Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 3.djvu/640

Rh dealt an effective blow in her novel, entitled "Rebecca; or, A Woman's Secret." Jane Grey Swisshelm, with trenchant pen, wrote earnest strictures against the shams of society. Elizabeth Holt Babbitt wrote earnestly for all reform movements. Myra Bradwell persistently held up to the view of the legislators of the State the injustice of the laws for woman. Mrs. Julia Mills Dunn and Mrs. Hannah J. Coffee were doing quiet but most effective work in Henry county. Miss Eliza Bowman was consecrating her young womanhood to the care of the Foundlings' Home. Mrs. Wardner, Mrs. Candee, Mrs. George, and other women in the southern part of the State, were founding the library at Cairo, while in every village and hamlet clubs for study or philanthropic work were being organized. Mrs. Kate N. Doggett, as president of the Association for the advancement of Women, was lending her influence to the formation of art clubs. And all this in addition to the vast army of faithful teachers, represented by Sarah B. Raymond, Professor Louisa Allen Gregory and Mary C. Larned. Mrs. Louise Rockwood Wardner, president of the Illinois Industrial School for Girls, and the noble band of women associated with her, were earnestly at work in the endeavor to secure to the vagrant girls of the State an industrial education. Miss Frances E. Willard and the dauntless army of temperance workers were petitioning for the right to vote on all questions pertaining to the liquor traffic.

Meanwhile many of the members of the Illinois Social Science Association were beginning to realize that every measure proposed for progressive action was thwarted because of woman's inability to crystallize her opinions into law. This has been the uniform experience in every department of reform, and sooner or later all thinking women see plainly that the direct influence secured by political power gives weight and dignity to their words and wishes. Mrs. Jane Graham Jones, ex-president of the State Association, continued her effective work in Europe, and, as a delegate from the National Association, prepared the following address of welcome to the International Congress, convened in Paris, July 5, 1878:

Friends, compatriots, and confrères of the International Congress assembled to discuss the rights of women; Allow me to extend to you the congratulations of the National Woman Suffrage Association of America, which I have the honor to represent. I congratulate you upon this important, this sublime moment, this auspicious place for the meeting of a woman's congress. Paris, gorgeous under the grand monarch who surrounded his royal person with a splendid galaxy of beauty, genius, and chivalry; attractive and influential under the great emperor whose meteoric genius held spell-bound the wondering gaze of a world; to-day, with neither king nor court, nor man of destiny, is grander, more gorgeous, more beautiful and more influential than ever before. To-day this is the shrine toward which the pilgrims from every land turn their impatient steps.

Each balmy breeze comes to us heavily laden with the dialects of all nations. Not only are the different parts represented in their economic and industrial products, but each thought, idea, motive and need is brought before the world in the various congresses assembled during this great union festival of liberty, peace and labor. Literature, science, religion, education, philosophy, and labor, each has had its eloquent advocates. At this time, when the great ones of the earth are met together in earnest thought and honest discussion, when each mind and conscience is attuned to the highest motive, how appropriate that woman, whose labor, wealth and brain have cemented