The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1876-04-21


public and private morals from that
which now prevails Can you have
your wish in these matters? You want
honesty in business, purity in politics;
you desire the administration of justice
in the courts; you feel the need of re-
forms in educational matters. But who
inquiries what you wish, or heeds your
protest, however earnestly given,
though all these things are vitally inn
portant to the welfare of the society
over which you are popularity believed
to WELD So extensive an influence? 81
Can you secure for your daughters
the same mental training that is will
ingly provided for your sons? Have
you ever been able to>infiuence the laws
of inheritance and the right of dover
Tell me whether it is not through the
literature of men alone that you have
gotten your ideas of what is good and
proper for yourselves? Is not even
your religion, derived as it is, from
men, made to ignore your individu-
ality? Some one has very justly re-
marked: at is difficult for woman to
define her feelings in language which is
chiefly made by men to define theirs"
Would you not, if you could, have
found the means long ago to have ban
ished from society that vice that saps
its moral and physical health? So far
from having any influence in the mat
ter, the very children are brought face
to face with it, and every maiden learns
that it is a common thing-one of the
conditions of society-while matrons
have the humiliating consciousness
that the money that should go to the
establishment of home-life, goes to the
superior establishment of that other
life that is the poison of society. Ger
tainly this is not nice subject to deal
with; but, if it is hardly to be spoken
of, how is it to be borne?
You are woefully familiar of the sor-
rows that come from the licensing-by
that society over which you are be-
lieved to have so much influence-of all
manner of hot-beds of evil, such as drink
ing-saloons, gambling-houses, dance
cellars, and the like. Some of you have
been so deluded as to think that, by a
combined effort with the womanly
weapons of prayer and entreaty, you
might do something toward abolishing
such things. We are all witnesses of
how you succeeded. Society snaps its
fingers at you. Its "by your leave" is
the most exasperating mockery.
Not only that. 1t drags you into the
vortex and bears you along on the ire
sistible current, until by and by you
must yield from weariness of useless
effort. Pope never wrote a truer coup
let than that oft-quoted one of vice, that
" Seen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace"
The very religion of this gushing age
is pity of vice. If, then, religion has
reached the second stage, it is easy tc
see how society, in spite of your infu-
ence, has come to embrace it. agree
! with you that all this is very shocking
but the most shocking part of it is it:
truth.
"But surely through the home We
may inf1uence-society," do you say
Well, here, certainly, you ought to have
: some influence that should extend int
society, and, out of courtesy to trit'
belief, I will assume that you have
The ideal wife and mother is a woman
of the household, exclusively, who's
: thoughts, time, and attention are dl
. vided about equally between kitchen
and nursery. She is thoughtful as t,
buttons, and careful as to pudding
recipes. In the brief intervals that oc
cur between these duties, she goes out t.
the church sociables, and makes calls oil
the other ladies of her set. On Sunday
r she goes to meeting. What with tn
annual irruption of infantile diseases
: the semi-annual house-cleanings, tn
quarterly set-to on the family sewing
and her own occasional illnesses, tn
3 years do not seem long enough to Civ
? time for thinking. How can she thinl
r about the interests of society, with th
8 the baby crying fretfully with its teeth
5 ing, and Johnny clamoring for striDI
8 to his kite? She cannot do it, she de
e cides; and, after hasty glance at tn
8 morning paper in the middle of tn
o afternoon, she gives it up. What is tn
t outside world to her, with this restless
o vociferous, erigent little world unde
e her own roof? She asks papa when h
J, comes home to dinner, "What is tn
: news ?" But papa is too tired and to
e careless to give an intelligent answer
r If he stays at home through tn
j. evening, she may renew the question
u ing; but ten to one he is wholly ab
: sorbed in the evening paper, or dozin
a off to sleep on the sofa, while she sit
p and sews in resigned silence. How
: this woman to have any influence o.
s society? You say, Through her hus
+ band and children" I have alread
!, told you what I think of that matter
J. How can she influence her husban
u when he only comes home to eat an
u sleep, and when it is be that controls ev
u cry affair of Importance that relates t
If the welfare of the whole family, includ