Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1940-11-24
Centennial Congress
Will Urge Women 10
Guard Gains Made
Sessions in New York
To Open With Dinner
Tomorrow Night

NEW YORK, Nov. % (NA.N.A0.-
Women from all over the United
States are gathering here to attend
the Woman's Centennial Congress.
which will be in session for three
days beginning Monday.
Carrie Chapman Gait will be
chairman and the announced theme
of the congress is to check up on
progress so far made and Ito issue
a challenge to women to assume the
responsibilities they have won" In
the latter connection, particular at
tention will be paid to those aspects
of Nazism and Fascism which undo
whatever ground woman has gained
in her long fight to be treated
as human being"
Although the first Woman's Con-
gress was held in 1848, the year
1910 is held as the proper centenary
because that first congress and its
resultant "Woman's Bill of Rights"
was precipitated by an event in 1910.
III 1910, an anti-slavery conven-
ton was held in London and eight
American women, as accredited
delegates, attempted to attend.
After a debate whose bitterness
must strike modern man as comical,
the women were allowed to enter
the hall as visitors if they kept
their mouths shut and sat up in
the gallery behind a curtain.
Garrison Sits With Women.
William Lloyd Garrison, one of
the greatest American abolitionists,
withdrew from the convention in
protest and sat in the gallery with
the women.
The first Womens Rights Con-
vention followed directly from this,
but did not occur until eight years
later when delegates converged on
Seneca Falls, N. Y. Two Of the
leaders of the convention were
Lucretia Mott, who had attempted
to attend the anti-slavery meeting
as a delegate, and Elizabeth Cady
Stanton, who had gone there as a
bride.
The Bill of Rights" listed Is
grievances, many concerned with
injustices arising from the denial
of womans right to vote. This was
regarded as absolutely tyranny"
Another complaint was that woman
was made subject to laws she had
had no hand in framing. Yet an
other was that man had made
woman "civilly dead" in the eyes
of the law by giving her no prop
erty rights.
Exception was taken also to the
fact that woman was being made
morally irresponsible" by laws
which permitted her to commit nu-
merous crimes with impunity as
long as her husband was present.
The responsibility for the crimes
was the husbands.
Complaint was made of the hus-
bands legal right to compel obed-
fence from his wife even to the ex-
tent of chastisement, when neces-
sary. 1t was also noted that educa-
tional facilities were lacking for
women, most colleges and universe
ties of the time barring them from
attendance.
The sum of the grievances con-
sisted of the statement that the then
existing conditions were an attempt
to destroy woman's confidence in her
own powers and to reduce her to
living "a dependent and abject life"
Ninety-eight men and women
signed this protest, July IA, 1915
which. incidentally, is Bastille Day,
the day the French celebrate their
former liberty, equality and fra
ternity."
To Begin With Banquet.
For the Centennial Congress, Mrs.
Gait will reconstruct dramatically
the story of the "Women's Bill of
Rights" assisted by various actors,
among them Susan B. Anthony, great
Krandniece of the famous suffragette.
The Congress will begin Monday
night with banquet where four
foreign women will speak to Ameri-
can women as representative of
their own nations which, in varying
degrees, have been victims Of totali-
tartan aggression.
China, now fighting Japan, will
be spoken for by Madame Sun l.
chung: France, by Genevieve Ia
bouts; Spain, whose government was
overthrown by q combination of
Nazi-Fascist powers, by Sonora Isa-
bel de Palencia, and the British En-
pire. by Mrs. George " Ferguson OF
Winnipeg, president of the Associa-