The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-11-07
From the Kansas city Star.


W thing startling. SO, when with
eyes flashing and vigorous gestures, this
widow of st. Francis Cook. knighted by
an English king for his benefactions, ad-
vocated before q Plttsburg audience a
few days ago the branding of men physi-
cally unfit for marriage, she was merely
giving her hearers something for their
money.
Now about 20 years old, Lady Cook has
put behind her a dozen careers that have
included poverty, obscurity, notorlety,
fame, social position, wealth and a title.
Any one of them might have filed an Or
binary life but not so for the resource
full woman of almost three score years
and ten, whose energy and activity be-
long TO progressive young womanhood Of
today.
She can talk as entertainngly on the
subject of woman suffrage as upon pur-
ity of the body, mothers lying to their
children, international peace. magnetism.
hypnotism, or-but Lady Cook would
scorn the topic of free love, upon which
she was once wont to discourse and write
ceased to shock or attract publicity that
could be converted into dollars through
the medium of weekly newspaper. That
was in the past, in the days when she
was Tennessee Claflin, young American
woman with q resourceful, brilliant mind,
struggling to wrest from unpromising en-
vironment money and friends and influ-
ence as stepping stones to larger fields OF
human endeavor.
Some GO years or more ago Tennessee
Claflin and her older sister, Victoria, were
children in an Ohio village. Their father
was poor. their mother a spiritualist and
you would not have believed there was
much of chance for the 10 shabby
youngsters that swarmed in their little
home. But shortly after they had reached
their teens two OF them-Tennessee, who
was the youngest and prettiest of the
lot, and Victoria, her older sister--be-
dent wage-earners. This they did by
starting a magnetic clairvoyant estab-
lishment and exploiting Tennessee as the
Child wonder" For many years dating
from this time it was alleged that Ten
nessee had wonderful magnetic power.
Perhaps she had. At any rate, the sis
ters were successful and acquired large
clientele.
But they were looking beyond the re-
stricted horizon that bounded the mag
netic power business. They went to New
York. Did they spend their time looking
for somebody that wanted to hire them
They did not. Victoria and Tennessee, who
was now calling herself Tennie C. Clafiin,
possibly because it savored less of hum
BILE origin, appeared. in the brokerage
| business in Wall street. Within a month
| they were doing better than a good many
, men brokers in the street. 1t was the
day of Jim F'iske, Jay Gould and Com
| nodore Vanderbilt. and there was always
| some business they could put in the way
of the clever sisters who had taken the
plunge into the business world where
! women were then rare enough to be re-
garded as curiosities. Victoria at that
| time is described as fine looking, but a
cold, commanding woman. while Tennie
was q beauty, more nervous and high
strung. yet with a sympathetic, winning
manner.
| The brokerage business did not hold
| them long. They had soon branched out
| In the publishing business and were get
| ting out weekly called woodruff and
Claflins Weekly. Victoria had mean-
while met and been married to a Dr.
Charming Woodruff. her senior by good
many years. Their weekly didn't have
very much to say about spritualism or
magnetism at this time, but it did have
good many startling things to say about
| free love, equal suffrage, morality of a
| type somewhat advanced for that day,
sociology. humanitarianism and kindred
doctrines and theories.
Victoria had flown IN the face of public
opinion by marrying Col James Blood
of Missouri without being formally di-
vorced from her former husband, DR..
| woodruff, and this seemed to certain
readers of the weekly like the outward
and visible sign Of certain convictions on
| the free love doctrine touched upon in the
weekly's editorial columns. 1t was at just
about this time that the weekly printed
full story of the Beecher-Tilton scandal,
| In which Henry Ward Beecher, the fam
GUS Brooklyn preacher. was accused OF
Intimacy with Theodore Tilton's wife. New
! York gasped.
The whole edition of the weekly was