The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1896-07-24
KANSAS WOMEN THERE.
Interesting Incidents In Which
They Participate In St.LOuis.
Mrs. John BreidenthaI Tells
How She Voted.
Annie 'Diggs Sees the Hand of Prov
dence in the Peoples Party
Movement.

Movement.
[F'rom the ST. Louis GIobe-Democrat.
Women are occupying a larger num-
Der of seats at the Populist convention,
and are taking up more room in the
Hobbies than they have ever done at any
previous national political gathering.
The men of the party seem to regard
their presence as nothing unusual
Mrs. Annie L. Diggs of Kansas, sat
for several hours yesterday afternoon
in a continuous debate. Before her
were three listeners, one man some
what old-fashioned who seemed sur
prised, sometimes pleased and some
times scared, at hearing so much speak
ing from a wOman's tongue. The Sec
ond was a Bryan man, and reinforced
Mrs. Diggs' opinions on that subject
with brief little orations of his own,
while the third man, California dele
gate, was unconvinced. Mrs. Digs
kept her place, however, in the argu-
ment, slapping her thin little hands to-
gether sweeping her closed fan in the
air before her opponents nose, and fin
ally, when all else failed, appealing to
religion. Il believe said she, shut
ting her eyes very tightly, as she does
when in earnest, that Mr.. Bryan is
man raised up from the people for this
very purpose, by the hand of Almighty
Cod
''Pshaw!" said the California delegate,
DO you remember the infdeIs prayer,
% God, why hast thou made as and
then forgot us?' Bosh! I don't believe
in this God business
Mrs. Diggs was rather staggered, but
she began again. "Oh, the hand of
Providence was in all that Chicago con
p n
out so, but the Lord overruled so that
the man should be selected that was the
only man that could tide US over the
crisis that has suddenly fallen"
L don't believe in the crisis business,
either" grunted the unconvinced man.
You've been raking up a crisis every
four years since I was a boy" And
when night fell on the debate, he rose,
still UncOnvinced.
One woman who has not crossed the
rubicOn is Mrs. S. Stewart of Califor-
MIA whose husband IS a delegate. But
even she admits that she would like to
come OUT if she could s'get used to it,
She stood a long time yesterday after
noon behind one of the pillars at the
LindeL hotel, a pleasant-faced woman,
with wavy gray hair and a startled,
yet friendly, smile for all who took the
pains to find her out. She says she has
been among the suffra gists a great
deal, and likes to watch them" but as
yet she isn't brave enough to join their
ranks.
She is absolutely alone, however.
Every other woman there has come out.
Miss Helen Hartlett Mitchell, from
Kansas, has a grievance, because in st.
Louis they try to shut women up in q
little, old, stuffy ladies' parlor.'' -Four
times" she said 'at the Laclede hotel
they told me to go back into the ladies'
parlor, when I wanted to come out.
They said, Why are you not content?
What do you want? And I replied,
Why, I want to see the men Oh, It's
so different in Kansas" and she heaved
a sigh of dissatisfaction, to think that
for the present her lines We're cast out
side of the great woman's state. ''They
treat US out there just as if we were
somebody" she said. Miss Mitchell
has been on the stage for eight years,
and says she persontes the Chilly
combination of ''reformer, actress and
Populist." She expects to play in
Cleveland this fall, in The Skinner
Commission Co.
Mrs. J. W. Breidenthal, wife of the
chairman of the Kansas state central
committee. is attending with Mrs. S.
Allen, also a delegates wife, of To
pelza, Kan. Both women have cast
their ballots in a number of municipal
elections,
a fair-haired, fra gile and very feminine
looking little woman, says that she is
an old hand at eIectioneering. when
we lived in Chetopa," she said, lin
town where there were only 5000 peo-
pie, I got in my buggy in the morning
and spent the whole day taking other
women to the polls. They were all suf-
fragists out there, but they were timid
about starting out alone. OF course, I
went only among the women that I
knew. But Topeka is so much larger
that haven't tried it since we moved
there The women in the larger towns
all through the state are not nearly 50
faithful voters as they are in the more
rural districts, where life is more mo-
notonous" Mrs. Aliens daughter is
student of the Kansas State university,
and last year headed a delegation of
young women voters from that insti-
tuition who each with the exception of
a woman SO years old, registered their
! age as 81.
Both Mrs. Allen and Mrs. Breidenthal
| state that they thing there are national
| issues at present far more important
| than the granting of universal suffrage,
| and for the present are content, the one
to dictate the vote of her husband the
| other that of her husband and son.