On and on they come, gray-headed women and curly-headed children from
every station in life: the millionairess by the working woman, and the
fashionable society woman by the business one. Two women on horseback,
and one blowin' a bugle, led the way for the carriage of Madam Antoinette
Blackwell. I wonder if she ever dreamed when she wuz tryin' to climb the
hill of knowledge through the thorny path of sex persecution, that she
would ever have a bugle blowed in front of her, to honor her for her
efforts, and form a part of such a glorious Parade of the sect she give her
youth and strength to free.
How they swept on, borne by the waves of music, heralded by wavin' banners
of purple and white and gold, bearin' upliftin' and noble mottoes.
Physicians, lawyers, nurses, authors, journalists, artists, social workers,
dressmakers, milliners, women from furrin countries dressed in their quaint
costumes, laundresses, clerks, shop girls, college girls, all bearin' the
pennants and banners of their different colleges: Vassar, Wellesley, Smith,
etc., etc. High-school pupils, Woman's Suffrage League, Woman's Social
League, and all along the brilliant line each division dressed in beautiful
costumes and carryin' their own gorgeous banners. And anon or oftener all
along the long, long procession bands of music pealin' out high and sweet,
as if the Spirit of Music, who is always depictered as a woman, was glad
and proud to do honor to her own sect. And all through the Parade you could
see every little while men on foot and on horseback, not a great many, but
jest enough to show that the really noble men wuz on their side. For, as
I've said more formally, that is one of the most convincin' arguments for
Woman's Suffrage. In fact, it don't need any other. That bad men fight
against Women's Suffrage with all their might.
Down by the big marble library, the grand-stand wuz filled with men seated
to see their wives march by on their road to Victory. I hearn and believe,
they wuz a noble-lookin' set of men. They had seen their wives in the past
chasin' Fashion and Amusement, and why shouldn't they enjoy seein' them
follow Principle and Justice? Well, I might talk all day and not begin
to tell of the beauty and splendor of the Woman's Parade. And the most
impressive sight to me wuz to see how the leaven of individual right and
justice had entered into all these different classes of society, and how
their enthusiasm and earnestness must affect every beholder.
And in my mind I drawed pictures of the different modes of our American
women and our English sisters, each workin' for the same cause, but in what
a different manner. Of course, our English sisters may have more reason for
their militant doin's; more unjust laws regarding marriage--divorce, and
care of children, and I can't blame them married females for wantin' to
control their own money, specially if they earnt it by scrubbin' floors
and washin'. I can't blame 'em for not wantin' their husbands to take
that money from them and their children, specially if they're loafers and
drunkards. And, of course, there are no men so noble and generous as our
American men. But jest lookin' at the matter from the outside and comparin'
the two, I wuz proud indeed of our Suffragists.
While our English sisters feel it their duty to rip and tear, burn and
pillage, to draw attention to their cause, and reach the gole (which
I believe they have sot back for years) through the smoke and fire of
carnage, our American Suffragettes employ the gentle, convincin' arts of
beauty and reason. Some as the quiet golden sunshine draws out the flowers
and fruit from the cold bosom of the earth. Mindin' their own business,
antagonizin' and troublin' no one, they march along and show to every
beholder jest how earnest they be. They quietly and efficiently answer that
argument of the She Auntys, that women don't want to vote, by a parade two