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THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.
and fine clothes at the cost of your very soul; you must not take public office at the price of your honor! do you not believe the reign of the single conscience might be inaugurated?
Some one in trying to criticize “ The Angelus,” called it the apotheosis of potatoes. This is just the need of the world and the especial need of Chicago, the idealization of the humblest things in life. And who is to do it if our women fail? Now more than ever, with this great material wave forcing itself upon us, do we need the apotheosis of quiet, homely, honest life, “ far from the garish day.” Not for one moment must anyone infer that all Chicago homes are artificial and superficial. It is only that the artificial are so much more in evidence than the genuine.
I have always maintained that no woman in history ever had the opportunity that the Queen of England has had to help the cause of woman. I am equally sure that to no community of women has been given such great opportunity as the women of Chicago possess today. Our greatness then does not consist so much in ourselves; there is no one of us who could not be immediately replaced should her place become vacant. Our greatness lies in our opportunity, born of conditions and events which are for the most part inevitable, and for which we deserve little credit. How we shall use this gift from out the great eternity is for us to decide. Let us hope we shall not need the horrors of a great war or a great fire to arouse us from our self-admiration and make us realize that we are in no way exalted above our fellow beings, and that our only genius is the genius for hard work; our only greatness the greatness in opportunity to be useful. Let us hope that Chicago women are too thoroughly wholesome to be spoiled by the fulsome flattery that well-meaning people have so • bountifully bestowed upon them.
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