Blackwell Family             Henry B. Blackwell                         ArticlesWoman's Journal, June 13, 1903
p. 188
Zionism
The Zionist movement is part of a worldwide 
battle for civil and religious liberty. As
such, it deserves the sympathy of suffragists. The
persecution of the Jews in Russia has roused
the world to indignant protest. The drowning
infamy of the Kishineff massacre is the culmination
of centuries of misrule. Let us
hope that it will prove a blessing in disguise, by
causing the European nations to change their
attitude toward this unfortunate people.

Lucy Stone often said: "When women
secured their right of free speech upon a public
platform, their complete enfranchisement became
only a question of time." Until recently, the Jews
have had no foothold anywhere on earth upon
which to stand and make their wrongs known.
But now, in England and free America , they are
able to get a hearing. Anglo-Saxon civilization
affords them a haven of refuge. Nor them alone.
In America the Irish exiles have organized
their political battle for home-rule. In American
the Armenian refugees have uttered their cry against
Turkish atrocities. In America the Greeks have
stirred the hearts of Christendom against their Mohammedan
oppressors. In American we have
broken the shackles of the slave. Sooner or later
these protests will be heeded. The wrongs of Finland
and Poland and Macedonia and China and
the Philippines will be redressed.
The results of the ballot will intime convert even despotic rulers. Sooner or
later the spectacle of Jewish intelligence and
prosperity in free America will startle decadent
Europe. Already, in New York City alone,
there are 600,000 Jews - a larger number than
followed Moses out of Egypt. An element in
our composite nationality, they will soon number
millions. No longer discontented, poor and ignorant,
but contented, loyal, progressive American 
citizens, they will make themselves feel in our
national diplomacy as a power to be recognized
and conciliated.
The contemptible proscription of Dreyfus in
France, the excesses of the Anti-Semite rioters in
Germany and Austria, the savage [?spoilation?] of the
Jews of Russia and Bulgaria, will give place to
a recognition of the ethical value of "the chosen
people," and a better future will dawn for
them every where. Above all, the restoration
of a self-governing Jewish commonwealth in


Palestine will unify the Hebrew race and give
it a higher standing in every other country. People
will respect a people which as regained possession
of the sacred soil consecrated by memories of 
Joshua and Deborah and David and Isaiah
and the Maccabees. The world will sympathize
with so sublime a manifestation of undying
fidelity to God and home and country.

It is the mission of free America
to extend a helping hand to oppressed humanity
everywhere. Not alone for ourselves,
but for all the world, we have raised the
standard of liberty. In saving others we
shall save ourselves from every new and
insidious form of budding aristocracy. Free
schools, free religion, free government, free
suffrage for men and women, a free home
where husband and wife will be equals in
rights and responsibilities, a higher standard
of morals, a more generous recognition of ourduties towards foreign nations and alien races,
a repudiation of imperialism in every form,
an acceptance of the gospel of universal Democracy
this is the true Zionism of hte future.

H.B.B.Woman's Journal, June 20, 1903     p. 196
Women and the Poll-Tax,
Edward Everett Hale, in the June Cosmopolitan,
charges women with having
sought and obtained from the Massachusetts
Legislature an exemption from the poll-tax,
which is levied upon all male citizens over
20 years of age, and of having thereby lessened
their moral claim to "old age pensions," in case
such pensions shall hereafter be given by the State,
Hee says:
"By a curious obliquity, the women begged
off from the poll-tax which they formerly paid. This


was their way of saying that they did not want to receive 
any benefits from the State. All the same,
the old women would have stood a better chance
of receiving life-pensions if they had paid two dollars
apiece into the treasury since they were eighteen
years old."

This is a strange perversion of the
facts, which are as follows: Until our State-constitution
was changed, some ten years ago, voting
had always been limited to men who had paid a 
poll-tax of two dollars. No woman had ever been
assessed a poll-tax until women sought and
secured the right to vote for school committees
twenty-four years ago, and in order to qualify
them for doing so they were allowed to pay a 
voluntary poll-tax of two dollars. This optional
tax was an anomaly in legislation,
and was imposed as a condition of an
optional exercise of the right of school suffrage
by women.

Now for a woman to berequired to pay two dollars for the mere right
to help choose a school committee, where a
man by paying two dollars acquired the right
to vote for all officials, local, State and national,
was evidently unfair, and for that reason the
women voters sought and obtained a reduction
of their optional poll-tax to fifty cents.

But a large and increasing number
of male voters refused to pay their poll-taxes
and thereby qualify themselves to vote. Candidates
for office and political committees found it
needful to pay these delinquent poll-taxes in
order to secure the votes of the delinquents.
The politicians got tired of carrying this annual
burden, and in order to get rid of
the load they amended the State constitution
so that hereafter "the payment of a poll-tax
shall no longer be a prerequisite for voting."
They did not abolish the poll-tax. That
is still assessed on every male inhabitant


over '20 years of age. But its collection is not
enforced. Consequently, in Boston to-day,
seventy per-cent of the voters pay no tax
whatever, and the thirty per cent who pay a 
poll-tax are mostly men who pay a property
tax and find the poll-tax included in
their annual tax bills.

The payment of a poll-tax being
no longer made a prerequisite for voting
in the case of men, there ceased to be 
any ground for requiring women voters
to pay a poll-tax, and it was therefore
abolished, as a logical result of the abolition
of the poll-tax prerequisite.

Mr. Hale is therefore inaccurate
in charging women with having secured 
an exemption from the payment of a
poll-tax. Women as a class have never
been assessed a poll-tax.

Mr. Hale adds, with touchingmagnanimity:
"I do not think even the fairer or
weaker sex need decline the one hundred
dollars which will be paid to each of them.
As was intimated above, their case would be a 
little stronger in the form of justice is they had
paid any poll-tax. As it is, the poll-tax paid
by the man is sufficient for every payment,
and we may well charge it to the same
account to which we charge ostrich feathers
and pancake hats, which we see daily in the
street-cars, which we know are paid for by the
willing work of husbands or sons or lovers."

But, in the majority of cases,
these feathers and hats have been paid for
by the wearers themselves, from the proceeds of
their own honest toil - toil often at half 
the wages they would have received if they
had been men. Mr. Hale does not realize 
that most women support themselves and often


others dependent on them. Women as a sex
work longer hours than men work, and, like
every other disfranchised class, for smaller
compensation than voters receive.

In view of the general repudiation
of their poll-taxes by Massachusetts men who
pay no property-tax, it is now seriously
proposed to abolish the poll-tax altogether.
But the proper thing would be to enforce its
collection. And whenever women are allowed
to vote, they, too, should be subject to similar 
taxation.

He. B. B.Woman's Journal, Feb. 4, 1905,     p 17
For Russian Freedom
An enthusiastic meeting to express American
sympathy with the revolutionary movement in 
Russia was held in Lorimer Hall on the
evening of Jan 31. It was arranged by the
Russian circle of Boston, a society organized
among the Russians of this city by Mrs. Katherine
Breshkovskaya during her recent visit here.
Mr. Alexander Kahn called the meeting to
order and introduced Mr. Henry B. Blackwell
as the president of the evening. Mr. Blackwell
said:
Fellow-Citizens of Massachusetts:
We meet to-night to express the
sympathy felt by the people of Russia in
their efforts to establish a free, representative,
constitutional government, based upon the principles
of justice, liberty and equality.

How can any American citizen,


worthy of the name, hesitate to express that sympathy.
In doing so we have only to repeat
the words of our own Declaration of Independence......
(Here follows a long extract from the Declaration.)Woman's Journal Feb. 18, 1905     p 26
"One Farmer's Wife."
Every thoughtful woman who takes an interest
in the condition of other women should read
the brief autobiography of an Illinois farmer's
wife, published in the N.Y. Independent of February
9. While it gives us a high opinion of the writer,
it arouses a profound sense of the injustice
and cruelty of the popular idea of wifely subordination.

Here are a man and woman
who began life poor - the wife educated, ac [complished],


[ac] complished, full of aspiration and social talent,
a successful teacher; the husband uneducated,
but industrious, saving, frugal, resolute, and
honest. At once the woman became, to all
intents and purposes, a farm laborer, housekeeper,
cook, maid of all work; later on also
a mother and nurse - with no material
compensation but her food and clothes - with
no holiday, without a leisure hour she could
call her own except after the household were
asleep. Life passes; the husband grows rich
and miserly, pays for "his" farm, buys another
one, yet begrudges his wife postage stamps, pen
and ink and paper. Uncomplaining, cheerful,
using every small opportunity of self-improvement
and mental culture, this victim of
life-long domestic serfdom utters no note of
resentment or repining. She speaks of the 
property accumulated in part by her daily
sixteen hours of incessant toil, as "his"farms. She is proud of her children. She
makes no complaint of her penurious, despotic
husband, except to remark that "when
people of opposite tastes get married, a
discordant note runs through their entire 
married life," and that "it is only a
question of which one has the stronger will
in determining which taste shall predominate."
She wisely adds, "We are told that the mating
of people of opposite natures promotes intellectuality
in the offspring; but I think that
happy homes are of more consequence than
extreme precocity in children."

Yet I read to-day of a man in
North Carolina who resents a husband's inability
to sell real-estate unless the wife relinquishes
her dower right to the use of
one-third of it if she survives him, and 
proposes to petition the Legislature to deprive
wives of this shred of provision for old age


and widowhood - this possible future release
from a life of serfdom.

The lot of "one farmer's wife" is
that of hundreds of thousands of women similarly
circumstanced. Let us hope that the day will
soon dawn when women, as voters, will help
to reform the laws regulating the property relations
of married partners. Then a farmer's
wife will be his recognized equal, not his
household drudge and life-long subordinate.
God speed the day!

He. B. B.Woman's Journal, June 10, 1905     p. 90
To Govern the World.
The masterly pre-eminence that Japan has
achieved in the far Eastern seas, and the equally
masterly ability that she has displayed in repelling
the Russian invasion of Manchuria and Korea,
offer to progressive nations an opportunity of establishing
and maintaining universal and 
perpetual peace.
How can this be effected?


Not by a costly and needless enlargement
of navies, armies, and fortifications, but by a
triple alliance of America, Great Britain
and Japan, with the possible co-operation of
France, Germany, Austria, Italy, Scandinavia,
and Russia, for the termination of the
policy of piracy, bluster, invasion and forcible
annexation which has been the curse and
disgrace of Christendom during the past quarter
century. If the English-speaking peoples -
the United States, Canada, Great Britain, and
Australia - would combine with the inhabitants
of Eastern Asia under the primacy of Japan
for the future maintenance of international peace
and the "open door," the programme of progressive
Russia for an International Court of Appeals
may be realized, and a general disarmament
be gradually effected.

In this crisis of world-diplomacy, what
is needed is not an increase of battleshipsand standing armies, but an authoritative
announcement of an international determination
to make battleships and armies forevermore
unnecessary. 

With this triple or still wider coalition
for peace, there might even be combined an
international policy of maximum and
minimum tariffs, thereby substituting an
enlightened reciprocity for our present selfish
and proscriptive ultra-protection. War
fare would there become an anachronism, and
give place to friendly cooperation and good-will.

In a coalition such as proposed, the
United States and Canada would hold a cerebral
and commanding position, fronting on both
the oceans. Facing East, in concert with the
British Navy, we should control the commerce
of Europe; facing west, in concert with the
navy of Japan, we should control the commerce
of Asia; while Australia and New Zealand,


in concert with Chili and Argentina and
South Africa, would control the commerce
of the Southern Hemisphere. No such opportunity
of peaceful progress and world-wide
civilization ever before dawned upon the
human race. The Roman Empire, in its
palmy days, aspired to civilize and liberate
the human race, under the banner of
reciprocity, taking as our motto, "Liberty
and Union, now and forever, one and
inseparable."

He. B. B.Woman's Journal Sep.1, 1906     p.138
Indiscretions of Suffragettes.
The outcry raised by opponents of equal suffrage
against the attempt of a few justly indignant women
to force Parliament to do its duty by voting upon
the question before it, is so disproportioned to the magnitude
of the offence, that it is sure to react in favor
of the movement.  One would suppose that a mere
indecorum was criminal, and something unheard
of in political agitation.
Always and everywhere a demand for
enlarged political representation has been accompanied
by disorder.  Boston men, disguised as
Indians, once threw a cargo of tea into the harbor.
In Russia men and women are enforcing a
similar demand with dynamite. What would
have been said if the English women had dropped
a bomb into the House of Commons from the gallery,
instead of merely waving a flag and crying
"divide."     I well remember, a


a boy, when men wanted the franchise, that the
refusal of Parliament to pass the Reform Bill was
the occasion of violent popular outbreaks.  T. D.
Benson, in the London Labor Leader, contrasts
the clamor of a few women now, with the conduct
of many men of the same class in 1832, of which
I myself was an eye witness.  He reminds this
critic that, in Bristol, men burned the Mansion
House, the Custom House, the Bishop's Palace,
the Excise Office, three prisons, four toll houses,
and forty-two private dwellings and warehouses.
The Bishop of Litchfield was nearly killed, and
the Archbishop of Canterbury was rescued with
difficulty from a violent and angry mob.
The male suffragists, in those days, showed a
constitutional aversion to the clergy, and a
savage vandalism towards cathedrals and bishop's
houses.  A general strike was proposed.  Secret
arming and drilling began in the great
Chartists centers.  I remember, as though itwere yesterday, being drawn back by my governess
into my father's house in Bristol, just in
time to escape the rush of an infuriated mass
of men that swept down the street with yells and
execrations. 

Did these excesses put back the reform
movement? Not at all. On the contrary they
intensified it, and forced it to a successful
issue. The comparatively peaceful and orderly
agitation of the Suffragettes will do more to call
public attention to the justice of woman's claim 
for the ballot than anything that has occurred
for many years. The willingness of women to
endure insult, opprobrium, fine, and imprisonment
for the sake of political representation
will awaken manly sympathy and enthusiasm
in their behalf. The timid conservatism which
is shocked will ere long give place to respectful
recognition of an earnest purpose.
Kid gloves are beautiful and appropriate


in the parlor, but the work of the world has to
be done with bare hands and a disregard
of the conventionalities. All honor to the honest
and faithful advocates of suffrage who show
themselves in earnest!

He. B. B.Jan 26, 1907     ✓ p. 14
Letter from Mr. Blackwell
A cablegram from Mr. Blackwell's party
was received on Jan. 20th. It said: "Safe
and well." It was dated Jan. 16, but had
taken four days to get through.

Our senior editor writes:


In the Freight Shed
Kingston, Jamaica,
Jan 16, 1907
On Monday at 6:30 a.m. our party left
Port Antonio for Kingston, which we reached, after a 
pleasant but uneventful ride, about 11 A.M. We went
by cab to the Myrtle Bank Hotel, and after lunch
George went down town to make some inquiries,
and I, in my room in one of the wings of the
hotel on its second story, indited a letter to you,
which you will never receive. Emma and Anna were
in the room on the opposite side of the corridor.

All at once a terrific rumbling roar
occurred, and the floor of the room cracked,
throwing me from my chair to the ground,
while the whole building seemed to go to pieces.
In a few seconds _ less time than it has taken
me to write these lines _ I found the ceiling
cracking and the outer walls going out into
the court-yard. I scrambled to the door,feeling quite cool in face of approaching death, and
got out into the hall. Emma and Anna, with a
similar experience, had preceded me.

Waiting only to grab my pad and blank-book,
I rushed down stairs, where everything was in
ruins, and made my way over piles of brick and
mortar to the middle of the street, the opposite houses
having collapsed. There I found Emma and Anna
in the midst of an excited crowd, but no George.
In a few minutes he appeared, bruised and almost
choked with dust. He got caught in a store in
one of the densest  and most dangerous business
buildings; got into the middle of the street, when
he fell just escaping bricks and mortar just behind
him. He himself escaped by a miracle. He
appeared such a sight you could hardly have
recognized him for the dust.

While debating how to get to some public
park or open square, our streets filled with debris,
we were advised to make our way back to the shore


through the hotel garden, and get on board a Hamburg_
American launch to reach the British steamer Port
Kingston, just arrived from Bristol, England, and 
bound for Barbadoes. We did so. While waiting, I
made my way back to our bedrooms, and got out
our suit-cases, hand-bags, etc I again returned, and
secured the help of a Negro and got out our trunks. Then
it appeared that Emma's and Anna's best dresses
were hanging in a closet. I made a third trip and
got them. But when I got back I found that George
had put Emma and Anna and the suit-cases on
the launch, and she had started off. We followed
with our trunks, which we left on the Hamburg_
American land beside its pier, and got on board
the Port Kingston just as she put out into the stream
to avoid the menacing fire which was sweeping
the ruined city in our vicinity. But we found
no Emma and Anna and suit-cases. Then
we queried what had become of them. But 
about 9 P.M. we got the welcome news thatthey had arrived. George and I were solacing
ourselves in the gentleman's cabin with a bottle
of Loudon stout and biscuits, when the good news
reached us. George left his glass half-finished;
I gulped down mine and followed. I felt
badly at the loss of George's stout, and rushed 
back to absorb the precious fluid, but some
one had anticipated me.

Next day I went up through the
ruined city to the hotel to find my umbrella
and the wraps. Such a sight I never
expect to see again:- a city of 67.000 inhabitants
thrown down and crushed within
thirty seconds; swarms of people, some
dead, some wounded, some seeking vainly
for missing relatives - some stupefied, others
crying or screaming, praying and gesticulating.

That first night we passed on the
Port Kingston, kindly welcomed by Sir Arthur


Jones and his party on board. We got some
supper, and were allowed the use of two rooms.
George slept on the lounge with his clothes
on. I on the upper bed, partly dressed. We 
remained on board on sufferance, securing
meals by fees and strategy, but at 4:30 P.M.
we all had to leave the ship to make room
for her incoming passengers for Barbadoes and
Bristol. Then the Hamburg-American agent,
Capt. Farwood, hospitably opened its sheds, which
had escaped the earthquake, opened a barrel of
biscuits and a case of butter and a can of salmon.
Emma, Anna and I made an excursion to
find some fruit, under the guidance of a
Negro boy. For sixpence he piloted us to a
small dealer who, for another sixpence
sold us a dozen splendid oranges, on
which and the biscuits we made our supper.
Mattresses were spread on the bales of hay
and boxes, and some fifty of us passed the
night on these.

This morning they gave us strong black
coffee, etc, and we have spent the day in
an improvised camp - everyone friendly, and
plenty of water accessible from a neighboring
hydrant. Most fortunately, the water supply has
not been cut off throughout the city. Most of the
population, and of the tourists slept last night
on the ground in the parks and open spaces.

We have been awaiting the arrival
of the Prince Waldemar for immediate return
to New York. But Emma and Anna have plucked
up courage, and we have decided to to to-morrow
to Moneague and Fern Gully, and thence to
Mandeville, making short side-trips, and returning
to Kingston on the arrival of the August
Wilhelm as originally planned.

We have no means of estimating the
fatalities. I am told that 180 were buried
yesterday forenoon. Our saloons were


filled last night with wounded people and the doctor
was kept busy waiting upon them. It does not
seem possible that in so thorough a wreak of
a great city the casualties could have fallen
short of a thousand or more. San Francisco,
of course, was much larger and more populous,
but I doubt if it was more completely destroyed.
Every store, hotel and private house seems in
ruins. All communication is broken, except
on foot or by cabs. So you can readily imagine
that, when our three weeks' trip ends, we shall
have seen a good deal more of Jamaica than
we bargained for. Meanwhile I am well, and 
enjoying the novel experience.

He. B. B.