New Ulm weekly review. [volume] (New Ulm, Minn.) 1878-1892, 1891-09-02

The Sanitary Commission was the
first example OF cooperative woman
hood serving the state the world had
ever witnessed, and as an education it
was of incaiculable value to women to
and to the nation. While they were
working for the relief of the army,
women studied the policy of the govern
ment, and learned what tremendous is
sues were at stake the questions in
volved in the war and the immediate
cause underlying it. They maintained
a sturdy devotion to the national cause,
lightened the gloom of every reverse,
were und;smayed by the discourage
ments of an embarrassed trade and
commerce, which brought faintness to
the heart of men, and stoutly rebuked
the manifestation of q disafected, com.
promising, and unpatriotic spirit. All
the while they maintained a prodigious
correspondence with the soldiers in the
army, ''thus keeping the men in the
field civilian,'' says DIR. Bellows. ssand
making the people at home, of both
sexes, half-soldiers. Not only did
these women broaden in their views;
they grew practical and executive il
work. They learned how to cooperate
intelligently with men; became expert
in conducting public business, in call
ing and presiding over public meetings,
even when men made large part of
the audience, learned how to draft con-
stitutions and bylaws, to act as secreta-
ries and committees; how to keep ac-
counts with precision and system; how
to answer, indorse, and file letters; how
to sort their stores and keep an accu-
rate account of stock; they attended
meetings with regularity and prompt
ness, and became punctilious in observ-
ance of official etiquette; in short, they
developed rapidly remarkable aptitude
for business, on which men looked and
wondered. "Where were these super
ior women before the warp was fire.
quently asked. Above all they learned
one another, and found the world grown
suddenly large for them, as they formed
friendships with women from whom
they had long held aloof be-
cause of local, sectarian, or personal
jealousies and detractions. They had
demonstrated the power of associated
womanhood, when working harmoni-
ously, aad had awakened men to a con.
sciousness that there were in women
possibilities and potencies of which they
had never dreamed. The lesson has not
been forgotten. The young women of
that day are the middle aged women of
the present time, better educated than
their mothers, more self-poised, and
instinct with vital interest in all that
concerns the race. The girls born dur
that period are our young women, who
are coming on the stage better equipped
for the work of life and with larger op-
portunities awaiting them than ever be-
fore dawned on q woman's vision.
Colleges have been founded for them,
scientific, professional; art and indus
trial schools have opened their doors to
them; remunerative employments have
given them entrance, sometimes in ad-
vance of their capacity and fitness;
while freedom of choice and action is
the birthright of American women as of
no others on the globe. From Scoop.
erative WomaDhood in the State.'' by
Mrs. Mary A. Livermore, in North
American Review for September.
Hon. Knute Nelson, when asked if he