NAWSA SUBJECT FILE Higginson, Thomas Wentworth From "Commonsense About Women"-Higginson. p. 309 Self Protection " I remember to have read, many year ago, the life of Sir Samuel Romilly, the English philanthropist. He was the author of more beneficent legal reforms than any man of his day, and there was in this book a long list of the changes he meant to bring about. It struck me very much, that, among these proposed reforms, not one of any importance referred to the laws about women. It shows - what all experience has shown - that no class or race or sex can safely trust its protection in any hands but its own. The laws of England in regard to women were then so bad that Lord Brougham afterward said they needed total reconstruction, if they were to be touched at all. And yet it is only since woman suffrage began to be talked about, that the work of law - reform has really taken firm hold. In many cases in America the beneficent measures are directly to be traced to some appeal from feminine advocates. Even in Canada, as stated the other day by Dr. Cameron, formerly of Toronto, the bill protecting the property of married women was passed under the immediate pressure of Lucy Stone's eloquence. ibid p. 322 Lucy Stone tells a story of a good man in Kansas, who, having done all he could to prevent women from being allowed to vote on school questions, was finally comforted, when that measure passed, by the thought that he should at least secure his wife's vote for a pet schoolhouse of his own. Election-day came, and the newly- enfranchised woman showed the most culpable indifference to her privileges. She made breakfast as usual, went about her housework, and did on that perilous day precisely the things her anxious husband had always predicted that women never would do. His hints and advice found no response; and nothing short of the best pair of horses and the best wagon finally sufficed to take the farmer's wife to the polls." Dec 30 - 1871 Page 442 Thomas Wentworth Higginson states he has original marriage document signed by Henry B. Blackwell and Lucy Stone From "Letters and Journals" of Thomas Wentworth Higginson p. 98. Hamilton, Canada 10/1857 "I am amused to find that other American things creep in here also. My devoted little friend, Mr. Milne, is about to lose his place because of what the Directors called "an act of insubordination," in inviting Lucy Stone here to lecture, on his own account, after they voted her, "not a proper person for the Institute to countenance.".... But the spunky Secretary is resolved to have her here, in some other hall than the Institute's, and I have promised (sub rosa) to write, the opinion of an American clergyman upon her to be inserted in the paper when she comes." & that Lucy Stone, H.B. Blackwell & himself should edit it. Various letters of 1856 show that Lucy Stone was lecturing in R.I., Pa. &c. Nice letter from T.W. Higginson to Lucy Stone, dated Worcester, Nov.28, 1856, says he looks back with pleasure on the Convention. He urges that they have a Woman's Rights Almanac, & also an [Annu] Annual Report, & says of the latter, "You, as Secretary of the Central Committee ought to do it, & can." He said the former should be "a perfect plum pudding of wit & wisdom" Dec 30 - 1871 Page 412 "Plain Truth. 'We believe that personal independence and equal human rights can never be forfeited, except for crime; that marriage should be an equal partnership, and so recognized by law! - From the protest of Henry B. Blackwell and Lucy Stone against the inequality of marriage laws in Massachusetts; as quoted in the Golden Age of Dec. 2, 1871 - which professes to reprint the whole document from an old number of the Boston Traveller.' "We believe that personal independence and equal human rights can never be forfeited, except for crime; that marriage should be an equal and permanent partnership, and so recognized by law."- The same [Note: this page is a scattered list of numbers] Higginson 9-401 TW 9-722 10-337 Atlantic 368 649 vol 1 -582 12-265 2 -193 14-348 386 2-465 388 2-728 393 515 3-137 7-283 521 3-464. 7-385 740 776 3-725 7-728 4-345 8-88 5-213 5-549 8-173 6-449 8-302 6-526 8-696 7-51 9-188 passage, as actually printed in the old number of the Boston Traveller, May 2, 1855 - the words in capitals having been struck out by the Golden Age. These words are correctly given in the New York Tribune, May 4, 1855, and in many other papers of that period; they also appear as above in the original document, which is in my possession. T.W.H. ELIZABETH CADY STANTON MANUSCRIPTS IN BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY HIGGINSON PAPERS * GALATEA COLLECTION 1868, NOV. 4 - to Stephen S. Foster - about invitation to convention of New England Woman Suffrage Assn. #122 1868,May 22 - #120 to T.W.Higginson 1868, Nov. 3 - to T.W.Higginson #121 1868, Jan.13 - Ibid - #119 Thomas W. Higginson Collection of papers in Galatea Collection, Boston Public Library and/or Massachusetts Historical Society 1857, Mar. 3. Thomas W. Higginson to C.H.Dall, about dates for Lucy Stone. 1857, Nov. 24 T.W. H. to C.H.Dall, about need of organization 1858, Feb. 3,8,23 - Ibid, about the Woman's Rights cause. Jan 3, 1859 - Ibid - about a proposed woman's rights convention. 1862, Mar.16 - Ibid - about woman's rights pamphlets. 1863, Feb. 2 - to Edward Atkinson about the Negro troops. 1863, June 24 - to Alex C. Washburn Letter to Charles Sumner 1864, Sept. 26 - to Edward Atkinson, about free labor cotton projects. 1885, Mar. 17,21 - to C. H. Dall, about the controversy over Hawthorne's journal entry about Margaret Fuller 1906, Dec. 26 - to Norcross - Letter to Mr. Garrison Boston Public Library Higginson, Thomas Wentworth - 1823-1911 1884, Feb. 5 - to Francis P. Garrison, desires a talk for Wendell Phillips funeral 1859 - June 23. to William L. Garrison (1805-1879) Asking to have his name deleted from The Liberator Adv. of the 4th of July meeting. Is calling meeting of State Disunion Committee in (Garrison's) office and asks him to attend. George Tichnor - Mrs. T. W. Higginson's nephew 1887 - T.W.H. wrote monthly papers for The Independent 1904] The True of life. In "The Scarlet Letter," his masterpiece and the greatest piece of imaginative writing in American literatures, and perhaps, on the whole, the most notable contribution by an American to the literature of the world, his ethical teaching is a little blurred and uncertain. It is with the artistic values of things that Hawthorne was mainly concerned, and it is as an artist that he must be interpreted and his place assigned to him. In a practical country, dealing with material problems on a great scale, his service to American literature has been inestimable importance; and time, which has dealt harshly with some of his contemporaries, has but cleared away the mists of prejudice and set the beauty, the significance, and the permanent value of his work more distinctly before the eyes of the world. Outlook [2 July life. Better a thousand times than salutes of cannon and the brilliancy of fireworks would be a celebration marked by a new tide of patriotism, a new expression of the spirit of the Fathers. The Spectator In those pleasant days when the Spectator was gaining his first knowledge of German poetry, he discovered Oriental literature through the imagination of Goethe, and was immensely taken by the bits of Saadi, Hafiz, and Firdusi which came in his way, and spent many delightful hours in reading the "West- Easterly Divan," the most direct impression of Oriental thought on Goethe. Little was said in those day of Omar Khayyám, whom Edward Fitzgerald has since made an English as well as a Per- REPRODUCED BY PERMISSION OF FOSTER BROS., BOSTON NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE From a painting by Alfred E. Smith. The trees were mostly tall, slender pines, many of them thrusting their twisted roots out of the ground, and others fallen all their length, making bridges and arches, and holding up a huge shield of roots at the end. The busy moss had wrapped them all in its soft green, and had lined and draped a thousand green recesses, making me wish I was a fairy to live in them. Surely, man has never built a mansion that is arrayed like one of these ! It was a most Gothic wood, with its pointed trees and arches, and long vistas inviting us onward. How impossible it seems that a wood path can ever have and end ! At last we saw water gleaming at a distance, and came to a clear tarn, lined with brown leaves and holding a fair 521 522 The Outlook [2 July picture in its bosom. A short distance from this was a cavernous spring that delighted me extremely. The opening was oblong, lined with the natural rock and stones for a depth of some five feet, and then it was excavated under the earth, or rather the rock, and there we saw the water bubbling, clear and cold. What a place for summer, and how one envies the frogs! But these seemingly endless woods had an end, and we came out on some open rising ground, whence we had a glorious view of the valley, where the trees were already dreaming of summer, and sketching an outline of their greenness. Luminous mists, "slow-dropping veils of thinnest lawn," took the place of the sunshine, making a pearly radiance in the air, and the far blue mountains made an exquisite horizon. And here the world came upon us, in the shape of two small children, a girl with some columbines in her hand, and a boy with some plebeian dandelions. "I say, you give me some of yours," said the boy, "and you shall have all mine!" "No, I don't want yours," said the girl, airily skipping down the bank. "Oh, you're stingy!" said the boy, as he followed her, with an accent of the most supreme contempt. Then we came home, and I think you might wish yourself either one of your pictures if you want to have a good time. Before one [picture] is a little basket, lined with moss and filled with tiny ferns, violets, anemones, houstonias, and polygalas, and many more. Under the other is a tall vase with a long partridge-vine twisted round it, and filled with columbines, uvularias, and slender branches of delicately tinted maple leaves mixed with white flowers and ferns. I enjoyed arranging them very much, but oh how dead and colorless my letter seems. How I wish I had a little bit of the secret of nature to put into it! But that secret hovers near me in the air, it vanishes among the leaves and whispers in the flower bells, and though I cannot grasp or utter it, I feel as if in time it might make me beautiful with its peace. I find in turning over her letters that most of them refer to private affairs which I am not at liberty to touch, but there are two of her European letters which may be printed. It must be borne in mind that she first went abroad with her parents as a child, being first in England and then in Italy, and then, after the death of her father in 1864, she went abroad with her mother, who died in London in 1871. The following letters were written during this absence: Dresden, April 19th, 1869. Dear -----: I am very glad to hear from you at last, for I began to fear that your wee farewell note was the last of our correspondence, and could not wonder that many more important and pleasant concerns put it out of your head. But I see I am favored beyond my deserts, and I find this much pleasanter than being treated with strict justice. . . . I have been delighted to hear of your housekeeping and its happy results. If I came to see you in winter, you would not put me in a room that had never known a fire, with a feather bed and one blanket, and a small pitcher of icewater, would you? Well, I am sorry I can't have that shivery experience of Newport cancelled, though I don't believe I should ever be warm there, in the midst of summer. . . . Any old friend would be welcome to me now. As to new ones, I abominate them--or rather the idea--for I haven't made any. The doors of my heart are shut, I believe, on the short and precious number already inside, and it is not common to meet fascinating specimens of one's country-people abroad. We live apart, in a quiet, independent way, and only occasionally hear a murmur of the detestable gossip and lavish fashion on the other side of the river, or see a glimpse of velvet trains. . . . The Sistine Madonna and I (was my name ever so associated before!) are very glad you are coming to Europe, and we hope the but we involve will not fail to bring you to Dresden. Really and truly, you must not go back without coming here, and I think you would find yourself fully repaid, for the interests and charms of this city and its environs are very great, and surely you would not consider your tour complete unless there was a streak 1904] Una Hawthorne 523 of German through it. The spring, as we find, is so specially lovely here that I hope you can time your visit then-or at any rate not in winter, for I suppose the remarkable winter we have just passed will not soon repeat itself. And even this winter we have had gales of wind that make the Newport ones seem like mere whispers, and which shook the ponderous stone mansion in which we participate so that we began to feel there was no stability in material things. I like my German life very well, and I think Europe is a delightful place for women. I should except the present typical woman of America, I suppose, as much as I would a young man with a fortune and career to achieve ; but I am not a typical woman of that kind, nor do I delight in them. I like, now at least, the intellectual, artistic, dreamy atmosphere, and the sort of easy independence one can enjoy here. It would be a selfish life when there was a choice of any other, but I do not feel that it is for me, because the duties incumbent on me I can fulfill as well here, and gild them over a little, besides. At home I saw only the rugged fact-here I lose sight of it sometimes in pictures and music and loads of flowers. Still, I am a very subdued person, and realize how the years have fled, and what they have brought me, as this return to European life brings vividly before me my happy enthusiastic girlhood, brimming over with undimmed hope and trust and love ; when, too, my father's smile was the sun in my heaven. So near, and yet so far it all is, and I think I shall be gayer by and by when the force of the contrast wears off. It isn't canonical to cross letters, even from this side of the Atlantic, I suppose, and though I always feel a wicked desire to do it, I will spare your eyes and say good-by. . . I am so glad you think you can write to me sometimes; I hope you really will, though I can do little more than love you in return, and that I should at any rate-so, you see, you don't gain anything. January 28, 1870, Dresden. Dear----: I was very glad to get your letter after such a long silence. I thought I should care less and less to be remembered by my friends when I got out here, but I find it very much the contrary, and all the galleries and music in Europe can't make up for one's friends. Indeed, I don't believe I am very artistic after all. Of course I always knew I had no talent to accomplish anything, but I did think I had latent seeds of appreciation, and perhaps they would come to something if I was not among these stolid, dirty Germans, who disenchant one of all ideas of beauty, and make one doubt if there is such a thing as spirit. However, we shall certainly be here till next autumn, and I hope you will find it possible to come here. When I hear how short your absence is to be, I see you will have to leave out a great deal. I don't believe anybody ever tried to accomplish even the beaten track of European travel in four months, though it was been profitably done in six, and when you are once over here it seems a pity not to draw a breath. I am extremely surprised your eyes were holden that you should not see the frequent recurrence of that unlovely letter "U" in the Italian part of Mamma's book. It is such an eyesore to me that on first glancing over the book it seemed to stare from every page, but in the English portion it of course does not occur, because that is taken from letters to me, as I was always left at home. We see very few American books, except the "Atlantic" and "Putnam's," which come to us regularly, but it seems to me they are not as good as they used to be. Won't you write another story? I have not read Lowell's "Cathedral" yet, because I was so generous as to lend the magazine before reading it. I expected to like it, for I admire a great deal of his poetry very much indeed. I think "Under the Willows" contains exquisite things, and to read his pictures from the Shoals is almost as good as going there-better, in one sense, because it is such a satisfaction to see put into words what you thought was beyond them. How wonderfully expressive language language can be made, after all, and what a glorious instrument it is. And I am quite content with English- "my little jaws were never made" to tear themselves 524 The Outlook to pieces with German monstrosities— I never should talk it fluently if I lived a thousand years. I have had the little photograph I inclose for you this great while—I always want to send you all the lovely child-pictures, and I think this is very sweet. Perhaps I shall be able to show you the real one now, which is very beautiful in coloring. It is too late for your birthday, but that is your fault, because you never told me the date before. I am afraid I shall never be able to write anything worth putting in your paper, but if I should ever come across any interesting facts about women that nobody has ever heard of before, I will put them at your disposal. The Saxon woman is a dull and ponderous specimen whom the man holds not even "better than his horse," I am afraid; certainly the poor ones are made to work much harder, for they are absurdly tender of their miserable old horses, putting drags on their wheels when the earth is scarcely dreaming of an eminence, and sometimes getting a women to push behind when a hill is to be climbed. I have no opportunity to observe the better classes, but it is said the same principle runs through all. But Germans like to have American wives, and treat them better, I suppose because they won't put up with anything else; but I can't conceive of such a thing as marrying an unadulterated Dutchman. Mrs. [Helen] Hunt must write charming letters, she is so vivid and brilliant herself. I heard she was coming to Dresden, and hope it may be true—it seems to be the fashion for everyone to come here. You know—made a short visit here. She seemed to have only half enjoyed her trip, and to think it a hard fate to go home. Poor thing, she sailed in such an awful weather that I was almost afraid she would never see the other side; but she said she thought it would be rather good fun to be drowned, and I suppose that was a talisman. After breaking off an early engagement which ended unhappily, Una Hawthorne was betrothed in later life to a young man of fine gifts and literary pursuits, Albert Webster. He proved, however, to be in consumption, and was soon ordered to Honolulu for his health, but died on shipboard and was buried at sea. This occurred on December 27, 1876, and his betrothed did not hear of it until several months later. She died on September 10, 1877, at Cleeve, England, apparently of a broken heart. I can do no better, perhaps, than to close this imperfect sketch of one of the rarest persons I have ever known by a final summary of her qualities, as written many years since by my elder sister, a woman of unsurpassed truthfulness and penetration, with whom Una had been closely associated during the formative period of her life: ". . . About Una I wish I had ——'s power of saying anything in the way of characterization. She was very peculiar; you were sure she had genius, though I do not think I ever saw any writing of hers that seemed remarkable. Her qualities were very inconsistent; she would tell you every particular of circumstances that had occurred to herself, and yet you did not feel you understood how she felt; she was not transparent, though very confiding; wanting in judgment and perception of character and easily influenced, though she seemed self-reliant. . . . She was excessively fascinating; her father's description of her looks is perfectly appropriate; sometimes she seemed beautiful, then entirely the reverse. . . . She was ardent and generous always, as I knew her; the religious phase came to her afterwards—that is, in a technical way; she was ever high-minded, but did not seem as spiritual as her mother. It was impossible she should ever be happy." UNA HAWTHORNE From a tintype in the author's possession. Una Hawthorne By Thomas Wentworth Higginson IT has never happened to me, during a life of many years, to walk in the streets of a city with any companion by my side who has attracted, from passing strangers, such ready personal notice, followed by eager scrutiny, as was usually won by Una Hawthorne, the eldest daughter of our great literary artist. Tall beyond the average height of women, absolutely erect, perfectly unconscious, bearing her fine head upon the body of a gymnast, she herself kept no account of the eyes resting upon her or of the heads that were turned to watch her as she swept by. It was this nobleness of carriage which first arrested attention and her superb Titianesque coloring which afterwards held it—the abundant hair of reddish auburn and the large gray eyes. I knew her at one time intimately, being, under a certain combination of events, in a manner adopted by her, as a sort of brevet relative. This paper will be drawn largely from her own letters, but will include also a careful study of her in childhood by her father. It is not easy to find a more picturesque 517 518. The Outlook. [2 July esque account of the early married life of two people of genius than is given in Mrs. Sophia Hawthorne’s letters and journals during her frugal winter at the Old Manse in Concord. Take, for instance, this passage, as reprinted in her daughter Mrs. Lathrop’s “Memories of Hawthorne: “ “Lately we go on the river, which is now frozen, my lord to skate and I to run and slide, during the dolphin-death of day. I consider my husband a rare sight gliding over the icy stream. For, wrapped in his cloak, he looks very graceful, perpetually darting from me in long, sweeping curves, and returning again--again to shoot away. Our meadow at the bottom of the orchard is like a small frozen sea now, and that is the present scene of our heroic games. Sometimes, in the splendor of the dying light, we seem sporting upon transparent gold, so prismatic becomes the ice, and the snow takes opaline hues from the gems that float above as clouds. It is eminently the hour to see objects, just after the sun has disappeared. Oh, such oxygen as we inhale! Often other skaters appear--young men and boys-- who principally interest me as foils to my husband, who, in the presence of nature, loses all shyness, and moves regally like a king. One afternoon Mr. Emerson and Mr. Thoreau went with him down the river. Henry Thoreau is an experienced skater, and was figuring dithyrambic dances and Bacchic leaps on the ice--very remarkable, but very ugly, methought. Next him followed Mr. Hawthorne, who, wrapped in his cloak, moved like a self-impelled Greek statue, stately and grave." It is still more beautiful indoors: "In the evening, when the astral enacts the sun, and pours shine upon all the objects, and shows, beneath, the noblest head in Christendom, in the ancient chair with its sculpted back [a chair said to have come over in the Mayflower, and owned by the Hawthorne family]; and whenever I look up, two stars beneath a brow of serene white radiate love and sympathy upon me. Can you think of a happier life, with its rich intellectual feasts? That downy bloom of happiness, which unfaithful and ignoble poets have persisted in declaring always vanished at the touch and wear of life, is delicate and fresh as ever, and must remain so if we remain unprofane." (p. 64.) But this life becomes far more beautiful when the eldest child, Una, appears upon the scene. It is not, perhaps, much to claim for this newcomer when we are told that "her grandmother says she has the most perfect form she ever saw in a baby;" or when the young mother writes, "She waked this morning like another dawn, and smiled bountifully." Have we not all had grandmothers and mothers? It counts for a little more to say, "I took her to William Story's yesterday, and he thought her eyes very beautiful, and said he had scarcely ever seen perfectly gray eyes before; and that such were the finest eyes in the world, capable of the most expression. He added that her eyes were like those of an exquisite child of Raphael's which he had seen in oils." Elsewhere Mrs. Hawthorne writes to her mother: "I never imagined anything so enchanting as Una's rapid development. Every morning, as soon as she is awake, she extends her little hand to the Madonna. Then she points to Loch Lomond,. . . and then to Abbotsford, each time observing something about the pictures as she gazes into my face. My replies I always feel to be very stupid, but I do as well as I can, considering that I am not now a baby." Afterwards, when they are living in a little house in Lenox, Mrs. Hawthorne writes to her mother on a rainy Sunday of her two elder children--Julian having now arrived: "This has been a dull 'heaven's day' for the children, who have not been as merry as on a sunny day. I have read to them, and shown them my drawings of Flaxman's Iliad and Odyssey and Hesiod. I wish you could have see them the other day, acting Giant Despair and Mrs. Diffidence. They were sitting on chairs opposite the doorsteps; Julian with one little leg over the other, in a nonchalant attitude; Una also in negligent position. They were discussing their prisoners, Hopeful and Christian, in very gruff and unamiable 1094] Una Hawthorne 519 voices. 'Well, what had we better do with them?' 'Oh, beat them pretty well, every day!'" On another Sunday she writes: "A famous snow-storm. I read from Spenser to the children in the morning of St. George and Una, Una and the Lion, and Prince Arthur. The Cinderella. They made an exquisite picture with the hobby-horse. Julian was upon the horse --as a king; Una at his side presenting ambrosia." Later we learn how the daughter's nature grew in proportion to her intimacy with her father. The mother writes: "Dear little harp-souled Una-- whose love for her father grows more profound every day, as her comprehending intellect and heart perceive more and more fully what he is--was made quite unhappy because he did not go at the same time with her to the Lake. His absence darkened all the sunshine to her; and when I asked her why she could not enjoy the walk as Julian did, she replied, 'Ah, he does not love papa as I do!' But when we arrived, there sat papa on a rock, and her face and figure were transfigured from a Niobe's to an Allegra's instantly. . . I heard her and Julian talking together about their father's smile, the other day. They had been speaking of some other person's smile--Mr. Tappan's I believe; and presently Una said, 'But you know, Julian, that there is no smile like papa's!' 'Oh, no,' replied Julian. 'Not like papa's!'" How well this corresponds with what the daughter once said to me in later years of her father! "He was capable of being the very gayest person I ever saw. He was like a boy. Never was such a playmate as he in all the world." And while the child was thus living in an atmosphere of pure romance with the father, he was at the same time studying and analyzing her in the minute and anxious way seen in the following sketch of Una, a copy of which was given me many years ago by Mrs. Hawthorne, and was never before, so far as I know, put in print. It is of itself deeply interesting, even apart from its subject, as showing the minute personal observation which its author habitually applied to the few human types with which he came very closely in contact. Nothing else, perhaps, as it seems to me, gives such a glimpse from original sources of the manner in which this shy and reticent man pursued his observations: "There is something that frightens me about the child. I know not whether elfish or angelic, but all events supernatural. She steps so boldly into the midst of everything, shrinks from nothing, has such comprehension of everything, seeming at times to have but little delicacy, and anon shows that she possesses the finest essence of it; now so hard, now so tender, now so perfectly unreasonable, soon again so wise. In short, I now and then catch an aspect of her in which I cannot believe her to be my own human child, but a spirit strangely mingled with good and evil, haunting the house where I dwell. "Una, I think, does not possess humor nor anything of the truly comic; she cannot at all bear to be laughed at for anything funny that she perpetrates unawares, and when she tries to be funny, the result is seldom anything but an eccentricity--a wild grimace-- an unnatural tone; her natural bent is towards the passionate and tragic. Her life at present is a tempestuous day, with blinks of sunshine gushing between the rifts of cloud. She is as full, oftentimes, of acerbity as an unripe apple, that may be perfected into mellow deliciousness hereafter. She has a very strong craving for sympathy, and yet a hundred times a day she seems to defy sympathy, and put herself in a position where she knows she cannot receive it. "Her beauty is the most flitting, transitory, uncertain, and unaccountable affair that ever had a real existence. Ir beams out whenever nobody expects it; it has mysteriously passed away when you think yourself sure of it; if you glance sideways at her, you perhaps think it is illuminating her face, but, turning full to enjoy iy, it is gone again. When really visible, it is rare and precious as the vision of an angel; it is a transfiguration, a grace, a delicacy, an ethereal fineness, which at once, in my secret soul, makes me give up all severe opinions that I may have begun to form 520 The Outlook respecting her. She is never graceful or beautiful except when perfectly quiet-violence, exhibitions of passion, strong expressions of any kind destroy her beauty. Her voice, face, gesture, every manifestation in short, becomes disagreeable. One night in spring I asked her to come in and go to bed, for it was after six o'clock. 'Where is that six o'clock? Papa, I do not know where it is! It is in God's day, with all the other sixes that have been.' Once she broke forth in a chant-'Oh God! wrongness never reigns.' "She is not likely ever to be run away with by her imagination-her perception of reality is constantly on the watch. " Julian said, 'God is the most beautiful of Princes.' Una rebuked him and said 'No, Julian, God is a King.' " Una says, 'I am tired of all things and want to slip into God.' " Her auburn curls come down over her face, and as to her delicate little phiz, its spirit, grace, and sensibility elude the pen that would describe it. "On my reproving Julian, Una come to me with a remonstrance of no small length, the burthen being, 'Papa, you should not speak so loudly to a little boy, who is only half years old.' "She comes out of trouble like the moon out of a cloud, with no shadow of sulkiness hanging about her-or rather, perhaps, like a rosebush out of a thunder shower, for there is a sort of dewy softness remaining, although there is the brightness of sunshine in her smile." Let us now pass by twenty years or more, until this fair child has grown to maturity, and read one of her letters written from the house of my sister at Brattleborough, Vermont, where Una was making a brief visit. I do not see how her father himself could have touched the very freshness and fullness of outdoor life with a pencil more delicate: Brattleborough, Vt., May 19th, '68. I am fresh from the beautiful damp woods, with all their wealth of budding green and tender flowers, and, absurd as it seems to try and tell you about them, I really can't help it. When did it ever seem as if there had been another springtime, or as if a violet or a windflower had been seen before? The glory of it all makes me almost afraid, and it seems such a pity ever to come home from such an exquisite fairy-land. Aunt Anna and I had planned a walk when I first came, but it has rained constantly; however, today we bid defiance to the rain, so it respected our bravery and our umbrellas, which we were punished by having to carry under our arms. Such a depth and richness of green was brought out by the dampness that I would not have had it a dry day for the world, and indeed I must have been born with a spring in my mouth instead of a silver spoon, for I always feel twice myself in a showery ramble. I wanted to go straight up the perpendicular bank behind Mrs. Brown's house, and Aunt Anna's enterprise at least equaled mine, and we were fully rewarded. The rocks were almost wholly veiled by delicate mosses and lichens, in which were planted violets, houstonias, and anemones, and new ferns undoubling their green fists, with polygalas, saxifrage, and, to my great joy, columbines. The last has always had a magical fascination for me, and makes me feel as no other flower can. It represents the aristocracy among wild flowers, with its haughty and airy grace and proud crimson and gold. It not only "the likeness of a kingly crown had on," but it is itself a crown. There was a particular half moss, half lichen on the rocks, looking like large green ears, and with this I lined the bottom of my basket, intending to cover the earth in Aunt Anna's flower-pots with it. Then the flowers showered in, mixed with long trails of partridge-vine with its bright red berry. I pulled up a royal plant with all its nodding columbines by the roots to put down by that huge stump in the garden, where the simple thing doesn't know but it is at home. Then we penetrated into the delicious woods, wishing for you...at every step. Oh, why aren't you here? I can't bear to enjoy it all without you, when you want it so much; and should we not find beautiful secrets together in these deep recesses? 1904] The Hawthorne Centenary 483 two principles are inconsistent. To us they do not seem so to be. The Currency Problem. Whether this Nation shall be monometallic or bimetallic is no longer a question of practical politics. Mr. Roosevelt's active participation in the first Bryan campaign in opposition to free silver was so vigorous and effective and is so recent that no quotations from his speeches delivered at that time are necessary to define his position, His present position he defined in an address at Quincy, Illinois, in April, 1903: Our currency laws have been recently improved by specific declarations intended to secure permanency of values; but this does not imply that these laws may not be further improved and strengthened...Our currency laws need such modification as will insure definitely the parity of every dollar coined or issued by the Government, and such expansion or contraction of the currency as will promptly and automatically respond to the varying needs of commerce. Permanent increase would be dangerous, permanent contraction ruinous, but the needed elasticity must be brought about by provisions which will permit both contraction and expansion as the varying needs of the several communities and business interests at different times and in different localities require. Summarizing the principles enunciated and illustrated in these quotations, the platform on which Mr. Roosevelt stands may thus be briefly stated: Treat negroes as other men are treated; liberty for the laborer to join or not to join labor organizations; supervision and regulation by the Government; maintenance of the protective system, subject to necessary revision from time to time, and supplemented by reciprocity treaties; the government of subject peoples for the purpose of rendering them self-governing; possession of National power, used in maintaining and promoting international peace; a flexible currency based on an inflexible standard. We do not in this editorial consider Mr. Roosevelt's character, his executive or administrative ability, or even his power to maintain and carry out these policies. Our object in the article has simply been to interpret Mr. Roosevelt's platform in Mr. Roosevelt's own words, in order that our readers may see what it is the Republican party have indorsed in nominating him, and to what the Nation will commit itself if it elects him. The Hawthorne Centenary The one hundredth anniversary of the birth of Hawthorne at Salem on July 4, 1804, will be commemorate in Salem, at Concord, and at Bowdoin College, whence he was graduated in the class of 1825, and where it is proposed to erect a statue which shall represent him in his early manhood. There are many interesting contrasts between Hawthorne's genius and the outward conditions into which he was born. The most shy and one of the most sensitive men in America, living for many years a life of almost complete seclusion, he was born on the noisiest day of the year. A writer of delicate genius, robust but sensitive, he came into life at the crudest period in the history of the country, when the heroic impulses which settled the Atlantic seaboard and secured the independence of the colonies had spent themselves, and the appropriation and assimilation of the knowledge of the world, which was one of the great facts in American life from 1820 to 1850, had not yet begun. He came at the end of the heroic age and before the period of culture. A solitary man by instinct and by habit, finding it difficult to establish easy and cordial relations with his fellows, he was for many years an officeholder, and the germ of his greatest work was found or worked out within the walls of a custom-house. So long overlooked that he spoke of himself as the most obscure man of letters in America, reputation came to him like a flood in middle life, and he has been for many decades the foremost man of letters on this continent - foremost in the sense that, more than any other, he lived for literature, expressed his view of life in literature, and was passionately devoted to literature as an art. A descendant of the Puritans, born in the village associated with the most terrible tragedy in the history of Puritanism, 484 The Outlook [2 July Hawthorne became the most subtle and artistic interpreter of certain aspects of the Puritan spirit. Educated at a country college in a time when all the colleges in America were practically country colleges, with access to few books, and opportunities of contact with fewer men of his own tastes, condemned by circumstances and his own temperament to a life of almost complete solitude for twelve years, it was not surprising that he was driven in upon himself, and that the human soul became the object of his supreme interest, the subject of his most subtle psychological study; and it was the soul out of harmony with itself, out of relation to the moral law, which interested him most profoundly. His touch on morbid conditions is that of the skillful physician whose finger follows by a delicate instinct the line of disease, and whose insight lays bare the secret recesses of morbid experience. To re-read, "The Scarlet Letter," "The House of Seven Gables," "Twice-Told Tales," "Septimius Felton," is to traverse some of the most obscure fields of experience, to study critically some of the most subtle phases of the life of the soul, to follow to their innermost recesses some of the most elusive motives which control the actions of men. A man of impressive physique and great vigor of intelligence, Hawthorne possessed an imagination of the highest sensitiveness, a mind of the utmost penetration. In those long years when he was brooding over human life in the shadow of ancestors who had expressed the harshest qualities of Puritanism, in the village associated with its most tragic outworkings, Hawthorne seemed to brood over spiritual disorders, unbalanced emotions, unregulated desires--the whole range of spiritual difficulty and disease. It was this aspect of Puritanism upon which his mind fastened, and he was drawn to deal with the Puritan character and to use the Puritan symbolism, not only because they were ancestrally related to him and a part of his family consciousness, so to speak, but because Puritanism worked out dramatically the psychological problems. A keen observer of men though shrinking from crowds, an acute student of life though by nature a man of solitude and of a few friends, Hawthorne's Note-Books constitute an important chapter in the social and psychological history of his time and his people, and a commentary upon and interpretation of his genius and his work. He was keenly observant of every aspect of life which he saw, and very sensitive to certain forms of beauty which had symbolical aspects, but he was never swept off his feet by the intensity of his impressions; and art, when he came to know it in later life, appealed to him and was in a way revealed to him, but never completely possessed his imagination. He was a singular combination of sensitiveness and tenacious individuality, an unusual example of the type of man who is able to record by the delicacy of his imagination the most subtle and elusive shadings, and yet who hold himself aloof from the direct and overpowering impression of the things with which he deals. With Emerson and Poe Hawthorne shares the highest distinction among American men of letters. As an artist, pure and simple, he must be ranked higher than Poe because the content of his art is more inclusive, much richer, much more closely related to reality. In an age in which the love of beauty could scarcely be said to exist in America, in which literature as a profession had not yet come into being, and there was no place for the man who gave himself heart and soul and body to literature as an art, by sheer force of his genius Hawthorne fashioned for himself a style, and expressed in his work a feeling, an insight, and an intelligence which make him, all things considered, pre-eminently the artist among American writers. His style is not without defects. It is occasionally rigid and does not lend itself easily to the matter in hand; sometimes it lacks flow; but it is often exquisitely adapted to the purpose to which it is put. It is at the same time somber and yet pervaded by a deep, rich glow which issues out of the heart of it, and is not simply felicitous diction. He can hardly be called an ethical teacher, although he dealt so largely with the ethical as- [*April 9 - 1870 Page 109*] I have All the Rights I Want - communication by Thomas Wentworth Higginson, in which occurs: .... The Chairman of the Judiciary Committee of a New England State, a man through whose hands the State legislation of year had passed, told me he was ashamed to own how blind he had been to the legal wrongs of women till he heard them irresistibly stated (as he said) in an argument before the Legislature by Lucy Stone. CONSTITUTION OF THE AMERICAN WOMAN SUFFRAGE ASSOCIATION AND THE HISTORY OF ITS FORMATION. WITH THE TIMES AND PLACES IN WHICH THE ASSOCIATION HAS HELD MEETINGS UP TO 1880. BOSTON: PRES OF GEORGE H. ELLIS, 141 FRANKLIN STREET. 1881. CONSTITUTION. PREAMBLE: The undersigned friends of Woman Suffrage, assembled in delegate convention, in Cleveland, Ohio, November 24 and 25, 1869, in response to a call widely signed and after public notice duly given, believing that a truly representative national organization is needed for the orderly and efficient prosecution of the Woman Suffrage movement in America, which shall embody the deliberate action of the State and local organizations, and shall carry with it their united weight, do hereby form the American Woman Suffrage Association. ARTICLE I. - NAME. This Association shall be known as the American Woman Suffrage Association. ARTICLE II. - OBJECT. Its object shall be to concentrate the efforts of all the advocates of Woman Suffrage in the United States. SECTION I. To form auxiliary State Associations in every State where none such now exist, and to co-operate with those already existing which shall declare themselves auxiliary before the first day of March next, the authority of the auxiliary societies being recognized in their respective localities, and their plans being promoted by every means in our power. SECT. 2. To hold an annual meeting of delegates for the transaction of business and the election of officers for the ensuing year; also, one or more national conventions for the advocacy of Woman Suffrage. SECT 3. To publish tracts, documents, and other printed matter for the supply of State and local societies and individuals at actual cost. SECT. 4 To prepare and circulate petitions to State and Territorial Legislatures, to Congress, or to Constitutional Conventions in behalf of the legal and political equality of women; to employ lecturers and agents; and to take any measures the Executive Committee may think fit to forward the objects of the Association. 4 Article III.- Organization. Section I. The officers of this Association shall be a President, eight Vice-Presidents at large, Chairman of the Executive Committee, Foreign Corresponding Secretary, Corresponding Secretary, two Recording Secretaries and a Treasurer, all of whom shall be ex officio members of the Executive Committee; also, one Vice-President and one member of the Executive Committee from each State and Territory and from the District of Columbia, as afterward provided. SECT. 2. Every President of an auxiliary State or Territorial Society shall be ex officio a Vice-president of this Association. SECT. 3. Every Chairman of the Executive Committee of an auxiliary State Society shall be ex officio a member of the Executive Committee of this Association. SECT. 4. In cases where no auxiliary State Association exists, a suitable person may be selected by the annual meeting or by the Executive Committee, as Vice-President or member of the Executive Committee from said State, to serve only until the organization of said State Association. SECT. 5. The Executive Committee may fill all vacancies that may occur prior to the next annual meeting. SECT. 6. All officers shall be elected annually at an annual meeting of delegates, on the basis of the Congressional representation of the respective States and Territories, except as above provided. SECT. 7. No distinction on account of sex shall ever be made in the membership or in the selection of officers of this Society. SECT. 8. No money shall be paid by the Treasurer except under such restrictions as the Executive Committee may provide. SECT. 9. Five members of the Executive Committee, when convened by the Chairman, after fifteen days' written notice previously mailed to each of its members, shall constitute a quorum. But no action thus taken shall be final, until such proceedings shall have been ratified in writing by at least fifteen members of the Committee. SECT. 10. The Chairman shall convene a meeting whenever requested to do so by five members of the Executive Committee. ARTICLE IV. The Association shall have a branch office in every State and Territory, in connection with the office of the auxiliary State Society therein, and shall have a central office at such place as the Executive Committee may determine. ARTICLE V. This Constitution may be amended at any annual meeting by a vote of three-fifths of the delegates present therein. 5 ADDITIONAL CLAUSES. Any person may become a member of the American Woman Suffrage Association by signing the Constitution and paying the sum of $1.00 annually, or a life member by paying the sum of $10, which shall entitle such person to attend the business meetings of delegates and participate in their deliberations. Honorary members may be appointed by the annual meeting, or by the Executive Committee, in consideration of services rendered. OFFICERS President. HENRY WARD BEECHER. Vice-Presidents at Large. T.W. HIGGINSON, R.I. WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON, Mass. Mrs. W. T. HAZARD, Mo. CELIA BURLEIGH, N.Y. MARY A. LIVERMORE, Ill. GEORGE W. JULIAN, IND. MARGARET V. LONGLEY, Ohio. GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS, N.Y. Chairman Executive Committee. LUCY STONE, N.J. Foreign Corresponding Secretary. JULIA WARD HOWE, Mass. Corresponding Secretary. MYRA BRADWELL, Ill. Recording Secretaries. HENRY B. BLACKWELL, N.J. AMANDA WAY, IND. Treasurer FRANK B. SANBORN, Mass. Vice-Presidents. Rev. Amory Battles, Me. Rev. H. Eddy, Wis. Armenia S. White, N.H. Moses Coit Tyler, Mich. Hone. C. W. Willard, Vt. Mrs. A. Knight, Minn. Caroline M. Severance, Mass. A. K. P. Safford, Ari. Rowland G. Hazard, R.I. Charles Robinson, Kan. Seth Rogers, Conn. Amelia Bloomer, Ia. Oliver Johnson, N.Y. Isaac H. Sturgeon, Mo. Antoinette B. Blackwell, N.J. Hon. Guy W. Wines, Tenn. Robert Purvis, Penn. Alfred Purdie, Fla. Mrs. Hanson Robinson, Del. Mrs. Gen. Rufus Saxton, Ore. Mrs. Tracy Cutler, Ohio. Rev. Charles G. Ames, Cal. Lizzie M. Boynton, Ind. Hon. J. C. Underwood, Va. Hon. C. B. Waite, Ill. Hone. Rufus Leighton, Washington Ter. 6 Executive Committee. Mrs. Oliver Dennett, Me. Rev. Charles Marshall, Ind. Hon. Nathaniel White, N.H. Hon. J. B. Bradwell, Ill. Mrs. James Hutchinson, Jr., Vt. Lily Peckham, Wis. Rev. Rowland Connor, Mass. Lucinda H. Stone, Mich. Elizabeth B. Chace, R.I. Abby J. Spaulding, Minn. Rev. Olympia Brown, Conn. Mrs. C. I. H. Nichols, Kan. Anna C. Field, N.Y. Belle Mansfield, Ia. Mary F. Davis, N.J. Rev. Charles J. Woodbury, Tenn. Mary Grew, Penn. Mrs. Dr. Hawkes, Fla Dr. John Cameron, Del. Mary E. Ames, Cal. A. J. Boyer, Ohio. Hon. A. M. Fretz, Va. Grace Greenwood, D.C. The movement for the formation of THE AMERICAN WOMAN SUFFRAGE ASSOCIATION originated in the following circular: -- Boston, Aug. 5, 1869 Dear Many friends of the cause of Woman Suffrage desire that its interests may be promoted by the assembling and action of a Convention, devised on a truly national and representative basis, for the organization of an AMERICAN WOMAN SUFFRAGE ASSOCIATION. Without depreciating the value of Associations already existing, it is yet deemed that an organization at once more comprehensive and more widely representative than any of these is urgently called for. In this view, the Executive Committee of New England Woman Suffrage Association has appointed the undersigned a Committee of Correspondence to confer, by letter, with the friends of Woman Suffrage throughout the country, on the subject of the proposed Convention. We ask to hear from you, in reply, at your earliest convenience. Our present plan is that the authority of the Convention shall be vested in delegates, to be chosen and accredited by the Woman Suffrage Associations existing, or about to be formed, in the several States of the Union. The number of delegates to be sent by each Association, and the precise time of the meeting of the Convention, can be determined as soon as we shall have received such answer to our present application as shall assure us of an active and generous co-operation in the measure proposed, on the part of those addressed. LUCY STONE. JULIA WARD HOWE. CAROLINE M. SEVERANCE. T.W. HIGGINSON. GEORGE H. VIBBERT. In response to the above circular, and by the express authority of the signers, was issued the following WOMAN SUFFRAGE CALL. The undersigned, being convinced of the necessity of an AMERICAN WOMAN SUFFRAGE ASSOCIATION, which shall embody the deliberate action of the State organizations, and shall carry with it 7 their united weight, do hereby respectfully invite such organizations to be represented in a Delegate Convention to be held in Cleveland, Ohio, Nov. 24 and 25, A.D. 1869. The proposed basis of this Convention is as follows : - The delegates appointed by existing State organizations shall be admitted, provided their number does not exceed, in each case, that of the Congressional delegation of the State. Should it fall short of that number, additional delegates may be admitted from local organizations, or from no organization whatever, provided the applicants be actual residents of the States they claim to represent. But no votes shall be counted in the convention except of those actually admitted as delegates. JOHN NEAL. . ..... . . . .. .... Me. LUCY STONE. . .. . . . . . . . N. J. HENRY B. BLACKWELL . .. . . . . ..” NATHANIEL WHITE.. .. . . . . . ... N.H. JOHN GAGE .... ” ARMENIA S. WHITE. . .... .. .... ". PORTIA GAGE.... . . . . . “ WILLIAM T. SAVAGE. .. . . . . . ... “ ANTOINETTE B. BLACKWELL ... “ JAMES HUTCHINSON, Jr. ..... . . . Vt. A. J. DAVIS. . . . . . . .... .... “ C. W. WILLARD . . . . . . . . . . ..... “ MARY F. DAVIS.... ... . . . . . .... “ WM. LLOYD GARRISON. . .. ...... Mass. MARY GREW. . . . . . . . . . .. . .... ..Penn. LYDIA MARIA CHILD. . . . . . .. ... “ ROBERT PURVIS. . .. .. . . . . . . .... “ DAVID LEE CHILD . .... “ THOMAS GARRETT. . ... .. .. ... . Del. GEORGE F. HOAR. . . . . . . . . .. “ FIELDER ISRAEL.... ... . . . . . .... “ JULIA WARD HOWE. ..... “ GILBERT HAVEN . ... “ HANNAH, M. TRACY CUTLER... . Ohio. CAROLINE M. SEVERANCE. . ... .. “ A. J. BOYER. .. .. .. ... . . ... .... “ JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE ...... “ MARY V. LONGLEY. . . . . . . . . .... “ ABBY KELLY FOSTER. . . . . . . . ... “ J. J. BELLVILLE.... .. .. .. .... “ STEPHEN S FOSTER. . . . . . .. .... “ MIRIAM M. COLE.... . . . . . ... .. “ FRANK B. SANBORN . . . . . . . . . ... “ S. BOLTIN . . . . . .. . . . . . .... “ PHEBE A. HANAFORD. . . . . . . . . .. “ AMANDA WAY . . .. . . . . . ... ...... Ind. ELIZABETH B. CHACE .. . . .. .... R. I. GEORGE W. JULIAN .... . .. . . ... “ T. W. HIGGINSON. .. .. . . . . . . .... “ LAURA GIDDINGS JULIAN. . ... .. “ ROWLAND G. HAZARD.. . . .. .... “ LIZZIE M. BOYNTON . . . . . . . . .... “ H. M. ROGERS. ... . . . .. .. Conn. MARY A. LIVERMORE. . .. . . .. . . . Ill. SETH ROGERS..... “ C. B. WAITE. . . . . . . . . . . . . ...... “ MARIANNA STANTON. . . . . . . . . .. “ MYRA BRADWELL. . . .. . . . . . . .. .. “ JAMES B. BRADWELL. . . . . . . . . .. “ GEORGE WM. CURTIS. .... ...... N. Y. SHARON TYNDALE.. . . .. . . .. . ... “ LYDIA MOTT. .... ... . .. . ..... “ J. P. WESTON . . .. .. . ....... ... “ HENRY WARD BEECHER. . . . .... “ ROBERT COLLYER . . .... “ FRANCES D. GAGE. .... “ JOSEPH HAVEN. .. “ SAMUEL J. MAY...... . ... ...... “ MOSES COIT TYLER . ....... .... Mich. CELIA BURLEIGH. ... “ JAMES A. B. STONE. . .. . . . . . ... “ WM. H. BURLEIGH.. .. . . .. ...... “ LUCINDA H. STONE. ... . . .. .... “ AARON M. POWELL. .... ...... “ ANNA C. FIELD... “ AUGUSTA J. CHAPIN . .. .. ... . .. Wis. GERRIT SMITH..... .. . . . ... ... “ H. EDDY. .... .. . . ... .. .... .... “ E. S. BUNKER .. “ AMELIA BLOOMER . . .. . . .. . . .. Iowa. 8 CHARLES ROBINSON . ... . ... .... Kan. J. C. ORRICK . . ...... . .. Mo. Mrs. C. I. H. NICHOLS . . .. .... “ Mrs. GEORGE D. HALL. ........ “ JOHN EKIN, D.D..... . ... ...... “ GUY W. WINES... .. . .. . . ... .... Tenn. J. P. ROOT . ....... “ CHARLES J. WOODBURY. .. . . . ... “ Mrs. S. BURGER STEARNS..... . Minn. Mrs. W. T. HAZARD. .... ..... . Mo. MARY ATKINS LYNCH . . .. . .... . La. ISAAC H. STURGEON. . . ... . .... “ GRACE GREENWOOD. . . .. .... .... D.C. Mrs. BEVERLY ALLEN .. . . .... . “ A. K. SAFFORD. . . .. . ... .. . . . . . Ari. JAMES E. YEATMAN. . . .. . . .. . . “ MARY E. BEEDY. ... ... . ...... “ J. A. BREWSTER . .. . . . . . . . .....Cal. In addition to the above names, the following were received too late for publication : - EDNAH D. CHENEY . . . ... .. .... Mass. Hon. Mr POMEROY. .. . . .. . . .... Iowa. SAMUEL MAY, Jr. .. ... “ Mrs. J. C. BURBANK .. ...... .. . Minn. Mrs. SMITH. . . . . . .... . . “ OLIVER JOHNSON . ...... . . . . .. N.Y. Rev. J. MARVIN ... . .. . . . . . . ... “ WM. P. TOMLINSON . .. . . . . . .. “ Capt. RUSSELL BLAKELY .... . “ FREDERICK DOUGLASS .............. “ Mrs. ELLIOTT......... “ Mrs. AUSTIN ADAMS . . ... .... .. Iowa. Mr. A. KNIGHT . .... . . . . . . . . ... “ EDNA T. SNELL. . .. . . . . .... “ Hon. G. C. JONES. . ............ Mich. MATTIE E. GRIFFITHS . . . . . ... “ Hon. WM. S. FARMER. .. . . . . .. “ BELLE MANSFIELD . .. . . “ Hon. T. W. FERRY .... “ T. M. MILLS. .. . . .. .. . “ Rev. J. STRAUB.... “ B. F. GUE . .. “ S. H. BRIGHAM .... . “ In compliance with the above call, a large Convention of delegates and friends of Woman Suffrage from twenty-one States assembled in Cleveland, Ohio, Nov. 24 and 25, 1869, adopted the preceding Constitution, elected officers, and organized THE AMERICAN WOMAN SUFFRAGE ASSOCIATION. The first annual meeting of the Association was held in Cleveland, Ohio, November, 1870: Mrs. H. M. Tracy Cutler was chosen President. The second was held in Philadelphia, November, 1871 : Lucy Stone was chosen President. The third was held in St. Louis, November, 1872 : Col. T. W. Higginson was chosen President. The fourth was held in Brooklyn, N. Y., Oct. 14, 1873: Julia Ward Howe was chosen President. The Association held a large meeting the preceding day in Cooper Institute, New York. The fifth was held in Detroit, Mich., October, 1874 : Bishop Gilbert Haven was chosen President. The sixth was held in Steinway Hall, New York City, November, 1875: Mary A. Livermore was chosen President. The seventh was held in Philadelphia, October, 1876: William Lloyd Garrison was chosen President. No annual meeting was held in 1877. All the effort of the Association was that year concentrated on Colorado where an amendment to the Constitution to secure suffrage to women was pending. The ninth meeting was held in Indianapolis, November, 1878: Rebecca N. Hazard was chosen President. The tenth meeting was held in Cincinnati, November, 1879: Henry B. Blackwell was chosen President. the legal wrongs of women till he heard them irresistibly stated (as he said) in an argument before the Legislature by Lucy Stone. photograph of T.W. Higginson April 24, 1893. Mamma told at breakfast how, when Col. Higginson was pastor of a church at Worcester, he was going to have a Christmas celebration for the children, and told her that if she would come and tell the children a story, he would give her something. It was not money. She came. They had a big Christmas tree, and a hole in the ceiling through which Santa Claus came down on a ladder; and the children watched with most intent eyes. Col. Higginson gave her Mrs. Browning's Aurora Leigh. When Mamma had read it, she thought that that was not Mrs. Browning's last word - that there was more to come - "although that was a great deal in itself." [*July 1914*] 25 The Atlantic Monthly Advertiser July 1914 Important Recent Biography OUR FRIEND JOHN BURROUGHS By CLARA BARRUS "The purpose and method of the entire book are well conceived, and the author's success in bringing before us a very real and living and lovable Mr. Burroughs is worthy of warm praise, even though she must share that praise largely with Mr. Burroughs himself, whose own pen has contributed not the least valuable portions of the volume."- The Dial, Chicago. Fully illustrated. $2.00 net. Postage extra. THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON By MARY THACHER HIGGINSON "A cheerful record of a long, a gracious, an influential, a well-spent life." - Boston Transcript. "The book is a delightful record of a life that embodies the best America has to offer as citizen, patriot, and man of letter."- New York Herald. Illustrated. $3.00 net. Postage extra. COMMODORE GEORGE HAMILTON PERKINS By CARROLL STORRS ALDEN "No person can read the volume without being impressed with the wholesomeness of his life, its simplicity, its dignity and quiet heroism. His childhood in New Hampshire and his boyhood in Boston afford an opportunity to judge the coming man, and his service in the Navy under Farragut . . . is a part of the history of the Civil War." -Boston Globe. Illustrated. $1.50 net. Postage extra. CONFEDERATE PORTRAITS By GAMALIEL BRADFORD "Within the compass of some 260 pages Mr. Bradford has given us able studies of eight Confederate leaders, marked by the same discriminating, generous minded spirit which was so prominent a feature of the 'Le.'"- Boston Herald. Illustrated. $2.50 net. Postage extra. A LIFE OF TOLSTOY By EDWARD GARNETT "An honest, calm, just estimate of Tolstoy, the man and the artist."- Chicago Evening Post. With portrait. 75 cents net. Postage extra. PAUL VERLAINE By WILFRED THORLEY "Mr. Thorley is to be congratulated on a fine piece of criticism, and on that seems to do exact justice to a perverted genius."- San Francisco Argonaut. With portrait. 75 cents net. Postage extra. ELIZABETH AND MARY STUART By FRANK A. MUMBY "It is a unique way of chronicling history that Mr. Mumby pursues in this volume, and the way immediately attracts the interest of readers because of the two romantic and famous individuals whose characters, actions, and thoughts are revealed in the correspondence presented."- Boston Transcript. Illustrated. $3.00 net. Postage extra. BOSTON HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY NEW YORK 26 The Atlantic Monthly Advertiser Contributors to the July Atlantic Seymour Deming ("A Message to the Middle Class") is a writer who made his first appearance in the Atlantic with a paper entitled "Our Instinctive Idiocies" (May, 1914). E. S. ("A Reply"). The author of the answer to Mr. Deming's message has made no attempt in this paper to controvert facts or to present a logical refutation of Mr. Deming's philosophy. He has simply stated a point of view. Gamaliel Bradford ("Joseph Hooker"), son of the well-remembered Abolitionist, is the author of the notable series of Confederate Portraits recently published in the Atlantic. The present paper is the first of a new series dealing with well-known Union leaders. Gino C. Speranza ("Wander"), aptly describes himself as a Venetian Yankee, "having been brought up in the Nutmeg State under New England discipline by a Paduan father and a mother from Verona." Last month's Atlantic contained a story by Mr. Speranza entitled "Marco Baldi, Owner." C. William Beebe ("The Jelly-Fish and Equal Suffrage") is the curator of Ornithology at the New York Zoological Park. There is a moral to Mr. Beebe's paper which all who read will discern. Robert Haven Schauffler ("Some Enthusiasms I Have Known") is a professional essayist and poet who lives at Greenbush, Massachusetts, and who is a frequent contributor to the Atlantic. One of Mr. Schauffler's most notable contributions was the poem, "Scum o' the Earth," which appeared in November, 1911. Olive Tilford Dargan ("My Lady") is a Southern poet who has long since won serious recognition. Wilbur Daniel Steele ("The Wickedness of Father Veiera") is a writer whose first Atlantic story, "White Horse Winter" (April, 1912), will be remembered by our readers. John Jay Chapman ("The Greek Genius") is a writer of political and literacy essays who has been a frequent contributor to the Atlantic. Continued on page 30 The Revenge of Mediocrity Great are the resources of mediocrity, and very untrustworthy its little measuring-tapes. The Abbé Bouhours made himself immortal by asking the question, a century ago, whether any German could exhibit anything like wit (esprit)- this being said of the race which has since produce Heine among men and Rahel among women. Mr. E. W. Gosse lays it down as a general rule that women take to literature mainly for what money they can make out of it, without seeing that he thus simply draws the line of mediocrity around his own circle of feminine acquaintances. It will hardly be alleged that "Silas Marner" was written mainly for money, or "Aurora Leigh" as a business transaction. It may be that in England- where an authoress like Mrs. Caroline Norton saw, not many years since, her literary earnings regularly taken from her by her dissolute husband for the support of his mistresses- women who write books may take a reasonable pleasure in earning money for their own support. Certainly in America the great literary successes of women have been won by turning resolutely away from the thought of making money. "Uncle Tom's Cabin" and "Ramona," both in unfailing demand to this day in all public libraries, were both produced in a spirit of absolute self- devotion without hope of gain. The most widely celebrated poem written by a woman in this country- the "Battle Hymn of the Republic"- was written rather as a pæan than as a song. The books of verse most widely circulated in America during the last few years- those of Emily Dickinson- were written by a woman so remote from the spirit of trade that she never received a dollar for one of them during her whole lifetime, and actually printed but two or three. As compared with the well-known and lofty unselfishness in business matters of able literary men these examples may be trivial, but they are something. It was once said that the stupidest man who ever lived had brains enough to express gratitude that he was not born a woman. The most desultory and impulsive man I ever knew was given to lecturing women on their want of persistency and method; and one of the most hot- tempered and touchy philanthropists of my acquaintance used to be particularly exasperated with women because they could not work together in peace and harmony. When shall we learn that the faults and follies of human beings belong to them as human beings, and not to men as men, or women as women? There is not a class in a woman's college which does not include essentially the same range of temperaments- "from grave to gay, from lively to severe"- that may be found in the corresponding class in any college for young men, though smaller numbers and greater external restraints may make the manifestations less obvious as regards the [*July VV/93*] THE WOMAN'S COLUMN maidens. The little boy grows up to distrust the business capacity of his sister, just as he grows up under the impression that he knows nothing about matching colors or cooking, by reason of sex. Yet artists and dry-goods salesmen have to learn more about colors than the fashionable belle knows; and the cook who cooks her dinner is probably a man. The boy who distrusts his sister's business capacity may yet come to living on her earnings when unable to support himself. One of the wealthiest men in America has just left his fortune of tens of millions to the almost unrestricted disposal of his wife; and one of the most successful business men in Boston made his daughter his trustee and executor on the express ground, stated in the will, that he knew no one else who could manage the property so well. It is usually mediocrity which sneers at the whole race or class or sex; it is the small author who ridicules women writers, the small politician who thinks they have not brains enough to vote. The man without a sense of logic is the man who lays it down as a rule that you cannot reason with a woman, and who carefully guards himself against ever trying the experiment. -T.W.H., in Harper's Bazar. [*[?] 30/93*] THE WOMAN'S COLUMN Seventy Years Young. Dec. 22, 1893, was Col. T. W. Higginson's 70th birthday, and Col. and Mrs. Higginson kept open house all day in their vine-covered home on the hilly side of Buckingham Street, Cambridge, Mass. The rooms were beautifully decorated with evergreens and with growing and cut flowers, many of them offerings from friends. There were a multitude of callers, family friends, literary friends and social acquaintances, all uniting to honor the distinguished man of letters, the earnest advocate of social progress, and the man who added heroic example to high precept, upon the breaking out of the war. Messengers kept coming with notes of congratulation and all kinds of gifts. Early in the afternoon, the Colonel was surprised by the entrance of a number of little girls of the neighborhood, friends of his daughter, who came to sing a song composed for the occasion by Mrs. Julia Ward Howe. Women have abundant reason to be grateful to Col. Higginson for his lifelong and eloquent advocacy of equal rights, and it was appropriate that good wishes should be sung to him by a choir of little girls. Mrs. Lucy Stone, during her last illness, left a message of thanks to him for all the good service he had done the cause. He was one of the associate editors of the Woman's Journal when it was founded in 1870, and he contributed a weekly editorial to its columns for many years. His book, "Common" Sense about Women," was compiled chiefly from these editorials. This enticing volume, with its short, spicy chapters, has been found very effective in converting obstinate opponents; and every equal rights family ought to keep a copy of it lying on their parlor table, for the benefit of their friends and visitors. Col. Higginson is emphatically "seventy years young." He may be quoted as a new illustration of the efficacy of the rules for keeping young which Mrs. Judith W. Smith, of East Boston, laid down a year or two ago, on the occasion of her Golden Wedding. There were several ingredients in this recipe for perennial youth, but one of the most important was: "Take an interest in all the unpopular reforms." THE WOMAN'S COLUMN. RELICS OF THE GLORIOUS FOURTH. On the Fourth of July this year, an oration was given by Judge Brewer, associate justice of the United States Supreme Court, as Woodstock, Conn. The subject of the address was "The great impending conflict in this country between the socialistic movement and individual liberty." Mr. Edward Bellamy, editor of the New Nation, reviewing the speech, stoutly denies that there is any such conflict, except in the minds of those who do not understand what the socialist movement is aiming at. He says, in explanation of the socialistic movement, that as, in the feudal system of the middle ages, in the course of time the kings took to themselves the power of the barons and ran the whole business, and, so far as it went, the change was a vast gain to the people, so now the people, whose sovereignty has succeeded to that of the kings, are about to take away the power of the irresponsible rulers called capitalists, and administer the economic government of the country, as they already nominally administer the political government, by the equal voice of all the equal interest of all." resolution, offered by Alderman Porter, was unanimously adopted: Resolved, That we, as members of the Republican party, congratulate the women of Michigan on securing the school and municipal franchise, and that we request the Republican City Committee to notify the women of Lansing that we, as a party, extend to them the right hand of fellowship and invite them to select from their ranks a committee to act jointly with the Republican City and Ward Committees in arranging the plan of the campaign for the spring election in 1894. The Lansing Republican, one of the leading party organs of the State, commenting on this action, says: The action of the Republicans at this time is very important. They are not only in line with the law that was enacted by a Republican legislature, but by their prompt action assure the ladies that their success is acceptable to the party of progress and reform. It is important from another standpoint. The Democratic party are endeavoring to have the law set aside, and in Detroit are considering the advisability of declaring a city office vacant, calling a special election to fill the vacancy, and thus appealing to the supreme court, challenging the right of women to vote, on the ground that the law is invalid. Whatever may be the case in other States, party lines drawn in Michigan on the question of woman suffrage. HENRY B. BLACKWELL. The WOMAN'S JOURNAL this week contains False Standards by Anna Olcott Crommelin, New Medical Opportunities by Dr. Rachel S. Tenney, Christian Liberty for Women by Miss Laura Clay, Justice, not Chivalry by Miriam Howard De Bose, Quiet Work by Hamilton Willcox, The White Life for Two by H.H. Daingerfield, Law Reforms Wanted by Washington Women, Margaret and her Hoop Skirt, a bright original story, by Ellen F. Wetherell, and A Boy as an Emetic from St. Louis Republic, Farmer Green's Complaint, a witty poem by Margaret Stuart Sibley in Home Queen, Literary Notices, Humorous anecdotes, The Early Owl, Birds as Surgeons, Equal Suffrage Jubilee at Grand Rapids, Kate Field for Woman Suffrage, Colorado Law for Wives and Mothers, Activity in New Jersey, The Revenges of Mediocrity by T. W. Higginson in Harpers' Bazar, Women Physicians in Austria by Josephine Humpal-Zeman, European Views of Woman's Congress, translated by Julia Sprague, Unique Suffrage Entertainment in Kansas, Pembroke School Committee, World's Fair Notes, All Along the Line, College Women and Citizenship by Florence M. Adkinson, Harvard Sixty Years Ago by C. Wilde, New York Letter by Lillie D. Blake, Kansas Letter by Laura M. Johns, Ice-Cream and Woman Suffrage, At Mt. Holyoke, Scientific Cookery at World's Fair, Relics of the Glorious Fourth and Woman Suffrage History by Lucy Stone, Questions of Dignity by Alice Stone Blackwell, Michigan Republicans for Woman Suffrage and Successful Suffrage Picnic by H. B. Blackwell, with interesting editorial notes, news items, and facts concerning women. [*Dec 30*] THE WOMAN'S COLUMN. purse was ever open to calls from any worthy source. Hundreds who had no personal acquaintance with him were recipients of his bounty. His faith in Women was shown by his appointing women alone as trustees both of the $10,000 suffrage fund and of the $60,000 building for the City Mission. Memorial services in his honor were held by the ministers of all denominations —Methodists, Baptists, Congregationalists, etc.; also by the Prohibitionists and by the Political Equality Club. His fnneral was attended in a body by the employees and officers of the Meriden Britannia Company, 323 in number, also by the directors of the First and Home National Bank, the mayor, common council, and town officers. Sorrow pervaded the whole city. Flags over the factories, the schools, the town hall and the post-office were flying at half-mast; many of the shops were closed, and conversation was hushed upon the streets. At the union memorial service, the large Congregational church was crowded as never before, and a memorial collection was taken up for the poor of the city. Among the many floral tributes was a beautiful one from the Political Equality Club, representing the scales of justice. The base, post and balance were of flowers, chiefly yellow, and a single large yellow rose formed the weight. On the bar was the word "Equality," and on one side the inscription: Each silver hair, each wrinkle there, Records some good deed done; Some flower he cast along the way, Some spark from love's bright sun. A Meriden correspondent writes: "His devotion to the suffrage cause was largely due to the influence of the Woman's Journal, which made him our champion, and this influence reaches to the third generation, for he has left a wife who is a true friend of the cause, and two daughters and granddaughters. In March, 1893, when Lucy Stone braved storm and cold to be the guest of the Political Equality Club, at a reception held at the home of Mr. and Mrs. G. E. Howe, Mrs. Stone said to the writer: 'I want to meet the man who has made such a generous gift to your Club, for he must be interested in the rights of women in a practical way.' Thus these two equally modest reformers [?] with each other. The Letters and Journals of Thomas Wentworth Higginson p. 59 "In 1855, that gentle pioneer, Lucy Stone, was speaking on Suffrage and Mr. Higginson wrote from Bangor: Lucy is Queen of us all.... and delights the whole country from Maine to Kentucky; she is a household word down here on the Penobscot, after one visit a year ago. You have no idea of the eloquence and power which have been developed in her; she is one of the great Providences of History. Her marriage to Mr. Blackwell had occurred recently, and Mr. Higginson was the officiating clergyman. He described the event in the following letter to his mother: May 1, 1855. We went yesterday afternoon at four by cars to West Brookfield, where we found rather a short, stout, pleasant-looking person, with very black hair and whiskers, blue eyes, and a good forehead, who turned out at last to be the Blackwell. There also got from the cars a rather peculiar-looking personage, but of beautiful soul -- Charles Burleigh the lecturer; we were all the company, Antoinette Brown and Elizabeth Blackwell (Medicine and Divinity in female forms) not having appeared, though expected. We rode three miles over a road among rocky hills till we reached a high little farmhouse, round which the misty sky shut closely down, revealing only rocks and barns and cattle, small children at the back door, and Lucy beaming at the front door. She ushered us in; the children turned out to belong to the married brother, and his wife appeared also. While I was uncloaking Mary [Mrs. Higginson], Lucy disappeared and came in leading a fine, hale, sturdy, stout, old lady, saying with an air of love and pride, "Mr. Higginson, this is my mother, my own mother," and the old lady looked as happy as she did. We had provided a box of greenhouse flowers, but no orange blossoms, being unattainable; but we found that Anna Parsons had supplied that deficiency, and we had everything else, including cloth-of-gold roses. The children flocked round to see me arrange them in glasses, and Lucy was very sweet to them, her word seemed to be law and love together. A handful of fallen blossoms she distributed among them. It was a large, low old room with an open wood fire; the children sat in little armchairs before its glow; and Charles Burleigh's long hair looked like locks of an ancient bard. We went in to tea at a great table; Lucy presided and cared for everybody; Mr. Blackwell sat opposite, in quite a domestic manner, the gentlemen of the family not having appeared. After tea they came in from the farm or elsewhere; the elderly father as sturdy as the mother, with a keen face, but saying little; the brother looked like Lucy, a plain likeness, and ex-semi-Orthodox-minister, now farmer; he has her low, sweet voice, and we liked him very much. Mr. Blackwell also we liked more and more; he is thoroughly true and manly, earnest, sensible, and discriminating; not inspired, but valuable. They seemed perfectly happy together. So the evening passed happily away, and we went at last up the steep stairs, Lucy piloting us, and looking to see that fire and water and all were right. She took such care of everybody that I felt as if some one else in the family were to be married, and she was the Cinderella. In the morning there as to be rather a struggle or "match against time" literally, as the wedding was to be before breakfast and we were to ride three miles before 8:20. We gradually assembled in the parlor. Mr. Burleigh and Mr. Stone talked over Mr. Blackwell. The latter said: "When he used to come up to our place first, I never thought it would end in anything; there had been a good many after Lucy, first and last; but she had made short work of them." "Yes," quoth Burleigh with a nod like that of his namesake," and some of them were such as some ladies who have ridiculed Lucy [*Higgins*] MEN WHO HELPED: (From letter of A. S. Bl. to M.W.P. March 1943) Hon. Samuel E. Sewall and Col. Thomas Wentworth Higginson ought certainly to be included in the list. Old Judge Sewall drew for us a long series of bills to improve the personal and property rights of women, which we fought for year after year, and gained one by one. Thomas W. Higginson was an able and active friend. The founders of Smith College said she ( was led to give her money to found a college for women by reading Col. Higginson's article entitled "Ought Women to Learn the Alphabet?" [*Henry B Blackwell Wm Lloyd Garrison Wendell Philips.*] Picture of Col.T. W. Higginson in Nov. 2, 1907 [Jour] Journal. see my small pictures in envelope I didn't recognize. Higginson REMARKS OF REV. T. W. HIGGINSON BEFORE THE Committee of the Constitutional Convention of the Qualification of Voters; June 3d, 1853. I need hardly suggest to the Committee the disadvantage under which I appear before them, in coming to glean after three of the most eloquent voices in this community, or any other [LUCY STONE, WENDELL PHILLIPS and THEODORE PARKER]---in doing this, moreover, without having heard their arguments, and in a fragment of time at the end of a two hours' hearing. I have also the disadvantage of gleaning after myself, having just ventured to submit a more elaborate essay on this subject, in a different form, to the notice of the Convention. I shall therefore abstain from all debate upon the general question, and confine myself to the specific point now before this Committee. I shall waive all inquiry as to the right of woman to equality in education, in occupations, or in the ordinary use of the elective franchise. The question before this Committee is not whether women shall become voters--but whether they shall have power to say, once for all, whether they wish to become voters. Whether, in other words, they desire to accept this Constitution which the Convention are framing. It is well that the question should come up in this form, since the one efficient argument against the right of women to vote, in ordinary cases, is the plea that they do not wish to do it. 'Their whole nature revolts at it' Very well ; these petitioners simply desire an opportunity for Massachusetts women to say whether their nature does revolt at it, or no. The whole object of this Convention, as I hear stated by one of its firmest advocates, is simply this--to 'make the Constitution of Massachusetts consistent with its own first principles.' This is all these petitioners demand. Give them the premises which are conceded in our existing Bill of Rights, or even its Preamble, and they ask no more. I shall draw my few weapons from this source. I know that this document is not binding upon your convention; nothing is binding upon you but eternal and absolute justice, and my predecessor has taken care of the claims of that. But the Bill of Rights is still the organic law of this State, and I can quote no better authority for those principles which lie at the foundation of all that we call Republicanism. I. My first citation will be from the Preamble, and will establish as Massachusetts doctrine the principle of the Declaration of Independence, that all government owes its just powers to the consent of the governed. 'The end of the institution, maintenance and administration of government is to secure the existence of the body politic. . . . The body politic is formed by a voluntary association of individuals ; it is a social compact, by which the whole people covenants with each citizen, and each citizen with the whole people, that all shall be governed by certain laws for the common good. . . . It is the duty of the people, therefore, in framing a constitution of government, to provide for an equitable mode of making laws, as well as for an impartial interpretation and a faithful execution of them,' &c. &c. Now, women are 'individuals' ; women are a part of 'the people' ; women are 'citizens,' for the Constitution elsewhere distinguishes male citizens. This clause, then, concedes precisely that which your petitioners claim. Observe how explicit it is. The people are not merely to have good laws, well administered; but they must have an equitable mode of making those laws. The reason of this is, that good laws are no permanent security, unless enacted by equitable methods. Your laws may be the best ever devised, yet still they are only given as a temporary favor, not held as a right, unless the whole people are concerned in their enactment. It is the old claim of despots--that their laws are good. When they told Alexander of Russia that his personal character was as good as a constitution for his people, 'then,' said he, 'I am but a lucky accident.' Your constitution may be never so benignant to woman, but that is only a lucky accident, unless you concede the claim of these women to have a share in creating it. Nothing else 'is an equitable mode of making laws.' But it is too late to choose female delegates to your Convention, and the only thing you can do is to allow women to vote on the acceptance of its results. The claim of these petitioners may be unexpected, but it is logically irresistible. If you do not wish it to be renewed, you must remember either to alter or abrogate your Bill of Rights--for the petition is based on that. The last speaker called this movement a novelty. Not entirely so. The novelty is partly the other way. In Europe, women have direct political power--witness Victoria : it is a false Democracy which has taken it away. In my more detailed argument, (above mentioned,) I have cited many instances of these foreign privileges. In monarchical countries, the dividing lines are not of sex, but of rank. A plebeian woman has no political power--nor has her husband. Rank gives it to man, and also, in a degree, to woman. But among us, the only rank is of sex. Politically speaking, in Massachusetts, all men are patrician, all women plebeian. All men are equal, in having direct political power ; and all women are equal--in having none. And women lose by Democracy, precisely that which men gain. Therefore I say, this disfranchisement of woman, as woman, is a novelty. It is a new aristocracy ; for, as De Tocqueville says, wherever one class has peculiar powers, as such,--there is aristocracy and oligarchy. We see the result of this in our general mode of speaking of woman. We forgot to speak of her as an individual being--only as a thing. A political writer coolly says, that in Massachusetts, 'except criminals and paupers, there is no class of persons who do not exercise the elective franchise.' Women are not even a 'class of persons'! And yet, most readers would not notice this extraordinary omission. I talked the other day with a young radical preacher, about his new religious organization. Who votes under it? said I. 'O,' (he said, triumphantly) 'we go for progress and liberty--any body and everybody votes.' 'What!' said I, 'women?' 'No,' said he, rather startled; 'I did not think of them when I spoke.' Thus quietly do we all talk of 'any body and every body,' and omit half the human race. Indeed, I read in the newspaper this morning, of some great festivity, that 'all the world and his wife' would be there! Women are not a part of this world--but only its 'wife.' They are not even 'the rest of mankind'--they are womankind! All these things show the results of that inconsistency with the first principles of our Constitution, of which the friends of this Convention justly complain. II. So much for the general statement of the Massachusetts Bill of Rights, in its Preamble. But one clause is even more explicit. In section 9, I find the following:-- 'All the inhabitants of this Commonwealth, having such qualifications as they shall establish by their form of government, have an equal right to elect officers,' &c. As 'they' shall establish. Who are they? Manifestly, the inhabitants, as a whole. No part can have power, except by consent of the whole--so far as that consent is practicable. Accordingly, you submit your Constitution for ratification--to whom? Not to the inhabitants of the state--not even to a majority of the native adult inhabitants; for it is estimated, that at any given moment-in view of the great number of men [??ting] to the West, to California, or absent on long voyages--the majority of the population of Massachusetts is female. You disfranchise the majority, then ; the greater part of 'the inhabitants' have no share in establishing the form of government, or assigning the qualifications of voters. What worse can you say of any oligarchy? True, your aristocracy is a large one--almost a majority, you may say. But so, in several European nations, is nobility almost in a majority, and you may almost hire a nobleman to black your shoes--they are as cheap as Generals and Colonels in New England. But the principle is the same, whether the privileged minority consists of one or one million. [Is it said that a tactic consent has been hitherto given, by the absence of open protest? The same argument may be used concerning the black majority in South Carolina. Besides, your new Constitution is not yet made, and there has been no opportunity to assent to it. It will not be identical with the old one ; but even if it were, you propose to ask a renewed consent from men, and why not from women? Is it because a lady's 'Yes' is always so fixed to a certainty, that it never can be transformed to a 'No' at a later period?]* But I am compelled, by the fixed period of adjournment (10, A. M.) to cut short my argument, as I have been already compelled to condense it. I pray your consideration for the points I have urged. Believe me, it is easier to ridicule the petition of these women, than to answer the arguments which sustain it. And as the great Republic of ancient times did not blush to claim that laws and governments were first introduced by Ceres, a woman; so I trust that the representatives of this noblest of modern Commonwealths may not be ashamed to receive legislative suggestions from even female petitioners. *This point was omitted with others, for the reasons given, and is here inserted, as essential to the argument. [*Higginson*] RED TAPE To the Editor of the Republican:— Your pithy editorial in The Republican of August 5, "Red Tape and Efficiency," has called to my mind a passage I once marked in the letters of Thomas Wentworth Higginson, himself not constitutionally inclined to red tape: "He has no system. After all one must consume his share of red tape as of dirt, nor have I ever tried to cut it without having to tie it together again in the end." JULIA H. CAVERNO. Northampton, August 5, 1933. Transcribed and reviewed by contributors participating in the By The People project at crowd.loc.gov.