Julia Ward Howe Part 41

"Go abroad with the majesty and dignity of your home about you.... Let the modest graces of the fireside adorn you in the great gathering. This is a new sort of home missionary, one who shall carry the blessed spirit of home wherever she goes, a spirit of rest, of healing, of reconciliation and good-will."

"One aspect of this [the military argument] would make the protection which men are supposed to give to women in time of war the equivalent for the political rights denied them. But, gentlemen, let me ask what protection can you give us which shall compare with the protection we give you when you are born, little helpless creatures, into the world, without feet to stand upon, or hands to help yourselves? Without this tender, this unceasing protection, no man of you would live to grow up.

It may easily happen that no man of a whole generation shall ever be called upon to defend the women of his country in the field. But it cannot happen that the women of any generation shall fail to give their unwearied and energetic protection to the infant men born of it. Some of us know how full of labor and detail this protection is; what anxious days, what sleepless nights it involves. The mothers are busy at home, not only building up the bodies of the little men, but building up their minds too, teaching them to be gentle, pure and honest, cultivating the elements of the human will, that great moralizing power on which the State and the Church depend. A man is very happy if he can ever repay to his mother the protection she gave him in his infancy. So, the plea of protection has two sides.

"If manhood suffrage is unsatisfactory, it does not at all show that woman suffrage would be. On the contrary, we might make it much better by bringing to it the feminine mind, which, in a way, complements the masculine, and so, I think, completes the mind of humanity. We are half of humanity, and I do frankly believe that we have half the intelligence and good sense of humanity, and that it is quite time that we should express not only our sentiments but our determined will, to set our faces as a flint toward justice and right, and to follow these through the difficult path, through the th.o.r.n.y wilderness. Not to the bitter end, but a very sweet end, and I hope it may be before my end comes."

Her last service to the cause of woman suffrage was to send a circular letter to all the editors and to all the ministers of four leading denominations in the four oldest suffrage States, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and Idaho, asking whether equal suffrage worked well or ill. She received 624 answers, 62 not favorable, 46 in doubt, and 516 in favor. A letter from her to the London "Times," stating these results, appeared on the same day that the news of her death was cabled to Europe.

Thinking of the long years of effort which followed her adoption of the cause of woman suffrage, a word of the Doctor's, spoken in 1875, comes vividly to mind.

"Your cause," said he, "lacks one element of success, and that is opposition. It is so distinctly just that it will slide into popularity." He little thought that the cause was to wait forty years for that slide!

Side by side with the suffrage movement, growing along with it and with the women's clubs, and in time to be absorbed by them, was another movement which was for many years very dear to her, the a.s.sociation for the Advancement of Women.

This a.s.sociation had its beginning in 1873, when Sorosis, then a st.u.r.dy infant, growing fast and reaching out in every direction, issued a call for a Congress of Women in New York in the autumn of that year. She says of this call:---

"Many names, some known, others unknown to me, were appended to the doc.u.ment first sent forth. My own was asked for. Should I give or withhold it? Among the signatures already obtained, I saw that of Maria Mitch.e.l.l,[76] and this determined me to give my own."

[76] She had a great regard and admiration for Miss Mitch.e.l.l. Scientific achievement seemed to her well-nigh miraculous, and roused in her an almost childlike reverence.

She went to the Congress, and "viewed its proceedings a little critically at first," its plan appearing to her "rather vast and vague."

Yet she felt the idea of the a.s.sociation to be a good one; and when it was formed, with the above t.i.tle, and with Mrs. Livermore as president, she was glad to serve on a sub-committee, charged with selecting topics and speakers for the first annual Congress.

The object of the a.s.sociation was "to consider and present practical methods for securing to women higher intellectual, moral, and physical conditions, with a view to the improvement of all domestic and social relations."

At its first Congress she said:

"How can women best a.s.sociate their efforts for the amelioration of Society? We must come together in a teachable and religious spirit.

Women, while building firmly and definitely the fabric they decide to rear, must yet build with an individual tolerance which their combined and corporate wisdom may better explain. The form of the a.s.sociation should be representative, in a true and wide sense. Deliberation in common, mutual instruction, achievement for the whole better and more valuable than the success of any,--these should be the objects held constantly in view. The good of all the aim of each. The discipline of labor, faith, and sacrifice is necessary. Our growth in harmony of will and in earnestness of purpose will be far more important than in numbers."

One hundred and ninety women formed this a.s.sociation: a year later there were three hundred. The second Congress was held in Chicago, with an attendance "very respectable in numbers and character from the first, and very full in afternoon and evening."

On the second day, October 16, 1874, the subject considered was "Crime and Reform." The Journal says:--

"Mrs. Ellen Mitch.e.l.l's paper on fallen women was first-rate throughout.

I spoke first after it, saying that we must carry the war into Africa and reform the men...."

The meetings of the Congress grew more and more important to her. That of 1875 found her "much tossed in mind" about going, on account of the Doctor's ill health. She consulted Mr. Clarke, but felt afterward that this was a mistake.

"My daemon says: 'Go and say nothing. n.o.body can help you bear your own child.'"

She went.

No matter how fatiguing these journeys were, she never failed to find some enjoyment in them; many were the pleasant "fruits of friendship"

gathered along the way. Some one of the sisters was sure to have a tiny teapot in her basket; another would produce a spirit-lamp; they drank their tea, shared their sandwiches, and were merry. She loved to travel with her "dear big Livermore," with Lucy Stone, and the faithful Blackwells, father and daughter; perhaps her best-loved companion was Ednah Cheney, her "esteemed friend of many years, excellent in counsel and constant and loyal in regard."

Once she and Mrs. Cheney appeared together at an "A.A.W." meeting in a Southern city, where speaking and singing were to alternate on the programme. It was in their later years: both were silver-haired and white-capped. Our mother was to announce the successive numbers.

Glancing over the programme, she saw that Mr. So-and-So was to sing "The Two Grenadiers." With a twinkling glance toward Mrs. Cheney, she announced, "The next number will be 'The Two Granny Dears'!"

The Reverend Antoinette Blackwell, describing one of these journeys, says:--

"As we went onward I was ready to close my eyes and 'loll' or look lazily out to see the flying landscape seem to be doing the work. When I roused enough to look at Mrs. Howe she was reading. Later, I looked again, she was still reading. This went on mile after mile till I was enough interested to step quietly across the aisle and peep over Mrs.

Howe's shoulder without disturbing her. She was reading a Greek volume, apparently with as much enjoyment as most of us gain from reading in plain English when we are not tired.... With apparent unwearied enjoyment, she told us anecdotes, repeated the little stories and rhymes and sang the little songs which she had given to her children and grandchildren....

"We lingered at the breakfast table in the morning and among other things came to comparing social likes and dislikes. 'I never can bring myself to destroy the least bit of paper,' said Mrs. Howe, meaning paper written on, containing the record of human thought and feeling which might be of worth, and its only record. To her these were the chief values of life."

The following notes are taken from the record of "A.A.W." journeys in the eighties:--

"_Buffalo, October 22, 1881._ I felt quite distracted about leaving home when I came this way for the Congress, but have felt clear about the good of it, ever since. I rarely have much religious meditation in these days, except to be very sorry for a very faulty life. I will therefore record the fact that I have felt an unusual degree of religious comfort in these last days. It seemed a severe undertaking to preach to-day after so busy a week, and with little or no time for preparation. But my text came to me as it usually does, and a hope that the sermon would be given to me, which, indeed, it seemed to be. I thought it out in bed last night and this morning...."

"My beautiful, beautiful West, I clasp thee to my breast!

Or rather down I lie, Like a little old babe and cry, A babe to second childhood born, Astonished at the mighty morn, And only pleading to be fed, From Earth's illimitable bread!"

"Left Schenectady yesterday. Drawing-room car. Read Greek a good deal.

At Syracuse I took the tumbler of the car and ran out to get some milk, etc., for supper. Spent 25 cents, and took my slender meal in the car, on a table. After this, slept profoundly all the evening; took the sleeper at Rochester, and slept like the dead, having had very insufficient sleep for two nights past. Was awakened early to get out at Cleveland--much detained by a young woman who got into the dressing-room before me, and stayed to make an elaborate toilet, keeping every one else out. When at last she came out, I said to her, 'Well, madam, you have taken your own time, to the inconvenience of everybody else. You are the most selfish woman I ever travelled with.' Could get only a cup of coffee and a roll at Cleveland--much confusion about cars--regained mine, started, and found that I had left my trunk at Cleveland, unchecked. Flew to conductor, who immediately took measures to have it forwarded. Must wait all day at Shelby, in the most forlorn hole I ever saw called a hotel. No parlor, a dark bedroom for me to stay in, a cold h.e.l.l without the fire, and a very hot one with it. Dirty bed not made up, a sinister likeness of Schuyler Colfax hanging high on the wall, and a print of the managers of Andy Johnson's impeachment. I--in distress about my trunk--have telegraphed to Mansfield for the t.i.tle of my lecture and learn that it is 'Polite Society.' Must give it without the ma.n.u.script, and must borrow a gown to give it in."

"_Minnesota in Winter_

"The twistings and turnings of a lecture trip have brought me twice, in the present season, to Minnesota....

"To an Easterner, a daily walk or two is the first condition of health.

Here, the frost seemed to enter one's very bones, and to make locomotion difficult.... Life at the hotel was mostly an anxious _tete-a-tete_ with an air-tight stove. Sometimes you roasted before it, sometimes you froze. As you crammed it with wood at night, you said, 'Will you, oh!

will you burn till morning?' Finally, on the coldest night of all, and at that night's noon, you bade it farewell, on your way to the midnight train, and wondered whether you should be likely to go further and fare worse....

"After the lecture an informal sitting was held in the parlor of my hostess, at which there was much talk of the clubs of Boston; 'If I forget thee, O Jerusalem!' being the predominant tone in the minds of those present. And at noon, away, away, in the caboose of a freight car, to meet the pa.s.senger train at Owatonna, and so reach Minneapolis by early evening.

"To travel in such a caboose is a somewhat rough experience. The dirt is grimy and of long standing. The pictures nailed up on the boards are not of an edifying description. The railroad employees who have admitted us into their place of refuge wear dirty overalls, and eat their dinner out of tin pails all afloat with hot coffee. One of my own s.e.x keeps me in countenance....

"_Minneapolis_

"Twenty years ago, a small collection of wooden houses, of no particular account, except for the natural beauties of the spot on which they stood. Now, a thriving and well-built city, whose manufacturers have settled the controversy between use and beauty, by appropriating the Falls of St. Anthony to the running of their saw- and flour-mills. My first sensation of delight here was at finding myself standing on Hennepin Avenue. To a reader of Parkman's histories, the spot was cla.s.sic.... To refresh my own recollections, I had recourse to the Public Library of the town, where I soon found Parkman's 'Discovery of the Great West.' Armed with this volume, with the aid of a cheap and miserable railroad map, I traced out something of the movements of those hardy French explorers. It was like living part of a romance, to look upon the skies and waters which had seen them wandering, suffering, yet undaunted....

"_St. Paul_

"But I cannot rest so near St. Paul without visiting this famous city also. I contemplate a trip in the cars, but my friendly host leaves his business for a day, and drives me over in an open sleigh. I do not undertake this jaunt without Bostonian fears of death of cold, but Minnesota cold is highly stimulating, and with the aid of a bottle of hot water, I make the journey without a shiver.... Numbers of Indian squaws from Mendota walk the streets in groups. I follow three of them into a warehouse. One of them has Asiatic features--the others are rather pretty. They are Sioux. I speak to them, but they do not reply.

The owner of the warehouse asks what he can show me. I tell him that I desire to see what the squaws will buy. He says that they buy very little, except beads, and have only come into the store to warm themselves. They smile, and obviously understand English. We dine at the hotel, a very pleasant one. There is no printed bill of fare, but the waiter calls off 'beefsteak, porksteak,' etc., and we make a comfortable meal. I desire to purchase some dried buffalo meat, and find some, not without difficulty, as the season for selling it is nearly over. The crowning romance of the day is a sleighride of five miles on the Mississippi, giving us a near view of its fluted bluffs and numerous islets. We visit also the Falls of Minnehaha, now sheeted in ice, but very beautiful, even in this disguise. We talk of 'Hiawatha,' and my companion says, 'If Mr. Longfellow had ever seen a Sioux Indian, he would not have written "Hiawatha."' The way to the bottom of the falls is so slippery with ice that I conclude not to attempt it. The day, which was one of great exposure, pa.s.sed in great pleasure, and without chill or fatigue....

"In my days of romance, I remember watching late one night on board the Mediterranean steamer in order to be sure of the moment in which we should pa.s.s beyond the boundaries of the Italian sh.o.r.e. Something like such a feeling of interest and regret came over me when, in the unpoetic _sleeper_, I asked at what hour of the night the cars would pa.s.s out of Minnesota on the way back to Chicago. This sincere testimony from a veteran of travel, in all sorts, will perhaps convince those who do not know the young State that she has a great charm of beauty and of climate, besides a great promise of future prosperity and eminence."