The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1902-05-19
:.
DEVEREUX
3 LA K E :.
Legislative
Worker
For Women

The New York legislature passed II
readily, Governor Odell signed II, and 1t
| is now a statute of the state.
That illustrates Lille Devereux
Blakes way.
Mrs. Blake travels along through the
world with her eyes open, keenly at
tentive to all that concerns her sex
Events point out TO her the need of the
time, and she goes forward and secures
legislation meeting that need. The
number of laws. federal and state, that
have been enacted for the good of won-
en- either wholly or mainly through her
efforts is surprising. Among United
States laws and rulings she succeeded
in obtaining are the following: Permit
ting women TO be census enumerators.
making them eligible to civil service
appointments. granting pensions to war
nurses. When one remembers that
these grants cover the whole land and
that women north. south, east and west
today reap the benefit of them, it can
be seen how well Mrs. Blake has
wrought.
In her own state of New York she has
wrestled with the laws on behalf of
woman for an even generation. When
we recall how far behind the times New
York state still is on the woman ques-
ton, we may realize what IL was when
Mrs. Blake began on it, In 1850 by her
representations before the legislature
she procured for women school suf-
frage in New York and in 1885 helped to
secure the passage of a law giving them
| representation as trustees in all public
institutions where women are placed.
| Re N In 4 he,
10 obtain the law that the father and
mother shall be joint guardians of their
children. Yet other laws were one en-
abling a woman TO make a will with
out her husbands consent and one re-
quiring seats to be provided for sales
women. She also began and continued
the agitation for placing women on
boards OF education and for the APP
pointment OF police matrons, also for
raising the salaries OF women public
school teachers. Others Joined in the
work for these ends as IL progressed
but IL was only after twenty years OF
strenuous effort that the measures
were accomplished. Again, apart from
legislation. through Mrs. Blakes en-
deavor memorial was erected last
summer to the memory OF that gifted
writer and woman's rights woman, the
lamented Margaret Fuller. on the spot
where the ship which brought her to
her native land was wrecked, off Point
o. Woods. Fire island.
And the next thing TO overhaul is
the law OF marital Inheritance" says
the indomitable Lille Devereux Blake.
Meanwhile to keep her hand in, as IL
were. she has before congress an act to
enable American women who have mar.
ried foreigners TO retain their United
States citizenship and be entitled TO the
protection of their country's laws
Mrs. Blake was for eleven years pres
ident OF the New York State Woman
Suffrage association. In 1886 she estab-
lished I'm New York city the Society For
Political Study. popularity known as the
$. p. s, In 1900 she founded the Ma
tional Legislative league. whose object
the country over is specially TO obtain
legislation favorable 10 women Mrs.
Blake says Legislative league" does not
sound so scary to the timid as woman
suffrage association" She Is the ma
tional leagues president. Turning
backward the book OF Lille Devereux
Blake's life page by page. IL is crowded
with the record of work helpful to her
own sex as scarcely another American
woman's life book is crowded
What brought you into IL at flrst?"
Il don't know" she answered. 1T
seemed natural. Long ago. when 7 was
child. lot Of us little girls at school
adopted each what we said was TO be
her life motto. oddly enough. mine
was. L will live 10 redress the wrongs
OF my sex / didn't know women had
any wrongs then. but there seemed to
be an instinct in me that women al
ways had the worst of IT,"
Southerners who regard the north
particularly New England. as the hot
bed of all woman's rightism will be sur
prised to know that Mrs. Blake is a
native born southerner. Her birthplace
Is Raleigh. N. G. Her family, the Dew
ereux, were people of wealth and ex-
tensive slave owners. She is descend
ant OF Jonathan Edwards and seems 10
have inherited his logical brain with
out his theology. Her father died when
she was very young, and her mother
took her 10 New Haven. Conn. There
beneath the shadows OF Yale university
she passed her grlhood and obtained
from tutors in her own home the edu-
cation Yale young men received i'm the
college.
On n wall I'm Mrs. Blakes home In
New York city hangs the portrait OF a
rarely beautiful girl with a roselike
face and large, radiant hazel gray eyes.
Lillic Devereux Blake is an uncommon.
ly handsome, distinguished looking wo-