Mrs. Wells has traveled much among our people, speaking and assisting in organizing. She has good executive ability and is well adapted to this kind of work.
In political matters she takes great interest, and since the women of Utah have had the ballot she has taken a prominent part in that direction and done much active work.
Mrs. Wells went to Washington as a delegate from the women of Utah in January, 1879, to attend the Convention of the National Woman Suffrage Association, accompanied by Mrs. Zina Young Williams and while there they had the opportunity of speaking before committees of House and Senate, and also had an audience with President Hayes and several of the leading men of the nation on the Mormon question. They also prepared a memorial to Congress and succeeded in getting it presented.
In November, 1874, Mrs. Wells went into the office of the Woman's Exponent to assist the editor, Mrs. Lula Greene Richards, a little in her labors, and gradually grew interested in the work, and in May, 1875, her labors became regular and constant, continuing so until in July, 1877, when she assumed the entire responsibility, Mrs. Richards withdrawing on account of increased domestic cares. Mrs. Wells never seems to tire of journalistic duty.
In November, 1876, she was chosen President of the Central Grain Committee for the storing of grain by women, against a day of famine. At the Mass Meeting in the Theatre to protest against the Woman's Anti-Polygamic Association she took an active part in the proceedings. In September, 1882, Mrs. Wells went to Omaha with Mrs. Zina D. H. Young, to attend the convention of the National Woman's Suffrage Association again. Mrs. Wells was appointed Secretary of the Deseret Hospital Association; in fact her time is almost constantly employed in the performance of public duties and benevolent work.
Looking retrospectively upon the life of Emmeline B. Wells and noting the constant upward progress she has made through the adverse circumstances common to a pioneer life, and the establishing of a new order of religion and social life amid the opposition and persecution of our own nation; the result is calculated to testify strongly against the assertions made that, in our isolation and subservience to religious authority, woman is repressed in her abilities and privileges; for it is in that mental atmosphere which is the very essence of Mormonism, that hers have been developed and brought into prominence as an exemplar to the young. If in the very stronghold of Mormonism the standard of progress is upheld by woman's hand as well as man's, the inference is that the next generation will show a marked advance. Knowledge is power, and this with virtue and wisdom united, guided by inspiration, ignorance and tyranny will alike be impotent against the growing hosts of Israel. And, knowing this, all excellences of acquirements and attainments are stimulated and promoted among the old and young by our leaders, misrepresentation to the contrary notwithstanding.
The quality of statesmanship is of high order and rare among women, but it has been declared by the lips of prophecy that positions of power would await the women of Zion faster than they would be qualified for them. Mrs. Wells is by nature one of those prepared for the advent of such an era.
And still, the songs whispered from nature to the heart of the child chime on, and the woman repeats them in clear, sweet utterances to the world; the intuitions of the Deity and his work she may now declare in knowledge, and the maiden that with timid feet went down at the Gospel's call into the waters of baptism, has become a strength, an inspiration and a guide to women in the same path.
President Young gave Mrs. Wells a mission to record in brief the biographies of the most prominent women of our Church, in the Woman's Exponent. A part of this work has already been performed, which is an important addition to our home literature.
I give below one selection from the lady's many beautiful poems: