BLACKWELL FAMILY                  Henry B. Blackwell                      ArticlesJamaica Earthquake         1
      In January 1907, Mr. Henry B. Blackwell, Mr. George W. Blackwell, his wife Emma L. and their daughter Anna arranged a trip in the West Indies. They reached Jamaica just in time for the earthquake of that year. Mr. Henry B. Blackwell relates their thrilling experience graphically.
     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 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, included 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 that has taken for me to write these lines-I found the ceiling cracking and the outer walls going out into the courtyard. I scrambled to the door, feeling quite cool to the face of approaching death, and got out into the hall. Emma 

Jamaica Earthquake         2
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; he got into the middle of the street, when he fell just escaping bricks and mortar 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, over streets filled with debris, we were advised to make our way to the shore, through the hotel garden, and get on board a Hamburg-American launch to reach the Bristol steamer, Port Kingston, just arrived from Bristol, England, and bound for Barbadoes. We did so. While waiting, I made my way back to our bed-rooms, and got out our suit-cases, hand-bags, etc. I again3
Jamaica Earthquake
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 suitcases on the launch,
and she had started off.  We followed with
our trunks which we left on the Hamburg-
American land beside its piers, and got on
board the Port Kingstone 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 suitcases.  There we queried what
had become of them?  But about 9 P.M. we
got the welcome news that they had arrived.
George and I were solacing ourselves in the
gentleman's cabin with a bottle of London
stout and biscuits, when the good news
reached us.  George left his glass half-
finished.  I stopped to drain mine and
followed.  I feel 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  

4
Jamaica Earthquake

and the wraps.  Such a sight I never expect
to see again!  A city of 67000 inhabitants 
thrown down and crushed within thirty
seconds; swarms of people, some dead, some
wounded, some seeping 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 wee allowed the use f two rooms.  George
slept on the lunge with his clothes on, I on
the upper bed, partly dressed.  We remained
on board on sufferance securing meals
by strategy and fees, 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 can of butter, and
a can of salmon.  Emma, Anna and I
made an excursion to find some fruit,
under guidance of a negro boy.  For six-
pence he piloted us to a small dealer
who, for another sixpence sold us a
dozen splendid oranges on which and
5
Jamaica Earthquake
the biscuits we made our supper.  Mattresses
were spread on the bales of hay and boxes.
and some fifty of us passed the night there.
  This morning they gave us strong black
coffee, etc. and we have spent the day in
an improvised camp -- every one 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 go to-morrow to Moneague and Fern
Gully, and thence to Maudeville, 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

6
Jamaica Earthquake
through a wreck 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,"
p. 36
Woman's Journal, Mar. 2, 1907
  Outrages we Russian Women.
  Mrs. Blackwell presided at a meeting in the
interest of Russian Freedom, held in Levine
Hall, Boston, Feb. 22.  An overflow meeting
crowded Gilbert Hall and it is estimated that
over  a thousand persons were turned away.  Alexis
Aladjiar, Nicholas Tchaykovsky and Kellogg Dunland
were the speakers.

p. 42
Woman's Journal
Mar. 16, 1907
Strike for the Highest.
  The difficulty in securing the submission
to the voters of a woman suffrage amendment
to a State Constitution, and the further difficulty,
in the face of hostile special interests, in getting an
unbiased expression at the polls, makes it seem
advisable to adopt a more simple and directmethod of procedure.

That method is by direct appeal of
citizens to their State Legislature so as to change
their election law relative to the appoinment of
presidential electors as to enable female citizens
to participate in the appointment of these electors
on the same terms and qualifications as male
citizens.

By a simple majority vote of both houses,
each State Legislature can confer upon its women
the highest and most important form of suffrage
ever exercised by the American citizen. Thereby women
can manifest their interest in the affairs of their
country once in four years, without being involved
in the petty squabbles and local controversies, and
will become actively identified in interest and feeling
with the national party of their choice.

Several State Legislatures are now
seriously proposing so to amend their federal election
laws. In three States, bills for this purpose have


recently passed one branch of the State Legislature.
There is no doubt of the constitutionality of such
action. The U.S. Supreme Court, in the so-called
Michigan case, has expressly affirmed the exclusive
and plenary power of each State Legislature. As
I write, four or five Legislatures have such a bill
under consideration. It is, therefore, not improbable
that, in one or more of these States women
may vote for President and Vice-President
in the fall of 1908.

In empowering them to do so, these
States will follow the example of Federated Australia,
where nearly one million women have recently
secured the full Parliamentary suffrage, with
the right to seats, if elected, in the National
Assembly. Let us not fritter away our efforts
in asking for small and partial forms of
suffrage. Let us strike for the highest and most
important. The greater will soon be amended
to include the less. Meanwhile let us takeas our watchword: "Equal Presidential Suffrage
for Women in 1908."

He. B. B.


Womans Journal, May 18, 1907     p 78
Grover Cleveland's Suggestion.
Ex-president Grover Cleveland is the most
over-rated public man in America. He is
dull and heavy-witted, of low tastes and narrow 
views. But he has a great deal of what is popularly
denominated "horse sense." Occasionally he originates
striking phrases of pompous rhetoric like "inocuous
desuetude," which stick in the popular mind. His
strong will and inflexible adherence to his own mental
and moral standards command deserved respect.

Mr. Cleveland strongly disapproves of women's 
doing any public work. Like Kaiser Wilhelm,
he would limit their activities to the church,the nursery and the kitchen. He has recently
fulminated and unqualified denunciation of the
woman suffrage movement, and of women's clubs
for the consideration of general topics, as calculated
to promote suffrage sentiment among women.

"Learn wisdom from you opponents,"
is a wise old maxim. Nothing can be learned 
from enthusiastic eulogy; much from caustic and
hostile [cutieism?]. It is usually safe to do what your
enemy wishes you not to do. Therefore we say to every
woman suffragist, "Join a woman's club. Take an
active part in its deliberations; participate in its management;
encourage its consideration of public questions;
enlist it in efforts for civic improvements. Where opportunity
offers, express your belief in the value of
women's active participation in the government
of city, State and nation."

The more interest women manifest in
public affairs the greater will be the willingness
of men to welcome them to political equality. The


late Edward Atkinson was converted to active
interest in woman suffrage by a sense of the
injustice of settling the question of the free coinage
of silver, in which every woman's interests were
directly involved, without allowing women any voice.
So with questions of peace or war, child labor, marriage 
and divorce, age of protection for girls, equal pay 
for equal work, etc, etc. How monstrously unjust
to give women no voice in their regulation!

When women's clubs become actively interested
in these and other live political questions,
their members will no longer be content to remain
passive spectators. They will desire to be active
participants. Grover Cleveland is right.
Women's Clubs are inevitable nurseries of
sentiment among women.

He. B. B.Woman's Journal, June 22, 1907     p. 98
Housekeeping a Profession
Everywhere "Trade Schools for Girls" are
attracting more and more attention. With the
minute sub-division of labor, women, like men,
find it more needful than formerly to earn a 
livelihood outside of their parental homes, and
women, like men, will seek by skilled industry
to escape from lives of drudgery and
dependence.

But there is one special employ[ment?]


in which women are most of all needed, and
to which far more attention should be given.
Housework should be raised to the dignity of a 
trade, housekeeping should be taught as a profession, and
home-making should be recognized as a fine art --
as much so as music, painting, or sculpture. As
trained nurses are granted diplomas, why not
skilled cooks and chambermaids and seamstresses?
As we have women physicians, why not professional
housekeepers?

What human employment is more important?
Every child is born into a home of some sort, where
in his or her character is moulded for all subsequent
experiences. The kind of a home into
which the infant finds itself introduced puts its
permanent impress upon its character. Not
ony are its health and life dependent upon it,
but its ideas of cleanliness, punctuality, order;
deference to authority, its conceptions of moral
and material beauty, are all at stake. Menand women are the product of their homes. State
and nation are only an aggregation of individual
homes. Therefore no science is so important as 
household science, no art so fine as that of making
healthful, happy, inspiring surroundings for our
future citizens.
I was delighted when I heard yesterday
that a wealthy family summering on Cape Cod
had engaged competent household help at a weekly
wage of $12. Such superior skill and efficiency
cannot be too amply rewarded. Hotel proprietors
are able and willing to pay princely salaries to
their "chefs." Why should not young women
qualify themselves to take similar positions
of responsibility in private families? Why should 
not every girl be trained for such efficiency 
in housework as to command permanent employment
and personal respect? Woman suffrage 
will help to redeem domestic service
from its present menial stigma. As the

young man rises in the social till he reaches
the level of his employer, so the young woman
of the future will be gradually promoted to a 
recognized social equality with her mistress.
I fear that it is, in some cases, the dread
of such a catastrophe in the onward march of
democracy which makes some of our "Antis"
oppose political equality for women.
He.B.B.Woman's Journal, Oct 5, 1907          p. 158
To Equalize Conditions
There are two ideals of statecraft, each important 
and timely.  One of these seeks to increase
the production of wealth by better applications of
human labor, by improved processes, by developing
new and varied fields of industry; the other
seeks to distribute the proceeds of productive activity 
as widely and equitably as possible among 
the producers.
Hitherto the attention of the American
people has been turned almost exclusively in
the former direction.  Individually and nationally
we have been engrossed in "making money".
Agriculture, commerce, manufacturing, mining,

transportation, have achieved triumphs hitherto unequalled 
in the world's history.  In less than three
centuries we have monopolized and partially utilized
the vast resources of a virgin continent.  As a
result millionaires abound, and multi-millionaires
have made their sinister appearance.
But the great body of producers have, 
so far, had very little share in this gigantic accumulation
of national wealth.  they own little
or nothing but their clothing and household possessions
which perish in the using.  They receive and
spend their daily, weekly, or monthly wages, they
pay their weekly or monthly rents, they live from
hand to mouth, and they leave their children, if
they have any, no tangible inheritance whatever.
In each generation only a very small percentage
become people of independent means; a
very small minority of men or women are their
own landlords or employers.
Nor are the rich and "well-to-do", asa rule, those who have created the wealth they
hold.  They are not the skilled mechanics, the
inventors, the civil engineers, the workers in the field,
factory, or railway, the handy fishermen, the sailors,
the farm-laborers, the merchants, the book-keepers,
the salesmen, - not even the politicians.  They
are the men who have managed to get the control
and management of some form of special
privilege, natural or artificial; - landed
property, like the Astors; railroads and steamships,
like the Vanderbilts and Goulds; oil refineries
and pipe lines, like the Standard Oil Co.; sugar
importation and distribution, like the American
Sugar Refineries Co.; - in every case some form
of monopoly.
This new order of aristocracy, these barons
of an industrial feudalism, have practically taken
control of the government, and govern the governors,
the Legislatures, Congress, and the President.  Once
in a generation some Jackson, Lincoln or

Roosevelt rises superior to the smug commercialism
of his day, and arouses a spasmodic and
partial reaction.  But it soon dies out, and
the steady march of monopoly goes on unabated.
Sooner or later the taxed and
defrauded people will be forced to turn their
attention to the other ideal of constructive statesmanship,
even more important than the production
of wealth - i.e., its equitable and general distribution.
They will discover that they are not enriched,
but pauperized, by accumulations of capital in the
hands of a few, that it would be better that the
oil should remain in the soil than be extracted
to fill the pockets of Rockefeller, Rogers, Flagler,
and their associates, that the real estate
of New York had better have remained undeveloped
for a generation than to have become the private
perquisite of the "four hundred", that the railroads 
and telegraphs and telephones had better
have been more gradually developed than to havehave become the prey of the Goulds, the Mellens,
the Hills, and the Harrimans.  Parties will
arise to try to solve the difficult problems of an
equitable distribution of wealth among the men
and women who produce it by their daily
toil.
How to equalize human conditions, -
that will be the problem of future centuries and
millenniums - the ideal of statesmanship.  How
to make the workers the owners of the factories; the
employees and the public the controlling stockholders 
of the great industrial and transportation
corporations, which are to do the work of the 
coming generations.
In order even to approximate
social justice, we must eliminate, as far
as possible, every form of special privilege.
Women must be placed on a political equality
with men, wives must become equal
partners and property-owners in the family.

the great body of men and women must become
intelligent sharers in public activities,
interested factors in the industrial commonwealth.
How this ideal is to be attained we
cannot yet clearly see.  At best it must be
a process of evolution.  But we must begin by
reducing special privileges as far as possible,
and by holding their possessors to a strict account
of their stewardship.  We must make
men and women, rich and poor, equal citizens
in city, State and nation.
H.B.B.Woman's Journal, Oct. 12, 1907            p 162
Monopoly or Mob?
This is the political alternative offered to the
voters of Massachusetts, last Saturday, by the two
great parties of the commonwealth.
On the one hand, at Springfield, 
Boss Kiley and Convict Curley marshalled their
respective factions of the Democratic party in a 
howling bedlam - Kiley with his mallet pounding
to suppress Curley with his megaphone, while one-
half of the delegates, whose seats were usurped
by force and fraud, cooled their heels upon
the sidewalk, unable the get admittance.  It
was nomination by a mob.
On the other hand Senator Lodge and
his party associates in Boston, renominated
all the present State officers, including
Lieut-Governor.  Draper, an opponent of
reciprocity and tariff revision, and prospective 
candidate for governor next year.

They adopted a platform pledging the party to
continued non-action on the tariff.
The result leaves the (male) people
of the State only the alternative, as old as
history, between the rule of monopoly or of mob.
Common sense will compel the voters of two
evils to choose the least, and to reaffirm the
everlasting principle that "Order is Heaven's first
law".  Any government is better than none.
Mean while it will be well to
remember that one-half of the law-abiding citizens
of the State, the women, being unjustly disfranchised,
are not responsible for our political degradation.
The scandalous scene at Springfield
is commended to the "antis", who are so
greatly impressed with the idea of masculine
superiority.  Women, behold your governors!
Are the men who dictate nominations by force
and fraud as well fitted for the suffrage as the
wives and mothers who rear the children andguard the homes?  If able to decide, would the
Democratic women ratify nominations by political
heelers and prize-fighters?  It may well be doubted.
Certain it is that this class of men are practically
unanimous in opposition to the enfranchisement of women.
H.B.B.

Woman's Journal, Jan, 11, 1903
No Dividends for Workers
Cash dividends have just been paid
out to stockholders by New England cotton-mill
corporations larger than were ever declared before.
In Fall River, upon a total capital invested of
twenty-five and a half million dollars, more
than ten percent, has been paid in cash, and
in addition stock dividends have been issued of
nineteen hundred thousand dollars, making an 
average return of (19.47) nearly twenty percent. - the net earnings of a single year.  Moreover,
the earnings of these mills have been even
larger than is shown above, for in many cases
debts have been greatly reduced and in others
wiped out entirely.
But how about the men, women and
children by whose steady, daily drudgery this
vast wealth has been produced?  They have
received and are still receiving higher wages
that ever before, measured in money, but not
higher measured by the necessary cost of living.
In a majority of cases they have spent all they 
earned, and begin the new year dependent, as
before, upon their daily wages.  If, as is probable,
as a result of the financial shingency 
caused by reckless banking mismanagement,
demand for cotton goods slackens, the
number of wage earners will be reduced
and their rate of wages lowered.  Not one
in ten of the families have been able to

save for future emergencies.
And this is called "unparalleled prosperity".  So it is - for the comparatively few
stockholders; but for the community it is a bare
subsistence; better than actual penury, but without
improvement of existing conditions or hope for the future.
How can this state of things be bettered?
Only by such legislation as will oblige manufacturing
corporations earning more than a reasonable return
on their capital - say seven or eight percent 
net - to distribute the remainder, either
in cash or in stock dividends, pro rata, among
their operatives, a majority of whom in these
cotton factories are women.
Is this Socialism?  No, it is only
social justice.  A corporation is an artificial personality 
enjoying special privileges granted by the
people of the commonwealth.  The stockholder's
liability is limited to his stock, whereas individand firms enjoy no such limitation.  When 
workingmen and workingwomen all vote, and comprehend
the meaning and value their votes, the excessive
dividends that have built up thousands of capitalists,
and are creating a manufacturing and commercial
feudalism, will be apportioned fairly among the workers,
and they too will become stockholders and members
of corporations.  Profit-sharing, in some form, is
the indispensable condition of social progress.
H.B.B.

Woman's Journal, Jan 18, 1908                p. 10
Suffrage Riots in Germany
For more than a year, the newspapers of England
and America have vied with each other
in censuring and ridiculing the efforts of
peaceable English women to induce the so-
called "Liberal" government which they had helped
to place in power to allow Parliament to takea yea and nay vote on the question of extending
Parliamentary suffrage to women.  In these
efforts of the "Suffragettes", not a single man,
woman, or child had been assaulted or injured
by the women.  Yet they were arrested and
fined for the sole crime of making their demand
public and effective, and, upon their refusal to
pay the fines, have suffered months of imprisonment
with thieves and prostitutes.
But on Jan. 12 there comes from 
Berlin an equally thrilling tale of a monster
demonstration of seventy thousand unarmed
men and women bent on securing manhood
suffrage and expressing their indignation
against Chancellor von Bulow for his curt
refusal of their demand.  It does not appear
that any disorder was contemplated.  Nor was
it woman suffrage that was demanded, but
only such general suffrage for men as has
been freely exercised unchallenged for more

than a hundred years on the American continent.
But the authorities of Berlin resorted to similar
cruel measures of repression as in the case of the
Suffragettes.  Groups of unarmed persons were scattered
by the police, using their sabres.  Their sole crime
consisted in disregarding a "warning" that assemblages
would not be permitted.  The city ambulances 
treated more than one hundred wounded,
thirty-one of whom, including three policemen,
were seriously injured.  Several hundred more
had their wounds dressed at their own homes.  The
entire garrison of the capital were kept under
arms, in readiness to aid the police if necessary.
Nevertheless, many thousand people
gathered at six hundred local headquarters
of the various districts of the city, and thence proceeded,
singing patriotic songs, toward the
eight halls wherein mass meetings had
been announced.
One of the most significant factswas the courage and resolution shown by women,
who clung to the bridles of the mounted policemen
in efforts to stop their charges on the unarmed
populace.
Dispatches from various provinces of the
German Empire report similar enthusiastic
demonstrations, everywhere peaceful except where
attacked by the police.  Largely attended meetings
passed resolutions in favor of manhood
suffrage, and copies of these were telegraphed
to Prince von Bulow, the Prime Minister of
Prussia.
In Essen, 10,000 people paraded
the streets singing the "Marseillaise" and
"The Sons of Freedom".   The police made ineffectual
attempts to bar their progress.  At Cassel
there were 17 mass meetings, followed by as many
processions.  The authorities made no attempt at
interference, and there was practically no disorder.
In cologne the police dispersed various processions

by barring the streets, and there were a few
unimportant collisions.  Frankfort, however, was
the scene of a street fight between the police
and the manifestants, in which a number of
persons were injured.
The Socialists showed great determination
in their attempts to hold processions, although
the police made energetic endeavors to
prevent this.  Long before noon, the time fixed
to begin the meetings, all the halls were completely
packed, and the police drew up in force around
the doors to hold the crowds in check.  Those who
could not get within the buildings were
driven into the adjoining streets.  Inside the 
halls the greatest enthusiasm prevailed, the 
excitement increasing as the speakers denounced
the action of the Chancellor, whose name
was received with loud hooting and hissing.
The speakers did not advise violence, but declared 
that if violence occurred the responsibilitywould fall upon the police and the privileged
classes, who refused the people their rights.
Resolutions favoring universal suffrage and a 
secret ballot were adopted by acclamation,
after which the audiences streamed into the
streets.  The police immediately attempted to
dispense the throngs, which showed an evident
intention to march in procession toward
 the palace square.  In most cases the processions
were soon broken up, the police
displaying the utmost energy.  Two columns,
however, marched as far as Alexander
Platz, within a short distance of the Emperor's
palace, where the police charged upon them,
using the flats of their sabres freely and inflicting 
many injuries.  Eventually they
succeeded with the greatest difficulty in scattering 
the demonstrators, who retired hooting
and cheering ironically toward Unter den
Linden.  Thousands of spectators already had

gathered there from curiosity, and the police
followed the broken ranks of the paraders, clearing
the entire thoroughfare as far as the
Brandenburg Gate, where most of the people
fled rapidly along the paths to the Thiegarten.
Many of them escaped along the side streets,
Friedrichstrasse and Wilhelmstrasse. 
Later some thousands of the demonstrators
gathered a short distance from Chancellor
von Bulow's residence and began
shouting down the Chancellor, who had
driven through into Friedrichstrasse.  Both
the mounted and foot police charged
them fiercely, striking right and left with
the flat of their sabres.  Scores of the manifestants
were knocked down and trampled
upon, and the great crowd at length
was broken up into small groups, among
whom were many injured.
Another serious collisionoccurred at Jungfern Bridge, where many
suffered severe contusions.  On Moritz Platz
an immense throng shouted and hooted
until the police with drawn arms forced
them into the side streets.  Thousands attempted
to reach Berlin from the suburbs after
the meetings there, but found every thoroughfare
barred.  Towards evening quiet was resumed
in the center of the city.  The main force of the
police was withdrawn at night, but patrols
continued to prevent groups from forming.
In the suburbs during the day 
fourteen other meetings that were held attracted
even greater concourses of men and women.
The New York Tribune treats this affair
with a consideration and sympathy in striking
contrast with its attitude toward the Suffragettes.
While it declares that "rioting cannot be commended", 
it suggests that "sometimes it has
much provocation."  It admits that the

demand for manhood suffrage is reasonable,
and should be granted, and will have to be granted.
It goes so far as to declare:
"It is anomalous and incongruous that,
while the empire as a whole is democratic in
its suffrage, its component States, and especially
the chief of them, should be highly oligarchical,
and that while the proletarian millions of Prussia
can and do elect their proportional number
of representatives to the German Reichstag to 
legislate on imperial affairs, they cannot elect a
single representative to the Prussian Landtag to
legislate on local affairs.  The kingdom is more
exclusive than the empire.  The system is an
oligarchy because it restricts the ruling franchise
to a minority of the population.  It is an aristocracy
because that ruling minority is composed
of the so-called "higher classes" of society.  It
is a plutocracy because it is avowedly based
on wealth, as indicated in the assessment andpayment of taxes."
In short, the Tribune concedes the
wisdom and justice of the demand for manhood
suffrage in Germany, while it fails to recognize
the precisely parallel character of the women's demand
for political representation in England and America.
H.B.B.

Woman's Journal, Feb. 8, 1908                    p. 22
The Suffrage Hearing
Two sessions.  Miss Blackwell conducted the morning
session for Municipal Suffrage for women, Mr. Blackwell
the afternoon session for Tax-paying
suffrage for women.Woman's Journal, Feb. 29, 1908                 p. 34
Capital Punishment Murderer's Immunity.
At a recent hearing before the Massachusetts
Committee on the Judiciary, the opponents of 
capital punishment did not lay sufficient
stress on one of the strongest reasons for its
repeal, namely, its operation, here and now,
in the present condition of the public mind,
to confer practical immunity (as in the recent
Thaw case) on the crime of murder.  The
public reluctance to inflict the death penalty
may be morbid and irrational, but it
exists.  So far as it is based on a respect
for the sacredness of human life it is healthy
and commendable.
Forty-five years ago, in 1863, in that same
state house, I attended a similar hearing, and
heard Garrison, Phillips, and Parker advocate a 
repeal of capital punishment, while Dr. Lyman
Beecher and other eminent clergymen spoke

in its support on Biblical grounds.  The maintained
that "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth"
was a divine injunction, a permanent principle
of universal application.  Then, as now, the petitioners
had "leave to withdraw".
Since then, more than a thousand wilful
murders have been committed in Massachusetts, but
inflictions of the death penalty have been very few;
they may be counted on the fingers.  Evidently,
therefore, the comparative security of human life
has not depended on the penalty, since it is well
understood that it is certainty, not severity, of
punishment which deters from crime.  In nine
cases out of ten juries refuse to convict.
One of the advocates of capital punishment
instanced a recent occurrence at Jackson
Court House, Breathitt County, Kentucky, as a
warning of what would occur in case of its repeal.
This was a double absurdity; first because
capital punishment for murder is still the lawin Kentucky, and secondly, because Breathitt County
has been, until recently, one of the most secluded
and inaccessible places in America.  
In 1848, when travelling in Kentucky, I was told that
no wheeled vehicle had ever made its way through
the mountains to that county seat, accessible only
on horse-back or on foot.  From curiosity I
visited it.  It chanced to be on election day.
In the public square, surrounded by log-cabins,
several hundred stalwart men were assembled,
every man armed with a rifle and bowie knife,
prepared for emergencies.  Each of the candidates
stood at the door of his headquarters, dispensing
free whiskey to all comers from a barrel on tap.
A crowd stood around the polls, through which
each voter elbowed his way, announcing aloud
the names of the candidates of his choice - a 
written or printed ballot being regarded as
unmanly; and doubtless in many cases it
would have been useless on account of illiteracy.

Yet these men were self-respecting,
intelligent, and not devoid of personal dignity.
A stranger would have been entertained at
their homes with genuine hospitality.  Probably
nowhere in the country was property more 
safe or life held more cheap.  It was a striking
scene!  That was two generations ago, but the
old manners and morals still linger.  To compare
such a community with Massachusetts is nonsense.
But, after all, in one respect there has
been progress.  The Bible was now no longer
quoted as authority for capital punishment.
Rabbi Fleischer protested against its being quoted
as "the Hebrew code", pointed out that it had been
largely put aside, even before the Christian era,
and he affirmed that, to-day, alike by Jew and
Gentile, that ancient edict is regarded as a
relic of barbarism.
H.B.B.Woman's Journal, Apr. 25, 1908                     p. 66
Waste of Women's Vitality
An English periodical emphasizes the duty of
making proper provision for the support of
mothers and children before incurring parental
responsibility.  The absence of such provision
is said to be the direct cause of existing
poverty, disease, vice and misery.  A 
medical student has compiled a set of statistics
dealing with the childbearing of the poorer
women who sought hospital relief.  Here
are a few of the cases he reports:
One woman was married at twenty,
had had seven children, of whom two were
alive.
The next was married at eighteen.  She
had had seventeen children, of whom only
three were alive.
Another woman had married at
twenty four, had had eighteen children, and

had buried ten of them.
Thus four women had borne fifty-four
children of whom thirty-two had died.
Think what such a frightful mortality means
to the women themselves, to their husbands, children,
and neighbors!  The periodical is not opposed to
the birth and rearing of children under suitable
conditions, but it condemns paternity and maternity
without provisions for the maintenance, health,
and education of women and children, as both a
folly and a crime.
We commend the growing prevalence
of slum life to President Roosevelt, as a
counter statement to his indiscriminate denunciation 
of "race suicide".  One-half of the 
children born die in infancy.  Let us seek
to minimize this frightful infant mortality.
H.B.B.Woman's Journal, June 13, 1908                   p. 94
Enlist the Men.
One cause of delay in securing for women
citizens the civil and political rights enjoyed
by male citizens is that the active movement
in its behalf has been so largely limited to
women.  At the meetings held in its advocacy
nine-tenths in attendance are usually women,
a majority of them suffragists already.
Members of suffrage associations, local, State,
and National, are almost all women.
Yet quite as many men as women
are in favor of woman suffrage.  It does not
seem to have occurred to women that the
men should be actively enlisted in their effort
for women's enfranchisement, nor to men that themselves
should be active workers in the women's behalf.
This is all wrong.  Men need women as 
voters quite as much as women need to vote, and
men's direct co-operation is imperatively needed

in order to make women's demand logical and
successful.  Either our suffrage societies should
secure a large number of active male members, 
or a "man's woman suffrage association" should
be formed to work independently for the legislation
which men alone are able to enact.
There is probably no community wherein
as many men as women do not believe in the
principle of equal suffrage.  How shall the voters
and politicians be enlisted in the work of nominating and 
electing legislators pledged in advance
to urge the enactment of municipal and presidential 
woman suffrage and the submission
of a woman suffrage amendment to the 
State Constitutions?
Let this all - important question be
considered by our subscribers during the
summer vacation.  Let a concerted movement
be made next fall to enlist the
men of every locality in practical co-
operation.  Let the immense social and personal
influence women already possess, be made
a means of setting the men to work to secure the
rights so unjustly withheld.  What we want is not
woman suffrage in the millennium but woman
suffrage in 1908.
Within six months the Presidential election
will be over.  A new national administration
will have been chosen.  New political issues will then
come to the front.  That will be our golden opportunity
to marshal our forces.
We are not aware of our own
strength.  The game is already in our hands.
Thirteen years ago 87,000 Massachusetts men voted for
woman suffrage.  One half of that number can elect
or defeat a majority of her senators and Representatives. 
When the women who want to vote in every
representative district make their wishes sufficiently
manifest to their male friends, the victory
will be achieved.
H.B.B.

Woman's Journal, July 4, 1908                     p. 106
Standing Army Proposed.
A most momentous and radical change
is announced by the assistant secretary of
war, whereby the voluntary system of state
militia is to be "nationalized".  Every young
man who hereafter volunteers is to be trained
by Federal officers and be subject to the call
of the President as a private soldier in a 
standing army of 250,000 men.
Thus, in a period of profound peace,
after recent ratification of arbitration treaties,
without adequate notice or public discussion,
a permanent standing army, one of the worst
abuses of the military monarchies of continental 
Europe, from which our ancestors
freed themselves, is apparently about to be
foisted upon republican America.  Every
young man who hereafter joins the State
militia will thereby become a private soldierin the regular army, liable to be called away at
a moment's notice, to take part in a war, as
to the justice and necessity of which the people
have not been consulted.
If, for instance, an impulsive President
should attempt to compel Venezuela to arbitrate
the shady claims of American speculators, which
have already been tried and decided adversely
by Venezuelan counts, every militiaman may
be called upon to face yellow fever and bubonic
plague in equatorial South America, or be
treated as a deserter.  Or, in case of a domestic
complication, he may be, forced to sustain
Federal interferance in his own State.
The introduction of this new system of
centralization should be promptly resented and
repealed.  It remains to be seen whether our
young militiamen will tamely accept Federal
control, or whether they will follow Tolstoi's advice
to abolish standing armies by refusing to

undergo military training, and put an end
to war by refusing to fight.
The Democratic party is soon to
meet at Denver.  If this measure is to be
put in force, opposition to it will be a golden
opportunity.  Let it inscribe upon its banners:
"No standing army!", "No compulsory enlistment!"
The administration will then either
have to abandon the plan announced by the
assistant secretary of war, or justify its action 
before the American people.
Every woman is vitally concerned
individually as daughter, sister, wife, or mother,
concerned as an American citizen and as a
member of the human family.  How then can
she be content to sit idly by, and see great
public questions considered, without having
any voice or vote in their settlement?
H.B.B.