Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 4.djvu/425

 believe, with Julian Ralph, that the women bicyclists "out-pace their staider sisters in their progress to woman's emancipation."

Clark Howell, the brilliant Georgian, in his recent address before the Independent Club, set people to talking about him, from Niagara Falls in the East to the Garden of the Gods in the West, by his elucidations of "The Man with his Hat in his Hand;" but I propose to show you to-night a greater—the Woman With Her Bonnet Off, who speaks from the platform in a Southern city. You know how the women of the stagnant Orient stick to their veils, coverings for head and face, outward signs of real slavery. The bonnet is the civilized substitute for the Oriental veil, and to take it off is the first manifestation of a woman's resolve to have equal rights, even if all the world laugh and oppose.

In South Carolina the first newspaper article in favor of woman suffrage written by a woman over her own name, was met by the taunt that she had imbibed her views from the women of the North. But this was merely ignorance of history, for the story of woman suffrage in the South really antedates that in New England. The new woman of the new South, who asks for equal rights with her brother man, is in the direct line of succession to that magnificent "colonial dame," Mistress Margaret Brent of Maryland, who asked for a vote in the Colonial Assembly after the death of her kinsman, Lord Baltimore, who had endowed her with powers of attorney. Margaret Brent antedated Abigail Adams by over a century.

Mrs. Annie L. Diggs, State librarian, depicted Municipal Suffrage in Kansas, with the knowledge of one who had been a keen observer and an active participant. Mrs. Abigail Scott Duniway described the work which had been and would be done in the interest of the approaching suffrage amendment campaign in Oregon.

On Tuesday evening Mrs. Mabel Loomis Todd (Mass.), under the head of The Village Beautiful, told what might be accomplished toward the beautifying of towns and cities if the authority and the means were allowed to women. This was followed by a strong, clear business talk from Mrs. A. Emmagene Paul, superintendent of the Street-Cleaning Department of the First Ward, Chicago, who told how "crooked contractors and wily politicians" at first began to cultivate her. They found, however, that they could not shake her determination to make them live up to their contracts; they had agreed to clean the streets, they were receiving pay for that purpose, and she, as an inspector, was there to see that the contracts were lived up to.