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THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.

in fatigue always, and sometimes through sickness,death and deprivation they struggled onward toward the setting sun.

But these early settlers found at length a country that well repaid them for their toil; a country of surpassing beauty and diversity of scenery, soil and climate; a country in which the giant minds that planned their exodus from older lands might have the ample room they needed to extend and grow. After reaching the Territory of Oregon, they settled, often in widely separated fields. For several years they lived in isolation, but also in health, peace and primitive plenty. They made friends with the Indians, and, forming a provisional government, protected themselves and the red man alike within its statutes.

But the discovery of gold, first in California and a little later in Oregon, was the lever that worked the change in the provincial habits of these Spartan-souled heroes.

By the beginning of the year 1850 the whole world had caught the gold fever. Men left their homes and families and flocked together to the new Eldorado like cor­morants scenting the means of subsistence from afar. They settled California with a heterogeneous multitude from all the nations of the earth, and gradually, as the con­tagion spread, extended their peregrinations into Oregon, where nature had, in many places,-been equally successful in storing up and hiding away her precious ores.

The entire region lying west of the Cascade Mountains, within the “ rain belt,” rejoices in two seasons, the wet and the dry. And yet, there is no drought in summer, nor is there any long continued spell of rain at one time in winter. The climate is mild throughout the year. Here is the home alike of the fruit and the grain, the forest and the mineral. If you fancy that you prefer to settle upon government lands there are yet many openings for such homes, where, by going from twenty to one hundred miles away from present railroad facilities, thus following in a much modified form the heroic example of early pioneers, you may, by overcoming com­paratively few of the obstacles they encountered, achieve a like or a greater success.

Do you wish a climate with more marked extremes of heat and cold? The exten­sive tablelands of the eastern portion of this great domain invite you to possess them. Here, also, in many places, are the homes of the fruit and the grain. Here are mountain fortresses with intersecting valleys and limpid streams. Here, too, is the home of irrigation, the home of the stock grower and the stronghold of the baser metals, as well as of gold and silver and precious stones.

While I do not believe in a one-sexed country, any more than a one-sexed home or government, I do believe that women should have equal chance with men to acquire the homes, that both the sexes equally need, and must jointly occupy. The one great obstacle in the way of women getting homes in the country is their too fre­quent desire to possess lands of area so great that to live upon them means isolation. But if women as well as men, when in quest of homes, would be content with farms containing five, ten, or at most forty acres, bringing with them, to a new country, sufficient means to carry them through the first year or so of settlement, say any­where from five hundred dollars up, there are comparatively few of you, who are often rack-rented in the great cities, and overstrained in every way in trying to keep up appearances, who would not find youselves and those dependent upon you very soon in independent circumstances. When you live in the country, on land of your own, you are free from the exactions of house rent, water tax, and the constantly accruing wood, milk, butter, eggs, fruit and vegetable bills that make your lives a burden. In your city garrets are old clothes enough to keep your families clad in the country till an income grows; and through the care-free lives you may lead under such conditions your broken health returns.

Bear in mind that it is difficult at this late day to find room for large settlements, even in small holdings, directly along the established railroad lines. If you would grow up with the country you must first establish yourselves on its frontier.

I have at this moment in mind many places where deeded lands, held at reasona­ble prices on easy terms*, can be bought in the Pacific Northwest for just such homes.