The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-11-06

dition and preach fearlessiy what she 1 feels dead sure is the truth. It Is like tonic shock of electricity to go into the presence of Charlotte Perkins Gilman and hear her discourse soci- ology and human work and destiny. | Epigram, sparlles of wit and wisdom, sentences of serious moral doctrine, follow one another, giving, as under stereopticon flashes, a new picture every time. The splendid fire. force and intellectuality, the radical oriRi-
 nality of all the Beechers, are in the blood of Charlotte Perkins Gilman. prose writer and poet. lecturer. re-
 former and true type of preacher. An aged man who knew Lyman Beecher says his great grand is like 1 him.
 Even one who does not agree with all Mrs. Gilman goes in for is fasci- mated by her magnetism and the fear | less sincerity of her words. In ap- pearance she is striking. above mid dle height, erect as an Indian and en-, tirely graceful. She has heavy black l hair that waves around her temples and is twisted in a loose knot low at the back of her classic head. Her eyes are large and black and flash like diamonds when she speaks. Those eyes tell you as distinctly as the voice does that Mrs Gilman is brimming over with something to say ana means every word of it. Her movements are quick as a birds and her dress skirts are of short walking length, so as not to obstruct her steps, A more fasci- mating personality Is scarcely to Dc found in this tame world.
 Charlotte Perkins Gilman is the daughter of the author Frederick Beecher Perkins. and his mother was Mary Beecher, one of the daughters of Roxana Foote, Lyman Beecher's first wife. Charlotte was born in Hartford. Conn. She wrote her first essays for various reform papers, writing at first without thought of pay simply gbecause she must speak her mind.
 In 1890 she began featuring. That year at San Francisco she did thing eminentiy Beecherian whicn quite without her anticipating it, made her known in a fortnight throughout fhe country She was delivering a lec- ture on the ethics and aesthetics of woman's dress. A statue of the Venus de Medici was upon one side of the stage, dressmaker's dummy upon the other. The lecture was illustrated by crayon sketches she herself had made At one point in her talk she portrayed the evil and the ugliness of tight facing, then suddenly held up before her surprised audience the DIG ture of a horse laced up in a corset. The whole great bulk of the animals middle body was squeezed into a mar row space within which no breath could possibly penetrate. while the outraged flesh bulged out at both the fore quarters and hind quarters in a manner ludicrous beyond description. The audience recognized instantly the telling satire and roared its applause. and Charlotte Perkins. then Mrs Stet- son was a made woman. Newspapers east, west. north and south copied the picture, and those who saw It never forgot either 1t or Mrs. Stetson. How we did laugh over that horse laced up in a corseti
 Ever since this capital hit which be- gan her public activity the lady has been thinking. talking and working. Two sociological problems specially appeal to her--the woman question and the labor question. She has ap- peared as lecturer in most parts of America and Great Britain. At the international congress of women last summer in Berlin Mrs. Gilman receiv- ed an ovation. Women crowded around her and followed her footsteps only that they might see and grasp the hand of her who had set them thinking by writing Women and Eco- nomics.'
 This book. Women and Economics,' e was the first fruit of Mrs. Gilman's mature thought. It was published in 1898. By that time her doctrine of human work had taken definite shape In brief. it is that every individual, man or woman. married or single, owes service to the human race. That service must be rendered in the form of productive labor not so much for the sake of the money earned as for the due of service itself Now the woman at home who cooks and washes for her husband and acts as nurse and caretaker to her chill dren without pay is a mere unpaid house servant. therefore fulfilling neither her duty to herself nor to her race. She Is not doing human work. but Is merely a menial waiting on her own family.
 ''Men do all that constitutes modern civilization. Women are their house servants" Worst, of all. the work of women Tn the so-called home of today Is all body service, ministerinE to the merely animal wants of a few persons that. too, without any pay. "A mans cook can never be his social equal" There Is DO more reason why wo- l man should try to be nurse. cook,