The San Francisco call., 1898-05-27

ton of her political training is in the ris- ing intonation at the end of period peculiar to campaign orators.
 When the Kansas celebrity appeared upon the stage, she invited the small au- dience to occupy the seats closer to the Sorry there aren't more of us here to hear you, Mrs. Lease" said pleasant voice.
 I'm sure of the quality of my audi ence," she answered od-humoredly, however it may lack in quantity"
 'The Signs of the Times" was the sub ject upon which Mrs. Lease spoke for a little more than an hour, seriously, thoughtfully and at times eLoquentIy.
 She quoted Spencer about America s having more of the forms of liberty and less of it's substance than any other land underneath the sun. She spoke with dis dain of the New Worlds aping Old World fashions and adoring Old World dtstinc- ticns when even Europe is beginning to throw off the embroidered rags of nobi- ity." She declared that the poor human caterpillarS on the world s cabbage are multiplying too fast for the cabbage it. self. that there is scarcely a man in pub lie life who has not preferred to serve the SyndicateS than to work for the people, that the corporations which would once have been satisfied with the bone, have seized the dish and now devour the nut ton; while the stupid, blundering public pay allegiance to the man with bhsters on his character while 1t sneers at the man with blisters on his hands"
 Despite the gloomy picture the speaker had drawn, she declared her reading of the signs of the times to be that we stand at the beginning of an evolutionary age, of an era of conquest She referred sar- castically to England's unseltishness in proposing an American alliance, but she favored 1t in view of a probable alliance of the Latin races and in the hope of checking Russia, for, with Napoleon, she believes that ''the menace to civilization, the menace of all Europe is the Cossack of Russia"
 'But the world" said the Populist ora tor, "has been unified by electric nerves. Just as in the physical organisms, with a complexity Of function, the nerve cells of the social organism our developing civili- zation shall bring about an awakened soul sight. A new philanthropy is stir ring the world. The United States. which has dwelt 120 years In the old shell of inn maturity, has a future in which Wash ingtons farewell address has no place We have outgrown the old skeleton of the Monroe doctrine. In freeing Cuba we pay the good old price of human blood shed in vain Retain the Philippines, Ha- wall, Cuba and let the American flag wave over Madrid itself"
 The audience had applauded vigorously when Mrs. Lease declared that no woman should dare to waste her heart and her affections poodle while children were homeless and starving" It had received her belief in one code of morals for men and women. But it stirred uneasily at her repudiation of our old policy and the wide scope of her hopes for our future.
 
 to his companion as they walked out of the Baldwin; "so ardent as to be vision ary."
 Visionary, and Mary Ellen Lease, the practical politician, the enemy of ex-Sen- ;.tor Ingalls, the advanced woman of the humorous weeklies, which have elected her to the chair of ridicule formerly oc- cupied by Susan B. Anthonyi She doesn't look like a visionary woman, and except for her peroration, which was more of a picturesque prophecy than belief con fidently entertained, she doesn't talk like one. The political experience which has made her name well known, if that ex- perience has been really felt. must make difficult her expressed belief in the coming millennium, when the world shall have free access to the land the heritage rof all: when men shall be spiritual, not ani- nal. when none shall want for work and food: when genius shall soar in peace and content crown labor's brow