The labor argus. [volume] (Charleston, W. Va.) 1906-1915, 1909-01-28
WOMEN JOURNALISTS.
Newspaper to Advocate Their Rish.s
Hundred Years AGO,

Hundred Years AGO.
one hundred years ago women first
started newspaper to advocate their
rights. In 1905 it was known that Ma
poieon was determined to divorce 10
sephine, his partner of fourteen wears.
because she had given him no heir.
reason of state like this carried no
weight in the female world. and out.
side the circle of courtiers all symna-
thy was with the wife, especially when
Eugene de Beauharnais, Josepbine,s
son by her first marriage, declared
himself In the senate on the>side of his
stepfather, ana against his own mother
on the question of divorce
From the feeling thus stirred IN
there arose great feminine move
Heht: Seeing that popular opinion ia
'oreo the helpless wife as against the
an powerful husband, a group OF young
women philosophers thought the time
had come for an effort for The social
progress Of their sex.
Their first step was to create an or
gan for feminist defense, and so the
Athenee des Danes was born in Paris
ana at first hourfshed vigorously. The
programme of these suffragists Of a
hundred years ago was given IN q
manifesto before the first number an
peared.
Must 1t be- it was asked, "as it has
been SO long, that women should be
called nothing but the flowers Of the
human race, the charm Of terrestrial
eyes! Must they be fiattercd solely for
their physical charms so as to limit
their empire to their fair youth, which.
alas, passes SO soon? And yet true
companions to man, they aid him to
cross the stormy sea of life. Can it be
SAID that women are classed among
thc domestic animal pets, whose pref
ty little acts, the fruit Of n happy ami
mai instinct, are so captivating:
The Athcnee -des Danes nut in its
protest against the common opinion
that man is superior to woman. '.If
women had not been for centuries
brought up in profound ignorance and
had not been persuaded by force of
nearing men say that they were Gre
ated to obey they would have long
ago refuted this paradox" it declared.
The task of our journal will be to
make Known nll those virtues and all
those talents which the modesty Of
women makes them shut up in their
own bosonls and which have no wit
ncsses outside their families and the
little circle Of friends of each one.
I'VE shall make known to the pub
lie the writings of many Of us who.
not altogether occupied with house.
hold servitude, can rival in genius the
male poets. The celebrated woman Of
the day will have her portrait and her
biography inserted in the weeks num-
Der In which she is described"
This movement, which might have
cleared the way for the votes for wo-
man agitation Of today, had its DAYS
shortened by an accident. 1t happen
ed that shortly after the Athenee had
begun to spread the light a woman, a
wiSmaker by profession, named Bou-
hourt, aged twenty-five, was convicted
OF having murdered three people in
order to rob them.
Thickset and well built, this young
woman was noted for her habit of
wearing mans clothes, and it was in
mans clothes that she mounted the
Scaffold. The satiriSts- and caricatur-
lists seized on this circumstance and
made the woman-Inan n kind of scare
crow to intimidate women from fol-
lowing in the ways of the Athenee,
and the writer's for this journal Of
emancipation, getting tired Of being
nicknamed Bouhourt, gave up con-
tributinS, and no ono was found bold
or perseverinS enough to take their
place.