Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 1.djvu/878

844 Convention, a failure, notwithstanding it will abound in righteous demands and noble sentiments." So thinks Mr. Smith. Has any Woman's Rights Convention been a failure? No movement so radical, striking so boldly at the foundation of all social and political order, has ever come before the people, or ever so rapidly and widely diffused its doctrine. The reports of our conventions have traveled wherever newspapers are read, causing discussion for and against, and these discussions have elicited truth, and aroused public thought to the evils growing out of woman's position. New trades and callings are opening to us; in every town and village may be found advocates for the equality of privilege under the law, for every thinking, reasoning human soul. Shall we talk of failure, because forty, twenty, or seven years have not perfected all things? When intemperance shall have passed away, and the four million chattel slaves shall sing songs of freedom; when woman shall be recognized as man's equal, socially, legally, and politically, there will yet be reforms and reformers, and men who will despair and look upon one branch of the reform as the great battle-ground, and talk of the failure of the eternal law of progress. Still there will be stout hearts and willing hands to work on, honestly believing that truth and right are sustained by no single point, and their watchword will be "Onward!" We can not fail, for our cause is just.

Dec. 24, 1855..

The names of those who wore the Bloomer costume at that early day are: Elizabeth Smith Miller, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Amelia Bloomer, Sarah and Angelina Grimké, Mrs. William Burleigh, Charlotte Beebe Wilbour, Lucy Stone, Susan B. Anthony, Helen Jarvis, Lydia Sayre Hasbrook, Amelia Williard, Celia Burleigh, Harriet N. Austin, Lydia Jenkins, and many patients at sanitariums, many farmers' wives, and many young ladies for skating and gymnastic exercises.

Looking back to this experiment, we are not surprised at the hostility of men in general to the dress, as it made it very uncomfortable for them to go anywhere with those who wore it. People would stare; some men and women make rude remarks; boys follow in crowds, or shout from behind fences, so that the gentleman in attendance felt it his duty to resent the insult by showing fight, unless he had sufficient self-control to pursue the even tenor of his way without taking the slightest notice of the commotion his companion was creating. No man went through the ordeal with the coolness and dogged determination of Charles Dudley Miller, escorting his wife and cousin on long journeyings, at fashionable resorts, in New York and Washington, to the vexation of all his gentleman friends and acquaintances.

To the Editor of the Nonpareil:

Jane Grey Swisshelm thinks it is dare-devil independence that is ruining the women of this country. — Nonpareil.

And what woman of them all has shown so much "dare-devil independence "as Jane G. Swisshelm? One of the first women to wield the pen-editorial thirty years ago, she was 60 independent and fearless as to excite the wonder of her readers. The first woman admitted to the reporters' gallery in the Capitol of the nation, she astonished and shocked the country by her attacks upon Daniel Webster and other prominent senators at that day, and was expelled from the gallery for her "dare-devil independence,'? While publishing a paper, at St: Cloud, she was so outspoken and offensive in her personalities, that her press and type were destroyed by indignant politicians. After the war she obtained an office in one of the departments at Washington, and started a paper called the Reconstructionist in that city. For her "dare-devil independence" as a writer in attacking President Johnson and charging that he had part in the assassination of President Lincoln, she was relieved of her office and her press destroyed.

And so in whatever she has part; to whatever she sets her hand, she ever displays a reckless independence that is truly a marvel to those who watch her uncertain course. She fearlessly attacks both friend and foe, if they go contrary to her views of right; and both people and measures that to-day have her countenance and approval, are liable tomorrow to receive an unmerciful lashing from her pen. No woman has set an example