Savannah courier. (Savannah, Tenn.) 1885-1979, 1890-06-05
In WOMAN'S BEHALF.
: WOMEN'S LEAGUES.
The Possibility of Power for Good In Won
nj tinns.

1nc Oh ooou ia WYNN
ans Organizations.
At q recent meeting of the Woman's
League of New Orleans, Miss Kate
Mobiles spoke as follows:
"Why should there be a woman's
league? Why should there be concerted
action OF the already organized bodies of
women?
in the city of New Orleans there are
more 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 $4,000 wom-
en-good women, true women, from
every rank of life, banded together for
pure helpfulness; and this outside
of any church work, of every denomina-
ton, working in harmony.
IF it we're possible in the short time
allotted to me this afternoon to give you
even 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 its
special work.
"But there is work to do, work OF
civilization that no one group is strong
enough to accomplish. Where 200 or
500 voices are not loud enough to arouse
public attention, $4,000 must needs be
heard This is the wherefore of the
Womans League, that $4,000 women
may cry out at one time, may work to-
gether for one common end, and that
end civilization.
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 our less fortunate sisters.
We are not guiltless when we do not
look 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. Is it
the ignorant bartender, with the brut-
ish instinct for mere gain, that is to an
swer for this crying evil, on not only
our own but the coming generation, or
you and | and $4,000 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 women to occupy positions up
on our school board, and to have voice
in the cause of education; also law
imposing fine upon all employers who
did not provide women employees with
seats when not necessarily actively en-
ployed. Both enactments are dead let
tiers. No special group of women exist
ed whose business it was to see carried
out the good intention of the men.
Hence the necessity of the league.
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
TO review what we have done in the few
months Of our existence.
"A 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 posi-
bility of crime against poor degraded
womanhood detained in our station
houses, to save the remnant of woman
nature from unnecessary brutllization,
called together the first meeting Of this
league. Every known organization,
from the richest to the poorest, was IN
vited to confer together. After several
meetings, about twenty organizations
entered the federation.
''rhe necessary work preliminary to
successful organization having taken
place, several evenings were devoted to
becoming acquainted with the workings
of the combined 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
we'll known to us all. New Orleans
now, like other large cities of the Unit
ed States, has matrons in at least three
of the station-houses, and as in the 9th
err cities, placed there through the efforts
of women to alleviate the condition o.
womankind.
Before closing, ! can not refrain
from abiding to tho possibility o
power for good in the holding togethe
of this body of women. This is an age
when brute force has given way to minc
force-when any thing is possible t.
formulated thoughts. In this, least, W,
are mans equal, and the world has full,
come to recognize this fact by leaving
in our hands the adjustment of so mucl
of its philanthropic, educational an
moral work"
Growing In Power.
. rVHN