The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1913-07-18
THE HUMAN PROCESSION


 In the lower East Side of New York and especially among the Russian Jews, the name of Rose Pastor Stokes is one to conjure with.
 The life story of this young woman, famed throughout the world as a So- cialist and a social settlement worker, is more romantic than any fiction.
 Beautiful Rose, the Cigar Maker; or, From Poverty to Millions,'' '''-so Laura Jean Libby might have entitled such a. story. But even Miss Lfbby's readers. although highly imaginative, would probably .baIk at such a plot as being too improbable.
 Miss Stokes will celebrate a. dou- tle anniversary today, for this is the thfrty-fourth anniversary of her birth at Augustava, Suvo1k, Russia, and the eighth anniversary of her marriage to James Graham Phelps Stokes, scion of one of the most aristocratfo families os New York, and a millionaire.
 Mrs. Stokes is a Jewess, the daugh- ter of Jacob Wieslander. The perse- cutions to which they were subjected led the W1esIanders to shake the dust of Russia from their feet and seek refuge in England. Roses youth was spent in the ghetto of London, and for three years she attended the Jew ish Free School in that city. This was about the extent of her education- al opportunities, yet today few college women are her equals in learning.
 She was only eleven when she first set foot on American soil. Cleveland was her first home, and there for thir- teen years she followed the trade of cigar maker. They were years of hard labor and poor pay, Of life in suualid tenements, of shabby clothes and insufficient food. But the weary treadmdl of unceasing toll did not grind the life and hope out of the ., v1iy E7ra- gers piled their allotted tasks her brain was busy with thought and ill., ed with visions of the future. While ner com mpanions dreamed of escaping from the factory by marrying wealth, Rose thought only of the welfare of assimilated socialistic ideas, and be- gan to express her theories on paper. While she was still employed in the cigar factory she began to contribute articles, in Yiddish, to the Jewish Daily News of New York. These articles, which were not of socialistic nature, became immediately popular. and in 1903 she was offered and accepted the post of associate editor of the New York paper. In that capacity she served as mentor and guide to the Jewish girls of New York.
 It was while employed as a journal zst, and in welfare work among her people, that she met J. G. Phelps Stokes. That younf man, by reason of birth, breeding, wealth, and rare in- telIectuaI gifts, was the matrimonial ''catch'' of New York. That he chose to spend most of his time among the poor was considered an eccentricity, which many Fifth avenue maidens were quite willing to undertake to cure.
 The marriage of MT. Stokes and the Jewish cigar maker, which took place at Noroton, Conn.,, July 18 1905, was the social sensation of the year. Since then Mrs. Stokes has continued her newspaper work on a Yiddish Social ist daily, has led in many movements for the benefit of working girls, and has engaged earnestly in the propa- ganda of socialism. The possession of great wealth has not a1ienated her from the class to which she belonged before her marriage, but has only given her greater power to help.