Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1883-03-26
nnh. nAxpN TA pa, pIx,
HIss Stanton, Miss Ahth0ny And
Mrs, aifh0F, aud theft
services

From Memphis, Tenn, Mrs. 4. l..
Saxon writes to the st. Louis Chroni
Gle:
"Since my bon comrade, Lilly Dew
ereaux Blake and the Rev. DR.. Dix,
are bringing the woman question so
oonspicuously to the front, it seems
the most natural thing to consider
the cause in the light OF its later work
and to speak of the women engaged in
| it. They who have borne the heat of
the battle and the seorn of the 'nobler
danes. can we'll afford to wait and see
the result of all the fury and fray,
knowing that it is like the dust and
noise that accompany the wagon
which brings the gathered harvest
home.
Few of the women who are now
active in suffrage work were active in
its beginning, or even fifteen years
ago. 1t seems that every woman who
FIRST began her work as a sufragist or
woman rights advocate, adopted the
advice Of Socrates: Let him that
would move the world 6rst move him>
self. 1t would be ludlcrous, were it
not patriotic, to see how and why the
temperance women have been forced
into becoming suffragists (which thou
sands of them are) through trying to
carry water on both shoulders. | say
this in no way to disparage the
woman's temperance movement, but
one cannot help feeling a sort of ad-
miration for the fearless advocacy Of
right that counted no cost when con-
trasting it with the tedious filing in OF
the timid conservatives, who finally
recognizes the Tact that temperance is
nothing il it is not an open expression
of ones will at the ballot box. The
cause is becoming respectable at last,
and it was sucd women as Mrs Stan
ton, Mrs. Anthony, Mrs. Minor, Miss
Couzins, Lilly Devereaux Blake, and
others, who acted as sappers and
miners, who bore the odlum and
fought the hard fight against public
opinion. All honor to such women,
aud never will women know how much
they truly owe to these and their CO..
worker.
Mrs. Blake, Isabella Hooker and
other suffragists have again and again
made the struggle to have police
matrons in the station houses, and the
dainty women who never knew whai
cold, or want, or shame meant, only as
they read it from novels, laughed al
them, and called them coarse anC
brazen. But now, forsooth, when the
church women, and the temperance
women, begin to see the need fol
them, it grows right respectable tC
think Of having women to take charge
of women prisoners.
II remember once when in Albany
| New York, with Mrs. Blake, we had
spoken in the Capitol, and we're tc
| hold a meeting on the following day
| was sick, cold, tired. The snow
was a foot deep and the rain wa:
freezing as it fell. | entered hel
room, saying, See here, comrade,
can't stand this; | am going back tC
New York this morning She was il
the act of buttoning her boots, she
arose and throwing her arms I'D anC
out toward me exclaimed, Go, then
and leave me. but | must go on if i
be to the stake or ruin. | went bach
to my room without a word. She helC
her meeting that day, and organized
the heroic band that made SO hard &
struggle in Albany for the women on
the School Boards. 1t was Lilly
Blake who won the concession from
General Walker, Of allowing women
to serve as census enumerators. and |
sent her shoe bill in jest, declaring
she must pay for my shoes worn out
| in goiug with her to see that honorable
functionary for the good Of the women
that sneered at Ter"
Can we not see, as through glass
darkly, but as under the neOnday sun
that old conditions are past; old
things no longer serve that woman
has by mans own felly been forced
into the place Of helper. bread winner
toiler, despite herself? DR.. Dix, il
his rose bower of clerical ease, fur
nished by his women Pensioners. hal
made himself laughing stock for th,
people, only a few removes above thi
reverend ,Jasner. of Virginia"