The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1897-02-27
THE MOTHERS CONGRESS-.


sembled in Washington last week
and was in session two or three days,
was an unique gathering, significant
of one of the many phases of the wo-
man question or movement of the
time. Some eighteen hundred wo
men in all attended the sessions of
this maternal congress, which held its
sessions in the Arlington Hotel,
Washington, the delegates themselves
numbering 700 or 800, representing
all the States of the Union, among
tn. SO present being Mrs. Stevenson,
wife OF the vice President and herself
one of the vice presidents of the con-
gress; Mrs. Mary Lowe Dickinson of
New York, Mrs. John W. Foster of
Washington, Mrs. Margaret Sangster,
and others of national fame and dis
tincton. Mrs. Birney, of Washington,
delivered the address of welcome,
and after characterizing the present
as an age of movements" time of
specialized work and of organized
crystallized effort, she defined the
subject of the congress celebrating
as the child question, that broadcast
aud deepest of all questions; that
theme most worthy in all its variant
phases of our study and attention,
because the fundamental one; that
question known in the special phrase
ology of the day as child culture"
Mrs. Brney pointed out some of
the striking failures of our modern
civilization. which builds thousand
prisons, jails, reformatories, asylums,
and hospitals to one kindergarten,
and affirmed that the demand for
these reformatory agencies would
never cease until we cut off the sup
ply.
"Let mothers, fathers, nurses, edu-
Gators, ministers, Legislators, and,
mightiest of all in its swift, far-reach
ing influences, the press" said Mrs.
Birney, make the child the watch
word and ward of the day and hour;
let all else be secondary, and those of
us who live to see the year 1926 will
behold a new world and a new peo-
pie.
"Untiring, universal, individual
effort, with such organization only as
may prove helpful, will build bridge
upon which struggling humanity
may safely cross into new world,
leaving forever the old, with its unend-
ing reformatory methods and shat
tered homes"
This lisa grand and inspiring ideal,
we'll worthy the prominence into
which it has been lifted by the Con-
gress of Mothers in Washington. And
if any object that this ideal is too vast
to be realized they may gain courage
and hope from this splendid response
to the address of welcome by Mrs.
Mary Lowe Dickinson, of New York,
especially these words: "As mo-
theirs, especially, who would fain to
see better things in the future that is
to be the inheritance of our children,
we rejoice in the fact that there never
before was time when at the heart
of every movement, large or small,
lay such consideration for the well
fare of human beings as today. Never
before was so much strength, time
and money expended for the educa-
ton of the illiterate. Never before
were there such wise and wonderful
projects for preventing pauperism
and disease. Never before was the
spirit of Christianity so active in hui
man affairs. Never was religion so
patient with ignorance, so pitiful to
suffering, so ready to shake off the
shackles put upon it by bigotry and
to represent by its loving activity the
power of the love of Christ"