The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1891-03-11

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AT a time when the women of Kansas
are boasting themselves the real authors
of the defeat OF Ingalls,, and when the
advocates Of female suffrage are daily
becoming more aggressive and more con-
tident, it is decidedly remarkable that
an expression Of political aspirations is
altogether absent from the series OF res
olutions passed by the representative
board Of the women's council recently
in session at Washington. And yet
their desires are many. They have petit
toned the government to pay equal
wages for equal work, and in the
selection of workers to have regard to
efficiency and not sex. They have in
structed a committee to report "sug-
gestions for a business costume for
women, which shall meet the demands
Of health, comfort and good taste"
They desire to remind the national dl-
vorce reform league that m are en-
titled to seats on it's board. They ask
the Methodist church to admit women
to the general conference, and all the
churches are invited to put women on
the Sunday school lesson committee,
and on every committee that has for its
purpose the revision of creed. One
special resolution rises superior to a
prevalent feminine weakness, and de-
nounces the slaughter of birds for pure
ly ornamental purposes, while another
commits the council to furnishing a
block OF stone or marble, with a suita-
bic inscription, which will find it's place
in the monument to be erected over the
grave Of Washington's mother.
Even the most unbending of the
sterner sex will find it hard to raise any
reasonable objection to these requests
and expression of sentiment and pur-
pose. There is not one of them to whose
f~ruition the council may not look for
ward with hope, except, perhaps. the
remuneration of birds for purposes of or
nament. That is a matter lying wholly
within the domain of the sex itself, and
fashion, however unreasonable 1T may
be, is a hard thing to kill, as
the council undoubtedly knows. In the
resolution to take a formal share in the
monument to Mary Washington. there
is a peculiar delicacy and appropriate
ness worthy of all praise. In regard to
the admission of women to the general
conference a majority Of the Methodist
laity has already expressed itself in favor
of the council; it will not take long for
the preachers to fall into line, and legis-
lation will be benefited by the advice
and presence of the sisters of the
church.
Thai women should receive equal
wages with men, whenever their work
is equally valuable is not only
a matter of justice and right;
it is sound business policy. AS
for a business costume, that will not
hamper the gentler sex in their competi-
ton with the male, we have sufficient
confidence in female ingenuity to be-
lieve that it will be forthcoming, but
that it will be worn, even after it has
been evolved, is certainly open to all
manner of doubt. Woman is a conserv-
ative creature, and will not readily part
with her tucks and furbelows, even when
health itself is at stake. By all means,
let us have women representatives on
Sunday school lesson committees, and
on those for the revision of creeds
Much of the success of the Sunday
school and the church in our modern
life is due to the self-sacriticing instincts
and the devouter faith of womanhood
Their influence in any such bodies will
certainly obtain for good, and the RICH,
is one they have proved substantial CLAIM
to. We heartily commend the objects
OF the women's council as expressed in
this set of resolutions, and shall look
forward with interest to their future
meetings and their deliverances or the
subject of their political hopes ano
claims.