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OUR GREAT LEADERS.
When this subject was assigned to me I asked Miss Anthony where I should begin and she said "With Eve." I suppose she wanted me to be sure to have them all remembered, although my thirty minutes would not suffice to even name those entitled to be called our great leaders. But Mother Eve ought to be included for she certainly was a great leader. As our good saint Zerelda G. Wallace says; when Adam fell it was a fall up instead of down. He knew a great deal about many things, he could name every beast of the field and fowl of the air, yet he had no moral sense: he did not know the difference between good and evil until it came to hime through Eve. Here we have the foreshadowing of woman's spiritual leadership: of the "eternally feminine" of our poets and philosophers. The allegory goes on to teach us that through Eve's seeking after knowledge there is to come to the world the mastery of material things by toil and the spiritual redemption of the world throught motherhood.
But I will go farther back than Eve - to the archetypal woman, the female half of the genus man made in the image of the Creator, and, with the male half of the genum man, set over the earth to have dominion. The two symbolic portrayals of the (*illegable) purpose for wowan as in the two accounts of creation have been variously interpreted according to the thought of successive ages and differeing minds. A Jewish tradition personifies the primal woman as Lilith who refused to obey adam, and was cast out of Paradise for this unpardonable sin. The tradition takes no note of the fact that she was created a co-ruler and that Adam was out of his spere in trying to make her obey, but it goes on to punish her still further by loading her name with (illegiable) and making her a bugaboo to scare children with. Then as tradition claims, Eve was made to be a helpful mate.
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We must remember 2 to Adam, to live "for god in him", according to miltonic phrase.# But done so it was this subject woman that cost Adam his paradise then,and has done so ever since: and he will never regain his lost Eden until he is willing to share it with his divinely appointed co-sovereign. There were not wanting through all the ages past women who approached the divine idea of leadership, but the "eternally feminine" had to be evolved in the male half of the race, the stronger half physically, before it had any chance to rule in and through the half that was weaker physically. The whole history of civilization has been the evolution of the feminine in men. We [beginning] come to a time when the rightfil leadership of women is rcognized, by the poet at least, in the love song of the Edda, the olde Norse Bible, where it is said sigurd listens to the teachings of the warrior madien, sigdrifa, add replies. "wiser mortal exists not, and I swear that I will possess thee, for thou art a woman after my own heart." "I was not born a coward. Nay friendly councils all will receive, as long as life is in me." Here we have manly courage, enlightened by love, gladly following the leadership of the woman who is wise and strong. Shakespeare opitomizes a thousand years of evolution when he makes Brutus say of Portia: "I must not say to her as hector did to Andromache: ' Mind your wheel and to your maids give law: for in courage and concern for her country's interest, she is inferior to none of us."
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In the time alloted for brief mention of those who have been our great leaders, i must necessarily speak only of those who have been translated to fields of activity beyond our ( ...?) The works of the living speak for them.
In St. Pancras Gardens in London, where ancient tombstones border the walks and hundreds are grouped in beds with flowers filling the crevices, all taken from that part of the old churchyard which is now used by the midland railway, there stands by itself on the green sward a plain but stately, modern granite monument, inscribed on the front: "Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, author of the "Vindication fo the Rights of Women" and on one side is graven, "William Godwin, author of Justice. By whom and when the monument was erected I know not, but there stands a perpetual education to all who pass, because it commemorates the fact of a woman demanding rights for her sex in 1790 and also the fact that her husband was ofd kindred mind, standing with her for the rights of humanity. Mary Wollstoncraft started all England with her logical statement of the case for woman, Much that she demanded has already been conceded, but her volume is still recognized as a text book for the woman movement. At the time it called forth such violent abuse that her husband appealed for her from the judgement of her contempories to that of mankind. She set the world to thinking and was one of the potent forces that later led to formulating the claims of women.
We see the foreshadowing of the woman movement in America in the donation of a plot of ground for the first public school by a woman, Bridget Graffort, in 1700, for in process of time it was permitted that
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girls might have a primary education in the public schools, when there was more room than the boys. The door of education once ajar could never be closed. The alphabet conceded, all the rest follows in due order of progression.
The movement for the political enfranchisement of women began in this country with the life of the nation. Mercy Otis Warren was the first person to counsel separation of the colonies from the mother country, and the first to advance the theory of the inherent right of a human being to representation in government. The foremost men of the Revolution, especially her brother, James Otis, were indebted to her advice and courage. History tells us that "she looked not to the freedom of man alone, but to that of her own sex also".
Closely associated with Mrs. Warren in thought and leadership was Abigail Adams, a person of much more radical courage that her husband, John Adams. She constatly urged upon his independency for the colonies, and also that in the new code of laws the education and representation of women should be provided for. In letter to him while he was helping to frame the constitution, she says, "If particular care and attention be not paid to the ladies, we are determined to forment a rebellion and will not hold ourselves [bound?], to obey any laws in which we have no voice or representation." Again she writes, " Be sure you don't forget the women or we will brew a storm over your head in every teapot in the land."
Who shall say that the influence and appeals of such women are not embodied in those generic statements of universale principles, Governments derive their just powers from the con sent [consent] of the governed.", Taxation without representation is tyranny."
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principles whose application even to men, waited for the slow growth of public opinion and for political emergencies. The woman suffragists must educate the one and prepare for the other, and be ready to enter into the exercise of that right of sovereignty which has always been theirs under the original charter of this Republic.
The beautiful and accomplished Frances Wright was the first woman to lecture in this country on political subjects. Educated partly in the family of laFayette, she was an ardent devotee of liberty and came to this country in 1820 to study its form of government. Her lectures on American political institutions and other subjects cultivated in her audiences an understanding of the fundamental value of freedom, and she never failed to show the injustice of depriving women of its blessings and the danger of having an unrepresented class in a republic. Her radical views brought upon her odium, slander, and persecution, but when the time came for organized effort on behalf of women it was seen how greatly the work of Frances Wright had prepared the way. Her name is lustrous with the honor always accorded by tardy followers to one who dared to lead the way.
Margaret Fuller was the first woman in this country to acquire great intellectual attainments, and this almost entirely unaided, for in her day no college, academy, or high school, was open to women. The Boston high school had been opened to girls when she was fifteen years of age but so many rushed in that the authorities saw the opportunities for boys endangered and again shut out the girls until 1853.
