USA > Illinois > Cook County > Chicago > The Congress of Women : held in the Woman's building, World's Columbian exposition, Chicago, U.S.A., 1893 : with portraits, biographies and addresses > Part 8
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door the word " Investments." Chicago courts of this year disclosed a most appall- ing state of affairs that women should blush to acknowledge. A firm consisting of four brothers closed their doors one morning, and in the investigation following, this fact was brought out: One of the brothers testified that his duties in the transac- tion of the firm's business was to look up widows and women of means, and by a sys. tem of flattery and attention gain their confidence and a full statement of finances. He claimed a few lunches, a theater party, a ride or other attentions of like nature usu- ally gave him the information desired, and he soon had the management of the woman's property, borrowed her money, and the best account he could give was a memoranda stuck in his vest pocket and afterward destroyed. That women should be such weaklings is a matter of both regret and shame to all the world, and that such a case could be recorded against her good sense and judgment is a great blot upon her.
Very few men would say to their wives or daughters: "Here, take care of the bank or store, or factory; I shall take a trip around the world, and may remain indefinitely. You attend to the affairs and take care of the children's interests." Yet every day we see women thrown in that position, in addition to the grief attendant upon a sudden bereavement. She must take up a work in which she has had no preparation-and too often no knowledge. She must either see her interests ruined or lay aside her grief and begin where, until now, she was not supposed to have ability or comprehension to warrant even her husband's confidence. This very fact has made woman what she is today, and it will make her the rule, not the exception, in business relations of the future.
Women soon discover that the mysteries of business are not as impenetrable as she supposed. The time has come. She must occupy chairs in directors, meetings; must keep informed on the subject of money making, as well as money spending; must know her check book from her bank book; her deposits from overdrafts; divi- dends from assessments of stock, and be willing and ready to vote and lend her ideas in this branch, as she has elsewhere in the world with such good effect.
Insurance formerly offered to man a contract with two conditions, viz .: First. Payment of a certain sum at a stated time until death. Second. Return to the family a specified sum upon proofs of death being satisfactorily given. It now offers to woman more than that. There are no reforms or changes so marked as in the insur- ance world of today and that of the past. Women are now considered equally as good risks, are carried by companies for the limit of their indemnity, and by this investment may have many opportunities never offered before. For instance, a woman may insure her life and have the policy payable to herself at a certain time. That is, she need not die to win. This policy is as negotiable as a government bond, and may be used in business transactions as are other securities. At the expira- tion of a stated time she may have all the money she has invested in this manner returned to her, together with interest on the same for the time, thereby giving her the same advantages of savings banks with greater security than they can afford, or, if she so desires, she may turn the cash value of her policy into an income for life, thereby providing for the old woman a safe and happy old age, without the worries of business details. This last feature of the investment in insurance is a most import- ant one, for with the continuance of life there is for all of us an old woman for whose care and comfort the younger woman is responsible. Charity, no matter how sweet, is yet a bitter dose to the old. None of us can foresee our peculiarities in the future, and we are too well warned by the fate of old women of our acquaintance to neglect our own declining years. A woman owes it as a duty to herself as well as her child- ren to place herself in that position which will make her not a burden upon any. A son-in-law cannot be expected to love and care for the mother-in-law, unless she is a rich one. A daughter should not be expected to add to her own cares that of help- less imbecility of a husband's relative. We will be as unwilling as the most unwilling of our relatives to take that which is given under such circumstances. Do you know,
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that by a small saving each year for a period of ten years a woman may place herself beyond the accident of dependence. This is a much happier future to contemplate than the uncertainty of some one's possible care, whether given grudgingly or not. Insurance for women today provides an estate left, in case of death, a savings bank for her money, and a guaranteed annuity for old age; yet there are women who are sentimental enough to not only deny themselves such a provision, but who will induce husbands to cancel any they may have, and too often live to repent their folly. Let me tell you another story-my stories are all true ones, by the way: A woman of more than ordinary business ability in a western town was approached by a real estate man , who knew of her contemplation of investing a sum of money she had received. He suggested the purchase of a three-thousand-dollar piece of property that was then rented at ten per cent of the value, or three hundred dollars a year; he showed her that by a few repairs needed this property would bring her four hundred and fifty dollars a year, or fifteen per cent of her investment. Fifteen per cent on money invested is always a temptation to man and woman both, and our western woman was not an exception. She purchased the property and the agent then set about the repairs and changes required to secure an advance rent. When the new roof was put on, the sides of the house cried out for paint, and when that was done the fence fell down with shame before the new clothes of the house; and so it went. The house was entirely remodeled; time was lost, as the tenants were compelled to move and new ones must be secured. But they were finally secured, and then came the trials of our woman investor in keeping peace between tenants and agent. She resolved herself into a peace committee and lay awake nights thinking out plans to ameliorate the woes of first one and then the other, all the time paying the agent for services ren- dered in keeping her tenants either moving in the house or out of it. Well, to be brief, she cast up her accounts one day last month, and, during the time, two years, she had made a net profit of one dollar and fifty cents upon her investment. I could give you her name and address that you might verify my statement, but you do not need my case, there are hundreds of your own knowledge that are parallel. Had this woman invested one-tenth of her three thousand dollars in some large and secure insurance company two years ago, the dividends of that company would have been almost forty per cent of her investment, and she need not have added lines of care to her face in the endeavor to keep her money making one dollar and fifty cents in two years, besides providing an income for her future that would not require the services of an agent. A wife has as much need to provide an estate for her children by the means of an investment in some insurance company as has the husband. She ought to have a sum of money to leave her children that they might have the advantages she would have given them had she lived. The husband is more helpless when left alone with the children to rear than a wife; he cannot adapt his hours of bread-win- ning and home-making as can a woman when left alone to face the world. Too often children are scattered or given into the care of unwilling relatives to be cared or uncared for, as the case may be; home ties are broken, affections alienated, ignorance encouraged, and crime often follows the loss of a mother's care or the provision she may have made to complete the plans for her children. Every woman in this great and good republic should insure, for has she not the same right to accumulate a com- petence as has man, and in this branch her rights are equal, her returns as great, and her provisions for self and others just as beneficent as man's. Real estate may decline in value and at best brings but small returns, a failure to pay one deferred payment loses all, if an hour of need comes it is a burden; but insurance is co-operation. If you die your children never needed money more than when death and sickness hampers their grief-stricken efforts; they may draw from the accumulated resources of thou- sands of others a fund carefully secured against loss, says one of the wisest business men of the times. Loan associations have enabled poor women to build a home, they have made her pay for it to be sure, and she has struggled through a term of eight to ten years for this end; had death overtaken her all would have been lost unless she
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carried a policy to cover the mortgage hanging over the home. Without the policy she would have left a debt, an unfinished obligation for those left behind to assume; with a policy the debt is canceled, the home safe, and she has not lived in vain even should she not be able to stand the strain of her duties to those dependent upon her. Did you ever hear of a woman attending the meetings of the directors of a loan asso- ciation and learning anything of its transactions unless she was to become a borrower? I regret that my business has shown me woman's indifference in a matter of so much importance as this of money making. Yet to be truthful I must state facts and urge . it upon all to look into your bank accounts, your investments, the money markets and the provision for your old age. An old woman cannot have too much money. The more disagreeable she is the more she will need that which makes all paths smooth and services rendered lighter by a recompense greater than love can buy or importune. This great branch of business, larger by far than the banking systems combined, opens its doors to woman, making her not only the beneficiary as formerly, but owner of the shares of stock and shares in the profits of the vast amounts invested for her future needs. Her age and sex cut no figure here; she is from the insurance point of view equal to man in all things.
MRS. ALICE WILLIAMS BROTHERTON.
THE FEAST OF COLUMBIA. 1493-1893.
By MRS. ALICE WILLIAMS BROTHERTON.
"Hither," Columbia said, With a smile to her daughters four,
"From prairie and gulf and sea Come hither and toil with me. 'Ere the century turns from our door, Let us set a feast for the ancient East Upon the New World's shore."
From the rising sun came one,
A sturdy colonial dame, With a rugged, cheery face, Tanned by the wind and sun, And a stately, old-time air, Dark eyes with courage aflame Under her powdered hair.
Of cloth from the whirring looms,
Woven so soft and fine, Deftly she spread a snowy webb; Said, "Here is a gift of mine. But many another thing To grace your halls I bring,
Marbles, polished and varied and rare, And granites strong and good;
Fish from my sea beat coasts, Masts from my tall pine wood, Yet something better than these I boast, This ancient blade with the battle nicks. Lo! here is a pen, And the musty parchment deed; Framed in our hour of need By stalwart, single hearted men In Seventeen and Seventy-Six."
And the people of the land, From the oldest to the least Cried, "Hail to the steadfast band Who saved for us Freedom's land: Hurrah, Hurrah! Once and again, Hail to the Mother of Men! Hail to the East!"
Mrs. Alice Williams Brotherton is a native of Cambridge, Ind., but has passed nearly all of her life in Ohio. Her parents were Ruth Dodge Johnson Williams and Alfred Baldwin Williams, of Cincinnati, Ohio. She was educated in various private schools, in the St. Louis Eliot Grammar School, and in the Woodward High School, of Cincinnati. She married Mr. William Ernest Brotherton, of Cincinnati. She is the mother of two boys and one girl; the eldest son died in 1890. Her principal literary works are contributions in prose and verse to such periodicals as The Century, The Atlantic, The Independent, and "Beyond the Veil," "The Sailing of King Olaf," and other poems, and "What the Wind Told," in prose and verse. In religious faith she is a Unitarian of the non-conservative type. Her postoffice address is Ridgeway Avenue, Avon- dale, Cincinnati, Ohio.
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THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.
Out of the North one paced With a stately step and slow, As one whose going crushed The crispness of the snow.
"I bring my flour for the feast From the thousand mills you know, The tasseled ears are torn From my serried ranks of corn. Take them and eat The loaves of the finest wheat.
Here are copper and lead and iron, Whose bands already environ The world, and lumber to frame
The walls of the home,
The home that redeems the waste,
In whose keeping all life is placed. With these and more I come;
Take ye these at their worth,
These, my gifts," said the North.
And the people shouted, and said, "Hail to the Queen of the Lakes, From whom the nation takes Grateful, its daily bread! Hail to the North! Once more- To her million beds of ore! To the lumber on her shore! And the wheat she sendeth forth The whole world o'er! Hail to the North!"
And one from the sunset came, With steps as a panther's frec, And dusky cheek aflamc. "I am the child of the Western wild, And bring my gifts to thee.
Red meat I give you here From the bison and the deer, Herds on a thousand hills Where the sunset shines Are yours for the feast," said the West.
"But take with these my best Silver and gold from the mine; And a strange new story to read Of an old world in the new, Over canyon written, and mead, Story the Aztecs knew. Of the great new states to be The years shall write for me. Oh, the old is good," quoth she; "But who shall call it the best ? Take the best of my gifts from me," Said the mighty West.
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Then the land rose up with a shout, "Hail to the Westering Star That leads our conquests afar, Most welcome, oh noble guest! Hail to the Prairie Queen With the eagle's plumes for a crest, Pearls of the gulf in her hand And rails of steel for a girdle band!" Where the moccasined foot has pressed The coming millions shall stand. Hail to the West!
Who comes up from the South With a smile on her full round mouth, But trace of a tear in her eye? Who says, twixt smile and sigh, (Oh sweet as her own south wind her words) "These my offerings be, look. The ploughshare beaten from sword, The spear made pruning-hook, And the fruits of my pruned vine Today are thine.
Take what my tillage yields- The cotton-boll from my fields, Tobacco leaf and cane,
And snowy rice from the brakes Where the balmy east wind wakes And the noontides reign. My wealth of flowers fair To grace the feast I bear, And a tropical fruitage rare: Oranges ripe-a mimic sun Molded in gold is every one; Bananas that melt in the mouth, Lemons sweetened with sun- Take ye these, all and one My gifts," said the South.
And the people of the land Cried, "This is the harvest fair After the years of drought, And the rain of blood and tears. No land so fruitful appears, And her wheat shall know no tares!" And her sisters pressed anear And they kissed her on the mouth, And the nation shouted and cried:
"Hail to the South in her glad new pride Hail to the South!"
Smiled the Great Mother, and said, "Peace. The old issues are dead, And the wars are over and done. In one sky glitter afar Southern Cross-Northern Star.
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We know from rise to set of sun No North or South, no West or East, No first or last, no best or least, For the many in one are one."
"Come," Columbia said To the nations of the earth,
"See what the rolling years Have wrought in the land of my birth. See what the brain has thought, And the busy hand has wrought. We have gathered from every side All that we hold of worth; Come ye, and see," Columbia cried To the nations of the earth.
"Where the savage war-whoop rang, And the red men hunted the deer, The hammers of labor briskly clang And the city's streets appear. Man from Nature has won the land, And held it this many a year. Where art has pointed the way, And industry wrought with the hand, Come sit at the feast with me today In the center of my land."
"Come," said the world of the West To the great world of the East,
"Join hands across the sca In token of amity.
'Ere the century is done Let us sit down and feast; In all lands shineth one sun, And the world is one."
THE WOMAN'S NATIONAL INDIAN ASSOCIATION.
By MRS. AMELIA S. QUINTON.
The story of the Woman's National Indian Association is, like that of similar movements, largely a personal story. The work had its rise in individual interest in Indians, and this, communicated to and shared by others, originated a philanthropy now of national pro- portions. The motives were Christian, and the in- spiration had its birth from the missionary spirit. The history of the Association, therefore, as is natural, is largely a history of missionary activity. Even the first movement, though for five years wholly devoted to gaining political rights for Indians, was as truly from the missionary spirit as was afterward the plant- ing missions in the tribes. In the present brief out- line of the work reference must be made to the above points; to the condition of things among Indians at that date-the spring of 1879-the home circum- stances of the people aided, their character as then seen, the results of the labors of the Association, and to the important work still remaining to be done.
And first a personal reference. A devoted Chris- tian educator in Philadelphia became specially inter- ested in the Indian race through references in the daily press, related the facts observed therein to a friend, and these two secured the interest of others; MRS. AMELIA S. QUINTON. an organization was proposed by the friend referred to, and effected after two years of preparatory work which was planned, provided for, and done chiefly by these two. It was seeing "the need" which moved the "com- passion," and the kindred impulse to "go tell" naturally followed. Christians were believed to be millennium bringers by the application of practical righteousness to specific needs, and this "faith justified" itself by the events which were its sequel.
The appeal of the association for united effort to move our government to grant a legal status to Indians, the protection of law, lands in severalty, and education; appeal was made to the Christian press and ministry, to ecclesiastical bodies and to patriots, and soon sixteen states were included in work to these ends. The first appeal was for covenant-keeping with tribes to which solemn pledges had been given, and that no treaty should be abrogated or broken without the free consent of the Indian tribe named in it. It was of this association's service that Senator Dawes, chairman of the Senate Indian Committee, said: "The new government Indian policy was born of and nursed by this woman's association," and it was his own Severalty Bill which became the law of the land in March, 1887, that granted to the Indians of the United States the rights and privileges asked in the petitions of the association.
Mrs. Amelia S. Quinton was born near Syracuse, N. Y. Her parents were Jacob Thompson Stone and Mary Bennett Stone. She was educated in Homer, N. Y., under the tuition of Samuel B. Woolworth, L L. D. She has traveled in every state and territory of the United States but three, and has made several trips to Europe. She is a woman of large experience and much culture, and most gracious manners. She married Rev. James F. Swanson and resided in Georgia several years, and after her widowhood married in London, England, Richard Quinton, A. M. Her special work has been for our North American Indians, in whose interests she organized the Woman's National Indian Association, and has been its president for the last six years. She has for many years prepared the literature of that Association and edited its paper. Mrs. Quinton is a Christian, and a member of the Baptist church. Her postoffice address is 1823 Arch Street, Philadelphia, Pa.
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When it became evident that this great reform would be a success, the attention of the association was given to missionary work, to home building, hospital, educational and other work needed among the Indians on the reservations, and soon ten depart- ments of practical work were shared by interested helpers in nearly all the states of the Union, and with encouraging success. During the last nine years, since these lines" of effort were undertaken, the society has established directly or indirectly thirty-three mission stations, transferring these to permanent missionary societies when well established, giving with the mission its land, mission cottage, chapel, and all its prop- erty and improvements. The association has given special education to bright Indians, training them as physicians, nurses, teachers and missionaries to help and lead their people. It has built houses by loans, placing thus about a hundred Indians in civilized and Christian homes, and the loans are being honestly repaid. It has hos- pital, library and industrial departments, and has built twelve missionary cottages, chapels and schoolhouses. During its last year it expended $28,000 sending goods to tribes in special need to the amount of $3,000.
A glance at the oppressions of Indians at the beginning of this work shows them to have been practically without legal rights. They were subject to enforced removals from their own land; they were constantly robbed by marauders and ruffian frontiers- men; they were under agents possessing despotic power, who could forbid trade among them, could suspend their chiefs, and arrest or drive from the reservation any unwel- come visitor. The Indians were not permitted to sell the natural products of the soil even when in a starving condition. They might be banished to reservations where farming was impossible though farming was required, and yet under such conditions were sometimes deprived of arms and ammunition for hunting, their only source of subsistence. Our nation practically prohibited all lines of work natural to the Indian, and then falsified its promises to furnish him means for farming. Today, by the suc- cess of the movement inaugurated under Divine Providence by the Women's National Indian Association, the Indian is lifted out of his old helplessness into the status of a man and citizen under law, is given the privilege of education, and his home and family can now be protected from ruffians and criminals.
In the old days, as a rule, the Indian home was a tepee or tent, a wickyup, hogan, bark campooda or dug-out, destitute of furniture and with no garden. field, meadow, wells, improvements, or domestic animals. Today there are thousands of comfortable homes, built of planks, logs, or better materials; many in different places are really tasteful and complete homes, and these are now surrounded with gardens, fields, orchards and other features of civilization, all constituting a wide beginning of the better era which has really dawned for the Indian race. Nor is the change in Indian charac- ter less marked. Under the old order of things the better human impulses were hindered or throttled; manhood and womanhood were humiliated and degraded, and many a character noble by nature, and many a mind finely endowed was stultified into utter helplessness and inaction by tyrannous conditions and the inescapable bondage of the reservation system, the sum of all oppression. Today the Indian, man or woman, who is conscious of the possession of character, the impulse to action felt by ability, the aspiration of power, physical or mental, has freedom to go where he will and make his own life; while he who desires education, development, culture-and there are not a few of these in the many tribes-can find his opportunity, his work, and his reward. Indian women are at last free to express the best that is in them, to embody in deeds the noblest instincts of maternity, and bravely to ask for their chil- dren the protections and privileges which have so lately come to themselves.
The results of the great change for the race are surprising when one considers the time involved. Gradually the way was preparing by Providence, and even under the reservation-government civilized industry had a beginning; but the great facts of progress are due to the changes of the last few years. One cannot but be surprised that already more than twenty-four thousand families are engaged in agriculture; that there is provision now made for three-quarters of the Indian children of school
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age; that there are at least twenty-five thousand real Indian citizens of the United States; that the seventy-one military posts formerly set to control them are reduced to ten; and that of the two hundred and fifty thousand Indians of the country two hundred thousand are already self-supporting. The efficiency and excellence of the work done for and by the Indians in the schools has surprised the whole country, and one need but look over the well certified reports of these schools to see that their results compare well with those of schools for any race under like conditions. Those who have visited the schools operating for one month each within these exposition grounds need no added testimony to the natural ability of the Indian, or to his will- ingness to work when the usual motives of civilization are permitted him. Did time permit, many interesting illustrations might be given of the success of well-endowed Indian young men and women who have in a few years obtained a good elementary English education; of others who have graduated from colleges and institutions for special professional education; of some who have been trained by our own associa- tion as physicians and nurses, or been aided in the study of law, and even of art.
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