“It has been said that the Civil War took our best blood, and that that is the reason we have no great men now; all the most gallant and high-minded and ambitious were killed—although I don’t forget that Mr. Forbes could be anything that he chose. I suppose he thinks that American statesmanship has fallen so low that he scorns to come out avowedly as the head of his party, and merely amuses himself pulling the wires. But I feel positive that if a tremendous crisis ever arose, it would be Mr. Forbes who would unravel the snarl. You can tell him that, Augusta, with my compliments.
“Now, I have come to the real point of what I have to say. It was first suggested to me by Helena Belmont when she was on here last, and it has taken a strong hold on my mind. We must awaken the soul in our men—that is what they lack. The germ is there, but it has not been developed; perhaps I should say that the soul of the American people rose to its full flower during the Civil War, and then withered in the reaction, and in the commercial atmosphere which has since fitted our nation closer than its own skin. Miss Belmont says that nothing will arouse the men but another war; that they will be nothing but a well-fed body with a mental annex until they once more have a ‘big atmosphere’ to expand in. But I don’t wholly agree with her, and the thought of another such sacrifice is appalling. I believe that the higher qualities in man can be roused more surely by woman than by bloodshed, and that if we, the women of New York, the supposed orchids, butterflies, or whatever people choose to call us, whose luxury is the cynosure and envy of the continent, could be instrumental in giving back to the nation its lost spiritual quality—understand, please, that I do not use the word in its religious sense—it would be a far greater achievement than any for which the so-called emancipated women are vociferating. The vote is a minor consideration. If we acquire the influence over men that we should, we shall not need it. And personally, I should dispense with it with great pleasure.”
“Bravo! young lady,” exclaimed a vibrating resonant voice, and a clerical man entered the room to the clapping of many hands. His eyes were keen and restless, his hair and beard black and silver, and there was a curious disconcerting bald spot on his chin. He looked ready to burst with energy.
“Thank you all very much, but don’t clap any more, for I have only a few minutes to spare. How do you do, Mrs. Burr? Yes, that was a very good speech—I have been eavesdropping, you see. Feminine, but I am the last to quarrel with that. It is not necessary for a woman to be logical so long as her instincts are in the right direction. Well, I will say a few words to you; but they must be few as I am very hoarse: I have been speaking all day.” He strode about as he talked, and occasionally smote his hands together. He was a very emphatic speaker, and, like all crusaders, somewhat theatrical.
“I agree with all that Miss Maitland has said to you—with the exception of her views on Socialism, I don’t believe Socialism to be the solution of our loathsome municipal degradation nor of the universal social evil. But I have no time to go into that question to-day. The other part—that you must awaken the soul of the men of your class—I most heartily endorse. The gentlemen alone can save this country—snatch it from the hands of plebeians and thieves. In them alone lies the hope of American regeneration. When I read of a strapping young man who has been educated at Harvard, or Yale, or Princeton, who is an expert boxer, fencer, whip, oarsman, yachtsman, addicted to all manly sport, in fact—when I read of such a man having tortoise-shell brushes with diamond monograms, diamond garter buckles, and thirty sets of silk pyjamas—never see their names in the paper except as ushers at weddings, or as having added some new trifle to their costly apartments, it makes me sick—sick! A war would rouse these young men, as Miss Maitland suggests; I haven’t the slightest doubt that they would fight magnificently, and that those who survived would be serious and useful men for the rest of their lives. But we don’t want war, and you must do the rousing. Make them vote—vote—nullify the thieving lying cormorants who are fattening on your country, and ruining it morally and financially, as well as making it the scorn and jest of Europe. And make them vote, not only this year, but every year for the rest of their lives, and on every possible question. It is to be hoped, indeed, that no war will come to awaken their manhood—we don’t want to pay so hideous a price as that, and it is shocking that it has been found necessary to suggest it. But what we do want is a great moral war. Lash them into that, and see that they do not break ranks until they have honest men in the legislature, in Congress, and in every municipal office in the country. Now, I must be off,” and waving a hasty adieu, he shot out.
“For my part,” said Mrs. Burr, above the enthusiastic chorus, “I am delighted that he didn’t uphold Socialism. I’ll undertake the reformation of Latimer, although it will probably give me wrinkles and turn me grey, but I won’t have him giving up his ‘boodle,’ as they say out West; not I! not I!”
“Gally is hopeless,” said that famous clubman’s wife, with a sigh. “I shall have to work on someone else.”
“It will be lots more interesting,” murmured her neighbour.
“How shall we begin?” asked Mrs. Burr, wrinkling her smooth brow. “Put them on gruel and hot water for awhile? I am sure they are hopeless so long as they eat and drink so much.”
“I suppose all we girls will have to marry,” remarked one of them.