Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1912-12-22

for better conditions IN the buildings. hey
have even conducted classes to teach JAM
tors how to clean and regulate these struc-
lures in the most efficient manner.
Supplementary to the work for better
schooling, the clubs have always directed
their energies toward securing and enforcing
child labor and compulsory education laws.
To women also has fallen the task of pro-
noting moral instruction in the schools.
And in colleges and universities their ac-
tivities have been felt. For instance, the
General Federation of Women's Clubs has
established an English scholarship for girls,
similar to that provided by Cecil Rhodes
for men at Oxford, and it gives its holder
the choice of Oxford Cambridge, or London.
Women have helped in the enactment OF
forestry and conservation laws, IN improving
the national taste in music, IN advancing the
knowledge and appreciation of art and IN
helping to get into this country free OF duty
all real works of art. The list of what
they have done, from improving health to
lifting moral standards, is long and impress
sive.
| do not believe that womans RESPONSE
bitv in civic activity, which is, broadly
speaking, all those things which affect the
general welfare in towns and cities, can be
overestimated. 1t means an inceSsant and
relentless fight against all evil. 1t does not
end with the establishment of Fairgrounds,
free baths, and hospitals. 1t is not limited
to securing pure water and clearly markets,
or to the abatement OF the smoke nuisance
and the abolition of crowded alleys. 1t is
deep study of how to apply to everybody the
true principles of right living, high thinking,
and worthy action.
You who live in the city may be fully
awake to the conditions that need remedylng
there, and yet not realize that your sisters in
the country also need the help of their sis
terhood There are communities IN which
the farmers wife is as hard laborer, as
hopeless drudge, and as thoroughly bowed
down by heartbreaking work as any woman
in the factory or the sweatshop. In too
many communities the farmers wife has no
recreation, and the old theory about the
delights of the verdant hillsides and the
balmy breezes becomes mockery. 10
these as well as to other classes of women the
womans club movement has already brought
sufficient amelioration to give promise OF
still larger results.
When speak of woman's work in public
affairs, l do not limit myself to the narrow
question of woman suffrage. Even without
the suffrage, great reforms have been trans
muted into reality by women. The right OF
petition to Legislatures, both State and
national the setting forth of facts before
committees, the organization and coopera-
ton of women for any cause, the concerted
plea of the many, these things are irresistible
agents for advancement. This has been
proved. The proof lies in the achievements
that are behind us, and in the words that
have come from the makers of our laws, not
to mention the hymns of thankulness and
gratitude from those we have helped.
V1HY, then, do say that the American
w woman is only half awake to her op-
portunities and is unconscious of her great
power?
Because there is yet much to be done
There are school teachers yet to be paid ade
q,ately, wizened children to be released from
the slavery of mills and factories, wrinkled
women to be given fair treatment in their
days labor, infants to be saved from need
less deaths, diseases to be averted by proper
legislation, employment to be pointed out
to those who, while they want it, cannot
find it.
The opportunities are here to make our
country, which is our home, happier, place
more fitted to live in. She who says that she
has nothing to do with such matters strange
ly blinds herself not only to the needs of