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THE CONGRESS OE WOMEN.
Livermore’s children are neglected, or their husbands not attended to, or their dishes not washed and stockings not darned? This wail about domestic shrine belongs to past history; we live in new times. I wish we had time to speak of the many great and useful women of our homes and hearts.
Mrs. Isabella Beecher Hooker, as everyone knows, belongs to the wonderful Beecher family, and is decidedly one of the most talented among them. She stands at the front among the leaders of the great vital reforms of the day. She is a woman of marvelous force of character, and to her the women of Connecticut owe the improvement of the laws in that state with regard to their property.
I have enjoyed the hospitality of her delightful home in Hartford many times, and she did me the honor to introduce me to the judiciary committee in the Capitol at Washington as a Scotch woman who would speak to them on the political status of women in Great Britain, when I went up with the committee of our National Woman Suffrage Association. I was at Washington in 1888 when I first became acquainted (through Mrs. Hooker ) with her co-worker, Susan B. Anthony, a woman who is known everywhere for her principle and pluck, power and purpose. Elizabeth Cady Stanton is another woman of brains and bravery. She is one of the ablest women of our times. Julia Ward Howe is not only the author of the “ Battle Hymn of the Republic,” and of other poems as rich and grand, but she is also a leading philanthropist and lecturer. Lucy Stone was a woman of radical ideas, and quiet, magnetic eloquence and heroic individuality. We all regret that we can never again hear her (as I have often heard her) plead before the Legislature of Massachusetts for the enfranchisement of women.
Mrs. Mary A. Livermore has for twenty-five years been one of the star lecturers in our most attractive lyceum courses, and she never was more popular than she is today. She is one of the ablest lecturers in the country at this hour.
1 have heard her tell of Lady Henry Somerset’s life and work in such glowing terms, that we could almost worship our English White Ribbon Queen, who is to the British women what our Frances Willard is to our American women—the head and the heart of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. Lady Henry Somerset’s sympathy for and helpfulness to our American queen has been truly beautiful, and we love her not only for it, but for her own sweet self. Mrs. Ormiston Chant is another English woman who has charmed us with her inspirational speeches in behalf of womanhood, and she also is devoted to the elevation of woman, and the salvation of mankind. On this side of the Atlantic we have Mrs. Van Cott, a really successful evangelist, and Mrs. Annie Wittenmyer, one of the grandest philanthropists that ever lived. Frances E. Willard, our queen of reforms, has probably more influence in this country than any other man or woman. She is president of the World’s Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, which has at least three hundred thousand members.
What a fine looking body of women the Board of Lady Managers are, with their attractive and gracious president. Mrs. Potter Palmer has visited nearly every court in Europe in the interest of women, and she has won by their exhibits official recognition from every foreign country. She has also enlisted the co-operation of the women of her own country for the World’s Fair, and addressed congressional committees with such genius that she obtained from them the legislation necessary to begin and carry on the work, and at the dedicatory services of this great Columbian P'xposition crowned all by her splendid address, in which she said: “ Even more important than the discovery of America is the fact that Government has just discovered woman.”
We have always had our queens since the days of Queen Esther, Queen of Sheba, Queen Semiramis and Queen Boadicea, but never have we had more worthy queens than those of the nineteenth century.
Who can forget the smiling face of Vice-President Mrs. Charles Henrotin as she gave her delightful address of welcome to every World’s Congress? Who but will say that our chairman of the Committee on Congresses in this Woman’s Building, Mrs.