Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1914-05-02
=. ]. SUFFRAGE VICTORY IS
PREDICTED FOR NEXT YEAR
Sste Leader Reviews the Doctrine of Equal Rights
sares How the Movement Hal Gathered Momentum Among
YhFnkers-Fair Play Is Keynote of Claim for New Govt
BIZ MINNIE j. REYNOLDS,
Secretary WOmen's Political Union of
New JERSEY.

IN the streets or every city IN the
country the doctrine of equal rights
Is being proclaimed at this hour from
bandstand automobile, or the humble,
necessary soap box. Long PROFESSIONS
are marching, gay with the bright
hues of the suffrage movement; and
1t is easy for imagination to picture
the unseen pioneers who have passed
on; the gray-haired women who took
the sneers, the loud laughter and the
abuse of the earlier day, marching
radiantly at the head of these long
lines of their young sisters.
A revolution is being peacefully ac-
complshed by women throughout the
world. Outside of Mexico and dark
est Africa there is scarcely country
untouched by it.
This right of the freeman, the right
TO participate in the government that
rules him, was not won by men with
out bitter and bloody wars. Outside
of one division of the English move
ment, not one blow has been struck
by women for their political equality,
and yet women are voting on more
than one-fifteenth of the surface of
the globe today.
The American Way
They have won this enormous ex-
tension of political rights simply by
appealing to mems sense of fair play.
Outside Of England, where peculiar
conditions prevail, they have never
used any other method. This and this
alone has been our method in Amer
I lea. Through the American mans
! sense of fair play we have won full
suffrage in nine States and one terri
tory. Through that same good
medium we expect to win it
IN all the rest of the States.
1t is almost impossible to
realize the change in the position of
women since this movement began.
Lucy Stone was the first woman in
Massachusetts to take a college de-
gree. Her brothers all were sent to
college, but when she asked to go her
father said in all seriousness: rs the
child cra2y?" He refused to give her
n cent for the purpose, and she
picked berries, taught district school
and did anything else that came her
way to earn money for college
course. Ii took her nine years to
save enough. Then she went west to
, Oberlin, the only American college
that admitted women.
At Oberlin in that day existed an in
stitution known as the Ladies'
Foard, composed of the wives of the
faculty. Young Lucy was frequently
called before this august body to be
admonished. The colored people of
Oberlin got up a celebration on the
anniversary of the emancipation of
West Indian negroes. They asked
Lucy to speak, and she did so. The
Lad es' Board summoned her next
day and told her she had done an I'M
womaniy and unscriptural deed.
Forty years after her graduation
Oberiin invited Lucy Stone to speak
at its semi-centennial celebration.
First Woman Clergyman.
In Oberlin at the same time was
kindred spirit, Antoinette Brown,
later the first woman clergyman in
America. and today Rev. Antoinette
Brown Blackwell, of Elizabeth, N j.
When Antoinette applied for per-
mission to enter the theological
school every effort was made to pre-
vent her. But Oberlin's charter was
clear. and she could not be excluded.
She distinguished herself in her
studies, but her name was not printed
In the list of theological graduates
till many years later. But more than
half century after her graduation
Oberlin made her a ID. Today there
are 3405 women ministers in the
United States, and one of them, Rev.
Anna Howard Shaw, president of the
National Woman Suffrage Associa-
ton, has preached in nearly every
great city of Europe and America.
At about the same time that Lucy
Stone WIS shocking the good ladies
OF Oberlin. the first woman in the
world entered a medical college and
graduated as a practitioner of medl-
cine Her name was Elizabeth Black
well. and she entered the medical
school at Geneva. n. Y. The people
of Geneva thought she was either dis
reputable or insane; either mad or
bad" and women drew their sklrts
aside when they met her on the street.
When getting her experience in the
hospital wards of the Blockley Aims
house, Philadelphia, the resident ply
sicians would walk out of the ward
when she entered it, and refused to
write the diagnosis and treatment OF
the case on the card at the head of
each bed, IN order to deprive her OF
all assistance. When she started to
PRACTISE medicine in New York, she
was bounded from one boarding
house to another on Manhattan be-
cause as soon as the other women
found out who she was, they would
go 10 the landlady and tell her that
if she kept such a woman in her
house they would all leave.
A few months ago her historic di-
ploIla from Geneva was accepted as
valuable gift by Queen Margarets
College in Glasgow, in memory OF the
fact that she was the first woman In
the world to win a medical degree,
and the first registered woman physi-
clan in Great Britain. Today there
are 1887 women physicians in the
United States.
New York State First.
The first government in modern his
tory to pass an act giving married.
women control of their own property
and earnings was that of New York
State. While that bill was in the
LEGISLATURE a young country school
teacher of New York State, named
Susan B. Anthony, circulated petit
ton for the passage of the bill AT
each house she visited she wished to
secure the signature of the lady or
thai house, the married woman.
whose legal status was to be raised
ard improved. And in each case,
when the lady of the house found out
that it was that this girl wanted,
she slammed the door in the visitors
face
The great State of New York did
rot stand with those good wives and
mothers who slammed the door in
Miss Anthony's face. 1t stood, in
stead. with the unknown young coun-
try school teacher and passed the first
married women's property act, an act
when has since been copied by many