The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1901-03-19

and greatest nope, is the council broom;
that the monogram at the end of its handle
is formed of /. c. w, meaning the Inter
national Council OF Women: that as we go
down its handle reading the letters which
label its successive lengths below /. c. w.
we read y. G. w, and below that. one after
another. is a long series of mystic letters,
all Of which cannot be here recapitulated,
but the novel and intricate groupings of
which would all be understood by the wOm-
en- gathered about this board. Glad am |
to confess that this council broom hopes TO
do its share in brushing away the cobwebs
that obscure international relationships,
cObwebs wherein International ambitions
enmesh many innocent peoples; proud am l
to perceive that the handle of my broom
boasts a SOrosis joint.
Whittier so high" All enterprising
supervisors of annual house-cleanings know
that albeit a theory exists that the most
refined manner of procedure is entirely TO
clean and set to rights one room at a time,
so that the whole household may not be
set quaking with fear and rubbing from its
eyes the wildly Flowing dust, it is practic-
ally quite impos sible first to dismantle a
room and secOno 10 rearrange IL; first TO
raise and second TO settle dust in any one
room OF a house without encroaching upon
any other room. notwithstanding the the
DRY or the unawareness that ought to he
maintained in all other parts OF the house
that a separate part is being cleansed, re-
ADJUSTED and rehabllitated, ! myself leel
that no airing could be thorough which af-
fected only one room at a time. X would
at best have TO be a very small house In
III lHt MllluONc VI every IOOil tOI4u bC
SO adjusted that a draft could be obtained
without opening a door into any other
room. And so l think that among nations
IL is quite impossible that we shall set our
selves 10 work to put the domestic, the So
cial, the legal, the civic, the educational,
the religious, the political relations of wom-
en- right i'm just one nation at a time. The
air that surrounds the whole world is of
one substance. The spiritual atmosphere
that embraces all nationalities has, so
TO speak, been mobiliZed. and il Is impos-
Slhlp that an affpmnt az raadiuctmnOf in
one nation shall not so affect another that
readjustment will also be begun there. At
the present time this theory has been tested
10 an extent that enables us to know that
the handle of the international Council
broom, which bears the monogram which |
have before described. is of a composite
substance. II is no longer so slender in
size and so simple in structure that one
fears that it may slip from the hands at
every energetic effort that is made TO dis
lodge dust with il. With fourteen national
tiles gathered into the knoll of it's handle
and eleven more getting ready to be united
in IL, ii is the kind of broom of whose
handle ones hands can take a firm grasp.
THE MODERN SWEEPER OF COB
WEBS.
L make no doubt that the ancient lady to
whom the inquiry, Woman, whittier so
high?' was originally addressed, had a
prophetic soul; and that it is this very
council broom with which she saw her
latest descendants aspiring ito sweep the
cobwebs from the sky" With ali her valor
in exploration and discovery woman has
been always a follower and not a leader: she
still maintains this modest role. She made
no positive effort to organize an interplan-
etary council, which suggests the last joint
to be added to her brOomhandle, until the
scientists had declared that the Martians
have been undoubtedly long attempting to
communicate with this little planet. So
soon as this discovery was announced the
women, who had hitherto felt that the
international Council probably measured
the final length of their broom. the radius
of their ultimate sphere took new courage
of hope, and now in response to your query,
Woman, whittier SO high?" they are ready
to respond WHITTIER" ITO Mars, fair ques-
TONER To Mars, the most maligned of
planets, the one whose influence has had
the most malehc effects upon the inhabi-
tantS Of our globe. 1t is the Marian dust
that has been thrown into our eyes which
has so blurred our vision that it cannot per-
ceive in the revival OF a thirst for military
glory, the degeneracy. the brutality, the
misery. the decadence of Christianity. the
ebb OF religious impulse. which such revival
of military glory means. ITO sweep the
cobwebs from the sky" those cobwebs
which catch the dust that is showered up
on us from the malign planet, so that we
can have a clear vision. This is the next
use of the council broom.
On the thirty-first anniversary of the
club, whose founders builded better than
they knew. one whose right hand clasps the
knob OF the council ~broomhandle reaches
her left hand TO the SOrosis joint of il, and
reVerentiy expresses her gratitude for all
that SorosiS means and has meant in the
last thirty-One years; and with an abound
ing hope she pledges the Sorosans TO an
immortality and a boundlessness of infu-
ence little dreamed of by the founder and
quite unperceived by many of the present
members of this famous club.