The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1892-02-02

The attendance at the Woman Suffrage
meeting at Baxter Hall last evening was
not large; but the audience made up for
this by the earnestness and interest with
which they followed and applauded the
speaker, Mrs. Susan S. Fessenden, presi-
dent of the Massachusetts, Woman's
Christian Temperance Union. Mrs.
Fessenden began by dwelling upon the
influence custom and habit have upon
men and women, both physically and
mentally. people become so habituated
to Styles" said the speaker, 'sthat have
actually seen some who thought it looked
much better to have small spindling
waists than such waists as God had made
for them. have also seen a woman
who actually
Thought It Immodest
to appear on the streets without gloves.
Ideas ossify like the bones, and preju-
dices SO hedge in some persons that they
are unable to break away
But tie speaker thought it fortunate
that the spread of higher education, es-
pecially among women, was enabling us
gradually to break down the barriers of
habit, especially in matters relating
to the position of women. Woman
in America is no longer toy.
The modern education, making the
young woman intelligent, self-restrained
and clear-headed, does away with the
old European idea of chaperonage and
produces a class of sensible, self-reliant
young women.
The speaker then conrasted the posi-
lions of
Woman in India
and in America. In the former land she
is treated as an inferior from the hour OF
her birth to her death. In America the
daughter Of the family has an equal
place with the son in early life in the
home and in the schools. But in Amer
lea there is prejudice, founded largely
upon habit of thought, which regards
woman as subordinate to man.
A prejudice, says George William Cur
tbs, is as difficult to fight as the east wind
or malaria. To fight prejudice is
like attempting to reduce fortress by
bombarding it with balls of dough. The
only way to meet prejudice is to live it
down. How fast we really do live down
prejudices may be inferred when we rec
ollect that only few years ago in Mas
sachusetts minister of the gospel in an
nouncing lecture to be delivered by a
woman, said: eff there is anyone pres
ant who vuicbaS tn
Hear Hen Crow
he can do SO by going to the hall on a
certain day."
Mrs. Fessenden said that this belittling
idea of the subordination of woman was
one of the remains of heathenism. But
to be born an American woman today
was to be born to the contest which is to
lift the last weight that holds woman
down to subordinate place. The OPP
pressed and down trodden women of all
lands are looking to the American won1-
en- to know what God means for the des-
tiny of women.
Mrs. Fessenden took no stock in the
cries about the so-called
Tyranny of Men.
She believed that the men were not so
bad towards the women as the women
are towards themselves. She once de-
clared that woman suffrage was opposed
only by very old men, very young men
and very bad men After the lecture a
number of old men waited upon her to
assure her that they had always favored
giving women the ballot. Then a num-
Der of young men did likewise. So she
concluded that woman suffrage was OPP
posed only by bad men, Laughter and
applause.
The women themselves must be arous-
ed, she said. They must themselves
have the spirit to throw off the yoke.
The agitation must be continued until
everything that involves the idea of sub
ordination is eliminated from the life
of woman. There is hope in this contest.
Every year is showing more reasons for
courage in this contest. When Vassar
College was opened,ssa certain influential
American journal declared that college
education for girls meant
The Ruin of Society,
because educated women would never
make good wives and mothers. Exactly
25 years later this same paper comment
ed upon Vassar graduation, speaking
in glowing terms of the work done by
the college and of the excellent influ-
ence of the noble wives and mothers
among Vassar's alumne. All this
change of sentiment came about in rs
years.
1t was necessary to keep the subject
of the advancement of women continual
ly before the people of the land, in or
der that they might not be forgotten.
Mrs. Fessenden said she trusted that her
hearers did this in the
Legislature in Maine
as they did it in Massachusetts, and
meant to continue, even at the risk of
being called troublesome. [Applause.]
All that woman wishes is to be able to
make the very best of herself. She does
not wish to rival or excel her brother;
merely to do the best for herself, and de-
veIope into what God intended that she
should be. Powers and faculties unused
IL 1..4