The midland journal., 1894-03-16

as mans rights. The lone little
ragweed in the ten cent flower pot
in the hospital window represented
the woman of the past, while the
ragweeds on the praries of the West
represented the women of the
future, when no longer trammeled
by unjust laws and silly prejudices.
But you say your 26th annual
Convention closes today in Wash
ington City, and in those 26 years
you have only gained full suffrage
in two States, and municipal suf-
farge in twenty-one. Granted, but
I am in nowise dismayed by these
facts when I examine the pages OF
history and learn how slow has
been the growth of manhood suf-
frage. From Magma Charta to the
Declaration of Independence was
561 years, from the Declaration to
Appomatox C. HI. almost a century.
But the Constitution does not grant
the right. We do not claim it
under the Constitution of the
United States, but under the con-
stitution of the Creator. How l
wish that 1 could have gone down
to our National Convention which
closes, as 1 said, today, in Wash
ton City, presided over by the now
venerable Susan B. Anthony, the
grand old pioneer Of woman suf-
frage, who with Mrs. Cady Stan
ton, Lucy Stone and others has
borne the burthen and heat of the
day in this great struggle for
human rights and liberties. They
have borne calumny and abuse
unmeasured. But this is ever the
fate of the leaders in any great
reform. AS Whittier has so aptly
described the work and character
of the RefOrmer in the following
lines, I cannot forbear to quote
them:
Gan grim and soiled and brown with tan,
saw strong one in his wrath,
Shifting the goddess shrines Of man
Along his path.
The church beneath her trembling dome,
Essayed in vain her ghostly charm;
Wealth shook within his gilded home
With strange alarm.
Fraud from his secret chambers fed
Before the sunlight bursting in;
Slorh drew his pillow o'er his heBd
To drown the din.
Yet louder rang the strong ones stroke,
Yet nearer flashed his axes gleam;
Shuddering and sick at heart woke
As from dream.
l looked aside the dust cloud rolled,
The Master seemed the Builder too;
Uprising from the ruined old
saw the new.
Twas but the ruin of the bad,
The wasting of the wrong and i'll;
What'er of good the old time had
Was living STILL
Take heart the Master builds again
A charmed life old Goodness hath;
The tares may perish but the grain
Is not for DEATH
"But woman should keep in her
sphere" =" What's that, old Mister
Back Number? Yes, woman should
keep in whatever sphere God and
nature has fitted her to fill, and
this is just what Caroline Somer-
vile, and George Elliott, and Har-
riet Hosmer did, and that is just
what Mary A. Livermore, and
Susan B. Anthony, and Mrs. Cady
Stanton, and Lady Henry Somer-
set, and Frances Il. Willard and a
host of other women are doing
today. l knew man over here in
the Sth district who had daughter
whom he tried to keep in her
proper sphere. So he bound her out
to an old woman who used to keep
a tavern down on the banks of the
Octoraro. / said this man lived in
the 8th district and If he hasn't
moved away he's living there still,
but the girl has moved sometime
ago, in fact has moved a good deal
in her short life, having visited
and studied in all the principal
cities of Europe, and is at present
located in Southern California on
the Pacific coast, commanding a
practice worth from fifteen to
twenty thousand dollars per year.
Now if that woman had only kept
in her sphere, she might today
be revolving around the kitchen
range at 1925 per week, or she
might have married a Granger,
and might have been the proud
mistress of her board and 80 cents
per week.
We hear so much bowling about