WOMEN
While California's mining regions were overwhelmingly populated by men in
1850, Los Angeles was much more evenly balanced, reflecting the region's long
history of Hispanic family settlement. The pueblo's 714 females comprised 44
percent of its residents in that first federal census, which was taken at a
time characterized by conditions usually associated with a frontier that
included few women. Yet the percentage of females remained fairly constant
through the violence of the 'fifties, the drought and Civil War of the
'sixties, and the economic uncertainty of the 'seventies. Even the boom of the
1880s had little effect on the gender make-up of Los Angeles. The 24,171
females counted in 1890 were 48 percent of the city's population.
Among this steadily growing number of women were the wives of the town's
leading businessmen. They were in a position to do something about the
numerous inconveniences that went with life in their remote corner of the
nation. The first woman's club in the city was just such an effort. The
members of the Ladies' Hebrew Benevolent Society, organized in early 1870 under
the leadership of Rosa Newmark, served as nurses during a time when there was a
short supply of workers in that profession.
Los Angeles was fortunate to have an experienced club woman as a resident
at a fairly early date. Caroline Severance, who in 1868 had established in
Boston the nation's first woman's club, moved to Los Angeles in 1875. Three
years later she organized a similar club in Los Angeles but had only limited
success. That the club was directed at more than social activities is
evidenced in the effort, though fruitless, to have a woman appointed city
librarian. By 1880 the organization was dormant.
A) LO, THE BELEAGUERED SHOP-GIRL
Early in 1885 Severance rejuvenated the club. Concerned about the growing
number of self-supporting women in the city, the members undertook a survey to
determine how many women were employed, their occupations and compensation.
While unable to provide precise figures, the Committee on Women's Work
estimated that at least 2000 women supported themselves, while a large number
of others worked part time or in family businesses to supplement their
husbands' incomes. The results of the study, printed in the Times on Mar. 11,
1885, included "without comment" a lengthy justification by store managers for
the fact that women received wages that were less than half the amount paid to
males. That led to a debate in the letters column regarding the competency of
women employees. The ensuing exchange of letters developed a sub-theme
concerning the appropriate term with which to refer to workers of that gender.
"M. D. L." would no doubt be equally aroused and amused by a similar debate
that resurfaced a century later.
{Times, Mar. 15, 1885, p. 4}
A Working Woman on "Woman's Work."
To the Editor of the Times--Sir: A report of "the
Committee on Woman's Work," which appeared in your paper this
morning, contained so many fallacies and absurdities that it
seems due to the "working woman" that a reply ought to be
made. There is no doubt that the dear, good old ladies of
"the Club" are very sincere and earnest in their desire to do
something for the welfare of the working woman, and that
their object is a worthy one cannot be questioned. But what
possible weight the fallacies and absurdities, published in
regard to the competency of woman to fill the place of a
sales-person can have toward the attainment of such an
object, is beyond the comprehension of the writer. It is
said she never enters the store "until grown and often with
so little knowledge of numbers as to be inaccurate in filling
sales." Can there be anything more absurd than that? What
business man is there that is going to employ a saleslady who
is without a common school education? And sometimes "she
even makes mistakes in measuring goods." Poor things! How
sad their condition. Their fellow-salesman never makes any
mistakes in that line; no, indeed! they are perfect, because
they began when they were "boys." (Where did they get their
"knowledge of numbers?" I suppose, though, that part of them,
like Topsy, "just growed.") What a sad state of affairs
things have come to, that they cannot lift the "heavy bolts
of cloth," and mount "ladders" in quest of "reserve stock."
Then, too, it is such a deplorable fact, she cannot "unpack
goods, wash windows, sweep floors, nor dress windows." Pray
tell me, must a woman become "jack of all trades" in order to
become a competent sales-person? The notice of dress is too
absurd to comment on. The greatest fallacy of all is that
women have "lack of system" and are "poor stockkeepers." Now
if a woman be a woman indeed, system, order and neatness are
a part of her "make-up."
Now I insist that women are as capable of becoming
competent sales-persons, or anything else, as to that matter,
as men are. She is not supposed to be "man of all work," in
order to be competent. It must not be supposed that the
carpenter does not understand his trade because he cannot
make the chimney on your house. Why publish such absurd
things, in order to further what is presumed to be a worthy
object. Now comes the question, what do you propose to do
with us? We are a poor, ignorant set of creatures--scarcely
know whether "two and two make four" or not. Does "the
committee" propose to build a great, big "home" to put us in,
and, some way or other, get the dear, good ladies of "the
Club" to keep an eye on us, take pity on us, and somehow or
other get us taken care of, so that "store managers" won't be
burdened?
Perhaps the object of the "Woman's Club" may become
apparent in the future; but instead of being a kind of a
charitable object--at least it has that kind of a ring
now--why not establish something on the "cooperative labor"
plan? Very respectfully,
ONE OF THE UNFORTUNATES.
Los Angeles, March 11, 1885.
{Times, Mar. 18, 1885, p. 4}
"Sales Ladies," "Sales Gentlemen" and Women's Work."
To the Editor of the Times--Sir: In the Sunday Times
the "Committee on Woman's Work" received a very unkind and
uncalled for blow from one of the number they were striving
to aid.
The remarks in the committee's report concerning women's
incapabilities as saleswomen were not, as I understand, from
the ladies, but from the employers, and were given as they
(the ladies) received them. The ladies plainly showed their
sympathies to be with the saleswomen.
It seems an impracticable scheme to attempt a work as
the ladies have considered. The attempt which was made a few
years ago, in New York, to establish such a home through the
munificence of A. T. Stewart met with disaster, on account of
the women refusing to submit to the restraint necessary to
make such a home respectable {garbled - Ed.} and helpful.
While there are, no doubt, some good, honest, faithful
ones who would appreciate the ladies' efforts, there are many
who, like this "unfortunate" one, would show a constant
spirit of conten{tion? - Ed.} and rebellion.
It is a deplorable fact that women are often not
thorough in their pursuits; and I have often turned and left
a store without completing my purchase because of the
indifference with which I was treated by a "sales lady." If
a "sales gentleman" would treat customers in such manner,
they would be reported and perhaps lose their positions; but
people are charitable toward women who are striving to earn
their living, and often submit to much discourtesy from them.
In many instances the utmost confidence exists between
the "sales lady" and "sales gentleman," and one can readily
see the necessity of more dignity and reserve on the part of
the young woman.
When the "sales lady" feels a pride in being a
"saleswoman," her position will be clothed with a dignity
which will defy any criticism and bring her, not only the
esteem of all, but establish her value to her employer, far
above the average "sales gentleman."
If the ladies attempt to "keep an eye" on such an one as
the writer in the Sunday Times, their task is indeed
stupendous; but it is to be hoped that the "old ladies" have
not outlived their usefulness, and that there may yet be some
way to offer shelter and protection to the many worthy young
women of our city, without "walling in" any such as the
unfortunate "saleslady" who indulged in so much slang and
sarcasm.
I am neither a member of the "Club" nor of the
committee, and write this as a
LADY CUSTOMER.
{Times, Mar. 25, 1885, p.2}
"Sales Ladies," "Sales Persons," the Club and Competency.
To the Editor of the Times--Sir: We again ask the
privilege of a few words through your columns. The article
in Sunday's Times was not written with any unkindly feelings,
neither do we think it was uncalled for. The writer is in
fullest sympathy with the work contemplated, but what
possible weight can such absurd things as published in the
report have to further such an object? That is the question.
The ladies evidently do not desire that there shall be no
ladies employed in the stores. Then why argue her
incompetency? The report given to the committee was
evidently given by one who is not in favor of employing sales
ladies. The committee was unwise to publish anything of the
kind from only one person's standpoint. We are quite sure
had they interviewed different merchants the report given
would have been more in our favor. The report given would
lead people to think that woman was really incompetent to
become a salesperson; that it was only those persons of a
very meagre education who ever sought a position of that
kind; when the facts in the case are, that the ladies
employed in stores are above the average in point of
intellect. When reports are published casting reflections
upon us in that regard, do you blame us for taking upon us
the task of defending ourselves? You will find that nine out
of every ten have not only a good common-school education,
but have passed through the higher grades, and in very many
instances farther than that. We believe the position of a
sales-lady to be an honorable one. We also believe in the
dignity and reserve it requires. We think it one of the many
positions that woman occupies that she can and does fill with
the greatest ease and grace, and with great acceptability to
her employer. We are not inviting "a war of words" about the
matter, but we do not propose to retract anything we have
said.
"ONE OF THE UNFORTUNATES."
{Times, Mar. 25, 1885, p. 2}
A TITLE OF HONOR BECOMING ONE OF RIDICULE.
To the Editor of the Times--Sir: Years ago, before
women discovered that they were "first individuals, then
women," as Frances Power Cobbe so well puts it, there were
but simple and brief terms in which to speak of them. The
old English word "female"--now almost a term of reproach--was
then commonly used, the early novelists, as Fielding and
Smollett, by no means disdaining the term as applied to their
model heroines. A "lady" then meant one whose social
position was high, and who was possessed of the then rarer
qualities of education and manner, being able to read and
write; while the term "woman" included both. Later, and
possibly wisely enough, the word "female" has become
obsolete, retiring in favor of the word woman, the female sex
naturally enough preferring to be distinguished from the
whole animal world of their kind by a more special and
gracious term. Why there should exist, in numerous feminine
islands, so deep-seated a prejudice against the use of the
word is one of the queerest of their many queernesses. As a
comical instance of this, I recall that during my college
days, one of our learned and cultured professors chose to
draw a parallel between some pathological states in the
female animal and the female human. To my surprise and
disgust, I found that there were only three out of a class of
twenty women that did not feel honestly affronted at the
phrase and the comparison. I should hesitate to relate so
damaging a story, but that I believe this false idea to be
one that a little thought would dissipate. Some of the
over-sentimentality wasted on the term mother might be added
here, as in the female is included the very idea of
maternity. With the modern broadening fields of active labor
for women, came a need for new terms to show the new and
delicate distinctions between the lady who scrubbed floors or
took in washing, and the girl who clerked in a small store,
and between whom there was "an awful gulf fixed," not
infrequently barring the way to otherwise friendly help and
esteem. Democracy here might be defined as "the individual
right to be as good as the next fellow," with great freedom
in announcing such a state of things, both above and below
stairs. And as such a theoretical state can no more become a
reality than a communism in property, castes innumerable
result. The line is drawn with a distinctness that is
sufficiently discouraging to the would-be helper of
womankind, especially. Terms that once were proper enough,
become in time--generally through the unworthiness of their
representatives--an insult or reproach, and new ones are
adopted, with more or less aptness--generally less. Thus the
term "shop-girl," in itself surely harmless enough, is now
resented by the worthy of that class, chiefly through the
marked failings of the class itself in refinement, breeding
and morals; and as a substitute I saw, in a recent Times,
offered the pompous and ridiculous term, "sales-person." One
knows there are modesty, goodness and refinement enough among
"shop-girls," but among "sales-persons" one is at least sure
of a foolish affectation. Along with this disinclination to
be called by anything that really indicates one's actual work
or position, is the determination by all classes to be called
"lady," whether one is that rara avis or not, and an idea
that the really sound and sweet word woman is not good enough
for them. To such an extent has this foolish fad gone that
the story is not impossible where the laundress sends word:
"Tell that woman upstairs that I'm the lady as wants to do
her washing"--smile as one may over it. Sensible men and
"real ladies" have deplored this folly, the press and the
funny man have satirized and ridiculed it, and yet it will
not down. Only the other day, in a meeting of women in the
interests of women, one present spoke of the abandoned women
of the town as "fallen ladies," and while one was amused at
such artless naivete, one could but remember that the fallen
women would perhaps be the first to claim the title "lady" as
rightfully theirs. Away with these false ideas and
esmasculated phrases! Drop the "female" if you will, use the
term "lady" sparingly--used properly its use will never wear
it out--and conclude that as a general thing the world has no
use for anything better than--
"A noble woman, nobly planned,
To warn, to comfort, to command."
M. D. L.
The role of "shop girls" in Los Angeles society emerged again during Elias
J. "Lucky" Baldwin's breach of promise trial in early 1886. Sued by nineteen-
year-old Louise Perkins, who counted Stephen White among her lawyers, Baldwin
utilized the services of two of the city's foremost attorneys: G. Wiley Wells
{whose name appears frequently in this volume} and Col. James Howard. Years
earlier Howard had been so successful as a defense attorney that, according to
historian W. W. Robinson, a vigilance committee passed a resolution demanding
that he be hanged!
Howard's defense of Baldwin lay in an aggressive attack on the sexual
promiscuity of Perkins. In his closing argument on Feb. 18, as reported in the
Times, Howard recounted various allegations regarding her conduct. He then
charged:
She went to the ranch already ruined. If she was
innocent and pure we could disbelieve Baldwin; but she was
developed into a harlot. That's a peculiarity of the country
girls here; they lose their virginity and never think
anything of it.... That's the way the shop girls in San
Francisco and here do.
The jury awarded Perkins $75,000 but she settled for considerably less
rather than face the retrial ordered by Judge William Cheney, who thought the
judgment excessive. Meanwhile, readers of the Times denounced attorney Howard.
{Times, Feb. 21, 1886, p. 5}
Indignant Letter from a Shop Girl.
To the Editor of the Times--Sir: Can you inform us as a
class what we are to do here in open daylight, in a Christian
city, in a free country, in an enlightened age, to be obliged
to stand still and be most grossly insulted before the world,
and be called a gang of prostitutes by a creature calling
himself a man, right in what is supposed to be a court of
justice? Are we obliged to remain passive and bear such
cruel insults, or have we any friends ready and willing to
take our part? Are our ministers satisfied that we deserve
to be damned among harlots simply because we are poor, tired
slaves, trying to earn our daily bread by toiling long, weary
hours for our employers for the wages they see fit to pay us,
or does the community condemn us for so doing? Many of us
depend entirely on what we earn. We know that the city shop
girl has a very hard time, and our expenses are quite heavy,
for we must make a decent appearance. And another thing,
every girl cannot obtain a situation in city stores. Then
why is that man who is called Col. Howard, representing
himself to be a gentleman, allowed to talk of us as he did on
Thursday? Does he know that we are bad as a class? God help
the poor work-girl anyway, for her lot is hard, if she must
both work hard for her daily bread and her ignominy as well.
Oh, where is our boasted Christianity? Where are our
Christian ladies and our honorable gentlemen, heads of
families, fathers and honorable brothers? Will they not come
to our rescue--will not somebody defend our reputation?
There are now living in this city good wives and mothers who
were once shop-girls, and who are now respectable members of
society. We know that the millionaire's gold cannot buy the
virtue of all shop-girls any more than it can buy the honor
of men.
Now, Mr. Editor, we appeal to you, as a gentleman and a
father, to defend our good name if it be only for the sake of
the name of our fair city. It is hard to have strange ladies
come into our stores and think that they are being waited on
by a lot of bad characters in the shape of shop girls.
Hoping you will not let this drop where it is, I respectfully
leave it in your hands,
ONE OF THE BELIED SHOP-GIRLS.
Los Angeles, Feb. 19, 1886.
{Times, Feb. 21, 1886, p. 5}
"Country Girls."
To the Editor of the Times--Sir: In the name of the
young women of California, I protest against the uncalled-for
arraignment of "country girls" and "shop girls" by Col. J. G.
Howard, counsel for E. J. Baldwin in the notorious case
recently before the courts of this city. A man who can
unblushingly utter in public such sweeping statements
derogatory to the fair fame of those numerous young women who
find it necessary to work for a livelihood, or who are
brought up outside the limits of the angelic (?) cities of
this State, has little sense of honor and little respect for
the sex he libels.
I do not believe there is such a laxity of morals among
California girls as he indicates, or that the standard of
womanhood is any higher on the part of the city belles than
that entertained by the classes he derides. He obliges one
to infer that he is intimately acquainted with "girls in
brothels," as he knows that they "do the same way;" and he
has not the justice to give respectable, if poor, young women
a fair chance in the world.
AN INDIGNANT WOMAN.
Los Angeles, Feb. 19, 1886.
{Times, Feb. 26, 1886, p. 2}
A Warm Defense of Shop Girls.
To the Editor of the Times--Sir: There are many who
appreciate your kindness in offering the people a people's
column, where right can have a chance against might. And
there are many good words spoken for you which you never
hear, because you have the pluck to stand for right, no
matter who it hits.
The shop girl has a right to speak, and for one, I am
glad she is given a chance to speak. Yes, "Shop-Girl," you
have sympathizers, and it is a shame to our nation that a
being calling himself a man and a citizen should stoop so low
as to use such dirty language in regard to our honest young
women, who have the independence about them to strike out in
the world for themselves. Col. Howard has shown his true
nature. * * * Give us your hand, "Shop Girl."
A HUSBAND OF A COUNTRY GIRL.
B) "WICKED WOOLSTEEN"
A "WOMAN SCORNED" OR A "FIENDISH MURDERESS"?
Another trial also raised the question of women's rights. In late 1887 the
body of Charles N. Harlan, a Los Angeles dentist, was found shot, knifed,
battered and partially incinerated in a burning barn at Compton. He had been
seen in the company of Hattie Woolsteen, an attractive young woman who, like
many of the residents during that boom year, had been in the city only a few
months. With evidence pointing to her guilt growing daily, Woolsteen was taken
into custody by Police Chief Patrick Darcy, charged with murder. "Wicked
Woolsteen," "fiendish murderess," and "that most repellent she-devil," the
Times called her.
Woolsteen claimed that Harlan had seduced her, promising to marry her
without revealing that he was not single. A dentist who worked with Harlan
testified that Harlan had sex with other patients while they were under
sedation. Hattie also charged that Chief Darcy had strip-searched her sister,
Minnie, and that he filed the murder charge after Hattie refused to sexually
submit to him.
Very quickly her case became a woman's rights cause. Forty prominent
women, primarily suffragists, appeared one night at the jail in an unsuccessful
attempt to see Woolsteen. They regarded her as a victim of gender inequality,
and their letters to the editor focused more on women's rights than on her
guilt or innocence. The Times reported that "a number of ladies of wealth and
standing" paid for her attorneys, G. Wiley Wells and Stephen White. When White
withdrew from the defense team, amid speculation that defending Woolsteen might
affect his political ambitions, "Fermina" offered this comment.
{Times, Feb. 5, 1888, p. 3}
Stephen M. White.
Alhambra, Feb. 4.--[To the Editor of The Times.] I see
by your issue of today that Hon. Stephen M. White has
withdrawn from the Woolsteen case. Having entertained a most
pronounced esteem for the gentleman, both as man and
attorney, ever since his manly, able and eloquent defense of
the child-victim in the Perkins-Baldwin case, I confess the
first announcement that he was to defend the mature,
murderous drab of a married man, gave me a very unpleasant
shock. Being a sort of hero-worshiper, I like my idols to
remain at least gods with a small g. Hence, I cannot refrain
from giving expression to my sincere approval of his not
prostituting his able talents to the defense of such
unmitigated depravity.
FERMINA.
When the trial finally opened in early April, 1888, the Times reporter
became obsessed with the presence of women in court. Indications of his bias
had appeared during the preliminary hearing when reports of each day's
proceedings often referred sarcastically to the large number of women in
attendance. His Nov. 2, 1887, story began:
The remarkable feature of the opening of Justice
Austin's court yesterday morning was the presence of so many
ladies to hear the further testimony taken in the Harlan
murder case. The fair sex came early, and from their
appearance it was easy to see they intended to remain there
all day ... or longer. They occupied the front seats to the
exclusion of the row of male spectators who had filled those
seats in the previous sessions of the court.
That tone continued when the trial opened in April. The reporter's
objections to women in court remained unabated:
With a morbid craving after the sensational that is
anything but creditable to them, a large number of ladies
again occupied seats outside the bar. During the morning,
when testimony of a highly indecent character was being given
regarding the cold-blooded seduction of Hattie Woolsteen by
Harlan, several ladies left the room, but, unabashed, the
remainder with unmitigated gall, drank in the lewd details
that were rendered all the more disgusting by the snickering
way in which the so-called "Dr." Schim {Harlan's dental
associate, who verified the dentist's sexual misconduct}
related the fact.
The reporter's sarcasm continued as the trial neared its end:
The front row of chairs had their full complement of
lady spectators, who graced, or disgraced, as individual
opinion may determine, the scene, where one of their own sex
was, for aught they knew to the contrary, experiencing more
bitter anguish than their puny minds could realize.
That same attitude found its way into the editorial column of the Times, as
quoted below in Mary Todd's critical response, which in turn elicited a further
comment from the editor. A letter defending the attendance of women at trials,
which appeared in the Herald, was condemned in the Times by a writer who signed
his letter * *. This drew replies from "Calhoun" and "M. E. H."
{Times, April 15, 1888, p. 3}
Feminine Logic.
Los Angeles, April 14.--[To the Editor of The Times.]
It was doubtless a painful duty for those women in attendance
at the trial of one of their own sex charged with
murder--atrocious murder! For women feel each other's woes
as if they were their own. But they performed that duty
bravely, unshrinkingly, without going into hysterics; and it
was all the part allowed them--that of bestowing such aid to
one of their own unfortunate sex as lies in mere presence.
And now comes forward an editor of one of our leading
papers with these comments:
"The spectacle of a number of women, many of them mere
girls, unblushingly listening to all the prurient details of
the Woolsteen case, is not calculated to raise one's
preconceived ideas of the high-minded purity of American
womanhood. The privilege of listening to such testimony in a
court of law is one of those rights, the enforcement of which
women might with propriety waive."
How we wish the writer of these comments could have been
present when Florence Nightingale and her corps of nurses
were called upon to attend a lot of brave boys that had just
been brought in, all hacked to pieces; had seen the panic
about to seize hold of the delicate women; then heard
Florence Nightingale's terrible rebuke to her almost fainting
women: "You are here to do your duty--not to give way to
sentimental feeling."
Now, how about these other women at a scene a thousand
times more painful? Were they there to give way to
sentimental feeling, or were they there to yield a stern
attention?
MARY IVES TODD.
[The attempt to compare the self-denying labors of a
noble woman, bent on an errand of mercy, with the morbid
curiosity of women who go to gloat over prurient details,
wrung from an unfortunate of their own sex, is too patently
absurd to need any comment.--Ed. Times.]
{Times, April 15, 1888, p. 3}
"Ladies at Public Trials."
Los Angeles, April 14.--[To the Editor of The Times.]
"L. A. P." has a screed in this morning's Herald about
"Ladies at Public Trials." I assume the writer to be a
woman, consequently entitled to all respect. I have sisters.
No man loves mother or sister more than I. Neither can I be
outdone in chivalry to woman. Neither will I wantonly trench
upon a woman's rights. But a right persistently followed can
lead a woman into positive paths of immorality. The
"spectacle" of boys crowding into the courtroom during the
trial of Laura Moore is not an apology for ladies crowding
into the courtroom in the case of Hattie Woolsteen. "L. A.
P." begs the question when she makes the remark. It
certainly was improper for boys to be present at that trial.
If boys do vulgar acts, is this an excuse for grown women to
commit like acts of impropriety? The court and jury are
sworn to do evenhanded justice by Hattie Woolsteen. The
presence of ladies cannot in any plausible measure do her any
good. "L. A. P." may think I am {illegible} but honest. I
would remove from woman the "very appearance of evils." Not
a harsh, vulgar or profane word should drop into her ear.
Not an indecent shadow should pass across the pure mirror of
her life. She should be jealously surrounded with everything
pure and sacred. She must not be coequal with man in the
knowledge of evil.
All men do not worship a God, but all honorable men bow
with holy reverence at the feet of a pure, innocent,
stainless woman. This is man's sheet-anchor. His belief in
woman's purity is the adhesive and cohesive power which holds
society together. Without this woman is lost, and man
reverts to chaos. Please do not become an iconoclast and
pull down our ideal. Help us to place woman upon a pedestal
of womanly strength and purity, so strong that the lightnings
of persecution may flash about her; the waves of obloquy dash
at her feet--that she may stand undaunted and serene in the
splendid glory of her royal womanhood.
* *
{Times, April 17, 1888, p. 3}
Chivalry and Reality.
Los Angeles, April 16.--[To the Editor of The Times.]
It must be confessed it is refreshing to get a whiff of
old-time chivalry in such communications as * * in Sunday's
Times. But, all the same, in his earnestness * * is
apparently forgetful that he and all men and all women are a
part of today, not a part of 50 years ago. Then, it is
possible, in very high life, that some women were guarded
most chivalrously "from the very appearance of evils;" and
that in simple, average life almost all women were worked for
by some man or men in the outside world. But the two
statements, being interpreted, only mean that some women were
made weakly dependent and heartless, and others were borne
into the very earth by over-maternity and by household
drudgery. Said the blind preacher, Mr. Milburn, once in a
public speech: "It was only expected of women, 50 years ago,
that they should bake and brew."
But, somehow, great national upheavals, great mechanical
contrivances for going up and down upon the face of the
earth, have rocked to tumbling the corner-stone of the home,
and alas and alas! cheapened and lessened the greatest moral
safeguard--marriage.
For result, we have almost as many women forced to work
outside the home to keep their poor hearts beating as men,
and as a consequence the romantic chivalry--the metaphorical
support of the oak for the vine--is, no matter how much we
may regret it, a thing of the buried past.
But even the most radical old-timers like * *, will not
deny that women are men's mothers, their lovers and
caretakers through good and evil physical report, till they
are 16 or 17 years of age. But can * *, or any other,
explain why, after that time, the woman must fall back, and
the man, suddenly announcing himself superior and protector,
says: "I am your physician now; it is not proper that you
should longer be mine; and I must keep from you certain
physical secrets, which it is not seeming for a woman to
know?" In all justice and earnestness, when a poor young
woman, like Hattie Woolsteen, must give in public the unhappy
and indelicate details of her situation, is it not a thousand
times more fitting that women should be there, by their mere
presence, to bear her up than that men, many of them beastly
and cruel, should, by mere right of masculine superiority and
protection, add to her misery by their presence?
We had better begin, in these serious days of struggle
for bread, to look all social matters straight in the face,
just as they are. And we had better begin to question if it
will not be best for us all, men and women, that women should
count for one-half, and cease to live longer under the
strangely popular delusion that man, the only thing on earth
she is really afraid of, is her protector.
CALHOUN.
{Times, April 17, 1888, p. 3}
Men as Well as Women at Public Trials.
Los Angeles, April 16.--[To the Editor of The Times.]
Letters have appeared pro and con in the columns of your
paper with reference to the attendance of women at the
Woolsteen trial. I believe in the same standard of purity
and the same code of morals for men as for women, and I
believe, further, that an immoral atmosphere that defiles a
woman, cannot but corrupt a man also. So, while I would
condemn women who, out of morbid curiosity, sit day after day
in a courtroom to listen to the vile details of such trials
as the Woolsteen, I would condemn equally the attendance of
men.
I have no patience with a one-sided ideal of "purity and
sacredness," and no man has any business "to bow with holy
reverence at the feet of a pure, innocent, stainless woman,"
who is not himself equally pure, innocent and stainless. If
woman "must not be coequal with man in the knowledge of
evil," she has a right to demand that he be coequal with her
in all that is good and pure.
I think it is high time that the courtroom doors were
closed to men and women alike as mere lookers-on and
drinkers-in of that which defileth the heart; and,
furthermore, it is high time that our daily press expurgate
from their columns the heart-sickening and revolting details
of every form of vileness.
M. E. H.
By the end of the trial the Times' position had changed dramatically
regarding Woolsteen and the victim. When she took the stand in her own defense
the Times lead paragraph read:
A crowd of spectators ... listened with bated breath
while the tale of a young girl's sorrow and a man's lustful
brutality was told.
Led by attorney Wells' masterful questioning, Woolsteen tearfully recounted
for jury and spectators Harlan's deception, the seduction, her attempted
suicide and the fateful buggy ride that took them to a farm in Compton where,
she said, Harlan tried to assault her. Preferring to die rather than submit,
she drew a pistol and pointed it at her heart. Harlan grabbed for the gun. In
the struggle it went off, several times, and Harlan fell dead.
While Woolsteen's account failed to explain numerous details, including the
apparent knife wounds on the victim and the fire, the jury was satisfied. In
twelve minutes they had a verdict, and when the foreman's response to Judge
Cheney's question was "Not guilty!" the courtroom erupted with shouts of
approval. When the defendant appeared on the street shortly thereafter "cheer
after cheer rent the air."
Not all Times readers considered her innocent. Referring to various bits
of evidence brought forth during the trial, "Sympathizer" offered this
analysis. It was at the gum grove on Eighth street that some of the evidence
pointing to Woolsteen, including the gun, had been found. The farm in Compton
where Harlan died had been owned by Mrs. Barbey, whose own death a few months
earlier had occurred somewhat mysteriously while she was being cared for by
Woolsteen.
{Times, April 19, 1888, p. 3}
She Should Take Short Drives.
Los Angeles, April 18.--[To the Editor of The Times.] I
read in yesterday's Telegram as follows:
"Since the trial Hattie Woolsteen has been in a physical
and mental condition such as has necessitated the closest and
most watchful care on the part of father and sister. She is
suffering from nervous prostration consequent of the relaxing
of the tense strain to which she has been subjected ever
since her arrest. Perfect rest, varied with short drives
among the pleasing surroundings of this beautiful city, are
relied upon to restore tone to her mind and health and vigor
to her body."
I am of the opinion that the short drives would hardly
fail to restore health and vigor to her body, especially if
she should drive in the right direction. I would recommend,
first, that her drives be not too long--not farther than the
terminus of Eighth street west of Pearl, or the gum grove.
Then, after she has regained strength from her visits to
these pleasing resorts, I would recommend that the drives be
extended as far as the Barbey place, where the surroundings
and the pleasing recollections of an old lady friend, who
died rather suddenly, will have a tendency to give the
necessary tone to her mind. Should these remedies fail, I
would suggest frequent visits to places of amusements,
circuses, etc.; also, strict attention to the fire-alarm
bell, and a prompt attendance at all fires, as I am informed
that the contemplation of a building in flames has a soothing
effect on the nerves of some people when everything else
fails.
A SYMPATHIZER.
C) WOMAN SUFFRAGE
The Woolsteen case coincided with a growing belief that justice for women
would only come with access to the ballot box. 1888 marked a high point for
woman suffrage in the 'eighties, evidenced by numerous letters on that subject
in the Times. Somewhat surprisingly the first of a series of letters on the
topic came from a man, "Tara."
No exchange of letters in the 1880s so excites the imagination as the
debate over suffrage between "Tara," a frequent contributor to the column, and
Emily F. Bennet, who apparently wrote only these two letters. Nothing is known
about "Tara" other than what he said about himself in his correspondence.
Approximately 40 years old in 1888, he was a Catholic, Irish-American
workingman. Although affiliated with the Republican party, Tara was willing to
support a third party dedicated to prohibition and woman suffrage. In his
first letter on women's right to vote, not printed here, he equated the fight
for suffrage with the noble battle to end slavery. His criticism below of the
"joke" about Susan B. Anthony's age and marital status could very well have
been directed at the Times, for on Oct. 21, 1887, Otis reprinted as humor this
item from the Nebraska State Journal:
It is said that Miss Susan B. Anthony has never forgiven
her brother Mark for his infatuation with Cleopatra.
We know less about Emily Bennet, but her comments lead the reader to
suspect that she was young and single. The 1888 city directory lists a Miss
Emma Bennett at 418 W. Tenth. In what appears to be a 19th century counterpart
to love on the internet, she and "Tara" engaged in a bit of verbal flirting
through the letters column, couched in references to chivalry and knighthood.
The reader has a vision of the noble "Tara" ready to defend the fair damsel
Emily, whom he obviously admires despite her reluctance to accept his position
on the issue of women's rights. And Bennet, her argument to the contrary
notwithstanding, seems to reciprocate. Were this fiction, the two would have
eventually met in debate at the Opera House and at the conclusion, with each
still holding different views, romance would have blossomed.
The unusually long letters by "Tara" and Bennet, several nearly an entire
column in length, indicate the editor's recognition of the importance of the
subject and the quality of the writing.
While women could not vote, they were eligible for election to school
boards. As noted in the chapter on education, the first woman to hold elective
office in the city won a seat on the board in 1886 as a result of lobbying by
the Woman's Club. The right-to-vote agitation eventually led to a statewide
referendum on suffrage in 1896. The women lost, and it would be 1911 before
they would gain voting rights in California.
Lazzaroni, a term used by "Tara," referred to the street people of Naples.
{Times, Jan. 17, 1888, p. 6}
Woman Suffrage.
[Second Paper.]
Los Angeles, Jan. 14.--[To the Editor of The Times.]
"Who would be free, herself must strike the blow." This, to
misquote from Byron, is the text of the second paper on the
subject of Woman Suffrage. To gain the end sought to be
attained by the advocates of the cause, it is imperatively
necessary for the women to take up the fight with vigor and
persistence. Will man, be he Republican or Democrat,
"redress ye? No." Occupied with their own affairs, thinking
that, like Atlas, they bear the world on their shoulders,
they will pass, with an indulgent smile at best, or else with
a contemptuous sneer, the feeble efforts of the few male, and
fewer female, advocates of that question who have courage
enough to speak their minds, and ask for the admission to the
rights and duties of citizenship of the larger half of
humanity, so long excluded, though their claim rests on as
firm a basis as that of those who monopolize the governmental
power.
Women do not want to become men; nor men to take the
characteristics of women. You are not constituted alike,
but you are the halves of the great whole, the human race;
equal in your right, though diverse in the duties you are
each called upon to perform in the theater of life.
There have been many objections raised against women
taking on themselves the work and the duties of men. That
they will neglect their homes. That they are unfit
physically to perform the tasks and meet the civil
obligations of the sterner sex, as serving on juries, while
the "old man" minds the babies, etc. All that women should
or do claim is the right to compete with men, in any position
to which their inclination or capacity may call them, on
equal terms, without fear or favor. And if men are
indisposed to grant them this, it argues that they are either
tyrannical or else that they fear the outcome of the contest.
All men have not the capacity to perform the duties of
the various careers open to them. Every man cannot be a
doctor or a lawyer, a soldier or a sailor; and how many of
the male citizens are exempt from jury duty. Then where is
the force of the usual objection made against the female
element? Maternity, for instance, ought to be cause for
exemption equally with the professions, which are in the male
sex counted as sufficient excuse for the non-performance of
these and other duties of citizenship.
Men blindly argue that the home is woman's sphere. But
they seem to forget the vast army of unmarried women whom
they refuse to make wives and mothers, and at the same time
debar from the many avenues of employment, and from the
rights and privileges which they hold as the divine right of
the masculine sex.
It is not likely that women, of their own free will,
would to any appreciable extent assume the coarser vocations
of men. The home instinct, if men will only give them the
chance, is naturally implanted in the female breast; and most
women would rather be a mother than a queen. Not that they
are incapable of taking the place of men even on the
battlefield, as witness the women of Carthage, of Limerick,
of Saragossa, and the gallant defenders of the bailiff-
assailed cabins of the Irish peasantry. But what they
demand; what is theirs by right; what will be theirs de facto
ere long if they will only ask it with firmness, is that they
should be debarred from no place which is open to their
fellow beings.
To this end they must agitate! agitate! agitate!
Nothing was ever given to those who, like the fool in the
fable, sit down to wait for the stream to run by ere they
cross it. Ask the men you meet, and two-thirds of them will
say that women do not want the right of suffrage. Begin at
home; talk the matter over with your own family; with your
neighbors; with your acquaintances. Discuss it with your
husbands, your brothers, your sons. Let them see that you
want to have a place in the great scheme of creation other
than that to which your sex has for ages been condemned.
But while you are dinning into the unwilling masculine
ear that you have awakened to the fact that you have a
mission in this world that is not circumscribed by the narrow
limits of the nursery and the kitchen, do not forget to show
him that you are capable of taking the responsibilities you
claim.
This can be done only by self-education. Read, and
discuss what you read. Make your self familiar with the
topics of the day. Quietly draw the male autocrat of your
household--be he husband, brother or father--into
conversation on his special hobbies, political, social or
other, and by judicious questions, seeking information (it is
scarcely necessary to tell women how to get round a man, by
making him imagine that he is having his own way), he will
begin by thinking that he is quite an oracle; then he will
see that you are a woman of discrimination (in appreciating
him), and, at last, he will wake to the fact that the woman
whom he used to look upon as a pretty girl to make love to
before marriage, a housekeeper, a nurse and seamstress
(unpaid), after, is a being of intelligence, capable of
thought, actually able to tell the difference between free
trade and protection while she sews his shirt-buttons on, to
argue on the theories of Henry George while she wrestles with
a limp and sleepy child, whom she is inducting into the
intricacies of the nightgown.
And were nothing to be gained but the enlightening of
the man who seeks away from home the society of his
intellectual equals, who intrenches himself behind his
newspaper or book when he spends his evenings at home, blind
to the fact that a warm sympathizing heart is beating, that a
bright and appreciative soul and a clear and discriminating
brain dwells in the familiar form that sits silently bending
over her work or rocking her babe to sleep, what a glorious
result would have been attained. When man will find that in
his own household he has in the female members a friend, a
counsellor, not the less reliable because tender and loving,
he will have solved the secret of so many unhappy,
unsatisfactory marriages, and laid the foundation of the only
permanent pleasure to be gained in this life--domestic
happiness, in the mutual love and friendship of husband and
wife.
The writer would like to hear through the columns of The
Times from the friends and foes of the cause of both Woman
Suffrage and Prohibition. The former he will welcome as
allies, with the latter he will be glad to break a lance in
the cause of the fair sex in general, and perhaps if he
acquits himself as a true knight, he may find some particular
female who will give him a gage to wear in his helmet as he
goes into battle.
TARA.
{Times, Jan. 23, 1888, p.3}
Female Suffrage--One Woman's View of It.
Los Angeles, Jan. 17.--[To the Editor of The Times.]
Let a woman speak her little piece on female suffrage. A
question of such vital importance and vast proportions
invites discussion.
Imprimis I have never known any women who want to vote,
except a few of the Susan B. Anthony stamp. I believe if a
vote were taken on this subject, and if women alone were the
voters, the cause would be lost "by a large majority."
Naturally, a woman has her own special pursuits. If not a
wife, or a mother, she is probably exempt from household
cares. Literature or art may claim her attention, but
politics is not commonly her forte. There are, of course, a
few exceptions.
What if the ballot were put in her hand! Would it
change the result of an election, or only swell the count?
Do the advocates of woman suffrage want them to have full
political rights, or only to vote on temperance and other
moral questions? Would woman become a tool in the hands of
either party, or would she vote to please her husband? If
she ventured to defy him, would there not then be "war in the
camp?" But if a member of the single sisterhood, wouldn't
the tender attentions pour down upon her during a campaign!
Theater invitations, opera tickets, ice cream, buggy rides,
love-making, etc., ad infinitum, ad nauseum, till hitherto
neglected spinsters and widows would find their heads well
nigh turned; their hearts utterly and hopelessly shattered
into fragments. (I began this article against female
suffrage; this last phase that fancy has presented almost
tempts me to the other side.) I will confess right here that
I enjoy immensely a good political speech, and I take a
lively interest during a Presidential campaign, though many
of the profounder issues I do not comprehend. Like a simple
peasant woman who expresses great admiration for a sermon,
when asked what it was about, replied: "Bless you, do you
think I would make so bold as to understand our parson?" It
is said that the ballot would be to the woman a powerful
incentive to greater intelligence, but intelligence in the
voter, or office-holder, does not seem to be required or
demanded, judging from the little I have seen and read, so
that argument goes for naught.
A writer to The Times seems to take this view. Think of
a woman rocking her baby to sleep, and at the same time
discussing Henry George with her husband! Bless you, my dear
sir, don't you know that a tired, sleepy baby wants something
more soothing than political economy for a lullaby? Very
likely that youngster, even though he may be a philosopher in
embryo, will demand a rhyme from Mother Goose, and father and
mother, too, will be taxed to their utmost with song and
story, till at last the weary eyelids droop, and the young
lord of the household is reluctantly carried off into
dreamland.
They tell us again that women would purify politics. As
well pour a few buckets of fresh water into the ocean and
expect to take away its saline properties. The opposers of
female suffrage declare that woman would be less divinely and
femininely sweet if she were to stand by her brother at the
polls. Political mud would soil her dainty skirts, etc.,
etc. I have heard some mothers say it takes their whole time
to keep their children clean. Half a dozen times a day they
are washed and sent forth, yet if there is a particle of mud
on the streets they are sure to find it. Others say--but
these are very few--that dirt never seems to stick to their
little ones; they come home almost as sweet and clean as they
went. This may show us that some have a natural propensity
for gathering smut, while others shed it. From the same
flower where the bee finds the sweetest honey the spider
gathers poison. A woman then who is inclined to
unwomanliness will develop in this direction by mingling with
the political world. One who is distinctively feminine will
not be made less so if the ballot is put in her delicate
hands; but in 99 times out of 100, or make it a larger ratio
if you like, I will venture to say that if you put the
question to women "Do you want to vote?" the answer will come
promptly and emphatically, No. The fact is we haven't time.
We like to make pretty things. We love music and art.
Possibly we peep into a cyclopedia now and then. We like new
books and good authors. We have church work and charities,
social duties, our wardrobes to keep in order, and a
multiplicity of things that demand time and attention. There
is a labor problem on our hands every day that Henry George
could not solve. As a rule, woman is content to be the
"lesser man," and the world needs her moral influence
infinitely more than it needs her vote. Lowell says:
"He sings to the wide world,
She sings to her nest;
In the nice ear of Nature
Which song is the best?"
EMILY F. BENNET.
{Times, Jan. 30, 1888, p. 6}
Woman Suffrage.
THIRD PAPER.
Los Angeles, Jan. 23.--[To the Editor of The Times.]
When I read the letter of your fair correspondent I received
a terrible shock. I seemed to have experienced the same
sensation which the knight in the ballad must have done when
his recreant hand, striking the casque of his opponent with
the enchanted sword, revealed the features of his deserted
love, and cowering before the vision and the cross upon her
breast, he fell an easy victim to his foes. But when the
first horror of the discovery that my challenge had been
accepted, and that my defiance had been answered by one of
the fair sex, had in a measure subsided, I found that the
anology ceased at that point, for instead of a traitor
fighting in the ranks of the Paymin horde my lance was
leveled in the cause of right, of freedom and of justice; and
much as I regret that my competitor in the lists should be
one of those for whose benefit I, in a poor way, go to
battle, still I will not fly ignominiously from the field,
but will hold my ground as best I may. However, I propose
that in this instance I shall act on the defensive, and not
on the offensive in any sense of the term; and while I parry
the thrusts so vigorously dealt, shall continue to cry,
"Hold! You have mistaken your side, fair lady; you should be
with us."
That woman is not a "lesser man," needs no other
contradiction than to read the letter in which Emily F.
Bennet thus libels her sex. If her husband in esse or in
posse is so much her superior in intelligence as she would
lead us to believe she thinks the average man to be, then he
is a rara Avis--in fact there are a pair of them, which it
would be hard to match.
Not having taken a ballot among my female acquaintances,
I cannot say positively that the majority of women would or
would not prefer to have a vote. But I do most firmly
believe that the world would benefit greatly if they had that
privilege. I am not aware of anything derogatory to Susan B.
Anthony, except the fact that she is not young and that she
is not married. Both of which dreadful facts in conjunction
with the venerable chestnut that "the flirtation of her
brother Mark with Cleopatra was very distasteful to her,"
loom up in the funny(?) columns of the press at regular
intervals.
I personally know of several tender and gentle mothers,
true and helpful wives, who think as I do. Not that they
desire to become professional politicians, or to take the
stump; but that they believe that their quiet influence and
votes would help to throw the balance in favor of the right.
It is the cry of tyranny all the world over, first that
the slaves do not want their freedom. "It is only a few
demagogues that raise the cry, the people are content if you
will let them alone." Thus say the martyrs {masters? - Ed.}
until the proof grows too strong. Then they change the cry
and say: "They are not fit to govern themselves."
"The Neapolitans are a race of lazzaroni unfit to be
trusted with power." "The French need a paternal despotism."
"The negroes would starve if left to their own resources."
"The Irish cannot be trusted to govern themselves." So spake
Bourbon and Bonapartist, slaveholder and English Tory. While
time has contradicted the false assertions of the former, the
latter contradicts himself by putting an Irishman to rule in
Canada, India, Australia and the Cape. And all these have
found men of their own people, honest, and otherwise
intelligent, so fully persuaded of the truth of this parrot
cry that they have proved themselves the greatest stumbling-
blocks to the march of progress. Therefore I regret the more
find a woman of such natural ability and such evident honesty
as your correspondent enlisted on the side of the enemy.
I am a man, and I am not a fanatic (if I were the latter
I would be more fitted to do good work, for to be a leader in
a new cause one must be fanatical, and, failing that, I must
only fight humbly in the rank and file), so I believe that
the good and evil, the strength and weakness of the sexes
about evenly balanced. Man is superior in some points, women
in others. But what I say is, that which I demand as a right
myself I am willing to concede to others.
I do not speak as one with authority. I represent no
one but myself; but I can answer for myself, that I, and I
doubt not that all other advocates of woman suffrage, wish
the women to have every right that a male citizen can claim
as his due. I no {do? - Ed.} not see why a difference in
politics need necessarily lead to "war in camp." Sons and
brothers disagree and argue warmly, yet bear no ill will--and
why not husband and wife? How many times have I not visited
a friend of opposite political principles merely for the
purpose of having a good rousing discussion. What does many
a husband leave his home at night for, but for that very
purpose. Weary, perhaps, of the killing, deadly silence of
some married homes, he seeks entertainment elsewhere. Some
times the wife does not know anything to speak of; sometimes
she fears, from experience, to express an opinion that will
be met with a sneer. "Yes, she is a good woman in her place,
but then she does not understand things." Her place is
everywhere except where it ought most to be--the place of his
nearest friend.
I think the ballot in woman's hands would change the
result materially in favor of all that is right and pure.
They might be influenced through their affections, through
their impulses, but they are not so susceptible to sordid
considerations as are men. Boss rule, caucus rule, is
becoming a grinding tyranny, and I think home rule, the
politics generated at the firesides, would be a vast
improvement.
Although the best results to be derived from woman
suffrage would naturally be moral ones, yet in all questions,
whether of war or peace, of internal improvement or of pure
business, the quick intuition of the sex, which instinctively
leaps to the side of justice and nobility (in most
instances), would mingle to advantage with the slower
conclusions of the male, ruled more generally by logic and
interest.
One result would follow to the advantage of those women
who, in spite of prejudice, of obstacles, of sneers, of
obstructions, have pushed through the jostling crowd of
hostile, or at least unfriendly, male competitors and forced
themselves into every profession, trade or occupation that is
open to them, and are daily increasing in numbers, proving
that they are fit to hold them; and that result is that equal
work would entitle the worker to equal pay, whether that
worker curled a bang on her forehead or a mustache on his
lip.
This introduction of women into the busy marts of
commerce and into the offices of the professional classes has
been brought about by the co- (and equal) education given
them in our glorious public schools. Has it resulted as the
croakers in our fathers' days predicted in the unsexing of
our women? No. They are as fair, as sweet, and as good as
our grandmothers were; and they are far better company than
the girls of even 20 years ago, who used to torture us with
the "Maiden's Prayer," as our grandmothers used our granddads
with the "Battle of Prague."
I do not believe that millenium will come with woman
suffrage. I do not expect to see vice banished from the
world. That will not be wrought by any human effort. But I
do expect a vast improvement in our morals and in our social
life. When women attain their due influence they ought to
demand from the husband they are about to take exactly the
same purity which he insists upon in the wife of his choice.
As a man said in discussing a proposed platform, "We need
laws against gambling, against intemperance, against bigamy,
trigamy and then polygamy, but we don't want them." Well,
for my part I do. Though the walls of my house may be more
or less composed of vitreous material, I throw this
stone--fiat justicia, and let the glass rattle about my ears
if it will.
I promise your correspondent that when we set about
electing scavengers she will find Raleighs enough who will be
ready to throw their cloaks in the political mud and ensure
her a clear path to the poles--by the way, if that mud is as
thick as Los Angeles-street gruel, they will need to put
their coats and vests down, too; and as for insult, there
need be no fear of that while my sex have a spark of manhood.
Woman suffragists or their opponents alike would shed their
blood first.
I have, Mr. Editor, taxed your space too far already,
else I should say something about the very excellent
suggestions of the English gentleman who signs himself
"Chester." All I will say is I thank him. Yours,
"TARA."
{Times, Feb. 4, 1888, p. 6}
"Question!"
SOME ABLE SARCASM ON THE FEMALE SUFFRAGE CHESTNUT.
Los Angeles, Feb. 2.--[To the Editor of The Times.] I
am most gallantly answered, convinced against my will, with
the usual result of that condition. My opponent understands
to a dot the natural feminine fondness for saccharine diet.
While every one owns up to a sweet tooth, I confess to nearly
a full set of them. It is a weakness that is entirely
organic, owing to an abnormal phrenological development,
where a depression might be an improvement. He displays a
practiced hand, well gloved with material of softest, finest
texture, only he mistakes interrogations for assertions. I
think I made no positive assertion, except that the majority
of women do not want the ballot, and that I reiterate; but I
hold myself open to conviction, and if convinced and
converted, I will yield as gracefully as possible. I will
accept my manumission, and endeavor to perform its great and
responsible duties faithfully, conscientiously. (For the
sake of my reputation I trust no one will construe this last
sentence into an intentional pun.) I promise to inform
myself of all subjects relating to the body politic, and if
the millennium ever dawns when a second Lincoln shall appear
as liberator to the downtrodden sex, I will march to the
polls and deposit my ballot--just like a little man.
Furthermore I will not be won over to the enemy by any
sugar coated nonsense. I will not sell my vote for a dish of
ice cream, or a new bonnet. Nothing short of a good sized
postoffice shall be any inducement.
Once upon a time I went to a meeting where this subject
of female suffrage was discussed and advocated. The speeches
consisted mostly of laudatory remarks on the superiority of
woman. Like Hope, they all "told a flattering tale," which
the calico angels present rolled like a sweet morsel under
the tongue and the broadcloth bipeds applauded most
gallantly. I was convinced beyond further cavil that the
"coming man" was to be a woman. But I much question the
necessity for this fulsome praise--a kind of brass-band
booming, as if woman were a new discovery, a modern
invention, a recent subdivision of Father Adam. I believe
this wonderful surgical operation, performed in the late
Garden of Eden, was the first and best ever known to the
profession. I was impressed with this fact, that when the
constitutional clause that rates women with idiots shall be
amended; when the sons of men behold that the daughters of
earth represent a vote, whisky and cigars will no longer
figure as a prime factor, but the principal electioneering
commodity will be--taffy.
Let me confess right here, strange as it may seem, that
I have never for one moment in my life wished myself a man.
Probably I need enlightenment. The pagan is satisfied with
his benighted condition until the faithful missionary
convinces him of a better way. Canary birds born in a cage
do not pine for freedom, and the Prisoner of Chillon tells us
he "gained his freedom with a sigh."
I know I am on the unpopular side. That doughty knight
of the quill, a literary Don Quixote, who is ready to fight
windmills and other imaginary {foes? - Ed.} for countless
Dulcineas, tells me I am wrong, but I cannot help it. I fell
in love with a beautiful woman the other day. She was
bending over a box of dainty garments that had only been worn
a few times, and the diamond dew gathered in her lovely eyes
as memory went back to a little grave in her womanly heart.
It touched a responsive chord in my own, and somehow I felt
drawn to her far more than if she had discoursed learnedly
and eloquently on some abstruse subject.
Intellectual culture is not incompatible with domestic
virtues, but it must be, in a measure, interrupted and
suspended when a mother is surrounded by a family. Her music
must be confined to lullabies, and artistic ambition to the
moulding of character and intelligence, that opens before her
day by day, as the leaves of a rose unfold. I like to see a
woman accept cheerfully and thankfully the sweet thralldom
that motherhood imposes. If she falls behind for a time in
the current literature or leading topics of the day, one can
readily pardon the offense. Often is she compelled to be
father and mother both, bread winner as well as nurse, and
that she does this grandly and nobly, history, ancient and
modern, sacred and profane, will abundantly attest. I do not
know that there is any difference in the average male and
female brain, except that the former outweighs the latter
about five ounces, but it is not always the largest vessel
that holds the choicest matter. I am not sure whether those
extra five ounces give man so much the advantage or not.
Perhaps that is where he keeps the stuff that women generally
don't care to know. Perhaps that is why we are told that if
a woman lack wisdom, she must ask her husband. This she
cannot always do, for sometimes he lacks {illegible} more
than she. Those five ounces may be only so much empty space,
and he may proclaim by word of mouth every time he opens it,
"Unfurnished rooms to rent."
One thing I have often noticed, and with shame do I
confess it, since I am trying to be on the other side of the
question, that when a woman wants reliable information she
generally asks a man. What a woman tells her is taken cum
grano salis, but the opinion or verdict of a man is her
gospel. In time of trouble, if a man announces that all
danger is passed, the panic ceases and fear subsides. It is
claimed that if a woman is amenable to the law, she should
have a voice in the making of that law; but does not the law
redress her wrongs as {illegible} as though she were a man?
I really cannot see that there is very just cause for
complaint.
Twenty years ago the schoolroom, the needle and the
kitchen were about the only avocation in which a woman could
engage. The past few years have witnessed a great change in
this regard. College doors are now thrown open; the
professions invite her, and she may engage in any business
that she is physically able to perform. Go into our banks,
our mercantile houses, and telegraph offices and women are
filling offices of trust and receiving good pay for their
services. There are, of course, many wrongs that need to be
righted, Many have been written up and talked of so much
that they need no rehearsing. At the present rate of
progress I believe the next decade will witness a {illegible}
of improvement that ought to satisfy all discontented ones.
It is well to think occasionally of benefits, instead of
dwelling only on real or fancied wrongs.
EMILY F. BENNET.
[The previous question is now in order.--Ed.}
The suffrage letters did not end with the Tara-Bennet correspondence.
Throughout 1888 women continued to argue in letters to the editor for the right
to vote, reasoning that the other evils they faced could be alleviated by the
ballot. "Disfranchised Taxpayer" found the approach of Independence Day an
appropriate opportunity to compare the subjugation of women to that of the
colonies. Later in the summer, after the U. S. Supreme Court had ruled in
McComb v. Spangler that the property rights of wives were subject to the
consent of their husbands, both "E. A. K." and "R. H." saw suffrage as a
protection for the other rights of women. While "R. H." remains unidentified,
suffrage historian Rebecca Mead believes "E. A. K." was Elizabeth A. Kingsbury,
who helped establish the city's Woman Suffrage Society in 1885.
{Times, June 2, 1888, p. 3}
I Demand My Rights.
A REVOLT AGAINST TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION.
Los Angeles, May 29.--[To the Editor of The Times.] I
hope you will allow me a little space in your columns, not
that I claim any talent as a writer, but that I may have the
satisfaction of reminding the public of my grievances. I
think you will agree with me, that it is but a poor
compensation for this most unjust oppression.
If a century ago taxation without representation was
declared "unjust and intolerable," I would like to know what,
in the present condition of things, renders it less so. Yet
the Government of the United States, claiming to be founded
on that principle, levies taxes on one-half of her citizens
to whom she stoutly denies the ballot.
In defense of tyranny, for such it is, it is argued that
women receive the protection of government, and, therefore,
should help to support it. But I cannot quite understand why
I should pay as much for this protection as my neighbor, who
is a "male citizen," pays for equal security and has a voice
also in determining in what that security shall consist. It
must be an exception to the solution of problems. And if
protection is all that subjects are entitled to, the
Revolutionary War was a most useless shedding of blood. Did
not the mother country espouse the cause of her American
colonies and protect them against the encroachments of the
French and Indians? Right nobly were they defended, and when
called upon to defray the expenses of war, a general cry of
oppression was raised. Now, if I were allowed a choice in
the matter (strange language for free America), I would
rather be taxed without representation for a cause like that,
than to bear any part in supporting a government a great part
of whose expenses is the result of the liquor business,
especially when I feel sure that if my sex were allowed the
ballot saloons would be swept from the land. Some one has
said that election by universal suffrage, as modified by the
Constitution, is the one crowning franchise of the American
people. This modification classes woman with idiots, etc.,
and deprives her of suffrage simply an account of sex. I am
sure no sane person considers this just, but it is done
merely because it can be done. I hope the time is not far
distant when sex shall not exclude from the privilege of
voting. As a citizen of the United States, and taxed for the
support of her government, I demand my rights. Give me the
ballot or exempt me from taxation.
DISFRANCHISED TAXPAYER.
{Times, Aug. 8, 1888, p. 5}
A Woman's Words.
Los Angeles, Aug. 6.--[To the Editor of The Times.] The
article in Monday's paper, with regard to the real estate of
married women, needs no comment. When one class of people is
ruled by another class, injustice and cruelty will surely
follow. When one-half the people of these United States are
subject to the other half, they ought to expect injustice and
cruelty as a matter of course. They ought to consider that
women have no rights that men are legally bound to respect.
The same power that enables them to enact one code of laws
today, permits them to reverse that code tomorrow.
By the ardent and untiring efforts of pioneers in the
woman-suffrage cause for the last 40 years, Legislatures have
been induced to modify the laws respecting women, but they
can rescind those laws at any time, relegating woman back to
her status under the old common law.
When will women lay aside their superficiality and
frivolity, look at the matter in its true light, and, rising
en masse, demand an equal right with men in making the laws
of the Nation? When they do this they would soon obtain the
right. Men are naturally just and humane. It is these
unjust laws that are injuring them, as well as women.
E. A. K.
{Times, Aug. 26, 1888, p. 6.}
The Woman Question.
Los Angeles, Aug. 7.--[To the Editor of The Times.] No
doubt that the late decision of the Supreme Court in regard
to the rights of property, and the comments of The Times upon
the same in Monday morning's issue, caused a thankful thrill
in many a manly (?) breast, and, no doubt, found a glow of
indignation in many a woman's cheek, as she listened to her
liege lord's approval of the same. For men like woman to be
tender and clinging, and it would never do for them to have
entire disposal of their property; they would become too
independent. They may have had the tact, the industry, the
brains to acquire. They may have toiled early and late--that
was all fitting and proper. But to dispose of the same as
her judgment dictates--why, that requires talent of an order
only developed in that class of men whose wives have the
ambition and energy to gain a position which their husbands
are incapable of reaching. The august assemblage who framed
that law seemed only intent on protecting the strong and
plunging the weak into still lower depths. It only protects
the wife who is already protected. But it offers no
protection to that class of women who did not draw prizes to
the matrimonial venture; who have to accept poverty and
privation as their lot; to see their children deprived of all
that makes life beautiful, a barren, dreary future stretching
out before them unless they gird on the armor themselves and
strive for success in one of the few fields open to them,
where they will not be considered as trespassers on man's
domain. These fields are indeed few, as was demonstrated
recently by a pompous county official refusing a lady a
position as clerk, "Because an office was no place for a
woman." O tempora! O mores! This most tyrannical law is
destined to work disastrous effects. It is only a ripple now
on a quiet dream, but from it will be evolved many a social
whirlpool. Some women, discouraged and disheartened, will
strive no more. Some will seek the relief of becoming a
"sole trader" with its attendant publicity. In many cases
where the loveknot is easy to unloose, she will seek a
divorce--and obtain it--generally on very good grounds. But
before any of these measures should be resorted to--each one
a bitter potion--an appeal to the legislators should be made
that such a law be blotted out. But, over and above all
this, there is something higher for women to seek. Why
should she plead for protection? Why should she plead with
the ignorant and debased man to vote for the one most worthy
of office, when he would sell his vote for a pot of beer?
Why should she plead with the naturalized foreigner, when
beyond the sea his sisters are bending under heavy burdens or
are harnessed to the cart like beasts of the field? Why
should one plead with the negro, coming out of a long night
of degradation to cast his vote that shall determine how the
women of America shall be governed? Let her pleadings assume
the shape of votes. There will then be an end of such unjust
laws, and for that consummation should every conscientious,
intelligent woman work.
R. H.
C) WOMEN AS REFORMERS
The letters column revealed sharp differences among Los Angeles women
regarding their role, both in the narrow sense of fighting for suffrage and in
the larger context of their place in society. The role of women in reform
movements elicited contrasting letters from Elizabeth A. Kingsbury and Miss
Grundy. No "Miss Grundy" is listed in the city directories throughout the 1880s,
but a Clotilda, or Lottie, Grunsky taught at Woodbury Business College in the
mid-'eighties and later in the decade served as assistant principal at Sand
Street school before becoming an aide to the city school superintendent.
{Times, Nov. 20, 1883, p. 3}
For a Womans' Suffrage Union.
To the Editor of the Times--Sir: Thanks, Mr. Editor,
for that expression of your opinion about the Womans'
Christian Suffrage Union in yesterday's paper. As you truly
say, it savors of demogogism or sycophancy. There are many
honest well-wishers and able workers for the cause, who are
thus left out in the cold. Because they cannot utter the
"Shibboleth" of a certain party, because they cannot
consistently subscribe to an orthodox creed, they must be
forbidden to do good to humanity.
Twenty, thirty, forty years ago the pioneers in the
causes of Abolition, Temperance and Woman Suffrage endured
much opposition from the church, but when they had succeeded,
through much tribulation, in imbuing the minds of men with a
better spirit,--when the church found that the current of
public opinion was likely to turn against it, forthwith it
turned around and stepped in, saying: "Here, we will carry
on this business in future. It shall no longer be in the
hands of infidels. It is now bound to succeed and we will
have the credit of it and under our banners it shall march to
victory." And by their ecclesiastical machinery and power
they so monopolize the field, that every "infidel" is kept
out, however upright and capable he may be, however much he
may have heretofore labored and sacrificed for the cause. Is
this an illustration of the spirit of Jesus? I trow not.
E. A. K.
{Times, Nov. 16, 1884, p. 2}
Some Advice From Miss Grundy.
To the Editor of the Times--Sir: Is there any law to
prevent a woman's speaking in meeting provided no one else is
talking? I shall act upon the supposition that there is not,
and have my little say, with your permission, about a matter
that I deem of vital importance. I think I have learned a
lesson from the late political campaign, and one which should
be generally understood by women. Of course the women are
curious to know what the lesson is. It is a painful one, but
it should be carefully heeded and not forgotten. It is this:
The impulsive, enthusiastic and illogical reformer, led on by
one single idea and blinded by that to all other issues, may
find that "by treading where she does not comprehend she will
make her own ruin." The women of the prohibition ranks
espoused the cause of St. John, as if by following in his
lead a universal abolishment of whiskey and the saloon would
be the result. The party that has always been the party of
law and order, the grand old party to which we owe to-day our
existence as a nation, was antagonized by the extremists, not
only in the male but in the female ranks of the
Prohibitionists,--the unreasoning ones who vainly hope to
precipitate a reform before they have even prepared the way
for it. Although a woman, I ask, when will women learn to
reason? When will they come to understand that the
establishment of a national temperance law will be the result
of patient, steady endeavor--that it can be secured only by
the education of the nation up to a full understanding of its
moral needs and necessities? I am sure that it was not the
wives and the mothers of the land who aimed through their
blow at the Republican party a deadly thrust at temperance
and morality. It was the radical and unreasoning ones, who,
fastening their political faith to the skirts of a demagogue,
and blind to resuls, used themselves and those who they could
influence, as heavy clogs to the wheels of reform, and
through the advocacy of abrupt measures have hindered, by
many years, the attainment of the end for which they labored.
Only one word more, my sisters: If you are not able to trace
out logical sequences don't attempt the role of reformers.
MISS GRUNDY.
Evangelist Leander W. Munhall was in Los Angeles in late 1885 and early
1886 as the principal minister at a massive revival. Two thousand people
crowded the Tabernacle for one of his sermons, all of which were well
publicized in the Times. On Sunday, Jan. 3, he held a meeting "for misses and
women over 13 years of age." What Munhall said there drew this response from
"An Old Maid."
{Times, Jan. 5, 1886, p. 2}
Dr. Munhall Criticised.
To the Editor of the Times--Sir: In Dr. Munhall's
Sunday talk to women he said many excellent things, but
others that needed modification.
The style of woman who carries a dog and ignores her
baby was given too much prominence, especially when seldom,
if ever, seen on the streets of this city.
That American women--some of them--do not take enough
out-of-door exercise is true, but that this is the solo or
even chief cause of ill-health is not true.
Rowing, walking, riding, and out-of-door games are every
day making the girls of this nation physically better than
ever before, and this fact should not be ignored.
English women are stronger and less nervous than
American women, but it is equally true that English men are
stronger and less nervous than American men.
Some women do not teach their daughters to cook, but it
must also be remembered that this is the age of the cooking
school, where rich women of means--and there are as many
sensible women among the rich as among the poor--take their
daughters to the cooking school, attend themselves, and often
pay their servants' tuition at the same place.
Some women read novels, and Scott, Thackeray, Dickens,
Eliot, and others of a like class, are as necessary to a
well-trained mind as history or philosophy.
That American girls are, in any great majority, a silly,
senseless, helpless set of novel-readers cannot be proven.
But the reverse is really shown to be true.
We have hundreds of colleges now open to women, and from
them graduate every year many hundreds of well-trained,
well-balanced, sensible young women. Only last fall, in the
city of Chicago, I saw a young lady--her mother a well-known
physician--who had taken the honors in Greek in a large class
of young men. And she is not a lone exception.
The average is as sensible as her brother, and does
not--I venture the assertion--read silly novels as often as
he does those of the Red-handed Jack variety. I refer now to
young people of the schools.
Women should work at whatever they please, never to the
neglect of the family, of course, unless compelled by
poverty, as many are, to get bread for that family. But no
woman should work simply to help her husband, that is, with a
view to a sacrifice of herself that he may be exalted.
But that may not have been intended.
No respectable work is a disgrace to woman more than to
man, but it is not necessary that a woman do her coarse work
any more than that a merchant sweep his own store.
The rich woman who did her own washing had much better
have hired some poor woman whose daily bread depended on her
labor, and if she had no other work she would have been
better employed making clothes for the same poor woman's
children.
It was said that woman was queen of the house, and yet
they had but just been told, as they doubtless had no money
of their own (at housekeeper's wages they would have a fine
little sum), to take from their husband's money (all his?) to
give to the Young Men's Christian Association, if they could
not get it otherwise.
Think of a woman who could not buy a postage stamp, or
pay a street-car fare!
It is no day to talk of woman as an idle class.
As housekeepers their burdens are legion, and in my by
no means unlimited acquaintance I number women who are
ministers, doctors, lawyers, merchants, editors, bank clerks,
printers, painters, notaries public, bookbinders,
confectioners, milliners, cashiers, census takers, lecturers,
clerks, teachers, and last, but by no means least,
housekeepers or home makers. I have also seen a woman as
docket clerk in the House of Representatives of a certain
State, a women in charge of the State historical rooms, as
county clerk's deputy, and assistant city treasurer.
Others can testify to still more in the same line.
It is no day, either, to covertly sneer at old maids,
even if certain classes are exempt. Florence Nightingale,
Frederika Bremer, Rosa Bonheur, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps,
Louisa Alcott, and a host of others equally famous, are old
maids.
I know one of the humbler class who refused to marry
because her aged father objected, devoting herself to her
parents and a dead sister's children. The father soon died,
the sister's husband recalled the children, and she is an old
maid, supporting, single-handed, herself and infirm mother.
Does she deserve even a laugh at her expense?
And is bad cooking the cause of divorce when the reasons
oftenest given are adultery and habitual drunkenness on the
part of the men?
AN OLD MAID.
D) IMPORTATION OF BRITISH DOMESTIC HELP
Margaret E. Parker, the first president of the British Women's Temperance
Association, was visiting in Southern California in 1887 when the British
community planned a local celebration for Queen Victoria's Jubilee. She
criticized both the composition of the committee arranging the program and
their decision that the main event would be a ball. Expressing her outrage in
a letter to the Times, Parker suggested a worthier form of celebration.
{Times, April 7, 1887, p. 3}
The Queen's Jubilee--A Decision Arrived at by Englishmen.
"Glen Rosa," Pasadena, April 6.--{To the Editor of The
Times.] I learn with grief and indignation that a proposal
to add the names of well-known Los Angeles ladies, engaged in
philanthropic work, has been vetoed by that self-appointed
committee of Englishmen who propose to celebrate a woman's
jubilee. By a vote of six to four this strange resolution
was arrived at. Some of the reasons given I had rather
ignore for the credit of my own countrymen. I am very sure
that if it had been a committee of American men such a
resolution would have been impossible. I would suggest that
another committee be appointed composed of men and women,
with some definite philanthropic object in view, that will be
of lasting benefit to the sex represented by the Queen, and
not for the selfish gratification which a few hours'
amusement at a ball would afford. One beautiful work might
be to endeavor to relieve the overworked and underpaid women
in the Queen's own country, and at the same time relieve the
pressure for household help in California, and especially in
Los Angeles county. There are thousands of educated women in
Britain, skilled in household work, who work for a bare
maintenance, that would be glad to come to this country but
for the cost of transit. They would be an unspeakable
blessing here, where Chinese labor has to be resorted to,
with all its disadvantages of language and habits. I would
suggest that a fund be established to pay their passage, and
a committee appointed in both countries to carry out so
desirable an object.
I am, sir, faithfully yours,
MARGARET E. PARKER.
P. S. I think it only just to one of the minority to
state that on the decision being arrived at he said to the
chair: "It is an insult to the Queen and her sex."
When Parker returned to England later that year she organized an
association for the purpose of transporting women workers to Southern
California. The Times was not enthused about Parker's plan and editorially
noted that the surplus female population of the northeastern states could
easily supply any need for domestic help that California might have.
Furthermore, the editor wrote, "we are better acquainted with the native
article, and we always did like home products."
Readers were divided. Otis ran a supportive letter from "Housekeeper" in
the editorial column, to which George Turner responded with a condemnation of
native female labor. "Mizpah" endorsed the Times' position. By early 1888
three separate detachments of girls and young women dispatched by Parker had
arrived in Southern California.
{Times, Oct. 22, 1887, p. 4}
Give the American Girl a Chance.
Los Angeles, Oct. 21.--[To the Editor of The Times.] I
was glad to see the grounds you took in regard to the
importation of English girls into our town. The average
English girl is neither as apt, well-bred not competent as
the average American girl, and though our native born may be
independent and unruly at times I for one prefer to cope with
those objections rather than with that thick-headed stupidity
of the English girl. I know whereof I speak, having lived in
both countries. Let us be loyal to our own country-women,
and by our aid and example let us make it as respectable for
our American girls to work in a household as in a shop. Then
our trouble will cease, and not till then.
A HOUSEKEEPER.
{Times, Oct. 26, 1887, p. 3}
Conundrums on the Subject of Servant Girlism.
Los Angeles, Oct. 22.--[To the Editor of The Times.]
Noticing a letter in your paper of the 21st on "Give the
American Girls a Chance," I beg leave to ask the following
questions:
First--What has Housekeeper to grumble about?
Second--Has not the American girl had chance enough?
Third--And why has she not taken advantage of it?
If Los Angeles is flooded with foreign importation who
is to blame? "When the thick-headed, stupid English girl,"
as "Housekeeper" calls them, gets more move on them than the
American.
GEORGE TURNER.
{Times, Oct. 30, 1887, p. 3}
American Girls First.
San Jacinto, Oct. 28.--[To the Editor of The Times.] I
note in your last issue of The Times an article relative to
the importation of Scotch domestic labor to this country, a
plan conceived by Mrs. Parker. You voice the sentiment of
the public when you enter protest against foreign female
domestic labor. I'm one of the 60,000 old maids of
Massachusetts; have traveled in nearly every State in the
Union, and nowhere in the country are there greater
opportunities for women and girls than right here in the
State of California. The avenues of industry and distinction
are both open to every woman; better wages and larger
salaries are paid for domestics and professional services
than in any part of our country, and if any are to have the
benefit of these advantages, let it be the women and girls of
our own country; and we echo the sentiments of The Times when
it says "We prefer the home product," for we have among the
home product good cooks, laundresses, dressmakers as well as
teachers, book-keepers, artists and professionals of every
industry, and to the many laboring women of the East, who
wish to better their condition, we give the advice of the
lamented Horace, "Go West and grow up with the country;" and
I might add get a good husband.
MIZPAH.