Wichita eagle., 1889-03-13
THE LADY REPORTER.
Extracts from Frances e. Wizards
Interesting Book.
The President of the Woman's Christian
Temperance Union Says What
Girls Ought to Do in journalism
thoughts of the Hour.
IN. Y.sMatl and Express.1

N. Y.'Msil and Expressl
: One Of the most interesting portions of
the volume is chapter ON Woman's OPP
portunity in Journalism. SIN the steady
advance of journalism" writes Miss Will
lard, woman has borne no inconspicuous
part. Since Lydia Maria Child founded
her magazine for children, Lydia Fl.
Sigourney wrote verses for tho Hartford
Press, Margaret Fuller furnished book
notices for Horace Greeley's New York
Tribune, or Harriet Beecher Stowe sent to
the National Era the most celebrated
serial of the century, Uncle Toms Cabin.
WON an has been an important factor in
the profession. Her opportunity in jour.
nalism, as everywhere else, comes not by
revolution, but by evolution. When jour.
nalism was on a purely material plane
she could have but little place within its
borders, but the spirtualizing process
which it has undergone has opened lis
doors to her, and she has demonstrated heI
ability to meet most of its various ele.
ments. When | think Of Madame Ida
Pfeiffer, Lady Duff Gordon, the wife
of Sir Samuel Baker, and others
libraries of foreign travel from the pens
of women, and their growing opportunity
for outdoor life, athletic sports and ra.
ton al modes of dress, / have great hopes
of their capacity to meet every require
ment of the most varied and adventurous
jour nalistic career. II woman like Miss
Minnie Morgan. of New York, can be a
frst-class livestock reporter, with all the
hardships and discomforts of such an oc.
cupation, we may fairly predict that the
Mollie Pitchers, the Di Vernons and the
Rosa Bonheurs of journalism, will yet APP
pear, although woman's grandest jour
nalistic opportunity is to be sought in
higher, if not wider, fields. For here, as
everywhere, she seems destined to soften
asperities, to subj climate coarseness, to
eliminate the last reminder of barbarity.
She viii thus supply the precise elements
the lack of which we now lament Being
refined, she will add fineness; being COM
passionate, she will add compassion; be-
ing conscientious, she will add conscience
in larger measure to the writing up OF
the worlds great diurnal history. Less
space will be given to the prize
fight and more to the prize
poem; the murder trial will be con-
den ed that the philanthropic convention
may gain a wider hearing; the wholesale
verdict against political opponents, mere
ly because they are such, will be modified
by an attempt to show some faint ap-
proach to Justice, even toward partisan
enemies; of personalities there will be
more rather than less, but the delineation
of helpful lives and how they come to be
so will largely replace the biographies of
successful gamblers, whether in Wall
street stocks or Western faro banks, and
seriously doubt if any woman Journalist
will ever stoop to say to another, even be-
hind the mask Of the editorial 'we,' that
she tells absolute les It is time that a
standard were lifted in unfaltering hands
against this growing evil of wholesale
verbal venom, for if it be true that as
man readeth in his newspaper so is he,' il
is equally true that so speaketh he.
"The work of women will receive such
recognition as is not now to be expected,
for the pride of sex, which makes what
ever men do of especial interest to men,
will magnify in the view of the lady re-
porter the Importance of helping on all
the enterprises in which women are en-
gagged. In brief. woman has now the ep-
portunity to do for journalism what she
long ago accomplished for literature-to
drive out the Fieldings and the Smolletts
from its temple; to replace sentimentality
by sentiment; to frown upon coarse jests,
debasing innuendoes and irreverent wit
iniS 70 int
creature not too bright or good
For human natures daily food,
And yet. spirit, fair and bright.
With something of an angels light.
"The difference between the smoking
and dra wing-room cars on a railway train
illustrates that between average journal
ism as it is and as it will be when men and
women sit at their desks In the same
and reportorial sanctums One
is full of fumes, the other of perfumes;
one is small section of chaos, the other
of creation; and all because one is de-
q aturalizing, the other natural. Tho cub
will cut a smaller and the household a
larger figure in the journalism of the fu-
ture; indeed, the difference between
bachelors hall and the home is, in reality,
the che we are now trying to aralyze.
ITO sketch scene in the Senate cham.
Der SO that its vividness shall reproduce
both Individuality and environment before
our eyes, commend me to Mary Clemmer:
ana to reproduce the fine sympathy of
conference of charities or a temper
ance convention, so that il shall kinCils
that of the reader, give me Mary Bannis-
ter Willard or Mary Allen West. In all
hrst-class descriptive writing by women
Journalists there is pictorial quality by
which their work can usually be recos-
nized, ana a Photographic ciearness in
their personal portraitures. The daily
press, which has become already the peo-
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