The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1903-04-26

the most forceful and cultivated of the
equal rights advocates in this country.
Her father, Henry B. Blackwell, is by
birth an Englishman; her mother was
the lamented Lucy Stone. Massachu-
setts woman. Every member OF the
! Blackwell family has been somebody"
Henry B., a successful young business
| man, devoted his life to the advance
| ment of woman when he married Lucy
Stone, and today, though this brave
survivor of the old guard is eighty, his
| voice and pen are as clear and vigorous
| as ever. The first woman TO be gradu-
| ated regularly as a physician in Amer
| lea was DR.. Elizabeth Blackwell, Hen
| rvs sister. Alice Stone Blackwell
| aunt. Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell still
lives, making her home now in England.
| DR.. Emily Blackwell, another sister,
lives in New York city. DR.. Elizabeth
| Blackwell is eighty-two and DR.. Emily
seventy-seven.
The Blackwells live long. If Alice
| continues the record. she may yet see,
| if the expectations of the suffragistS are
! fulfilled, women in possession of the
| ballot in every state in the Union. The
| first important event in her life after
| her birth was connected with this wo-
man suffrage matter. She was born in
| Orange, n. ]. When she was babe in
| arms. her mother, Lucy Stone, let the
| household goods be seized and sold for
taxes by way of registering her convic-
| ton that without representation there
| should be no taxation.
| One of the articles seized and carried
| off by the officers of the law was baby
I Alices cradle. Then, baby Alice having
no cradle, her mother held the infant
| upon her knee and wrote one of the
most eloquent protests of her life
against taxation without representa-
ton. So Alice Stone imbibed the virus
of woman's rights. and it took
In her childhood Alice's parents re-
moved to Boston and founded the wo-
mans rights paper whose editors Miss
Stone Blackwell and her father still
are. Higher education necessarily goes
| with woman'S rights notions; so the
| girl was put to school to prepare for
| college, a coed college, of course, such
as her mother before her had attended.
The girl of mingled Boston-British
blood fitted for college at q school where
hundreds of boys and about twenty
| girls went. The Boston British cross
seemed 10 be good one, for among the
hundreds of boys and twenty girls Alice
won the prize for English composition.
/ There was likewise special prize for
knowledge of Shakespeare. and that.
too the welded suffragists' daughter
! captured. her chief rival being Curtis
Guild, now General Curtis Guild, lieu
tenant governor of Massachusetts.
! After leaving the preparatory school
| Miss Blackwell entered Boston univer-
! sity. again in a class of boys, but this
| time only two girls, of whom she was
one At the end of the first year she
was class president and one of the ed
| itors of the college paper, and in 1881
she was graduated with honors. Once
more the Boston-British blood had
proved it's quality. But, being girl,
| there were no lieutenant governorships
or political prizes OF any kind TO be
| striven for by her. These were only for
the boys whom the girl had beaten in
! intellectual pursuits both in the pre-
paratory school and the university. So
Alice Stone Blackwell quietly entered
| the Womans Journal office and began
! to help her father and mother work for
the good time when women would be al
lowed to strive for lieutenant governor
ships.
In her newspaper office she has done
| hero work. In its clearness, thorough
ness and logicalness her mind resem-
bles the best type of the women of that
English blood which runs strong in her
veins She was noted for ability to de-
bate in her college years. Now, at the
annual suffrage and antisuffrage hear
| ing in the Massachusetts legislature
Alice Stone Blackwell is always the
| one selected to make the final reply to
the ants.
/ Year by year the equal suffragists of
Massachusetts, many women and some
men, undaunted, undiscouraged petit
/ ton and argue before their legislature
for the ballot for the feminine sex:
year by year the ants also marshal
their forces, and the stated perform
ance is gone through with little va
ration, Miss Blackwell making the
final summing up of the case for the
uffragists. Some of these speeches Of
hers are models of forensic eloquence
Miss Blackwells mental power and
clearness are shown in her penmanship.
which is remarkable. 1t is actually
more legible than print-newspaper
/ print, that is. 1t moves on with a
broad firm. free sweep. as from hand
that does not waver. a mind that does
not hedge and bubble and ask Mrs.
1 Grundy what everybody thinks 1t re-
minds one somehow of the regal sigma
! ture of Victoria X. Where and how in
/ this age of niggling. slovenly penman-
ship Miss Blackwell acquired such a
hand il would be interesting to know.
Personally Miss Blackwell resembles
/ the tall Blackwells rather than her
I plump. fair mother. More than half her
life she has been working for equal suf
/. frage. For many years she has been re-
I cording secretary Of the National Amer
/ lean Woman Suffrage association. Both
I she and her father attended the recent
annual meeting az New Orleans. All sha
has been to that association is not gen
orally known. Many years ago dire
full quarre! broke out in the American
woman suffrage ranks-''so great anger
in celestial minds The differences
were so serious that there was a sniff
in the army. II went the length OF he
formation Of 2 second organiza ton
Thus there we're two. one the National
and the older one. the American Wo-
man Suffrage association Each work
cd in its own way. each held its annual
convention and the two disputed ike
ali warning sects-
So il continued for twenty years and
those who should have thrown their
efforts together scattered their shots
and sometimes even hit each other.
Then al al once the royv Vas made up.
Harmony relgned between the two fac
/ tons shortly they united again into one
women employees OF the various gov