Though somewhat too radical in effect, the spirit of these things was admirable, and women had cause for self-gratulation upon the success of their efforts to be safeguarded and recognized in their just claims. Had the efforts of the "reformers" stopped here there could have been but praise for their work and its aims; but this was not the case. More and more insistent became the cry for equal footing with the men in matters which were not generally deemed within the sphere of femininity. The advocates of female suffrage in particular uplifted their voices and would not cease their clamor, though disowned by a majority of their own sex. Near the beginning of the tenth decade of the century a large number of the women of Massachusetts, to show their lack of sympathy with the radicals, even formed themselves into a "Ladies' Anti-Suffrage League." Yet even this open enmity to their cherished schemes among those who were most concerned did not deter the "reformers." In 1884, when political excitement reached its post-bellum height, Mrs. Belva Lockwood, a female practitioner of law in Washington, actually announced her candidacy for the presidential chair; and though she did not ultimately go to the poll, she took the stump in her own behalf and in all other respects emulated the male candidates for the chief magistracy. This was the climax of feminine effort in politics and doubtless had its deterrent effect in making disciples to the theory of female suffrage.
Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton was a type of her class. Born in 181 5, and living until 1902, nearly the whole of her long life was devoted to the promulgation and attempt to establish theories of feminine equality with men in all respects of "rights." She was one of those restless spirits which find in fanaticism of some kind their needful expression, and she was never weary of the notoriety and prominence that accrued from her efforts for the "emancipation" of women. Her share in the first "Woman's Rights" convention has already been mentioned. In 1854 she addressed the New York legislature on the subject of the rights of married women, and in 1860 she again appeared in the halls of law as an advocate for divorce on the grounds of drunkenness. In 1867 she canvassed Kansas, and in 1874 Michigan, when the question of female suffrage was submitted to the decision of the people of those States. In 1868 she was actually a candidate for a seat in Congress on the platform of female suffrage, and though she failed in gaining a place in the legislature of the nation she subsequently appeared many times before that legislature, or committees thereof, in behalf of her cherished theory. These efforts, together with her incumbency of numerous presidencies in societies and leagues in sympathy with her purposes, made up the sum of her existence. Personally she was a woman of many attractions of mind and bearing; but her fanaticism in the fancied cause of those who repudiated, in their vast majority, her theories and aims made her the type of the restless and radical "reformer."
Yet the efforts of the would-be female reformers, however, misdirected in their immediate aims, did good in rousing the women of America to a consideration of their place in the polity, at least in social matters, of the commonwealth. They might not care to go to the polls and struggle with the men in an endeavor openly to rule the destinies of the nation; but they awoke to a more intelligent interest than they had yet displayed in the theories of government and the social questions of the day. Many of the chief reforms in these matters which have come about during late years have been effected by the direct influence of the women of our land, either in leagues or through recognized and accredited representatives of some accepted theories. This feminine interest in the larger affairs of the nation, rightly directed to internal rather than to external policy, has been admirable in its results, and its rise and development may in large measure be attributed to the incitement of the reform spirit in other matters. That the concerted efforts of the women of our country are invariably wisely directed and governed it were folly to claim; but the spirit is always pure and high, and the masculine framers or advocates of legislation are not of such unimpeachable wisdom that they can afford to speak in scorn of the theories or work of the other sex in this wise, while at least the motives that direct feminine influence cannot be called into question. The tendency of the sex toward extremes, and its blindness, in its sense of the desirability of its end, to the unwisdom of the means which it sometimes proposes to use, are occasionally in evidence in matters of paternal legislation, but these are but minor flaws, and are not incorrigible.
So the era of Feminine Reconstruction resulted in the working woman and the thinking woman; and on these lies much of the hope of our country's future. Thus the Civil War at the last brought us a blessing instead of a curse, and in the halls of labor American womanhood once more joined hands in amity and became a unit in its aims and influence.
CHAPTER XIV
THE CLOSE OF A CENTURY
When a German woman residing in a Western city, but recently arrived in America from the midst of the conservative social circles of her native land, described American women at large as furchtbar frei und furchtbar fromm [frightfully free and frightfully pious], she unintentionally paid a compliment to our feminine civilization. The accusation of piety calls for no rebuttal; and that of freedom was caused by the confounding, as was natural in European thought, of innocent simplicity with recklessness of deportment. The social manners of American women of the present is a subject of philosophy rather than history; but the fact of the freedom of intercourse between the sexes may be touched upon, since, however strange and reprobatory it may seem to European eyes, it is as much a national "institution" as our form of government itself, while its causes lie in the story of the past.
The opening of the vast treasures of the West, and the marvellous development of that section, had effect upon the direction of feminine thought and effort in various channels. Though the leaps of that part of our country into prominence had made of such places as Chicago and St. Louis, as well as lesser but still important cities of the West, a potent influence in the development of material interests long before the century had entered upon its ninth decade, until that time they had won but little power as social influences. They were fast taking their places as powers in this direction also, however, and before long Chicago at least came to be recognized as a stalwart rival to New York, the acknowledged leader of the East in things social. Then, because of the lusty strength incidental to the vigorous youth of the junior members of our commonwealth, Western ideas and influences began to be felt in the East and to modify the conditions that existed in Eastern society.
The simplicity [freedom] of which the German woman complained is in truth one of the finest, as of the most characteristic, traits of our social system in its regulation of intercourse between the sexes, and it was well that the East, which was beginning to pay too much attention to the ultraconservative ideas of the Old World in this respect, should find a counter influence within the borders of its own land. Even more important, however, was the hearty acceptance by the West--far broader than that of the East--of the theory of woman's place in affairs; though the woman worker had been accepted and even honored in the East, it was not until the West had made her a matter of course that she was universally regarded as entirely within the proper sphere of femininity. Up to that time she had been looked upon as the creature of circumstances, to disappear when the conditions of her existence were altered, rather than as an established fact; but the last decade of the century swept away such remaining cobwebs of tradition and for all time made the woman worker a recognized fact as well as factor in the totality of our social system.