The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1904-04-14
Req. Anna
HOWard SbaaO
POLITICAL REFORMER

N was in Washington, month of
February. year of grace 1889.
The National American Woman
Suffrage association was having
its annual convention. the ses-
gions being held in the Congregational
church. A brilliant young woman
made a speech. Among other things
she said:
They tell US our organization has
been working for woman suffrage
twenty-One years and we are now no
nearer 1t than we were when we be-
gan Yes, we are. We are just TWEEN
ty-one years nearer it than we were
twenty-one years ago"
The remark brought down the house.
The brilliant young woman who uttered
It was Rev. Anna Howard Shaw. She
was and is one of the wittiest, most
eloquent orators that ever spoke up
for humanity. But her hair was not
white then, neither had she the com
Portable plumpness of today. But that
wonderful little tongue was the same
sarcastic, pathetic, humorous, by turns,
moving her audience to laughter or
tears at her will.
Anna Shaw was born in England, but
came with her parents to America
when she was five years old. The fam
woods, and there Anna Shaw began her
mission. There were no schools, no
newspapers and no books in her neigh
borhood, but there was the genius of
the little girl who was born to work for
mankind, and with this genius was
coupled indomitabIe determination. One
way and another she managed to get
book knowledge enough to begin her
career as a schoolteacher when she
was fifteen.
A number of years she continued
teaching, studying meanwhile to gain
more knowledge. The Methodist church
followed always the settlers in pioneer
neighborhoods, and Miss Shaw became
a devout member of it. Into it's work
and duties she threw all of herself just
as she does today into her wider world
circle mission. She spoke at the Meth
odist meetings so eloquently and mar
velously that young girl though she
was, the district conference of her de-
nomination licensed her as a local
preacher. BY teaching and preaching
the young woman earned money
enough to pay for course in college
Preaching and teaching still, she en-
tered the theological department of
Boston university and was graduated
from it with honors in 1878.
She was a graduate of theology in
one of the leading universities of the
lanQ. NOW TOT OTOlnaLlOn ana regular
pastoral work!
Naturally she applied first to her
own denomination But ordination was
refused to her because she was a wo-
man. Then the young minister took
herself to the Methodist Protestant
church, which gave her ordination as
clergyman. She is still member of
this organization. New York confer
ence. Even while she was a theolog-
zeal student at the Boston university
Miss Shaw was the regular pastor of
Methodist church at bingham, Mass
That was her first pastorate, and that
was how she paid for her theological
schooling. Her second pastorate was
at Dennis. Mass, where she supplied
the pulpits of both the Methodist and
congregational churches for six years.
But the bent of the young preachers
mind was ever humanitarian rather
than theological. While pastor of the
churches at Dennis she was trying al
ways to help the very poor and ig-
norant; to lift them to the plane of
light She visited them, she talked to
them. she started plans to help them
Her labors among the poor were in
Boston largely. How the next stage of
her career evolved itself she herself
tells:
Il found that if 1 went among the
people with the Bible or tract in hand
could do nothing with them. They
simply would not