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Maryland State Archives Maryland Suffrage News Collection MSA SC 3286 msa_sc3286_scm7805-0051 Enlarge and print image (1M) |
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Maryland State Archives Maryland Suffrage News Collection MSA SC 3286 msa_sc3286_scm7805-0051 Enlarge and print image (1M) |
| 316 MARYLAND SUFFRAGE NEWS [January a, 1915. PRESIDENT OF THE OUTLOOK COMPANY A SUFFRAGIST Lawrence Abbott Make* His Maiden Suffrage Speech. LAWRENCE ABBOTT, president of the Outlook Company, has emerged from an anti-suffrage environment and is now a pro- nounced suffragist. His father, Lyman Abbott, is a well-known anti- suffragist, and his mother was for six years president of the New York Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage. At the Fifth Avenue Suffrage Shop Mr. Abbott told the story that changed his convictions: "I had two friends living in a Southern town," he said. "They were real Southern people, a husband and a wife, with the Southern belief in a woman's right to chivalry from men. The wife did a great deal of work for humanity in a quiet way, and for years nothing happened to shake her conviction that just as a woman she could get everything she wanted. Then one day something came up that required a visit to the Legislature. She went with a delegation of women. They were turned down fiat and without any of that chivalry she had always believed was woman's due. "Her husband was furious at the treatment she received. He had always been op|x>scd, as she was, to the movement to enfranchise women, but from that day he was a convinced suffragist, and she has been an ardent though quiet worker for the cause. For on the day she came home from the Legislature they said to each other that that proved that women could accomplish little till they got the vote." Mr. Abbott said he was greatly impressed, too, by the fact that there wasn't a working woman or a woman of affairs in his acquaintance who didn't want to vote. He mentioned Miss Jane Addams and Miss Pauline Goldmark as among those whose opinion has influenced him. IMPORTANCE OF THE MOTHERS' PENSIONS FOR NEW YORK STATE Home a* the Foundation of the State Recognized in Twenty-one State* of the Union. A BILL is being introduced in the Albany Legislature in January to establish a system of pensions for the necessitous widowed moth- ers of New York State. The measure is to work under a home-rule clause, and Child Welfare Boards established through the State are to be the means of distributing the relief. The bill is on the same lines as that rejected by the Legislature last March. Mr. Richard Neustadt, secretary of the State Commission on the Relief of Widowed Mothers, is of the opinion that the measure is sure to carry this year. In twenty-one States of the Union widows' pensions have been grant- ed, and thus the importance of the home as the foundation of the State has been recognized. The Commission in its report just issued unconsciously reads like a suffrage oration. It lays down the principle that "the normal development of childhood is one of the most important functions of government." In preparing the report the Commission studied 980 families of wid- owed mothers, of whom they made exact and sympathetic reports. The investigation shows that many widows make heroic efforts in attempting to look after their home and children, while at the same time they are compelled to go out and cam a miserable pittance. In spite of all that they can do, statistics show, as may be expected, that many delinquent girls and boys come from these poor widowed homes. FAMOUS DETECTIVE'S OPINION "Universal Suffrage Necessary to Bring About Many Needed Reforms." Speaking recently in New York, William J. Burns, detective, stated : "In my twenty-live years' work in the cities of this county, work which has taken me into the thick of affairs, I have seen that the suf- fragists, while working for the ballot, are also promoting good citizenship. My experience in detecting criminals has convinced me that universal suf- frage is necessary to bring about many needed reforms. When suffrage comes you will select from among your number the women best qualified NOTICE. The Suffrage "At Home" held weekly at J. G. L. head- quarters will be resumed again on Tuesday, January S, at 4 P. M. Mrs. John S. Gibbs, Jr., will pour tea, and Miss Sarah F. Martin will speak. The meeting is open to the general public, and it is hoped that the attendance will be a large one. The public is also invited to the open meeting at head- quarters on Friday, January 8, S P. M. for public work, and they will make the cities fit places for the children to grow up in. I wish I could put the 'white slave' problem into the hands of a selected group of women in this city whom I could name and give them the power that men have. They would soon clean it up." ITEMS OF INTEREST FROM EQUAL SUFFRAGE STATES A Minimum Wage for Washington. THE State Minimum Wage Commission of Washington has estab- lished $10 as the weekly minimum wage for women and girls em- ployed in clerical work. Eight dollars is established as a minimum for office boys and girls be- tween sixteen and eighteen, and $6 for both sexes under sixteen years of age. Women have voted in Washington since 1910. Women Voters in Chicago. "The women have again saved to Chicago the foremost school super- intendent of the country," says The Woman's Journal. Mrs. Ella Flagg Young was re-elected by the school trustees on an open ballot by a vote of 15 to 5. Some of the trustees said that the open ballot had suppressed their real conviction 1 The Chicago Herald comments: "Between the real conviction of men afraid to express them in public, in discharge of a sworn official duty, and the unreal convictions full publicity will cause them to assume, give us the latter every time I" The opposition to Mrs. Young among the school trustees took the form of demanding to vote for the superintendent by a secret ballot. Mayor Harrison, who appoints the school trustees, is considerate of the wishes of the women voters of Chicago, as can be seen by the following letter addressed to the school trustees: "I have been recently petitioned by a large number of women's organ- izations to use my influence with the board of education to secure the elec- tion of all officers, including the superintendent of schools, by open ballot. The reasons given for this request seem sound to me. It seems to me that no good purpose can be served by secretly balloting for the election of officers of the board of education, and for that reason I would respect- fully ask that you give aid in securing an open ballot for all future elec- tions in that body." THE FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT OF THE CHILD Extracts of a Speech by Miss Julia Lathrop of the National Children's Bureau. NEW ZEALAND gives us an inspiring example of how infant mor- tality can be reduced, through the work of the Society for the Health of Women and Children, concerning which the Children's Bureau has lately prepared a bulletin. We should not be ready to admit that New Zealand, with her youth, her agricultural wealth, her vigorous and intelli- gent population, is more favored than many of the Stales of this country. There are few regions in this country with a more scattered population than New Zealand, yet New Zealand secures first of all the record of her babies' births, and then through a great number of local committees, chiefly carried on by women, she places at the service of her town and rural popu- lation alike the personal aid of nurses, trained in infant care, and through the co-operation of the Government and the press of that country, she can confidently say that it is hard for any family to evade sound information' as to the nurture of infancy. And she can show a steadily lessening infant mortality which for more than twenty years has been the lowest in the world. HELP THE CAUSE.?M.otion Ik* MarjrUad SufTr... News Wh.o P.troniiins Our Adv.rtii.r.. |