Norwich bulletin., 1914-03-17

MISS ALICE STEPHENS WELLS. Pioneers Police Woman
 Two speakers in the cause of equal
 suffrage, Mrs. Alice Stebbins Wells of Los Angeles, pioneer policewoman, and Miss Rose WinSlow of New York, held the close attention of an audience of
 400 in the town hall for two hours on Monday evening at meeting under the auspices of the Norwich Equal Franchise league, presenting the ar guments for equal suffrage from two different standpointS that of the po- licewoman and the woman wage work CT. They had an audience that showed sympathy with their arguments and gave them frequent applause.
 Behind the speakers desk were sev- era1 banners on the wall giving the
 entitled Do Working Women Want the Vote? Palms, ferns and laurel de- orated the desk and a corps of ushers l under the direction of Miss Catherine
 Beckley were on duty, wearing shoul- der sashes in the suffragist colors. They took up the collection at one point in the evening.
 Mrs. William A. Norton Presided. Mrs. William A. Norton president of l the Norwich league, called the meeting | to order just after S o'clock, and in | her brief remarks said that the convic- | tion had come over her that a Norwich audience was friendly one to the Suf- l frage cause. The work of the Nor wich league had been going on for 1 two years now and they had done all | they could to educate in the suffrage 1 cause. She spoke of the argument l that is made by the antis that the women will get the suffrage when they l all want it. But she felt that the an ! swer was that we should never get reforms and advancement if we had to | wait for the majority to move.
 Mrs. Norton referred to one of her l experiences when she was soliciting l signers for a petition for votes for women when she had asked a shoe 1 maker to sign the petition and found 1 out that he could not sign because he l had not yet taken out his citizenship papers, and she realized that she, 1 whose parents and grandparents were born in this town was in the ignomi- nous position of appealing to an alien l to give her the vote and that the l only thing against her was that she was a woman. She took up briefly the | argument made by opponents of equal | suffrage that the women were adopt l ing the feminist idea and wanted free l love- which she denied, but said they | did want a higher ideal for marriage ! for they had seen enough of what free l love meant with men, and when by 1 education this higher ideal was | achieved there would be a lessening of | the divorce evil.
 l Introduced Pioneer PoIicewoman. 1 Mrs. Norton introduced Mrs Wells, | the pioneer policewoman, who wore 1 her regular Los Angeles police badge 1 and the olive drab uniform, which she | said was their summer costume. | Mrs. Wells spoke impressively and 1 gave a very complete idea of what the 1 duties of a policewoman are. It has l been a time honored belief, she said, | that women could not be policewomen l or soldiers, but the woman police off, i cer has come and has come to stay, 1 and an army vaster than anyone thinks l is preparing to save the country from l the perils which threaten it. Condi- l tions that existed 40 years ago have l changed now, the country has moved | into the city, because the women could | not earn enough at home, and in this 1 changed condition the police depart l ment cannot take care of the men, | women and children under these pres ent conditions. It is unfair for the public to expect.
 A Move Towards Prevention.
 We've long been taking care of the
 wreckage. but the policewoman is a
 move in prevention, the effort to save
 the distorting of human life. Where
 ever the young are, there the women
 must care for them, and the police
 woman represents welding of the outside industrial world and the home
 from which these young people come | There will always be these young peo- pie to care for somewhere, some time
 outside the home.
 Mrs. Wells said that she was first 1 put on the police force when she rep
 resented that the places of amusement
 were not properly protected. This
 meant the dance halls, the skating
 rinkS and the streets. It is the girl
 on the street that is the question
 When the policeman is asked to speak
 to the girl on the street he is putting
 himself in jeopardy. When we ask
 the policeman to handle the girl ques-
 ton we ask more than any man ought
 to be expected to do.
 Praise for Norwich Chief.
 In making reference to a pleasant
 call she had made during the after
 noon upon Chief George Linton of the Norwich department, Mrs. Wells spoke II in praise of the kindly, gentlemanly
 way in which sine had been received
 and said that she felt it was a matter for most favorable comment whsn g han had preserved his integrity od
 character as the Norwich chief had af- ter 30 years Of service on the force serving when som etfmes, as she knew conditions were very different from the present time, and that when mar
 has come through as he has he de-
 served the honor of his fellow citi- zens.
 The Girl Question.
 In handling the girl question the real preventive work Is not done by the police, because a man cannot dc it, she said. The thanks that the po- lice officer gets are few and far be- tween for anything and are possibly
 least likely to be given when he at tempts to handle the girl question. from her experience in speaking t girls on the street Mrs. Wells said sht l was seldom rebuffed for there are few who try to point out to these girl!