THE NEW WOMAN AND THE OLD MAN.
In the exhibition of fine paintings it is important to have the benefit of proper light and shadow. So it should be in the study of questions. Those who look at the new woman through the distorted lense of false education or prejudice, see the monstrosity such as we have pictured in the public press. They see Dr. Mary Walker, whose dress offends our sense of propriety; they see the ranting woman on the platform, or suffragettes throwing stones through plate-glass windows, and defacing costly specimens of art. These no more represent the genuine new woman I indorse, than does the goggled-eyed, kimbo-armed dandy represent true manhood. Fanaticism marks every new movement, every life has its defect, the sun its spots and the fairest face its freckles.
The new woman is not to be judged by exceptions, nor is she to be measured by the standard of public sentiment. Public sentiment has often condemned the right. It ridiculed Columbus; put Roger Bacon in jail because he discovered the principle of concave and convex glass; condemned Socrates, and jeered Fulton and Morse. It pronounced the making of table forks a mockery of the Creator who gave us fingers to eat with, and broke up a church in Illinois because a woman prayed in prayer meeting.
Hume said: "There is nothing in itself, beautiful or deformed. These attributes arise from the peculiar construction of human sentiment and affection; the attractiveness or repulsiveness of a thing depends very much upon our schooling."
Prof. John Stuart Blackie wore his hair so long that it almost reached his waist. Seated one day in front of a hotel in London, a bootblack halted before him and said: "Mister, will you have a shine?"
Professor Blackie replied: "No, but if you will go wash that dirty face of yours I will give you the price of a shine."
The boy went but soon returned with his rosy cheeks cleansed, saying: "Sir, how do you like the job?"
"That's all right; you have earned your sixpence," said Prof. Blackie as he held out the coin.
The bootblack turning away said: "I dinna want your sixpence; keep it, old chap, and have yer hair cut."
The long hair of Professor Blackie was as offensive to the boy as the dirty face of the boy to Professor Blackie. One had been schooled to short-haired men, the other to cleanly children.
I have in my presence now scores of persons, who believe the sale of a negro on the auction block in the South to the domination of a white man was wrong. I did not think so in my youth. My schooling was that Japheth was a white man, Shem a red man and Ham was black; that it was a divine decree that the descendants of Japheth should dwell in the tents of Shem and send for the children of Ham to be their servants, thereby supporting the white man in his dealings with the black and red races. As the Bible was used to justify slavery, so it is quoted today in favor of the liquor traffic, and against the new woman movement. Yet it's the Bible that has given woman her broader liberty. It was the Bible that broke the chains that harnessed woman to a plow by the side of an ox. In the vision of John, a woman is crowned with stars, the burnt-out moon is her footstool and the wings of a great eagle given to bear her above the floods that would engulf her.
The viewpoint of schooling has much to do with our convictions and prejudices. When the bicycle craze first came upon us, women bicycle clubs were formed throughout the country. Wheels were made specially for woman, and to facilitate the pleasure and comfort, bloomers were worn by women in all our cities. The fat and lean, tall and short, old and young wore bloomers. At that time if a man from the country neighborhood where I was reared, one given to dancing, had gone to Chicago and seen these bloomer-clad women, he would have thought the whole sex disgraced. And I must admit I didn't like the bloomer girl myself. I can appreciate the Yankee farmer who lived between Boston and Wareham, Mass. A young woman who lived in Boston had a friend in Wareham, and donning her bloomers she mounted her wheel and started for the village. Passing several diverging points, and thinking possibly she had missed the right road, she decided to inquire at the next house. Seeing the Yankee farmer at the front gate she rode up, dismounted and said: "Sir, will you please tell me, is this the way to Wareham?"
The farmer, with eyes fixed upon the new garb, said: "Miss, you'll have to excuse me. I can't tell you, for I never saw anything like them before."
I said our opinions are based upon schooling. Let the man from the dancing community leave Chicago, go back to Kentucky, attend a country ball, see a young woman with low neck dress and short sleeves, in the arms of a man she never met before, and he thinks her the picture of propriety, as well as grace and beauty. Yet the bloomer girl was completely clad from her chin to the soles of her feet while the other is so un-clad that when a woman, now noted for her great work among the unfortunate of New York City, was a society leader, and was passing through her library to her carriage one evening, her little son said: "Mama, you are not going out on the street looking that way, are you? Why, you are scarcely dressed at all." The mother realizing as never before, the immodesty of her attire, returned to her room, changed her apparel to what met the approval of her boy, and has never since worn a decollete gown.
Let a respectable woman in this town stand on a street corner to-morrow, and utter an oath; she would shock every one within sound of her voice. A man can "cuss" to his satisfaction and, if not a church member, the community is not shocked. Let a young woman seeking a position in a public school in one of our cities, call a member of the school board into a saloon and order beer set up for two; would she get the position? Not much. Not if the community found it out, or the remainder of the board who were slighted. A man can invite a dozen men into a saloon, order drinks for the company, and thereby help to win the position he seeks. In the city where I reside a young man can get drunk and howl like a wolf through the streets, yet if he has wealth and family influence, in ten days he can attend a social gathering of the best society. Let a young woman step aside from the path of right and she is hurled to the depths of the low-land of vices.
Some years ago a young man died in our city whose family name was honored and whose father was wealthy. The young man went the pace that kills and in the very morning of life died a victim to his vices. A long line of carriages followed him to our beautiful cemetery, his pall bearers were from the leading families of the city; flowers covered his grave and the daily papers paid a tribute to the young man cut down before the river of life was half run.
Soon after, a poor girl died in one of the wicked dens of the city. She had been left an orphan in early life without a mother's love to guard and guide her, she went astray. Two carriages followed her to the stranger's burying ground. In one were two of her kind; in the other the pastor of the church of which I am a member. He afterward said to me: "We had to get two negro men at work near by to help lower her body into the grave."
No wonder woman cries out against these standards, these peculiar constructions of human sentiment. Public sentiment demands of a man that he shall be physically brave. If a woman appeals to him for protection, his bosom must heave with courage like the billows of the ocean, though he quake in his boots. Yet the woman he defends will endure pain without a murmur, which would make the man groan for an hour. When my wife is ill it takes about two days to find it out; she does not seem so cheerful the first day, and the second, she will admit she is not so well. Let me get sick, and the whole family will know it in half an hour.
I know a woman will scream if a mouse runs across the floor, but give her a loved one to defend, let supreme danger come and she's no coward. John Temple Graves tells of a Georgia girl so timid she was afraid to cross the hall at night to mother's room. She married a worthy young man and by industry and economy they paid for a cottage home. He began to cough, and the hectic flush told his lungs were involved. The doctor advised a change of climate.
"We'll sell the home," said the little wife, "and go where the doctor advises, for the home will be nothing to me if you are gone."
They went to Florida and knowing they must husband their small means, she took in sewing. A few months later the doctor advised a higher altitude. They went to a little city in the Ozark mountains. Here again she plied her needle, wearing upon her face by day a smile to cheer her husband, while at night her pillow was wet with tears as she heard him coughing his life away. After several months she was informed by physicians that but one chance in a hundred remained, and that was still further west.
"I'll take the hundredth chance," she said, and on west they went. Soon after, in the far-away city he died; she pawned her wedding ring to make up the price of tickets back to Georgia. There the little widow buried her dead by the side of his mother, and after planting her favorite flowers about the grave, she turned away to face the duties of life, and though a dead wall seemed lifted before her, she met each day with a smile and hid her sorrow beneath the soul's altar of hope.
Man has won his title to courage upon battlefield, and yet the battlefield is not the place to test true courage.
"The wife who girds her husband's sword,
'Mid little ones who weep or wonder,
And bravely speaks the cheering word,
E'en though her heart be rent asunder:
Doomed nightly in her dreams to hear
The bolts of death around him rattle,
Hath shed as sacred blood as ere
Was poured upon the field of battle."
When elbows touch, ten thousand feet keep step together, martial music fills the air, the shout of battle is on, bayonets glitter in the sunlight, the flag flutters in the breeze, and the general commands, men will shout and rush into battle who without these stimulating influences would be going the other way. I remember when a boy how whistling kept up my courage in the dark. It is told of General Zeb Vance of the Confederate army, that while leading his forces across a field into an engagement he met a rabbit going the other way. As the hare dodged around the command, General Vance lifting his hat said: "Go it, Mollie; go it, Mollie Cotton-tail; if I didn't have a reputation to sustain I would be right there with you."
For Christine Bradley, the eighteen-year-old daughter of the Governor of Kentucky, to stand on the dock at Newport News, against the customs of centuries and facing the jeers of prejudice, baptize the battleship Kentucky with water, required as blood-born bravery as coursed the veins of the ensign who cut the wires in Cardenas Bay, or the lieutenant who sunk the Merrimac in the entrance to Santiago Harbor. Because she dared to violate a long-established custom by refusing to use what had blighted the hopes of many daughters, sent to drunkards' graves so many sons, and buried crafts and crews in watery graves, the Woman's Christian Temperance Union presented her with a handsome silver service. I was chosen to make the presentation speech, which I closed by saying: "Heaven bless Christine Bradley, who by her example said:
I christen thee Kentucky,
With water from the spring,
Which enriched the blood of Lincoln,
Whose praise the sailors sing.
I christen thee Kentucky,
With prayers of woman true,
That wine, the curse of sailors,
May never curse your crew.
I christen thee Kentucky,
And may this christening be,
A lesson of safety ever
To sailors on the sea."
Now if public sentiment has made such a mistake in the allotment of virtues, why may it not have made a greater mistake in the allotment of spheres? It has been well said: "God made woman a free moral agent, capable of the highest development of brain, heart and conscience; with these are interwoven interests that involve issues for time and eternity, and God expects of woman the best she can do in whatever field she is best fitted for the accomplishment of results for the world's good." If a young woman is fitted to preside over a home, and some young man desires to crown her queen of that realm, she can find no higher calling in this world. There is nothing on this earth more like heaven than a happy home. I can give to a young woman no better wish than that the future may find her presiding over a home made beautiful by her character and culture, and safe through her influence.
But if a young woman is qualified like Frances E. Willard to better the world by public life-work, or like Florence Nightingale or Jane Addams to relieve the suffering of thousands, then she should not confine herself to the limited sphere of one household. I believe in the call of capacity for usefulness in both sexes. There are men who are called to be cooks; they know the art of the caterer. There are men fitted to be dressmakers; they know the colors that blend and the styles which give beauty to dress. There are women who are fitted for science, literature and medicine. Some of the best cooks we have are men; some of the best writers and speakers are women. Abraham Lincoln never did more by his proclamation to free the slave, than did Harriet Beecher Stowe with "Uncle Tom's Cabin." William E. Gladstone never did more to endear himself to the people of Ireland by his advocacy of the home-rule, than has Lady Henry Somerset endeared herself to the common people of the "United Kingdom," by turning away from the wealth, nobility and aristocracy of England to devote her great heart, gifted brain and abundant means to the elevation of the masses, the reformation of the wayward, and the relief of the poor.
There is a fitness that must not be ignored. Frances E. Willard would never have made a dressmaker. It is said she did not know when her own dress fit, or whether becoming; she depended upon Anna Gordon to decide for her. But by the music of her eloquence and the rhythm of her rhetoric, she could send the truth echoing through the hearts of her hearers like the strain of a sweet melody. Worth, of Paris, France, would not have made an orator, but he could design a robe to please a princess and make a dress to fit "to the queen's taste." Then let Worths make dresses, and Frances E. Willards charm the world by their eloquence.
Yonder is a boy. His soul is full of music; his fingers are as much at home on the key-board of a piano as a mocking-bird in its own native orange grove. His sister is a mathematician; she solves a problem in mathematics as easily as her brother plays a piece of music. Because one is a boy and the other a girl, don't make the girl teach music and the boy mathematics. What God has joined together in fitness, let not false education put asunder.
Recently I read of a man whose father left him a large business. Though an exemplary man he could not make ends meet in a business out of which his father had made a fortune. The man worried himself into nervous prostration. While he remained at home for rest, his wife took charge of the business and made of it a great success. I say let that woman run the business and the man take care of his nerves.
I know a minister who is a good man, but his strength is in his limbs. He's an athlete, but turn him loose in a field as full of ideas as a clover field of blossoms, and he can't preach a good sermon. Let Dr. Anna Shaw enter the same field and she will gather blossoms of thought faster than you can store them away in your mind. Some one in my presence may believe the man should keep on preaching and Anna Shaw go to the sewing-room and run a sewing machine; but I say if the man's strength is in his limbs, and Doctor Shaw's in her head, let the preacher run the sewing machine and Doctor Shaw preach the gospel of righteousness, temperance and judgment to come. If God fitted Anna Shaw's brain and tongue for the platform, it would be unwomanly in her to make herself the pedal power of a sewing machine. We want successful, useful men and women; and in fields for which God has fitted woman, don't be afraid to give her the freest, broadest liberty, or be uneasy about her unsexing herself. She has entered two hundred fields in the last one hundred years. Yes, I guess one more field must be added, for I saw a woman a few years ago in an occupation I had never seen one engaged in before. In a city where I lectured a beautiful, intelligent young lady was running the elevator of a hotel, and I was completely "taken up" by her.
Of all the new fields entered by woman you cannot point to one where she has degraded her womanhood, or one that has not been blessed by the touch of her influence.
It is true there are fanatics among women as there are among men, but if the extreme woman goes too far, the average woman will call a halt every time. Fifteen years ago I could stand on Michigan Avenue, Chicago, in the evening and within a half hour count twenty young women, dressed in bloomers, riding bicycles. Now one may go to Chicago, spend a year and not see one. Woman is safe enough.
Some are uneasy lest woman will go beyond her sphere, but I am not so much disturbed about the future of woman as I am of man. Upon virtue and intelligence depends the future of this republic. Have men all the virtue? Go to the saloons; are they frequented by women? No; men. Go to the gambling halls; are they crowded with women? No; men. Go to the jails and penitentiaries; are they full of women? No; men. Go to the churches; are they crowded with men? No; mostly by women. What about intelligence? Have men all the intelligence? Two girls graduate from high schools to one boy. I am glad to be living now; one hundred years hence, if I were to be born again, I would want to be a girl. Woman goes to the door of death to give life to man and man should be willing to let her seek out her own sphere for usefulness.
Not long since I read a book called "The New Woman." It was a novel by an Englishman. In it the author takes a beautiful young girl, about eighteen years of age, through a "Gretna-Green" experience with a young man of twenty. She is the daughter of a widow; he, the only son of a wealthy London merchant. They run away and after a month's search are found by the father of the young man in southern France. The girl is sent home to her mother; the young man sent to India in order to get him far away from his wife. The novelist makes the young man a noble character, who is determined to prove himself worthy of his wife, and he toils to send her means for support. The young wife becomes a mother, and the young husband toils the harder to care for his wife and babe. When time hangs heavy on the hands of the young mother, she is invited to join a woman's club. Here she imbibes the spirit of the new woman. She soon neglects her child and appears before the public for a lecture. She wears a low neck dress, paints her cheeks, blondines her hair, smokes cigarettes and drinks wine. A millionaire in India, who loses his own son, adopts the hero of the novel, dies and leaves him the great estate. Then the young man hurries back to his wife. He arrives in the evening, but finds she is not at home; she is delivering a lecture in the opera-house. He awaits her return; a storm rages outside; at a late hour she enters the door, throws off her wraps and stands before her husband, with blondined hair, painted cheeks, and eyes red with wine. He stares, then starts toward her, when she brings him to a halt by her strange manner. He asks, "Is not this my wife?" she answers, "No, I am the New Woman." She refuses to let him see their child, drives him out into the storm, then goes to her room, disrobes and lies down to dream of great audiences and applause.
It is an insult to any intelligent reader. Where is the woman, who was a sweet, modest young mother, and who today is a public speaker, who has neglected her child, driven her husband without cause into the street, blondines her hair, paints her cheeks, drinks wine and smokes cigarettes? She would be hissed from the platform. The author simply shows his extreme prejudice in an abstract attempt to prove that to be a new woman means the surrender of all womanly graces.
Let me give you, not fiction but real history, that I may present to you the kind of new woman I indorse. She was born in the State of New York, was well educated, and at proper age married a young physician. They moved to a western city, where for a while the young physician did well; but in an evil hour he commenced to drink. Like many a noble young man, he was too weak to resist the power of appetite, and soon his practice left him. His wife, the mother of two boys, secured a position in the public schools and by her ability, won her way to a principalship. The husband wandered away, while the brave wife and mother remained with her children, but followed her husband with letters of loving appeal. After long separation he was taken seriously ill in the far Southwest. She left children, home and school work to go to his bedside. Her watchful care brought him back from the very door of death, and her prayers were answered in seeing him forsake the cup and hide for safety in the cleft of the Rock of Ages. He returned with her to their home, but soon after passed away. She buried him beneath the green Missouri sod, planted flowers about the grave, paid him tribute of her tears, and returned to her work.
In the course of these years she had joined the Woman's Christian Temperance Union and was recognized as one of its greatest leaders.
Several years ago I gave an address in Hot Springs, Ark. A card was presented at my door, which bore the name of the heroine of my story. Going to the parlor I said: "What are you doing here?"
"My boy has been very ill with rheumatism and I have been here with him for several weeks. He is better now and I return to my work tomorrow."
Months later she was called again to the bedside of this son, and with all the tenderness of mother-love, he was cared for until he too passed over the river. Again she took up her work on the platform, where she inspired many young women to do their best in life, and called many to righteousness. She was the salt of the earth, the embodiment of nobility, the soul of truth; and not only her own state but the whole country is better because she lived.
Ask the author of the novel for the real to his story; he cannot name her; she does not live in England or America. Ask me for mine and I answer Clara C. Hoffman, for years the associate of Frances E. Willard as national officer of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, and state president of the white ribboners of Missouri.
In a magazine article an author said: "Out of one hundred and forty-five graduates of a certain female college, only fifteen have married." A Chicago editor quoted the statement and asked: "Is it possible education breeds in woman a distaste for matrimony and home life?" In the first place, I would answer: "You never can know how many are going to marry until they are all dead."
Another explanation is that the average school girl goes out of school at that impulsive age when "love acts independent of all law, and is subject to nothing but its own sweet will," no matter how many years father has toiled to give her the comforts of life, nor how many sleepless nights mother has spent to give her rest. She meets a young man; he is handsome, dresses well and talks fluently. She falls in love, and sees in "love at first sight," the "inspiration of all wisdom." In a week, though she knows nothing of the young man's character or disposition, she is ready to say to her parents: "I appreciate all you have done for me: I love you devotedly, but I have met such a nice fellow; he has asked me to marry him, and I have accepted; ta-ta!" She's gone. If her parents ask about the prospect for a living, she answers as did the young girl whose father said: "Mary, are you determined to marry that young man?"
"I am, Father."
"Why, my child, he has no trade, no money, and very little education; what are you going to do for a living?"
She replied: "Aunt is going to give me a hen for a wedding present. You know, Father, it is said one hen will raise twenty chickens in a season. The second season, twenty each, you see, will be four hundred; the third season, eight thousand; the fourth season, one hundred and sixty thousand; and the fifth season, only five years, twenty each will be three million, two hundred thousand chickens. At twenty-five cents each they will bring eight hundred thousand dollars. We will then let you have money enough to pay off the mortgage on the farm and we will move to the city."
To a girl in love, every hen egg will hatch; not a chicken will ever die with the gapes; they will all live on love, like herself, and everything will be profit.
The college girl cannot marry at this impulsive, air-castle age. She must wait until she gets through college. By that time she is old enough for her heart to consult her head, and her head inquires into the character and capacity of the young man. Beside this, it has been the custom for women to look up to man, and when the college woman looks up, quite often she doesn't see anybody. Young man, if you want the college girl you must "get up" in good qualities to where she will see you without looking down.
I believe this higher education for women will tend to arrest the recklessness by which life is linked with life at the marriage altar. There is a legend among the Jews that man and woman were once one being; an angel was sent down from Heaven to cleave them into two. Ever since, each half has been running around looking for the other, and the misfits have been many at the marriage altar.
These misfits remind me of an experience when I lectured for the Colfax, Iowa, Chautauqua, some years ago. Frank Beard, the famous chalk talker, was there and on Grand Army day he was on the program for a short talk. I was seated by Mr. Beard while the speaker who preceded him was telling war stories of his regiment and himself. Frank Beard said to me: "Well! I guess I can exaggerate a little myself." It was evident he intended to measure up to the occasion. After getting his audience into proper spirit for the manufactured war story, he said:
"I was in the war myself and had a few experiences. At the battle of Shiloh, I was lying behind a log, when I saw about forty Confederates come dashing down toward me. My first impulse was to rise, make a charge and capture the whole forty. But I knew that would not be strategy; generals did not manage a battle that way with such odds against them, so I determined to make a detour. Perhaps some of you young people do not know what a detour means. It means, when in such a position as I was, to get up and go the other way. So I detoured. The chaplain of our regiment detoured also; he could detour a little faster than I, and was directly in front of me when a shell caught up with me and took my leg off just above the knee. You may notice I walk very lame." (Which he did just then for effect). "Well, the same shell took off the chaplain's leg, and we tumbled into a heap. The surgeon came up, and having a little too much booze, he got things mixed; he put the chaplain's leg on me and my leg on the chaplain. We were in good health, and the legs grew on all right. When I recovered, I concluded to celebrate my restoration to usefulness, so I went into a saloon and said to the bartender, 'Give me some good old brandy.' He set out the bottle, and I began to fill the glass, when that chaplain's leg began to kick. The chaplain was a very ardent temperance man, and the first thing I knew, that temperance leg was making for the door, and I followed. But what do you think? As I went out, I met my leg bringing the chaplain in."
That's a very absurd story, a rather ridiculous one, but if the surgeon had made the mistake Mr. Beard charged, he would not have made any greater than is made every day at the marriage altar. Young women, I would not silence the love songs in your hopeful hearts, but I would have every betrothed girl demand of her lover not only a loving heart, but a well rounded character and a reasonable store of useful knowledge.
A writer on this question said: "This progress of woman lessens mother love in our country." Is that true? Before the opening of a southern exposition, a mother of four boys applied for and was engaged as chime bell ringer. Perhaps some saw in the selection a woman as brazen as the bells she would ring. On opening day she played, "He who watches over Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps"; on New York day she played, "Yankee Doodle" and "Hail Columbia;" on Pennsylvania day, "The Star Spangled Banner;" on Kentucky day, "My Old Kentucky Home;" on Maryland day, "Maryland, my Maryland;" on Georgia day, "The Girl I Left Behind Me;" on colored people's day, the airs of the old plantation; on newsboy's day, "The Bowery" and "Sunshine of Paradise Alley;" then "Nearer, my God, to Thee," "Rock of Ages, Cleft For Me," soothed the tired Christian heart. One afternoon she took two of her boys into the belfry-tower; one seven, the other about three years of age. When they tired of the confinement, the older boy said: "Mother, can we go out for a walk?"
"Yes, son, but don't let go little brother's hand."
She was so absorbed by the music of her bells she did not notice the passing of time until the night shadows began to gather. Then her older boy came running up in the tower crying, "Mother, I've lost little brother!"
She quit her bells and running through the grounds set every policeman looking for her boy; then she hurried back to her bells and began to play "Home, Sweet Home." It is said the bells never rang so clear and sweet. Over and over again she played, "Home, Sweet Home;" some wondered why the tune did not change. At last, while trembling with dread and eyes filled with tears, she heard a sweet voice say, "Mama, I hear de bells and I tome to you." The mother, turning from the bells, clasped the child to her bosom and thanked God for its safety.
It is said everything is undergoing a constant change, but until the chime bells ring in the eternal morning mother love will live on, the same unchanging devotion. Several years ago I stood on Portland Heights, Oregon, in the evening, and saw Mount Hood in its snow-capped majesty, when the stars seemed to be set as jewels in its crown. If you ask me by what force that giant was lifted from the level of the sea till its dome touched the sky, I cannot answer you, but I know it stands there, a towering sentinel to traveler on land and sailor on the sea. So mother love, which no one can solve, exists as unchanging as the love of God; broad enough and strong enough to meet all the changing conditions of time.
While I did not make this lecture to include the suffrage question, I cannot turn away from the new woman without a word about the ballot for women. It is no longer a question of right, but whether or not men will grant the right. This I believe men will do when the sentiment of women is strong enough to force the issue. "Taxation without representation" is no less a tyranny to women than to men. I was the guest of a wealthy widow, who paid more taxes than any man in the county, yet a foreigner, who had been in this country less than three years, who had not a dollar of property nor a patriotic impulse, laid down the hoe in the garden, and going to the polls, voted additional tax upon the woman he worked for; and the saloon influence upon her two boys, while she had no voice in what taxes her property, or what might tax her heart by the ruin of a son. There being no question about woman's right to the ballot, there should be no hesitation on man's part in bestowing the right.
I now turn from the new woman to the old man. I do not mean the man old in years; for him I have only words of honor and praise. I mean the man set in old ways and habits that neutralizes the progress and wastes the forces of the republic. At the door of this old man lie the causes of commercial disturbances, depression in trade and recurring panics more than in the causes stressed by partisans for political effect.
We should never have hard times in this country. We live in the best land beneath the sky. It has been well said: "This is God's last best effort for man." We have soil rich enough to grass and grain the world. Our vast domain is inlaid with gold, silver, iron and lead of boundless worth. Deep in the bosom of Columbia are fountains of gas and oil, sufficient to light and heat our homes for a century to come. Within these healthful lines of latitude is room enough not only to house all the peoples of the earth, but to sty all the pigs, stable all the horses, and corral all the cattle of the world.
To have all these gifts crowned with sunshine and shower, free from pestilence and famine, we are the most prosperous and should be the best contented people on the earth. In such a land there should be perpetual peace and plentiful prosperity. Yet we have hard times after hard times, and panic after panic. Why is this? If I could tell you why, it would repay for the time and money spent to hear this lecture. During the great panic in the nineties Mr. W.C. Whitney of New York, wrote a letter to a leading New York daily in which he said: "There are just two causes for this panic; too much silver and too much tariff." I do not disparage these two problems, but I do say Mr. Whitney had a very narrow view of a panic. Like many another man, he had a thorough knowledge of certain things and was totally ignorant of others.
A Chief Justice of the United States was riding in a carriage with his family when a shaft broke. It was not broken short off, but shivered by contact with a post. The Chief Justice had no strings and was in a dilemma. A negro boy passed by, dressed in rags, whistling a merry tune. The great jurist hailed the boy, saying, "Boy, have you a string?" "No, boss, what's de matter?"
"I have broken the shaft of my carriage," said the Justice.
"Yas, sir, I guess you is, boss. Is you got a knife? If you is, I think I can fix it for you."
Taking the knife, he jumped the fence and cut withes from a sapling, with which he lashed a lath to the shaft.
"I guess da'll git you home, boss."
"That's a good job," said the Judge; "why didn't I think of that?"
The boy replied: "I don't know, sir, 'cept some folks know more than others."
That boy did know more than the Chief Justice of the United States about mending a broken shaft. I think I know a thing or two about panics which Mr. Whitney did not seem to have learned. Let me give you two causes for panics. They are not all but they rank with Mr. Whitney's.
First, the extravagance of the people. When times are good and money plentiful, people are extravagant. They buy everything and pay enormous prices. A horse, Axtell, brings his owner one hundred and five thousand dollars; a two-year-old colt, Arion, one hundred and twenty-five thousand. A town site is located in a barren waste and lots sell at ten to one hundred dollars a front foot. All kinds of wildcat schemes are promoted, and the people bite at the bait. An era of extravagance is on and "sight unseen" investments are made. Several years ago my brother said to me: "Are you going West soon, as far as Kansas City?" When I replied that I was he said: "I have never been in that city but I have two lots there I wish you would look at and ascertain their value." He advised me to call on a certain real estate agent, who would show me the lots. When I called on the agent a little while later, he informed me the lots could not be seen until a dry spell took off the water. Two lots my brother never saw and never sold; decidedly "watered stock."
A man with a thousand dollars buys a five thousand dollar lot. He knows he can't pay for it, but there's a boom and he expects to sell for six thousand before the second payment is due. He doesn't sell. When he can't sell he goes to the bank to borrow money to make the payment; he finds there many more in the same condition as himself. The banks see the trouble coming and will not loan. When the banks refuse to loan the depositors get scared and take their money out of the bank. During that great panic in the nineties three hundred millions of dollars were taken out of circulation within four months by depositors who were scared. Then the country gets flat on its back with a panic. A friend said to me, during the great depression: "Don't you think it will be over soon?" I replied: "Let a man have typhoid fever until reduced to a skeleton; let the doctor call some morning toward the close of the long siege and say, 'The fever is broken, get up and go to work.' Can the man obey the doctor? No; he must have chicken-broth and gruel, and slowly regain his strength." So when a panic comes we must creep out, and we were so deep in the nineties it took a long time to recover.
When a panic comes however, the extravagance ceases; everybody gets stingy. A man with five thousand dollars doesn't buy a five thousand dollar lot. He doesn't buy anything; his wife must wear the old bonnet, and his church assessment is reduced. Then the tide turns and the country recovers from its extravagance. But when times get good, crops are fine and money plentiful, the people begin again; women spending their money for dry goods, men for wet goods; another era of extravagance is on and another panic coming.
Mr. Whitney said: "Too much silver and too much tariff." All the gold and all the silver money in this country would not pay the old man's drink and tobacco bill for five years. We drink, smoke and chew up all the money in this country, gold, silver, and paper, every seven years. Last year we spent about six millions for missions; one hundred and fifty millions for churches; two hundred and seventy-five millions for schools; and eighteen hundred millions for intoxicating liquors and tobacco. Awake, O Conscience! and pour out thy saving influence for the healing of the nation.
We live in a marvelous country. What this republic has accomplished in one hundred and thirty-eight years, is the wonder of the world. At the close of the Revolutionary War those who survived were poor, wounded, bleeding people, occupying only the eastern rim of a wilderness waste, while wild beast and wilder Indians roamed the mighty expanse to the western ocean. From the penniless poverty of then, has come the wonderful wealth of now. Where the tangled wilderness choked the earth, now fields of golden grain dot the plains, carpets of clover cover the hillsides, cities hum with the music of commerce, while rivers and railroads carry rich harvests to the harbors of every land. Emerson wrote better than he knew when he wrote:
"So I uncover the land, which of old time I hid in the west,
As the sculptor uncovers his statue, when he has wrought his best."
Yet grand as this country has grown to be, "the eagle of liberty can never reach the pinion heights its wings were made to measure," while the shell of wasted resources to which I have referred bows low its head. Money won't save us. Babylon had her gold standard; her images were made of gold. Media, Persia, had her free silver standard; her images were made of silver. Rome had her gold, her silver, brass and iron; yet they were all dashed to pieces on the world's highway. "In the hollow of the hand of God is the destiny of this republic," and we cannot buy Him with money. The wealth that satisfies the ruler of nations is character.
Some one said a few years ago, and it went the rounds of the press: "The question during the Civil War was, shall we have two governments or one; now the question is, shall we have any?" I quote to you with as much confidence as any mortal ever proclaimed a truth: "This republic will never fail or fall until God deserts it, and God will not desert it until we desert Him."
"Come the world in arms,
We'll defeat, and then pursue;
Nothing can our flag destroy,
While to God and self we're true."
I am not one of those who believe our war with Spain was an accident. For Dewey to cross that dead line at midnight; when morning dawned to find mines of death behind him, an enemy's fleet of eleven ships before him, these supported by shores belted with batteries; and yet within six hours sink or disable every ship in the fleet, silence the forts, lift the star spangled banner in triumph to wave, and not have a warship sunk, nor a sailor killed, means more than the mere skill of a Commodore. Some one may say we had a better navy. Spain didn't think so. Before the war the Spanish papers said: "The United States is bluffing. She can't go to war with us. She has only twenty-five thousand soldiers, and they are kept out west to control cowboys and Indians. Then the South is waiting for an opportunity to break out in rebellion." Columbus discovered America in 1492; Spain didn't discover the United States until 1898.
Do you ask what we are to do with the Philippine Islands? I cannot tell you what is best, but I do know we didn't want them. The day Dewey sailed from Hong Kong to Manila Bay, if Spain had said to the United States: "Here are the Philippine Islands, we would like to make you a present of them," the United States would have replied, "We thank you, but decline the offer." Not one man in ten in this country would have voted to take them. But the next day we had them, had fought to get them; and I believe the same superhuman power that took from Spain, the Netherlands, Flanders, Malacca, Ceylon, Java, Portugal, Holland, San Domingo, Louisiana, Florida, Trinidad, Mexico, Venezuela, Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chili, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Patagonia, Guatemala, Honduras, San Salvador, Nicaragua, Porto Rico, Cuba, and "then some," took away from Spain the Philippine Islands and gave them to us, that the home, the church and the school might be established in the Islands.
Perhaps some of you think I am getting off my subject. I am not; I am talking now about the old man, Uncle Sam, and his mission in the world.
It is the opinion of many that we are under no obligation to the islands of the sea, but these conservative souls should not forget that we are not only citizens of the United States, but of the globe on which we dwell and of the universe of God. The world in which we live, lives because of the light and heat it receives from other worlds. If the rolling sun in the heavens is under obligation to furnish light for our pathway, heat for our soil and warmth for our blood, are we not under obligation to carry the light of civilization to the people whose shores and ours are washed by the same waters? If the full orbed moon is under obligation to pour its silver into our nights, and lift the tides until our rivers are full, are not we under obligation to lift the tide of hope in the heart of oppressed humanity, and pour the light of intelligence into the night of ignorance? Did God give us this grand country, with its boundless resources, for us to draw our ocean skirts about our greatness and pass by our bruised and bleeding neighbor, lying half dead on life's Jericho road? If so, then call back our proud eagle of liberty from its pinion flight through the skies of national achievement, and make our national emblem the barnyard fowl that crows in the day dawn as if creating light instead of noise, and then runs for his roost when the shadows fall.
The Bible says we are fellow workers with God. What does this fellowship imply? It means there are some things we can't do, which God must do for us, and some things we can do He won't do for us. He puts the coal in the earth; we must dig and blast it out. He puts oil beneath the soil; we must bore into its wells and pump it out. He gives us the earth and "the fullness thereof;" we must do the sowing and reaping. He puts electricity in the air; we must bridle, saddle and harness it. He empties the clouds into the basins of the earth and gives us oceans, gulfs and lakes; but we must build boats to ride them. He puts humanity on the earth and bids us love our neighbor as ourselves.
Who is my neighbor? Some seem to think only those who live in our immediate community. I read of a minister of a city church who called upon one of his country members for a contribution for foreign missionary work. The country brother said: "I don't believe in foreign missions, and I must say, 'No'."
"Brother," the pastor said, "the Bible says you should love your neighbor as yourself."
"I do love my neighbors."
"Who are your neighbors?"
"Those whose farms adjoin mine, and perhaps, those whose farms adjoin theirs."
"How far do you own eastward?"
"To the third fence yonder."
"How far do you own toward the west?"
"About a half mile?"
"How deep do you own into the earth?"
"Well, I never thought of that, but about half-way, I guess."
"Well, my brother, I am asking you to help your neighbor China, who joins your line below."
I have a friend with plenty of this world's goods, and not a child. When approached by the ladies of the Foreign Mission Society he said: "I do not give to foreign missions; when you want anything for home missions I'll help you." Perhaps he would; but many of that class are represented by a colored man of whom I heard a Methodist bishop tell. He said to a friend: "Dat wife of mine is got money on de brain; it's money, money all the time. I can't go whar she is, but she's axing me for money. She's jest sho'ly gwine to run me to the lunatic 'sylum ef she don't quit her beggin' me for money."
The friend asked: "What does she do with so much money?"
The colored brother hesitated a minute, and said: "She don't do nuffin wid it, caze I ain't never give her none yet."
My friend who opposes foreign missions said: "So much you give never gets there." Yes; and so many seed the farmer puts into the ground never grow, and so the farmer says,
"Put five grains in every hill:
One for the cut-worm, one for the crow,
One to blight, and two to grow."
And you cannot tell which will grow. A weed grew by the wayside in the old world. All it did was to furnish seed for the wind, and worry for the farmer. But one blustering day, the wind carried a seed from the wayside weed into a florist's garden; it sprouted, rooted and bloomed. The gardener was impressed by the beautiful coloring of the blossom, so he nurtured, transplanted and cultivated it into a beautiful flower. It was from this bush, once a weed, Queen Victoria selected the flower she carried when she entered the Crystal Palace to meet the world's representatives.
When Delia Laughlin went astray, her father drove her from his door. She was of that temperament that must either go to the heights or to the depths, and to the depths she went. Down the rapids of a sinful life her steps were swift. Along the Bowery she made her way to Five Points, where thieves and drunkards dwelt. It was said she could drink deeper, curse louder, and fight fiercer than any inmate of the most wicked spot in New York City. Mrs. Whittemore went one day on her mission of mercy through the slums. She sought some one to accompany her who knew the deepest haunts of the wicked. Delia Laughlin was recommended to her. Mrs. Whittemore, with her Bible in one hand and a fragrant rose in the other, made her rounds. She was deeply impressed with the intellect and culture, as well as the beauty of the wayward girl who had been her guide through the slums. "Dear girl," she said; "you are too bright and beautiful to be down here. I wish you would come to see me at the Door of Hope Mission," and slipping a coin and the white rose into the soiled fingers she said, "Good-bye."
The girl loved flowers, so she took the white rose to her room and put it in water. Then with the coin she went to drown her misery in drink. Forty-eight hours later she had slept off the debauch, and taking the flower from the vase she said: "Ah! that represents my life. Once I was as pure as the rose when the good woman gave it to me. Those withered petals represent the withered graces of my life." From out that little flower an arrow went to the heart of Delia Laughlin. She took the street car and went to the Door of Hope Mission. Mrs. Whittemore met her and they talked together. While the girl wept Mrs. Whittemore prayed; she said: "O God, this poor girl has no other friend than you. Her father's home is closed against her. You have promised, when father and mother forsake, you will take the deserted one. Won't you take her now?" And God did take her; from that hour she was safe in the cleft of the Rock of Ages. When she addressed twelve hundred inmates of Auburn prison, a reporter said: "Never did John Wesley, John Knox, or Martin Luther do greater work for the Master." When laid in her casket in the Door of Hope Mission a few years later, a New York paper said: "Never did a fairer face or more eloquent tongue do work in slum life than Delia Laughlin."
"The stone o'er which you trample,
May be a diamond in the rough.
It may never never sparkle,
Though made of diamond stuff.
"Because someone must find it,
If it's ever found;
And then someone must grind it,
If it's ever ground.
"But when it's found, and when it's ground,
And when it's burnished bright;
Then henceforth a diamond crowned
'Twill shine with lustrous light."
You can't tell what seed will grow.
After the Civil War I lived for two years in Richmond, Kentucky. During that time the Klu Klux movement broke out in fury. Men were hanged, others whipped and driven from the county. On my way to market one morning I saw a man hanging from a limb of a tree in the court-house yard. On his sleeve was pinned a piece of paper, on which was written, "Let no one touch this body until the sun goes down." All day that body hung there and not an officer of the law dared to cut the rope. Such was the reign of terror no one offered a protest. One Saturday night a young man named Byron was hanged in the same court-house yard. He was the only son of a widowed mother, and he begged the mob to let him live for his mother's sake. Sunday morning several empty bottles lay about the tree, indicating that the men were drinking who did the deed. The evening after the hanging I gave an address in the Methodist Church for the Good Templars. I had no thought of referring to the hanging of young Byron, but in showing up the evils of drink, those empty bottles came to my mind, and I could imagine the old mother then weeping over her dead boy. Without considering the consequences I denounced the Klu Klux and the cowardice that permitted such lawlessness. After the lecture a young man of influence advised me to leave at once and not dare spend the night in the town. I felt sure the Klan could not be called together that night, so I ventured to spend the night at home. About eleven o'clock that night the front gate was opened, and tramp, tramp, tramp, came the sound of feet toward the cottage, which was about forty feet from the street. It seemed as if all was over with me, when the "pluck" of a string introduced a serenade from the string band of the little city. Since the daughters of Judah hung their harps upon the willows, no sweeter music has ever fallen upon mortal ears than I heard that night from the string band of Richmond, Kentucky.
I do not know how much my speaking out against Klu Klux had to do with arresting the outlawry that made the roads rattle with the clatter of the hoofs of horses at midnight raids, but I do know young Byron was the last man hanged by the Klu Klux in Madison county, and may I not hope the unpremeditated protest made in that Sunday evening address, helped in some measure to bring about the transformation, and contribute a mite to the public sentiment that has made Richmond a saloonless place in which to live.
You cannot tell what seed will grow. Already out of the new woman movement has come a host led by such women as Frances E. Willard, Mary A. Livermore, Clara Hoffman, Dr. Anna Shaw, Jane Addams, Maude Ballington Booth, Susan B. Anthony, and in our own state, Frances E. Beauchamp. These and many more have been springing the bolts that have barred woman from spheres of great usefulness.
Allow me to say, I have no patience with the mannish woman (and about as little use for a feminine man); but if this old world is ever to be redeemed it is because He who sitteth on the throne has said: "Behold I make all things new."
Oh! for a new man, who will stop the waste of wealth and destruction of morals to which I have referred. Oh! for the day when "each sex will be the equal of the other in the average, each above the other in specialties; when each can see in the other a source of inspiration," and both worthy to have been created in the beginning a "little lower than the angels" and in the end to be crowned with glory and honor.