The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1897-05-08
HELPED TO SAVE
HIS COUNTRY
Helen Gardeners Father
Led Troops Through
Virginia.
Freed His Slaves Before the War
and Became an Exile
Voluntarily.
Reading by the Authoress of Touch.
ing Story of the War for
the Union.

There was just what would be called a
light attendance in Golden Gate Hall last
night to hear Mrs. Helen Gardener lecture
on Lincoln in the Civil War" Instead
OF lecture it was a reading, but it was
just as well enjoyed by the ladies who
came there to see the authoress and hear
her voice. 1t was Enthusiastically a
Woman's Congress gathering.
Such gatherings as these, up to about
fifteen or twenty years ago, were COM
posed of ancient ascetic and acetic women,
rarely married and never mothers, hearsed
in somber black gowns with bonnets des-
titute of color or ornament; malephobiacs
who shrieked their contempt alike for the
virtues of domesticity and the graces of
femininity.
Such was the Old Woman, clamoring
for rights superior to those accorded by
society to her brothers, but last night
showed the New Woman of the new era
in her glory and invested with all the
fascin atoms OF her sex. The New Woman
does not look down upon that brilliant bit
of artistic frivolily, the Easter bonnet,
save when it lies in her palm on the day
OF purchase, and last night it bIoomed
and blushed and nodded in all the cheer
ing beauty OF the gladstone spring.
But the New Woman stands up for the
rights which have been denied her in the
present scheme of civilization. and insists
that in in ,ellect and IN executive ability
she is at least the equal of man.
The New Woman still has the habit of
coming in late, and when o'clock came
not twenty were present, but quarter OF
an hour later there was quite respecta BILE
showing. Then Mrs. joan F. Swift ad-
vanced to the front of the platform and
coldIy announced that the Mayor had been
expected to attend and introduce Mrs.
Gardener to the people. but that as the
time had passed they would not wait any
longer.
Mrs. Gardener, in cream-colored some
thing and lace, was greeted with kind ap-
pause. Instead of a lecture she gave a
reading, with slavery and the Civil War
as the motive of the selection, Abraham
Lincoln and patriotic parson being the
pivotal characters.
The reading was from one of Mrs. Gar
dener's own works. believed to be work
of fiction, but it turned out that the char
acters were real persons and that the story
was from life. Griffith Davenport, min
lister of the Gospel by choice and slave
owner by inheritance, by marriage and
against his choice, leaves Virginia after
long struggle with himself and turns his
slaves free on the hospitable soil of the
North.
Shortly after the terrible disasters of
Balls Bluff and Bull Run Davenport was
asked by Governor Oliver P. Morton of
Indiana and Preside nt Lincoln to lead the
Northern soldiers through the rugged and
almost unknown defiles OF Western Vir-
gina. What the persuasive powers of
Governor NJ orion had failed to accomplish
was effected by the moving appeal of the
President.
The story is we'll told and abounds in
pathetic touches, which we're read very
we'll by the authoress. bat the flashes here
and there Of power occurring in the inter-
view between the President and the par
son were too bold and rugged for the
tenderness and delicacy of the speakers
style.
Captain Day OF the United States army
made few remarks on the subject of the
story.
New interest was added to the reading
by the announcement made by the hus-
band of Mrs. Gardener that Griffith Dav-
EXPORT the hero OF the story, was Mrs.
Gardeners own father and that the story
was true one.
Mrs. Gardener will lecture in the same
place this evening, under the auspices of
the Women's Congress. Her subject will
be "Sex in Brain"