The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1895-06-17
To VOTE IN TEN YEARS
Lady Somerset Says English
Women Will Vote Then.
A Special Department to Work
for This Result.
TEMPERANCE WOMEN.
They Are Assembled in a Big
Meeting in London.
American Women Bring the
Big POlyglOt Petition.

moetln2 OF the br1tlsn w. y. 1. y. open
ed in City Temple this morning. Tie
principal feature of the session was the
address of the president, Lady Somerset
She said:
"W it'll US as with our sisters across the
waters this day celebrates the completion
of an epoch in our annals. The temper
ance question was never so vigorously
alive in our country as it is today. No
other great nation ever before saw a di-
rect veto bill included in the platform of
the dominant party twice recommended
from the throne and championed by the
leader of the house of commons. The
strength of public sentiment indicated by
these facts marks England as the leader
of national sentiment and proposed legis-
lation among the nations of the earth.
"Today we welcome a shipload of
American women who are among the
most thoroughly equipped and best
known women reform workers of the
world
"They have brought with them the
polyglot petition calling for the over
throw of the legalized trade in alcoholic
liquors and in opium, and insisting on
an equal standard of personal purity for
men and women-a petition signed in
fifty languages and in all the import
ant countries of the world, and which is
to be presented to to the chief officers of
every leading government, as it has al
ready been to the president and repre-
sentatives in congress in the United
States.
"The enfranchisement of women has
now become part of the solid rock under
our feet; it is interviewer with our total
abstinence and prohibition principles as
closely as ever a single wire ever was
with a cable. There is no speech or
language in which the voice is not heard
of this great controversy. Its gains have
never been more marked than in usha
last two years. The women of New
Zealand have the full rights of voters;
the women in the great state of Colorado
have the same; and in both countries it
has been exercised by numbers equal in
proportion to the number of men who
have voted and with the strong tendency
toward home protection and.the destruc-
ton of all that disintegrates the home
that has always been predicted by its
advocates
"The executive committee of the B.
W. T. A. recommends the esta blishment
of department for the enfranchise-
ment of women with superintendent at
It's head. In earlier years we had not
reached this vantage ground. Our
progress has been slow but sure. The
women of England will no doubt be en-
francisco within the next ten years.
"Closely related to the movements
that occupy our thoughts is one which in
the United States has been worked out
to an assured success-and that is CO.
education. 1t is my deliberate convic-
ton that but for the hysteria into which
so many men and women novelists have
fallen, and for the keyed-up public
mind that is willing to exploit their pro l.
duct, there is no remedy 80 sane and
sound as the education of our young peo-
pie together, from the kinderg arten,
I until they complete their course in the
technical or professional schools.
IF anybody dared to speak the truth
about boys public schools in England
there would be social convulsion com
pared with which not even that of 1886
or the lamentable disclosure of the last
winter are to be mentioned.
"When we try to segregate girls and
women into school or harem boys and
men into the school or government, we
| have frustrated Gods grace and we must
pay the penalty.
s'The action of the London county
council on the temperance question indi-
Gates the high water mark of the muni
cipal reform. The council has not re-
tanned a single license which has fallen
It has abandoned 81 licenses at a cost of
$4,000. Alcoholic drinks have been
abolished by the council from the asy-
lums and temperance refreshments are
insisted on in the parks. A scheme is
under way for getting rid of Is acres of
| squalid slums and replacing them with
! good dwellings.
"The agitation against immoral living
pictures (never. let it be remembered
against beautiful and pure pictures. Ell
ther living or dead) has gone hand in
hand with the great movement for re-
| form in municipal politics Those who
| imagine that the Empire theater cuts q
large figure in the outworking of this
problem are mistaken. The lightning
was in the air and struck the Empire
J first because in the worlds central city
it was the most influential whispering
| gallery of the Iiason which blasphemes
pure life and makes happy home i'm
possible"
Church Dedicated Mt Winfield.
WINFIELD, Kas., June 1.-THE new
Christian church building. at the corner
of Eighth avenue and MillinGton street
was dedicated yesterday morning. The
| edifice was erected on the foundation of
| the old one that was destroyed in Janu-
ary last by fire, but constructed on an en-