t
THE WES
WOMAN'S WEEK IN WASHINGTON.
For several days prior to the opening of the intellectual carnival, at the
nation's capital, in which press, pulpit, people and congress have freely par
ticipated, there had been a noted gathering o( the feminine clans. They came
from all parts of the union and from over the Atlantic seas. There were tall
women and short s old women and young ; ugly ones and handsome ones ;
wise ones and silly ones s lashionably attired and oddly arrayed ones. There
were women of the colored race who once were slaves, and women from the
sunny southland who were their former mistresses i women from the rock
ribbed shores of New England ; from the alluvial valleys of the Mississippi i
from the prairied uplands of Kansas, Nebraska and the two Dakotas j from
the Rocky mountain states of Wyoming, Montana, Idaho and Nevada s from
the territories of Utah, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Arizona! from the
sundown seas of the Pacific slope, "where rolls the Oregon s" from British
America j from the grandmother-land ol Hispaniola s from the Indian terri
tory of our own country s from " farthest India ;" from Australia, and from
the Cuban isles. There were women of every imaginable shade of religious
and political belief, representing every ism under the sun in their individual
capacity, but all united under the banners of the National Council of Women
and the National American Woman Suffrage Association ol the United
States, to devise ways and means to secure to themselves and their successors
the divine blessings of such governmental power as can only be obtained in
any country " through the consent of the governed." The pious rant which
discolors so many weaker gatherings of women, where the orthodox clergy
are supposed to rule, was almost wholly absent here, though there was through
alt a strong, sensible display of religious sentiment, based upon the " father
hood of God and brotherhood of man."
The central figure of the Woman's Council was its president, Frances
E. Willard, of whom let whatever may be said in derogation of her methods
or beliefs by the vast voting multitudes, as well as the great hosts of women
who are not prohibitionists, there is no denying that she has no superior as an
organizer and no peer in the great work ol leading the women of orthodox
churches toward a higher, grander and exceedingly broader plane of thought
than the servile, meek and mock-heroic spirit peculiar to the plane in which
she found them. Her smart, womanly and intensely " taking " way of saying
the right thing on the spur of the instant keeps her audiences on the alert,
and her co-workers in gay, good humor, and is inimitable. For instance this :
A lady rose in the body of the house when a proposition to enlist the various
churches in the cause of freedom for women was being discussed and said,
" I am an Episcopalian, and this rule is not in conformity with the church '
canon. What can I do? " " Melt your cannon and mold it into a bell ! "
was the quick and sweet retort, which convulsed the house with repeated
bursts of laughter. The meetings were held at Albaugh's grand opera house,
the finest in the city, but not so tine as our Marquain grand at Portland.
Among the speakers at the council were many who also had unlimited
time on the programme at the woman suffrage meetings, showing that women
are not superior to men ; that they are not above favoritism i that they are
not earning their right to the ballot by reason of extra " goodness," but are
proving that, among themselves, as among their brothers, eternal vigilance
always is to be the price of liberty. I am exceedingly happy to chronicle this
fact, since many of my gentleman readers openly oppose the enfranchisement
of women because of our alleged excessive " goodness "an imaginary attri
bute of our sex existing only in their own fancy, as they would speedily leam
if they could put themselves in women's place for a little while and hear some
of the uncomplimentary earnestness we indulge about each other when men
are not supposed to be listening.
The opening address of the council by Miss Willard was a practical,
thoughtful and thoroughly digested symposium of a proposed plan of practi
cal work for the future. She suggests the organization of council centers in
every county of the different states, with a higher body composed of delegates
fnm local centers, to meet at ths state capitals in two houses an upper and
lower one like men's legislatures, with a congress also, of two houses, to
meet in Washington. This idea, though not new or originating with Mist
Willard, seems ready to take definite shape under her touch, inspired, as all
woman's movements are at present, by the coming Columbian Exposition at
Chicago, where the women of the natioa, with Mrs. Potter Palmer at their
head, are already nnrslulling their hosts for the continuation of the work
which Susan B. Anthony and her coadjutors inaugurated on the Fourth of
July, 1876, at the World's Fair in Philadelphia.
It is impossible, in the brief space at my command, to more than men
tion a few of the leaders of the national council, of whom the chief originator
was, of course, its venerable and venerated captain, Susan B. Anthony, who,
r SHORE. W3
when traveling in Euro some years ago, conceived the plan of an inter
national council of women, of which this national council is an auxiliary.
The international council held its first great conclave here three years ago,
and intended to convene next year in London, but will meet, instead, at the
forthcoming Columbian Exposition in Chicago, by international consent, with
the National American Woman Suffrage Association in 1893,
Mrs. May Wright Sew, ill, of Indianapolis, and Mrs. Rachael Foster
Aver1, of Philadelphia, who were Miss Anthony's chiefs of staff in the organ
ization of the international council, are central figures in (he national council,
and are retained as officers for the ensuing three years, while Frances Willard
abdicates the chair for Mrs Clymer, president of the Sorosis, who will wield
the gavel at the next triennial meeting. Among the most notable speakers
were Julia Ward Howe, of Boston, Anna Nathan Meyer, of New York, a
handsome and highly educated Jewess, and Miss Balgamie, of London, a
wholesome, happy and logical woman, whose eloquence in behalf of the
laboring classes was at once an inspiration and a surprise. Mar)- Seymour
Howell, of New York, is another highly gifted lecturer, of much more than
local fame, and Mcsdames Lease and Diggs, of Kansas, whom Senator
Ingalls accuses of having beaten him for re-election and of ' scalping those
they have killed," deserve special mention.
The council adjourned at midnight of Wednesday, and the next morn
ing, February j6, the twenty-third annual convention of the Woman Suffrage
Association began its labors, under auspices in no way dimmed by the bril
liant display of wit, wisdom, wealth, elegance and eloquence of which its
leaders had formed a conspicuous part at the council, augmented after the
opening session by Lucy Stone and her venerable husband, Henry II. Black- '
well and their charming daughter from Boston, and Mrs. Lidc Merriwether,
the witty orator from Tennessee, whose speech, entitled the " Silent Seven,"
was one of the best of the week, and calls for repetition everywhere. As we
have hope that this talented southern woman and her patriotic coadjutors,
Josephine K. Henry and the Clay sisters of Kentucky, will soon visit the
northwest, I will only say of them here that if our people wish to be con
vulsed with laughter, melted to tears and exalted with patriotism they will hear
these women, not once but many times. Then there was Isabella llcecher
Hooker, strikingly like her venerable brother, Henry Ward Bcecher, whom
Oregonians never can forget t Rev. Anna Shaw, the plump, pleasing, vi .ucl.-s .
Methodist preacher whom Dr. Houghton may subdue into silence if he can
but everybody knows he can't t Rev. Olympia Brown, of Wisconsin, whose
masterly mind goes out in sympathy for the " rights of the American man 1"
Clara B. Colby, of Nebraska, who brings the Woman's Tribunt to Washing
ton every winter 1 Ella Manton Marble, the fashionable head of a young
ladies' school for physical training in Washington 1 Lillie Devereux Blake, ol
New York but I've got to chop the names of illustrious women off right
here, or there will be no room for men, and it is not the province of the equal
rights movement to crowd the men from mention in its conventions, but quite ,
the contrary.
Foremost among these was Henry B, Blackwell, of Boston, whose mas
terly speech was more than matched by his ready assistance in the formula
tion and dispatch of resolutions and general parliamentary business, lit all of
which women are sublimely, if not ridiculously, irregular, Then we had an
address by Rev, F. A. Hinckley, of Massachusetts, whose polished utterance
was only outranked by hit depth of thought 1 and from Senator J. M. Carey,
of Wyoming, whose speech was on " The True Republic," whence he hails,
the only really free state in the union, because Wyoming it the only state
where nuniand women enjoy absolutely equal rights. Senator Carey is a
large, handsome man, a republican and a patriot, who openly prescriliet
woman suffrage as a ture specific for hit party't ills. And I confest that I
now feel doubly ashamed of Washington stnte's so-called patriots of the repub
lican party, whose cowardice, when carpet-bag judges from the slavery-benighted
muth had blighted wonien'i ballots there, to lied (heir tongues while
their wives were being bound and gagged and whiped that they failed to
utter even an audible remonstrance when the state came In without them,
M We'll stay out of the union (ill doomsday unlcst our women can come into
ttatehood with us," was the party cry of Wyoming'i republican leaden. It
was by this they conquered, and in all America there are no other men to
proud of their ttate at they are today. A ringing speech wat also given by
Major Picklcr, member of congrest from South Dakota,' the only man in his
party who ran ahead of hit ticket when the woman tuffrage amendment was
pending last November, and the only man who dared to advocate the princi
ple at the hustings in tpite of the protesti of the feeble-kneed of all partiet.
William Loyd Garrison, the honoted ton of an illuslriout father, and brother-in-law
of Henry Villard, wat the last of the gentlemen seakert 1 and to tay
thai he lully tuslained the reputation of hit family in the grand effort he made