The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1914-06-02
WOMEN LOSE THE FIGHT
.r,TuODIST GENERAL CONFER
r7NCE DENY LAITY RIGHTS.
,ro,,ment Pro and Con by Women
and the Change Was Rejected by
Vote of III to 1O5.

Vote OF III 10 100.
The general conference of the
,1otbodist Episcopal church, South,
n session at Oklahoma City, gave the
1oitv rights Question consideration.
Cnaeches were made by Miss Belle
Donnott of Richmond, KY, who spoke
sor and by Mrs. T. B. King, who
.noke against the granting of these
TIGHTS to the women members of the
oburch. Both made good speeches
from their respective viewpoints.
Miss Bennett made her argument
Substantially along the lines which
+bn advocates for laity rights usually
fo1low. interpsersing her address
with wit and humor. She admitted
4ba+ majority of the women mem
tore of the church did not want these
rights. but that this in measure
nos dine to the lack of a progressive
snirit That the majority were al
WAYS slow to fall into line with prog
ross and needed reforms; that it al
WAYS took pioneers to blaze the way
bofore the reactionaries would fol-
low She referred to the objections
that we're made against the privilege
baing allowed the women to organize
and manage their own missionary So
eieties and enterprises. No well in
formed person can now question the
grnat work and success of these So
oiarias She also referred to the fact
that the women in pagan eastern
countries we're not given rights be-
cause of their heather customs and
traditions. In Christian countries the
rights of woman are gradually being
granted and extended. That laity
rights have been granted in all Meth
odist churches but the Methodist
Episcopal church, South, and in the
.eolored churches. That the people
only needed to be educated on this
subject.
Opposes La1ty RlShJS.
Mrs. King began by saying that
God had created woman as a help
meet to man, and had given each re-
spective spheres in which he and she
should labor as a mutual help and
support one to the other. That one
was only a compliment to the other,
and God did not intend that man
should do the work of the woman nor
the woman the work of the man; that
YOU cannot reverse natures DEGREES
50 as to clothe and endow woman
with the strength, power and attr1b-
utes of man, nor can man be endowed
with the responsive sympathy, con-
iding love and the tender heart of
woman; that the laity rights promo
-ters were only the advance guards
of the suffragettes; that in their re-
spective spheres of action women had
as many rights as men, and that one
should not encroach upon the rights
and privileges of the other. She de-
MED the statement that the laity
rights women were raising more
money or doing more for the church
than those who were opposed to the
granting of these rights; that
greater per cent of increase in MEM
bership had been made in the Metho-
dist Episcopal church, South, during
the last ten years than in any one
Of the Methodist churches that had
granted laity rights to women; that
during that period one-third of the
Increase in the membership in all the
Methodist churches in the United
Churches in the United States and in
the world had been made in the
Methodist Episcopal church, South;
that she had talked with hundreds
OF women who favored laity rights
and had never met but one who was
opposed to the woman suffrage move
ment. She glorified in the fact that
IN the south, where women still occu-
pies the place and sphere of useful
ness for which God created her, she
was securely sheltered and protected
oy the strong arms of a true and
cnlyalrous southern womanhood.
When the vote was taken it stood
Iva for and III against the granting
ol laity rights to the women.