The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1913-05-09

In declining to subscribe to the fund
of the National American Woman Suf
frage Association, Mrs. Helen Magill
White, wife of former Ambassador
White and before that president of, Cor
nell University, wrote:
81 was brought up in the camp of
woman suffrage. / am n member of the
Society of Friends, and so naturally be-
lieve in equal opportunity for the sexes
IN every direction. The Friends, with
great advantage to their women, and
no less to their men, have preached and
practised this from the time of George
Fox, who three centuries ago dismissed
the matter in a few words, as a simple
axiom. Although in later years j have
come to doubt the present expediency
of political enfranchisement for my
whole sex for exactly the same reasons
that | doubt that of universal suffrage
in the form in which we have it,
have been inclined to think that, hav-
ing gone SO far, we might as safely,
perhaps even more safely, make the
experiment complete.
81 have not failed to reflect upon
the foolishness of my sex, as displayed
in their shoes, in their hats, in their
want of pockets, in the daily increasing
absurdity of their dress generally--in
their card-playing at all hours, in their
complete abandonment of all effort to
control or train their daughters in mind,
in manners, or even in morals-witness
the present style of dancing-and the
futility of most of the training of priv
ate schools for girls. This reflects, of
course, the Incompetence or indifference
of parents generally. / also believe
that the high prices now prevailing are
largely due to the neglect of the great
body of women to study or practice
economy, or to teach it to their daugh-
ters. Neither in school nor in college
do find that any considerable number
of young girls are taught, or required
to keep, any kind of accounts. No dress
maker or milliner, of the slightest pre-.
tensions to elegance, seems to have
encountered the notion of economy, in
respect to price, durability, or in any
other particular in her whole expert.
cnce. Any woman fairly well off, who
regards the subject OF dress from this
point of view, feels that she is very
much the exception.
81 have been always disposed. how
ever, to excuse much of this feminine
Incompetence and folly, and the obses
sion with dress, which seems to become
every day more marked among Ameri.
can women of all conditions, on the
ground that the foolishness of men has
always been largely responsible for that
of women, and that if women were
given better things to think of they
would surely rise to a higher intellec-
tual plane and lower angle of heel
q say ''rise for both advisedly.) And
| never until lately admitted to my
self the possibility of our essential in.
feriority-such that, in matters of gov
eminent, we could without outrage be
elassed with children, with idiots and
insane, and with criminals.
''But now that / see our own kins.
women across the sea sowing the wind
to reap the whirlwind-sowing seeds of
lawlessness which we may see in our
own day. | greatly fear, blossoming In
an anarehism more terrible than any
thing yet known to history-and when
see our own women protesting feebly
or not at all, and even to some extent
encouraging, l have not cent to con
tribute nor word of sympathy for any