The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1898-06-01
MRS. LEASE APPROVES.
Endorses an Anglo-American ALI
ance in Lecture at San Francisco.

San Francisco, June MARY Ellen
Lease, the celebrated lecturer, woman
suffragist and Populist from Kansas,
1ectured at the Baldwin theater last
night on "Signs of Our Times" She is
a woman of very agreeable personality
keen, gray eyes and soft dark hair. Her
voice is melOdiOuS and flowing, with in
tervals of deep oratorical sorority.
Her lecture was very comprehensive,
covering the political relations and in
ter-relations of the whole world. In
her preface she made a brief survey of
historical crises which were unheeded
even by the leading statesmen until
they had broken up the country The
blindness of Lincoln an. Douglas in
1855 to the great war then impending
was cited.
Then Mrs. Lease, speaking with great
epigram, demonstrated that there were
also alarming signs in our times which
were unheeded. She said:
I'VE stand so close to the great hori-
Zon of events that our vision is blurred
by our nearness. We have, as a ma
ton, in the last quarter of a century
leaped forward two centuries in the
path of national progress. We have
reached the dizzy heights of material
prosperity and are justly proud Of
what we have accomplished. But, ais
Herbert Spencer said as he left our
shores, we have more of the forms of
liberty and less of it's substance than
any land beneath the sun. At a time
when demOcracy's earthquake foot
purse-proud aristocracy of wealth in
the New is willing to pay any price for
the cast-Off embroidered rags and the
dfsreputable fnery of falling mon
arches.
THE problems of the New World as
against the socialism that struggles
with the Kaiser, the revolution that
threatens Spain and the Eastern QueS-
| ton that troubles England, are the diff
| fculties of capital and labor, the own
| ership of the land and social equality.
westward, westward, evermore
westward, the march of civilization
| goes she went on. But here the
| chain of empire is complete. We can
| no longer fly from the problems our
ancestors crossed the sea to escape We
must solve them now. We stand today
| at the beginning of great evolutionary
period. Every advance movement has
| been over rough and thorny path.
| Every new thing is Graded in a man
| ger. Centuries ago we fought for actual
| emancipation from chains. After re-
| ligious and political liberty gained we
must still fight for economic liberty
| But the hand of God is on the throttle
| of the centuries. Thrones are tottering
| and crowns crumbling. All the crowned
| heads of Europe are SwOoping down like
| a flock of vultures around that old
country, China, preparing for royal
| feast. All the nations of the Old World
are preparing for war and modern war
| fare will be the most terrible the world
| has ever known"
! She urged the Anglo-American alli-
| ance and the retention of the Philip
| pines. She would like to see all the
| Spanish possessions under the Ameri-
| can flag. Prevention, instead of refor-
| nation, care of children instead of pun
| ishment of criminals, the sisterhood of
| women as we'll as the brotherhood of
man, one code of morals for the world,
| enforced upon all men as well as upon
| all women, free access to the land, en-
| p1oyment for all men and peace and
| plenty in all homes and other hopes of
a wider, higher, spiritual and social life
! are among her ideals for the future.