those who are victims now will soon bedead bodies, or "dead broke." The men in the saloon business do not look to men who are drunkards now, for future use nor do they intend to use horses or cattle or dogs, butboys. If I could announce that on the evening before the vote is to be taken I would present to the public the future victims of the saloons in this county. If I had a prophet's eye and could select these victims, how many homes I would enter where I would not only be an unwelcome but an unexpected visitor. When the hour would arrive for the exhibition, what an audience I would have! Nothing like it ever gathered in this county; from every corner of it parents would come. When placed in line on an elevated platform so all could see, I would speak through a megaphone saying: "I present to you the future victims of the liquor traffic in your county; here are the boys who will be your future drunkards and here are the girls who will be the wives of drunkards." I imagine some father, who thinks regulation the best policy, would exclaim:
"There's my boy. I never thought the saloon would take my son. Don't talk to me about regulation. Come, you fatherswhose sons are not here, and help me save my boy."
Another would press through the crowd to be sure that he was not mistaken and say: "There's my daughter. I never dreamt she would be a drunkard's wife. I have said prohibition won't prohibit, but I will say it no more. Come, good fathers who love your children, and help me save my child."
This is but the forecast for some parents in this audience. Would it be wrong if I should say: "O God, if the saloons are to continue in this county, if they are to have their victims in the future as in the past, let the fathers who vote the curse on the county furnish the victims." I do not offer up any such prayer, but I do say: "O God, give to the home the protection of a prohibition law, and may the victims not be anybody's boy or anybody's girl. Go out of this hall tonight resolved you will link your faith in principle with your work. Faith and work!"
I like that story of the mother in New England, who on a visit from home, received a message calling her to the bedside of a daughter who was hopelessly ill. Hurrying to the nearest railroad stationshe said to the conductor: "Sir, do you connect at the junction with the train that will take me to my sick child," at the same time handing him the message.
"No, madam, we do not run our trains to connect with trains on that road. The train will be gone some little time before we reach the junction."
"Sir, are you a Christian?"
"No, madam, I'm a railroad conductor."
"Have you a Christian man with the train?"
"Yes, that man you see oiling the engine claims to be a Christian, and I think he is; you might consult him if you like."
Going to the engineer she said: "Please read this message and tell me if you can catch that train at the junction."
The engineer read the message and said: "I'm sorry, madam, but that train goes fifteen minutes before we get there."
"Please sir, catch that train and let me see my daughter before she dies."
"I would give a whole month's wages if I could," said the tender hearted engineer.
"Then don't you think God can hold the train fifteen minutes till we get there," said the distressed mother.
"Oh yes, God can do anything," was the reply.
"Won't you ask God to hold that train? And I will ask Him."
The engineer said: "Yes, I will."
The mother boarded the train, and on schedule time the engine moved. The engineer took hold of the lever and up with the smoke from the engine went the prayer: "Lord, hold that train fifteen minutes for that good mother." With this prayer more steam was turned on than usual and at the next station the train was two minutes ahead of time. At the next station two more minutes had been gained. It was in the early days of railroading when rules were not so strict as now; the conductor knew there was nothing in the way, so he concluded to let the Christian engineer have his way. As the train was starting for its third and last run for the junction, the engineer said: "Lord, if you will hold that other train seven and a half minutes, I'll make up the other seven and a half."
When the engineer had made up his seven and a half, sure enough there stood the other train. When the engineer said to the conductor: "What are you waiting for," the reply was: "Something the matterwith the engine, but the boys have it fixed now and we'll go on in a minute."
"Yes," said the engineer, "you'll go on when this godly mother gets on and not before."
Each one of you do your part, God will do His part, and the end will be victory for "God and home and native land."
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 bythe 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 toa 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 theright 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, returnedto 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 toa 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 hearThe bolts of death around him rattle,Hath shed as sacred blood as ereWas poured upon the field of battle."
"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:
"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 hearThe bolts of death around him rattle,Hath shed as sacred blood as ereWas poured upon the field of battle."
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 coursedthe 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 everTo sailors on the sea."
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 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,
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 everTo sailors on the sea."
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 capacityfor 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 uponAnna 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 heremained 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 intelligencedepends 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 toIndia 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 himto 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 thepower 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 parlorI 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 therealto 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 fifteenhave 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 determinedto 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 inquiresinto 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 intendedto 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 werein 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 engagedas 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 runningup 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 totraveler 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'spart 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 pestilenceand 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 locatedin 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 andmoney 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 thewestern 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: