542
THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.
Why are we waiting for French cambrics, for English prints, for Scotch ginghams, when we grow the cotton here? Why are we waiting for superior qualities of cotton manufacture when we make the machinery for it here? If the manufacturers here will not make the best qualities, why can we not boycott them till they do? And if such manufacture should cost more than the foreign, which is not probable, for domestic gingham is eight cents a yard and Scotch gingham thirty-five cents a yard retail, eighteen cents direct from the factory, we must be willing to share in the just distribution. If American silks will not equal those of French manufacture, we can wear them notwithstanding, and encourage the improvement. Our forests furnish all the beautiful woods for every appurtenance of use or grandeur; our quarries, as yet almost unknown, are rich in material forthe finest structures or ornaments; our mineral realm, yet but superficially surveyed, can surely overtop the world; our fields groan with fullness of nourishment; in short, there is nothing that fails, if intelligent energy be directed to unearth it. Even the contention-breeding wool could be produced in our vast downs if the coveted quick returns did not preclude the patient nurture for its prescribed standard.
It is positively disgraceful that there should not be employment here for everyone. If the laborers are unskilled, establish plenty of schools wherein they may be trained, which would be the most powerful extirpator of crime. We have the instruction and improvements of all ages and all nations at our command. What prevents us from profiting by it and making all our people, the native-born and the latest refugee, happy and contented? Nothing but the wild desire, like the prodigal son, to seek pleasures away from home, and the mad pursuit of unrepublican opulence to enjoy those pleasures; but like the prodigal son, we come back to the father’s house poor and humiliated. It is our own homestead that we must build up securely, this pure city of the gods, the most beautiful ever on earth, is proof of the mighty constructive forces in our sons and daughters, and nothing short of the most determined, inviolable, energetic home-support will thus build it. It is directly in the power of woman, through her mercantile patronage, to accomplish this revival. “ For if she will buy American goods, she will, you may depend on’t; and if she won’t buy foreign goods, she won’t; so there’s an end on’t.”
But, “ if it were done, then ’twere well it were done quickly.” Now is the time for her to assert her moral and intellectual strength, her comprehension of the underlying currents that should sustain the even flow of our prosperity, and also the quicksands that will insidiously engulf it. She need not for this wait for the ballot-box. The demonstration of her high resolve will bring man into wondering appreciation, and he may ask woman as a favor to share the onus of government.
The basis of all reform, in whatever department of thought or action, is an increasing knowledge of truth, to which purity is the leader. The veriest misogynist pictures his ideal of purity in female form, and we all instinctively concede this attribute to woman; but to lead man to truth, which will unveil all his errors, she must preserve to herself purity uncontaminated. It is her most powerful weapon. The story of the chaste Diana who, with merely a look, converted the sensual Actaeon into a stag, torn to pieces by his own dogs, should be an ave in every woman’s daily rosary, for it would give a basilisk power to her glance upon evil. The drinking-bout, the dice box, the betting pool, could all be denied admission to the festal or family board if the hostess willed it so; but Mrs. Rutherford B. Hayes is the only one who had the courage to publicly do so. It is a sad confirmation of the rapid growth of vice, that in our standard lexicon of 1869 a “ bookmaker ” is defined as “one who writes and publishes book,” or “ compiles them,” and in the one of 1889, the additional definition to “ bookmaker ” is given, “ a professional betting man,” with all the details of the process. It is safe to say, that if woman had ostracized the betting man, whether prince or loafer, from her society, he would have gained no significance in our dictionary, which is a mighty umpire, especially for the rising generation.
It is first in the home that the reformatory processes begin, and from thence