The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1915-06-01
OF Interest to Women
BY wInona Evans Reeves.


Credit for having originated Mem
ORAL day is given to Mrs. Mary Cot
ton Redpath, who died recently at her
nome in Maiden, Mass, at the age Of
ninety-one. She lived in Charleston,
3. G, at the close of the civil war
! Her husband, James Redpath, was q
war correspondent on General Sher-
mans staff, and at the close of the
war took up educational work among
the freedmen and opened schools for
them and established reading rooms
lie later established the well known
Redpath lyceum bureau In 1855 Mrs.
| Redpath made an appeal to the peo.
PIE OF South Carolina for funds to
enclose the great field near Charles
ton where so many soldiers had been
buried. The response was very gen.
terous, the field was enclosed and a
monument erected. In May, 1866
nfty years ago, at her suggestion,
memorial service was held in Zion
church, after which the entire COM
pany marched to the cemetery and
/ laid On the soldiers graves garlands
OF myrtle, yellow roses. called In the
south, Cloth Of gold" roses, and 9TH
er blossoms. It Is said there were
10000 at this first Memorial services
!Ihe custom was quickly followed all.
over the south, 1t was tangible way
TO express their sorrow and their love,
for the fallen soldiers. In Columbus,
MISS, in 1867, the women for the first
time, tmpartfalI.' strewed flowers gu,
the graves Of confederate and union
soldiers. This incident inspired Fran
els Miles Finch to write the poem,
The Blue and the Gray" which had
great influence not only in spread
ing the Memorial day custom, but
the spirit OF forgetting the color Of
the coat the soldier wore.
There recently came into the pos.
session of Mrs. John NJ Hueston an
old Holland blanket which was bought
from street vender in Amsterdam
in 1880. The blanket in its texture,
is like Navajo. 1t is white with
three rose colored stripes ON each
end and is in perfect state OF preser-
walton Notwithstanding its age.
Miss Ora Belle Cole, who is taking
post graduate work at the University
OF Chicago, presided on Thursday at
a meeting held in Mandel hall, at
which Miss Breckenridge spoke on
the International Peace congress, re-
Gently held at The Hague, to which she
was delegate. 1t was an honor to
Miss Cole to be asked to preside and
to Introduce Miss Breckenridge. Miss
Dudley, one of the faculty Of the uni
versity. is head of the peace associl.
ton and usually presides. but was
absent from the city, and Miss Cole
presided in her place.
The friends OF Miss Marie Kiej-
aisch will, soon be addressing her as
Judge Kiedaisch, so often is she
asked to Judge at school declamatory
and debating contests. She Is to b..
one of the judges at the Van Buren,
county declamatory contest on June
IS, to be held at keosauqua in con.
nection with their chautauqua The
following schools Will be represent
ed in the contest: Douds-Leando, Mt.
Sterling. Pennington. keosauqua.
Bonaparte, Milton and Birmingham.
The contest is under the auspices OF
the Keosauqua Civic club OF women
and Mrs. Josie B. Sherman Is chair
man of the committee in charge.
That equal suffrage has the en-
dcrsement Of the prominent men o.
this state is shown by the following:
AS to national suffrage | have in
Dictated by my vote in the United
States senate for the national SUI
frage amendment that 1 favor 1t. 1t
will come.
Albert B. Cummins.
l wish you success In your cam
paign for equal suffrage. I have
never heard good argument against !
woman suffrage. There is no good
reason why women should not vote
if they want to. Woman suffrage will
help to make politics clean. Why not
give 1t a trial?
William S. Kenyon.
I have given much thoughtful con-
sideration to the question of woman's
suffrage. / have heard both sides |
discussed by the ablest |
statesmen of the country. After con-
sidering carefully the arguments pre-
scented on both sides have not been !
able to find any logical reason why |
women should be barred from the i
right OF suffrage If they desire 1t.
S. F. Prouty,
Seventh Iowa district.
have not heard any real good
advanced why women
should not vote
Frank P. Woods,
Tenth Iowa district Chairman repu5-
lican congressional campaign COM
mittee)
The papers and periodicals have
many OF them recently contained an
account of the work being done by
Mrs. Mary Wright Sewell the dis
tinguished suffragist and social work.
II CO. Ths1lron