THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.
all normal expansion in radii, thus preserving the equilibrium of growth. Impartially breathing her quickenings throughout the entire structure, she thereby secures balance with movement, and links order to progress. A very long-headed adviser does this genius of evolution prove herself to be, in that she puts in the heart of each separate reform a feeling that the welfare of society depends almost wholly on its own special success. It is this feeling which secures the most remarkable concentration of effort, and leads each separate reform to battle victoriously with the obstacles of progress. In the vantage-ground of industrial emancipation which woman has already attained,
I would in no wise divest her of the feeling of the super-importance of the woman cause; for I believe Spencer affirms that it is feeling and not opinion that moves the world; but I seek rather to establish scientifically and philosophically in woman’s understanding the fact that her special movement has the backing of the universal movement; that the Divine mania which has taken possession of her for self-culture, full responsibility and complete freedom holds even cosmic relations. Most truly says Heine : “We do not take possession of our ideas, but are possessed by them. They master us and force us into the arena, where, like gladiators, we must fight for them.” Woman will not abate, but give larger possession to the ideas which compel her to do battle for them when she understands that they emanate, not from woman in the interest of woman, but from the one life in the interest of life.
This is the true basis of our faith, the genuine substance of things hoped for. The credentials which insure woman’s emancipation from every phase of thralldom are from universal belongings, not dependent upon chance or fortune, social fad or political caprice. “ Attractions are proportioned to destinies.” The line of attraction or movement is forward and upward, and the future destiny of woman is above, not below, the present outlook. The urgent fire in the woman’s soul forever impelling her to larger venture and enterprise, that leads a Mrs. Sheldon into the wilds of Africa, is the pentecostal flame of this same destiny. When we stand on this true mount of vision, there is no room for uncertainty to put in an appearance. Indeed, uncertainty in regard to woman’s emancipation is getting passe even with our opponents, and must ere long vanish in thin air.
It is well to remember the inter-relation of the entire output of social reforms, and the fact that the success of each and all of them depends upon this inter-relation. It is not difficult to perceive that the woman cause and temperance reform are allies. It requires closer scrutiny to perceive its relation to tariff, tax and ballet reform, to government ownership of railways, and a financial system less subject to individual and class manipulation. Nevertheless the fact is there, for woman being a recognized factor in the production of a nation’s wealth, every reform that effects the production and distribution of that wealth touches the woman cause; for upon woman as a free economic factor hang all the law and the prophets of her complete emancipation. After this manner and direction has been the movement of freedom for any class or people from the beginning. The inter-relation of all economic forces always reveals itself along the lines of justice and injustice. Take for example the unequal wage. It is pre-eminently a matter of equity that woman receive equal compensation with man for like quantity and quality of work. When this is withheld, the standard of wages which working men combine to maintain in their own interest invariably lowers. There is no real security for man’s good fortune except through equity to woman. The want of this has been the bete voire of all his woes. Note the social scourges that follow in the train of the unequal wage. How it bears direct relation to the dark problem of poverty! How this darkness widens and merges into the sloughs and slums of immorality! How it broadens the margin of unemployed men, who constitute the industrial reserve which enables capital from time to time to dictate its own terms to labor! How it compels the latter, on the matter of wages, to often array itself against its own kith and kin and do battle for its enemies! How it necessitates, in the name of sympathy and pity, the effort and expense of organized charities to eke out the earnings which are either not sufficient for maintenance, or not sufficient to meet the exigencies of misfortune!