USA > Ohio > The Western Reserve of Ohio and some of its pioneers, places and women's clubs, Vol. II > Part 36
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It is not Utopian, it is possible; the end may not be at- tained for a hundred years or a thousand, but it will come as surely as the world moves.
Take for a moment a broad view of our situation in this respect. Nearly one-half of our people are dying before the age of twenty-one, almost all of disease curable or preventable did we but know how. This goes on with our standing army of physicians 100,000 strong on duty day and night.
It looks discouraging, and an eminent physician has him- self said, that a doctor is like a man blindfolded striking out with a club, almost as likely to hit his patients as the disease.
Our only hope must therefore lie in more knowledge of the laws which govern living nature. Without this as well attempt to stay the storm and tides of the ocean with straw as the cur- rents of disease and the course of nature with doctors.
If we could get before unprejudiced, thoughtful people, some idea of the magnitude and scope of medicine and its im- portance to human and all animal life, together with some faint conception of the moral forces impelling to the pursuit of those sciences which underlie medicine, in the light of these ideas the vivisection questions would wholly disappear.
And then Assistant Professor Flodge goes on at greater length to prove the utility of vivisection, by argument, by the professed experience of surgical scientists, by statistics all of
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which ring with sound logic, until are turned the leaves of an- other book, over which is shed a different light, and which sug- gests that something more than a casual careless glance be be- stowed on the other side of the question. I will now present the other side of the question.
In a little brochure entitled the "Controversy in a Nut- shell," Frances Power Cobb, after citing the evidence of the useless sacrifice of a countless number of victims (but you will much mistake me if you think that I desire to rest our cause on the failure of physiologists), I refuse to entertain the ques- tion whether the benefits derived from vivisection, be they great or be they small, make the practice right; and this is the only question wherewith moral beings are truly concerned. Its advocates say "it is necessary." I think that every crime in history has been said to have been necessary, and that some good to somebody may be shown to have been derived there- from. Bonner and Gardner and Torquemada found it "neces- sary" for the religious safety of mankind to burn Protestants and Jews, and the best men in the land, two or three centuries ago, like Sir Thomas Moore and Matthew Hale, found it neces- sary to use the rack and thumb screws in the interests of pub- lic justice.
After all, our bodies are destined to perish, sooner or later, and the relief or help, which at its best, science can ever afford them is a very small matter. There is a greater interest even than the sanitary interest of which we make so much in these days, it is the interest of the heart and souls of men. We have been slowly learning through all the Christian ages that the glory above all glories is self-sacrificing and the readiness of the strong to serve the weak; are we going to unlearn that holy lesson and begin to set aside every consideration save that of
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our own selfish interests? Shall we adopt a new set of beati- tudes from the gospel of science? Blessed are the strong for they shall do as they will; Blessed are the selfish for they shall inherit the earth; Blessed are the cruel for they shall find out how to cure their diseases. Not so surely, if suffering there must be, let us bear it manfully, doing what is lawful to allevi- ate it, but seeking no relief from foul and base means. Hu- manity, courage, unselfishness and mercy in our own hearts, in the hearts of our countrymen, in our streets, our schools, our hospitals, these things are more precious a million fold than the very elixir of immortality itself, were our vivisectors des- tined to find it for us, in the entrails and brains of God's mis- used and tortured creatures.
The following from the pen of the late Dr. Owen of Wis- ter, Philadelphia, Pa .: With many of the great discoveries claimed for it, vivisection has had nothing whatever to do, let us say the circulation of the blood. Harvey did not so much discover the circulation as think it out, and when he endeavored to prove his theory by vivisection, he failed and only muddled himself.
The truth is, the circulation can be demonstrated on the dead body, and cannot be shown on the living at all; the capil- lary circulation which Harvey never did know anything about, but which was discovered by an Italian years afterwards, can be shown by the microscope in the web of a living frog's foot at any time, without pain or injury to the animal. While vivi- section has led practitioners into many errors, it has also led them away from other methods of investigation, the results of which are far less delusive-the microscope, post-morten exam- inations, organic chemistry and above all, observation and thought.
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The late Professor James E. Garretson, M. D. (the late) Senior Professor of Surgery, Medico-Chirurgical College, Philadelphia,
"I am without words to express my horror of vivisection, though I have been a teacher of anatomy and surgery for thirty years. It serves no purpose that is not better served after other manner."
MRS. SHERWOOD, TOLEDO.
At an adjourned meeting of the Ohio Centennial Associa- tion, Mrs. Sherwood presented the following appeal :
To the Sons and Daughters of Ohio and the Northwest Terri- tory :
The Ohio Centennial Association, organized to promote the educational interests of the Ohio Centennial Exposition, 1902, send you greeting. We invite your co-operation, in helping us to make the first Centennial celebration of the admission of Ohio into the Union, memorable in the history of such historical events. Our purposes are to unite the men and women of Ohic and other states, former from the Northwest Territory-Michi- gan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota-in an effort to place Centennial programs in every school, club, association and organization, that we may widen our knowledge of the events of the fruitful century passing away. Also to unite in raising a fund for the erection of a Monumental Building on the Exposition grounds, consecrated to history and the fine arts, and dedicated to the memory of the men and women whose achievements have been unequaled in the history of the human race.
We also invite the co-operation of the Colonial states which founded pioneer setttlements in Ohio, or furnished troops in
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The Western Reserve of Ohio and Some of
the war which wrested the Northwest Territory from foreign domination and a savage foe; also of the states of the Great West, to the founding of which Ohio brawn and brain have contributed so much. We invite the formation of divisions from states and counties; and branches from cities and towns, and state and national organizations. We invite contributions from individuals, in sums great or small. All names of donors will be preserved for record in the Monumental Building, and the sums received will be added to the funds provided by the state, the building to be erected to be under the care of the state.
Especially do we call upon Buckeyes everywhere to lend a helping hand, whether they be in the service of the national or state government; leading vast public enterprises in our great cities, guiding the affairs of states, or powerful organizations; drawing the treasure from the heart of the Rockies or the icy grip of the Klondike; making the arid plains blossom as a rose, or following the flag through the jungles of the tropics; running the presses of the continent, or shaping the policies of men and nations; in the editorial sanctum, the printing office, the pulpit, in our schools, colleges and universities. We call upon the men and women of Ohio in the professions, education, art, literature, music; in benevolent, philanthropic, civic and labor organiza- tions; in shops, stores, mines, or factories; on the farms or on the high seas; in the army, the navy, the marine service; in every avocation or industry of life. We call upon men and women of all colors, all nationalities, all creeds, and of none; upon all who are uniting to make and keep our state and cour- try great.
Ohio, the first fruits of the Ordinance of 1787, which guar- anteed liberty throughout the great Northwest and founded free schools within our western borders; which made success- ful statehood in a hostile wild; which gave the Republic one- tenth of all the soldiers enlisted for the preservation of the
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Union, and which rallied her volunteers as effectively to free Cuba; which is foremost in science, invention, literature, art, mining, manufacturing and industries; should command the best offering her sons and daughters have to give. We would particularly invite the children of the public, parochial and private schools, the Sunday schools, and benevolent schools, un- der the care of the state and counties, to contribute their part. We want every man, woman and child, Ohio born or of Ohio parentage, wherever found, at home or abroad, from the At- lantic to the Pacific, the wide world over, to have a part in the grand structure to be erected on the Exposition grounds, at Bayview Park, on the borders of Lake Erie, within the boun- daries memorable alike for victories on land and water, in the development of Ohio and the great Northwest.
For information address the Secretary of the Ohio Cen- tennial Association. Donations and contributions may be for- warded to the Treasurer, who is under bonds for the faithful discharge of his duties. Every one contributing the sum of twenty-five cents, or upwards, will receive the Ohio Centennial emblem free. This emblem will be a pin in the form of a circle with rims of red, white and blue; in the center a buckeye clus- ter, while on the white rim will be the words, "I am a Buckeye" and O. C. A., 1902.
KATE BROWNLEE SHERWOOD, President.
ELIZABETH MANSFIELD IRVING, D. J. O'HARA,
Vice-Presidents.
EMMA SIBLEY PEASE, Secretary. GEORGE B. ORWIG, Corresponding Secretary. A. E. LAWRENCE,
Treasurer.
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Honorary patrons-
Hon. Asa S. Bushnell, Governor of Ohio.
Mrs. Asa S. Bushnell.
Col. and Mrs. Kilbourne.
Hon. John F. Kumler, Vice-President Ohio Centennial Commission.
Mrs. John F. Kumler.
Mr. C. M. Spitzer, President Ohio Centennial Company. Mrs. C. M. Spitzer.
Civilization advances at rapid strides these closing years of the Nineteenth Century. And although associations are nu- merous and steadily increasing, covering every field of social and intellectual activity, yet there is none of more vital im- portance than the International Health Protective Association, or destined to attain to greater usefulness. A sound mind is dependent upon a sound body, and physical soundness must be the underlying support of sustained effort of brain or spirit.
The march of civilization is marked not only by schools, hospitals, sanitariums and gymnasiums, but by sewered streets, clean alleys; airy, ventilated houses; pure water and hygienic kitchens. The building of good roads, which includes drainage and the subjugation of destructive forces, are the advance agents of civilization, and this has been true from the time Caesar crossed the Rubicon and his legions constructed high-' ways through the swamps of Britain to complete the conquest of the Scots and Picts. Education cannot reach its best re- sults until our farmers shall have been provided with macadam- ized roads to bring the lecture platform, the art studio and the
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cooking school within easy reach of their sons and daughters. We want clean streets and alleys, as well as clean houses and schools. The Japanese are wiser than we, in that they require the whole population to enlist in health protective service. The latest order for cleaning up was enforced in a way to remem- ber, since the village which refuses to carry out sanitary or- ders is burned down and the population removed to a clean spot to try it over again.
Science has triumphed over dogmatic theology in showing that plagues and epidemics are not scourges of God, but the result of broken health laws, inflexible as Deity itself. A knowledge of these laws and their enforcement, imperfect as it is, has laid an embargo on sweeping epidemics, increased the average of human life, reduced crime and contributed to the sum of human happiness in a measure beyond estimate. Any movement that retards such knowledge, every agency for its practical application, is in the nature of a public benefaction.
Ohio, in 1902, will celebrate the first centennial anniversary of the admission of the state into the Union, in a vast expo- sition, to be held near Toledo, on the western border of Lake Erie. Ohio, the first fruit of the ordinance of 1787, which made the great Northwest Territory sacred to liberty and the founder of free schools, has many proud achievements to chron- icle in war and peace, in science, art and the industrial pur- suits, in manual training and domestic science. The exposition of 1902 will be a living exhibition of all these. Dead exhibits are not enough, however vast and wonderful they may be. There will be a living school, with all its eleven grades from the kindergarten to manual training, including domestic science. There will be a living hospital, with trained nurses plying their
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vocation. There will be a living nursery, for the care of little ones through all the approved appliances. There will be hy- gienic kitchens, with forces at work, for the preparation of foods through healthful chemical combinations. There will be departments of sanitation, with the most approved habits, in a building especially devoted to the purpose. Whatever makes for the new education and the conservation of better methods for the promotion and preservation of human life will be among the exhibits. It is fitting that the Health Protective Association have an important part, and to this end we invite your interest and co-operation from now until the Exposition closes. We invite you to the Centennial city to hold your an- nual meeting of 1902, believing that such a meeting would be profitable to all concerned and that it will help to fix public at- tention upon the value and necessity of healthier homes and better food, cleaner exteriors as well as interiors. Human race culture, on the physical side, is the imperative need of the hour. Then, in natural sequence, will follow the intellectual and spiritual culture, for which the best minds of all ages have vainly striven, through squalor, filth and degradation.
Welcome to the International Health Protective Associa- tion and may it number its hundreds of thousands of practical works before the Ohio Exposition of 1902.
KATE BROWNLEE SHERWOOD.
MRS. LUTHER M. OVIATT WIFE OF THE FIRST LIBRARIAN OF CLEVELAND
MRS. S. P. CHURCHILL
MRS. E. S. WEBB
MRS. W. G. ROSE
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THE PAN-AMERICAN MEETING
June 26-27, 1900
PROGRAM
Mrs. W. G. Rose, National President
National Health Protective League, June 26th, 3 p. m., Assem- bly Room, Administration building.
Invocation-Rev. O. P. Gifford, D.D., Delaware Avenue Baptist Church, Buffalo, N. Y.
Address of Welcome-Mrs. Adelbert Moot, Chairman of Clubs and Organizations of Pan-American Exposition, Buffalo.
Response-Mrs. E. H. Osgood, President National Health Pro- tective League, Portland, Me.
Vacation Schools and Playgrounds, Mrs. M. B. Schwab, Vice- President Fresh Air Camp, Cleveland, O.
Junior Auxiliary, H. P. L., Mrs. Grace D. L. Pearson, Chair- man, California.
Read by Mrs. T. D. Crocker, Corresponding Secretary.
The Family Physician Should be Employed at a Stated Salary, Dr. Martha Canfield, Cleveland, O.
Cremation, a Sanitary Necessity, Mrs. Julia M. Stapleford, Fort Wayne, Ind. Cremation versus cemeteries.
Pan-American Session of the Cleveland Health Protective As- sociation, June 27th, 3 p. m., Assembly room, Ohio building. Invocation-Mrs. G. T. Foote, Cleveland, O.
Address, "Personal Responsibility"-Mrs. W. G. Rose, Presi- dent Cleveland Health Protective Association, Cleveland, O.
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The Western Reserve of Ohio and Some of
Wage Earners, Mrs. S. M. Perkins, Editor of True Republic, Cleveland, O.
Gov. Pingree's Methods, Mrs. Jane Elliott Snow, Journalist, Cleveland, O.
Vaccination and Anti-Vaccination, Mrs. Frances E. Shipherd, Cleveland, O.
Modern Methods in Sabbath School Work, Miss Elizabeth Clifford, Prof. Latin, High School, Cleveland, O.
American Women of the Past and Present, Mrs. H. G. Boone, Auditor C. H. P. A., Cleveland, O.
Aims and Results of the Cleveland Health Protective Associa- tion, Mrs. Stephen Buhrer, Secretary, Cleveland, O.
Steam Heat From Central Stations Conducive to Health and Smoke Abatement, I. H. Babcock, President American Steam Heat Company, Lockport, N. Y.
Women's Clubs a Factor in Civic Reform, Mrs. S. P. Churchill, President of Cleveland Sorosis, Cleveland, O.
Tenement Houses, Mrs. J. T. Foote, President of the Civic Club, Cleveland, O.
Clean Streets, Mrs. M. H. Barrett, 1190 Euclid Ave., Cleveland, O. (Not read, no time.)
The Mission of Flowers, Mrs. E. W. Doan, 2102 Euclid Ave., Cleveland, O.
The Future Work of the League, Mrs. E. H. Osgood, Portland, Me.
Election of Officers.
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In this second volume the origin of some of the clubs has been written and the impulse given by a national convention.
Cleveland has some playgrounds but it has none for indoors in winter as in St. Clair, nor has it yet adopted the rule of Toledo, O., that weeds must be cut down before the seed is ripe, and the cost placed on the taxes of the lot. Cleveland has a garbage plant which yields a revenue from its grease used to make soap and the balance as a help to a fertilizer we have yet to get. Fruit trees planted by railroads or in vacant lots as in Germany from Weisbaden to Berlin, or nut trees by railroads from Berlin to Dresden. When women vote we may have more laws conducive to children's comfort.
MRS. W. G. ROSE.
PETITION
To the Honorable Senate and Assembly of the State of Ohio, in Legislature assembled :
The undersigned, your petitioners, respectfully represent, That the "Bill to promote the health, thrift and future citizen- ship of the most needy children of the State of Ohio," now pending in the Legislature, is the result of much careful ob- servation of the deplorable condition of many poor children in the cities and villages of Ohio, especially those in which the proportion of immigrants is unusually large.
If women are taxed as citizens, they should have a voice in the expenditure of these taxes.
We ask that the Committee be appointed by the Governor or City Council and for the time of their administration.
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The Western Reserve of Ohio and Some of
Senate Committee on Taxation
In presenting this petition we wish to call especial atten- tion to the large and increasing population of Foreigners who crowd our tenements and have neither gardens nor yards. The children are prohibited playing in the streets, to play they must wander many miles into the city parks uncared for and amidst many temptations.
A great deal of valuable time is thus wasted that might be used in learning arts and crafts that would be of use in after life.
Children love to be busy, and if properly taught how to make things would be genuinely happy. The Kindergarten has shown us this fact. Parents are made happy too, for they wish to see their children make progress in anything useful. They remember the trade schools of Europe and deplore the lack of them in this country. France paid off her Franco-Prussian war debt in a decade with the products of her trade schools.
The forenoon of their National schools was devoted to text- books, and the afternoon to trades. The first year the child was taught various trades, and when his aptitude was discov- ered, he followed some one in particular, and in three more years he would master it.
This manual training could be given in the same rooms now occupied by study, and on Saturdays; or a factory, costing but little, could be built in the school yard. These articles should be made to sell, either to the parent or the child for the price of the raw material, or in a school store. Simplicity in construction is now the rule, as ornate work gives a place for dust and germs. The homes of the poor, now made dingy by old-fashioned and vermin-eaten furniture would thus be re- placed by good, plain, healthy articles. In the criticism that a
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manual training school store would conflict with outside labor, let us remember these pupils are the children of the laborer and it is only blessing his own home.
We speak of clean streets because we see in it work for the elder boy, the one just out of school, but not yet established in any regular business, he needs to form industrious habits and regular hours of labor. Electric motors could be run over the streets in the early morning, and blocks of streets given to the boys to be kept clean as is done in New York.
The dust from city streets is very deleterious to young chil- dren or to fruits exposed for sale, and although laws have been passed that the sweepings of a store should not remain in the gutter, under a fine of $50.00, it is done constantly. These boys would be good detectives and would aid in municipal house- keeping and they would enforce the law when they become tax- payers and voters.
If we had inspectors to report why so many were in our Juvenile Court, it would be from lack of care and employment.
I have given you a condensed report from the various states, of the General Federation of Women's Clubs, whose membership is 221,763-all working for good citizenship. In her President's address she says : "Good government can only come out of good citizenship, and it will come in this way as surely as water makes its level."
The Legislature has appropriated for 1904 a million and a half dollars for the maintainance of the state hospitals and epileptics, and to education $282,000.00. The state of Ohio is a small proportion of the surface of the United States. The government of the State is to promote the intelligence and wel- fare of its people. Without your care the masses are helpless.
If taxes are principally expended in the care of lunatics,
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epileptics, penitentiaries, jails and reform schools and not in good roads that benefit every householder along its highway, for he helps to build it as did the Welland Canal in Canada, and the good roads in Union County, Ohio; or in good canals, which give water privileges to towns in the interior of the State, we go back to Feudalism, where the money was in the hands of a few and the rest of the people were serfs or labor- ers subject to the prices of those who employ them.
The public schools of America have cultivated the genius of the individual and therefore we have now the steam engine, the telegraph, the telephone, sewing machine, the reaper, the mower, and the aluminum utensils of light weight and durable. This activity should last more than a century. We must not lend ourselves to greed and grant franchises to the few, leav- ing the great industrial classes without work and unprotected.
A statesman has said: "The nation should provide work and by it give food and clothing to the people-also education for all the children, fresh air and reasonable hours of work. All other things will adjust themselves."
Our wisest statesmen had much attention given to them in their childhood, for example, Thomas Jefferson, who wrote the Constitution of the United States; Washington, Napoleon, Columbus, and others of whom you know of.
In all things let the women and children help, thereby educating them in habits of thrift. For example we had in Cleveland at our playgrounds talks on Saturday and Monday at two and four p. m. by twelve different ladies. Illustrated Wild Flowers, Native Birds, Use of Microscope, Shells, Blue- stone, Herbariums, Pressed Leaves, The U. S. Flag, Sewing for Dolls and Buttonhole Making, Gymnastics, Embroidery, Bible
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Heroes, Travels in Holy Land, Travels in Europe, Missions of India, Noted Poets of America, Indian Basket Making.
In Buffalo they have wading pools for girls and boys, 129x60 feet, and a constant current of water passing through it. It had a curb of stone. Many children were wading in it when we were there to the Annual Meeting of The Outdoor Art Association.
Nothing so soon makes one sick as home sickness and idle- ness. Let the women have some of your tax money and see how much good cheer they could bring into the lives and homes of the children of the poor whom they are now trying to help in a very meager and beggarly way. Let us see if they cannot re- duce the number who are sent to the State Hospitals and become hopeless invalids after one year's incarceration.
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