Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1902-04-03

ed of the older states and struck AK
into the forest primeval. There they
made homes and reared great families
of sons and daughters; there in turn
these sons and daughters lived and
colleges and newspapers. Of their
children the boys worked on the farm
in summer and thus helped pay their
way at college in winter; the girls got
certificates to teach a country school,
over which they presided in summer,
and they, too, went to college in win
ter The first college open to women
in this Union, Oberlin, is in central
northern Ohio. The first woman suf-
frage convention was held in the same
region.
So pleasant and prosperous did this
part of the state become and continue
that the descendants of the pioneers
did not leave it, but many of them re-
main, pure native American stock,
thriving, intelligent farm people. 70
this day the Declaration of Independ-
ence is read among them on the
Fourth of July; yes, and the people be
lieve it, too, teaching their sons and
daughters after them that all mankind
is created free and endowed by nature
with certain inalienable rights, among
which are life, liberty and the pursuit
of happiness for both women and men.
Women there have had a Fourth OF
July celebration all to themselves.
The women and girls believe that it
is the worker who honors the work,
cows, dig in the garden, do millinery
and dressmaking or even go out to do
mestic service, and they have yet to
learn that they are not ladies because
of it, The spirit of '76 lives and
breathes in them still. Well educated
daughters of well to do farmers girls
who would be schoolmistresses only
there are so many well educated young
women there that the schools will not
go around-take service in the cities
and remain as before, self respecting
ladies.
In Cleveland many of these well edu-
Gated American girls, some of them
bearing names that were signed to the
Declaration of Independence, are found
in the hotels as chambermaids and
housemaids. 1t gives the oldest i'm
preston to a traveller accustomed to
the hotels of Europe and our own east
ern states to stop at one of the Cleve-
land hotels where the native American
young women are employed. The sight
of them would warm the hearts OF
those patronizing people who write and
preach of LADY helps" and one fears
it would set them off galloping theil
hobby harder than ever.
These American hotel girls seem rath
er like the best class of schoolmistress
In person they are immaculate, par
ticularly nice as to their heads, though
they wear caps scarcely at all. A car
does not suit their ideas. Their gram
mar is oftentimes perfect, their man
ners are unexceptionable.
They meet strangers as equal to
equal. Quite unconsciously to them
selves they give you the impression
that they are as good as you are, not
obtrusively or extensively, however
They simply know they are as good as
you are, and they know you must know
it also, and that ends it.
Some of them play the piano and
play it well. The consciousness that
they are equal to the people on whom
they wait gives them friendly, oblig-
ing spirit, and with their Yankee quick
ness they render admirable service
and, what is more than all, they do
not lie in wait to extort from you the
everlasting tip of the foreign person in
such position. They have too much
self respect. In manners and appear
ance they are often far more the lady
than many rich woman who occu-
pies the best rooms in the hotel and
does not know how to eat soup proper
ly.
So long as there thus survives among
us the brave old American spirit there
is hope for our republic still
JANE STORY.