Huntsville gazette., 1890-05-31
TN NNOMAN'S BEHALF.
WOMEN'S LEAGUES.
The Possibility of Power for Good in Won
ans Organizations.

league? Why should there be concerted
action of the already organized bodies of
women?
I'm the city of New Orleans there are
moro than sixty associated bodies of
women, with rolls recording from sew
enty-fve to three hundred names-it
would be safe to say force represent
ing at the least calculation IL, 900 swo1n-
er-good women, true women, from
every rank of life, banded together for
pure helpfulness; and this outside
of any church work, of every denomina-
tion, working in harmony.
IF it were possible in the short time
allotted to me this afternoon to give you
oven an outline of the glimpse that has
come to me of this power for good
amongst US, you would recognize more
fully, as have long since done, what an
American philosopher meant when he
defined civilization as the power of
good women This power of good wom-
en- is being used in our midst in sixty
needful directions. Each group does It's
special work. b 3 - - g ~
''But there is work to do, work of
civilization that no one group is strong
enough to accomplish. Where 200 or
800 voices are not loud enough to arouse
public attention, IL, 900 must needs be
heard. This is the wherefore of the
Woman's League, that $4,000 women
may cry out at one time, may work to-
gether for one common end and that
end civilization. Z - "A
We live in an age that places grave
responsibility upon intelligent woman |
hood. We are not required to spin or to
weave, our grandmother's work, Which
now mere machines has taken up.
Higher duties are ours. We, who by
an effort of our own, by mere chance,
have been hedged in by strong moral
influences; we who have voices and
power of speech, who are not MANNED
physically or mentally, we are, indeed
the keepers Of ourless fortunate sisters
We are not guiltless when we do not
l3ok to their welfare.
1--WE cry shame upon the woman who
deals out in corner shop the liquor to
almost babes-cupbearers to drunken
parents. We look on with horror, no
doubt while the little ones stay their
steps, fitting the vessels to their lips,
planting the seed of alcoholism. SIT
the ignorant bartender, with the bralt-i
ish instinct for mere gain, that is to am 4
swer for this crying evil, on not only 4
our own but the coming generation, or
you and and 12, 900 other women who
do not come together and demand that
the already existing law forbidding the
sale of intoxicating drinks to minors be
enforced?
ut is some years now since the men |
of Louisiana passed laws making it pos
sible for wor@an 10 occupy positions up
on our school board, and to have voice
in the cause of education; also law
imposing a fine upon all employers who
did not provide women employees with
seats when not necessarily actively en-
ployed. Both enactments are dead let
ters. No special group of women exist
ed whose business 1t was to see carried
out the good intention of the men,
Hence the necessity of the league. -l3sl
II might go on enumerating scores of
needed reforms and aids to the commu-
nifty within our reach, but am not here
to tell you what we might do, but rather
months of our existence.
ga small group of women whose
hearts had grown very sick with pity,
whose minds had grown tired, too, with
trying to think out the problem of solv-
ing how best to do away with the possi-
bility of crime against poor degraded
womanhood detained in our station
houses, to save the remnant of woman
nature from unnecessary brutilizatiOn,
called together the first meeting of this
league. Every known Organization,
vited to confer together. After several
meetings, about twenty organizations
entered the federation.
The necessary work preliminary to
successful organization having taken
place, several evenings were devoted to
becoming acquainted with the workings
of tho com mbined associations. and then
an executive committee was appointed
1T was fitting that the question that
suggested the league should be the first
undertaken for solution. The result is
well known to US all. New Orleans
now, like other large cities of the Unit
eQ states, mas mdUfOnS III dG lesbSb buTee
= of the station-houses, and as in the 9TH
er cities, placed there through the efforts
Of women to alleviate the condition Of
womankind. ;.
*''Before closing, / can not refrain
from alluding to the possibility of
power for good insthe holding together
of this body of women. This is an age
when brute force has given way to mind
force-when any thing is possible 10
formulated thoughts. In this. at least,we
are mans equal, and the world has fully
come to recognize this fact by leaving
in our hands the Adjustment of SO much
OF it's philanthropic, educational and
moral work"
Growing in Power. - i
The work of the women in the church
is becoming more marked, its necessity,
also more plain, and there is a growing
pleasure in looking over the statistics