Weekly Arizona journal-miner., 1904-01-27
THE RELATION
OF THE CLUB To
The Home and to the
Community.
Paper Delivered Before the Fed
GRAFTON of WOmen'S Clubs at
Its Last Session.

Tucson on November 20, 1903, by Mrs.
F. A. Suffer, of Bisbee, Arizona, is
published by request. 1t is on q
practical subject and will be interest.
ing to non members of clubs as we'll a:
to members:
In that absurd mixture of poetic
fancy and sordid prose, of poor rhym-
ing and poorer English, Owen Mere
dith's Lucille, l once read some lines
that occur to me now as particularly
true and pregnant with meaning to
us. They are these:
''No life can be pure in its purpose
and strong in its strife,
And all life not purer and stronger
thereby"
All great movements bear some re-
Iation to the home and the commun-
ity. You can not conceive of a move
ment so impractical in its purpose and
conception that it does not affect at
the same time both home and COM
munity. 1t is we'll to ask ourselves
This great Woman's Club movement,
''steady and persistent in the direc-
ton of increased intelligence and &C
tivity, taking its place beside those
other human developments of which
men have said in the language of
other days, This thing is not of man
but of God" what relation does il
bear to the home and the commun-
ity?'' 1t is a serious thing to answer
to the home-a serious thing to a an
swer to the state. Even in this irrev-
erent day the home and state are sac
red. Down the ages from the re-
hottest corner of the world, comes the
question, "Are you for home and ma
tive land?" If not, down with you
We will have none of you'll All ap-
peals to popular sympathy, all great
movements must answer this ques-
ton. The light from the windows OF
home shines far out over the dark,
cold world, and the hearts of all man.
kind are jealousy guarding that
light. All the opposition to the
Woman's Club movement there has
been has come from the blind, mis-
taken idea men have had that the end
we had in view was the destruction
of the home. Fools that they were,
not to see that whatever makes wom-
an nobler, broader or happier, add:
to the sweetness and attractiveness OF
the home which she animates.
There was a time when women's
lives began and ended within -four
walls, when wifefood was considered
a woman's only career, instead of ga
broad existence in which there wa:
room for a hundred careers. Poor
womanhood. Poor, pathetic, narrow
lives. In that day Kipling's Mrs.
Sleary was type of all wOmanhood.
Do you recall his pictureY How day
after day,
Patient, little Mrs. Sleary sits,
Waiting for the Sleary babies,
To develop Sleary's fits. -
But this life began to wear on Mrs
SIeary, she grew tired of the endless
monotony of existence, ceased to worry
about the prospective ailments of the
Sleary babies and went out-audacioui
woman-and organized a club.
Then came the day of sensational
newspaper stories. You could no
pick up your newspaper without read
ing of the gross neglect of the hom'
among all the women of Mrs. Sleary'
set. There it was in pathetic head
lines. ''Mrs. Soso's two year old
child browns in the washtubr' Lit
tie boy blown up with dynamiter
"Mrs Newed's little girl falls out o
second story window" And strang,
to say all these terrible accidents hap
pened while these children's faithles
mothers attended a meeting of tn
neighborhood club.
1t seems humorous as we recall
all, but it was anything but humorou
to the pioneers of the woman's clul
movement.
That which | recall is but the hum
orous side of an opposition so bite
and a public opinion so prejudicet
that the brave women who fought on
earliest battles we're often we'll mig
discouraged. But that day is past
Nowadays we feel a genuine shock 0
surprise when we read an article Iik
that appearing at present in the De
Iineator under the title, Evolution
of a Club Woman" with its thrillin
chapter in which a white faced an
terrible husband meets his wife o
her return from a club meeting wit
the awful demand. woman, do 20
know your child is dying?"
Isolated instances of enthusiast
club women who neglect home an
children for the club room, no IoDge
attract attention, for they are hope
Iessly unusual. The world loves fai
play and it recognizes the injustice {
using individual instances as an e,
cuse for attacking a great idea. A.
mankind are beginning to recogni7
the fact that the Woman's Club is III
greatest friend the home has ever haC
And such ridiculous ignorance I
that displayed by DR.. Leach of Oh
cago IN his recent attack upon III
Woman's Club, arcuses the contemp
uous laughter of the world and place
this malicious and untruthfui ma
upon a pedestal of universal scorn.
Bat we can afford to be magnan
nous, for the last echo of antagonis
has almost died away, and when v
recall all the feverish opposition
the past / think we can say with Pa
Fleming, at has done us good to
somewhat drenched by the rail
and parched by the heat of life. ="
Our position is now so secure tn
we are no longer angered by oppOs
ton, and for such men as DR.. Leaf
we feel only profound and generor
pity. Perhaps he did not deliberat
" set about to poison the sources