Ashland tidings. [volume] (Ashland, Or.) 1876-1919, 1912-09-23
Ida NJ. TarbeIl VS.. Jane Adams
Which?

Which?
1t is meet and fitting that the
greatest women of our day are de-
clared to be those who devote the
majority of their time to the welfare
of humanity
The past decade holds in the lime
light Clara Barton, Helen Gould, Ida
Tarbell and Jane Adams, all un-
married women. Clara Barton, OF
Red Cross fame, has passed to her
exceeding great reward. Helen
Gould, with her inherited millions,
has not yet made sufficient history
to consider at present. That leaves
two noted women whose names are
being constantly quoted as ideals.
Ida Tarbell is a writer on sociologi-
cal questions, and invest gator of la
Dor problems.
Jane Adams name is familiar
because her work among the poor
and vicious has given her the title
of the greatest authority in the
world, since Tolstoi has passed on,
on sociological conditions from act
ual meeting them face to face.
These two women have taken di-
ametrically opposite view on the
question of women's suffrage. Which
is right?
When it comes to war, whether
political or with arms, we must con-
slider the leaders. During the late
civil conflict we found that George
B. Mcclellan, though a martinez in
maneuvers and a student of history.
failed because he did not consider
sufficiently the conditions as they
presented themselves to him. The
times were not those of which he had
read and he could not cope with
them.
Grant, on the other hand. cast
aside ancient history and studied the
problems that actually were, and
thus saved our great nation.
So, then, when Ida Tarbell, the
student tells women to stay in the
Inner circle" and all will be well,
she gives us ancient history. Jane
Adams, pondering so near the fire
line for 25 years, says the outer cir
Gle is no longer intact. Greed has
made a breach here, vice there, and
help must be at hand at once. Ida
Tarbell, in her luxurious library,
with all the niceties of life around
her, works with her pen, and lines
her purse with gold. Whether she
scatters it abroad for the welfare of
humanity is unknown. Jane Ad
dams, in Chicago, eats the food of
the poor, lives among the tenements
and breathes the fetid air of the
slums. Ida Tarbell sees no wolf
peering in the window-she studies
at no close range the sorrows of the
poor. Jane Adams hair has sill
vered while she has listened to the
tale of the foreigner. More than
that, she has fed and instructed him.
She has clustered around her his lit
tie children. More than that, she has
given them needed playground and
mothered hundreds of them while
their parents were striving for bread
to feed them. She has studied the
problems of the unemployed More
than that. she has sheltered them,
given food to the starving and saved
them soul and body.
All the wealth she inherited, all
her broad culture of mind, all her
physical strength have been freely
given. She has withheld nothing.
She has studied, at close range, i'm
pure drugs, impure food, unventilat-
ed tenements, oppression of work
girls, lack of playgrounds-in fact,
all those things that eternally grind
the poor.
So, can we not depend on her
judgment when she says the only
cure is to put the ballot in the hands
of women? Once, to be sure, she
hoped wmen would not be compelled
to step in the breach and keep in line
with men. Rut vice has been breed
ing too rapidly in our congested CEN
ters. Voters were careless. Mayor
days ago said: "Vice cannot be con-
trolled. 1t has the mastery in our
city" Our own Governor West
aghast at what he finds in Portland
Stands pat" for suffrage as the only
way unless military rule will CON
quer. Shall we listen to the recluse
in the study or those like Jane Ad-
dams, at active work? Should we
not be patriotic enough to give the
right to save their own flesh and
blood to the women who have borne
them, before the hordes from for
eign shores, the lust of capital and
red-handed vice claim them and tie
our hands with chains unbreakable? I?
MRS. M. M. EDMUNDS.