The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1908-03-25
OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES

WASHINGTON March II. - The
White House was the scene yesterday
afternoon of the formal opening of
the first international congress on the
welfare of the child, which is being
held under the auspices Of the Nation
al Mothers Congress. The 200 dele
gates, representing all the states and
territories and a dozen or more of the
leading countries of the world, were
received at the White House at 2:30
o'clock, when President Roosevelt de-
livered an address in which he declar-
ed that he placed the society ahead Of
the civil war veterans, because, he
said, in the final analysis it is the
mother only who is a better citizen
than the veteran who fights for his
country. The President said in part:
81 receive many societies here in the
White House, many organizations of
good men and women, striving to do
all that in them lies for the betterment
of our social and civic condition, but
there is no other society which l am
quite as glad to receive as this. This
is the one body that l put even ahead
of the veterans of the civil war, be-
cause when all is said it is the mother
and the mother only, who is better
citizen even than the soldier who
fights for his country.
1.-The successful mother, the mother
who does her part in rearing and
training Alright the boys and girls who
are to be the men and women of the
next generation, is of greater use to
the community and occupies, if she
only would realize it, a more honor
able, as well as a more important, po-
sition than any successful man in it
MISSION OF THE MOTHERS.
Nothing in this life that is really
worth having comes save at the cost
of effort. No life of self-indulgence
even in the one point of pleasure it.
self, yield so ample reward as comes
to the mother at the cost of self-denial
of effort, of suffering childbirth, of the
long, slow, patience trying work Of
bringing up the children Alright. Nc
scheme of education, no social atti-
| tude can be right unless it is based
fundamentally upon the recognition OF
seeing that the girl is trained to un.
derstand the supreme dignity, the sU.
preme usefulness, of motherhood. I'm
less the average woman is a good wife
and good mother, unless she bears a
sufficient number of children, so that
the race shall increase and not de-
crease, unless she brings up these chill
dren sound in soul and mind and body
unless this is true of the average
woman, no brilliancy of genius, no
material prosperity, no triumphB OF
science and industry will avail to SAFE
the race from ruin and death. The
mother is the one supreme asset of
national life; she is more important
by far than the successful statesman
or business man or artist or scientist
81 abhor and condemn the man who
is brutal, thoughtless, careless, selfish
with women, especially with the wo-
men of his own household. The birth
pangs makes all men the debtors OF
all women. The man is a poor crea-
ture who does not realize the infinite
difficulty of the women's task, who
does not realize what is done by heI
who bears and rears the children; she
who cannot even be sure until the
children are well grown that any
night will come when she can have il
entirely to herself to sleep in.
MAN WHO NEGLECTs DUTY.
81 abhor and condemn the man who
fails to recognize all his obligations
to the woman who does her duty. But
the woman who shirks her duty as
wife and mother is just as heartily tc
be condemned. We despise her as We
despise and condemn the soldier who
flinches in battle. A good woman, who
does full duty, is sacred in our eyes