Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1900-11-10

the earnings of the wife are the legal prop
erty of the husband, which he not fnfrs-
quently claims. The laws by which estates
are settled when husband or father dies III
testate are in many respects harsh, unequal
and unjust.
While women have been instrumental in
securing these changes in laws, they are
not yet fully in possession of the franchise.
Indeed, many women do not desire 1t for
themselves, and would deprecate it for their
sex as whole. Notwithstanding these aiI
ferences in opinion, thirty-one states and
territories have conferred the right to suf-
frage in full or in part. In Wyoming, Col
orado, Utah and Idaho women vote on all
questions as fully as men. and are fully
eligible to office. In Kansas they vote at
municipal elections. In Iowa taxpaying
women vote on questions concerning ex-
penditure of public money. In Illinois wo-
men vote for trustees of the state univer-
sity. and in more then half of the United
States they vote on school questions.
BETTER Co-Operntion.
The very great progress that women have
made in working with each other shows
their capacity for the better cooperation
No other tendency has been so marked in
the development of the last three decades
as has the tendency to combine in groups
or clubs or organizations, in order to ac-
complish the greater good. Within that
time over sixty societies of national scope
nave been founded for women by women
L hSie are iOCsi pOdTUS OF women by the
hundred, organized to help the defective
the delinquent and dependent classes of
society Hardy a city village that
has not its club of women united for pur-
poses of good. Within the last decade in
half dozen principal cities of the world
nave been held great gatherings of thou
sands of women, united for the study of
those things that shall benefit humanity.
Organization of Women.
There is one organization, the National
Council of Women composed of about
twenty other national organizations, having
an aggregate membership of 100000 wo-
men. These national councils, stablished
in eight different countries, have united
and formed an international council. This
organization is quite distinct from the great
federation of clubs, which includes be-
tween l,3Jo and 1,3Oo separate Organizations
engaged in a study of those things that
aid in their own development or in study of
countries and conditions remote from them
se.Ves. Yet study for their own improve
ment and study of remote conditions have
IN the last decade rather given place to
study of religious and social and industrial
problems Immediately at hand.
Out of LOO clubs at least more than one
half nave passed from the student stage
to that of practical service in the improve
ment of the social conditions of the COM
munities in which they are established For
Illustration let me call attention to an ar
tlcle in the Forum of 1897, in which a.lu-
sion is made to what women have done for
the public health alone. This was an I'M
touched field twenty years ago.
Along the same line came the diet kitch-
ems and the cooking schools for the poor
and much more largely than is generally
recognized, the public bath movement has
been inaugurated by women.
If our space would permit we might null
tlply examples, chosen from any one of
many lines of practical, genuine service,
wrought by cooperation on the part of wo-
men. But these, which are only the faint
est hint of what might be told must suf-
flee.
Few as the marks of progress are in COM
parison with what we hope. they are yet
enough to warrant the belief that the prob
lens OF the twentieth century will be solv,
ed not by men or by women alone but by
the intelligent, united work of men and
women together.