COBDEN'S DAUGHTER AND AMERICA'S WOMEN.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 175, 18 April 1908, Page 11

COBDEN'S DAUGHTER AND AMERICA'S WOMEN.

Mrs. Cobden-Sanderson, a daughter of Cobden, was ono, of the leaders of tl,ie group of " Suffragettes who were arrested for attempting to invade tho sacred precincts of tho House of Commons. Sho has just returned from a lecture tour of the* United States in the interests of tho suffrage movement. Here aro'some of her impressions of the United States, contributed .to the New York "Independent ■— " Now awa.y into tho East steams our great ship,", she writes, " and I recall to mind that nearly seventy-eight years ago my father, Richard Cobden, crossed this same ocean'and paid his first visit to America. In thoso days tho voyage lasted more than five weeks. But it brought him to tho land of promise, that great- country ' on tho soil of which,' he exclaimed 'I fondly hops'will,be realised some of thoso dreams of human exaltation, if not of perfection, with which, I love to console myself.' WOMEN—TOO RICH AND .TOO POOR. "Inow see tho greatness of the country, with tho vastness of its problems, tho unabashed ' and known corruption, the luxury, the poverty, the restless industry of the people, the striving for material bigness and prosperity, tho absence of all mystery, tihe absence of all hypocrisy, the rcckless courage, tho universal timidity, and, dominant everywhere, tho hopeful spirit of youth. "At the head of all stands the wealthy woman, 1 crowned as queen. Clothed in purple and fine linen, leisure and luxury are hers. , But she stands aloof from politics. She is too rich I 1 "At tho bottom of all is the immigrant woman. Driven from , her country ana . her home by cruel economic conditions, 'sho comes to America, there to fall a prey to the same all-devouring capitalism, and she, tho mo3t helpless of all tho'workers and the least protected, works'the longest hours and receives tho lowest pay. She, too, stands aloof from politics. She is top poor 1 t , :' GREAT ARMY OF WORKING WOMEN. "Between, these two women comes the great army of women workers, whom the public schools, the high schools, and colleges educate and turn out each year in thousands; Teachers, who carry on the education 1 of the country m all its branches, librarians, stenographers, and others,'l see you'all in every city; neat and trim in appearance, with clear, undaunted, eye fixed steadily on.the business in hand, devoted to your work, self-respecting and independent, personal attainment and succoss solely in view, you ask for no,, help or privilege of sexf only' 1 the wages of'going

"To this great armjr of working,women, aloof, not either'by poverty or by wealth, but by man's exclusion, from the one great industry which conditions all, tho' building of the State, the making of- its laws, comes today tho message of woman's enfranchisement. "Even now girls in tho colleges,'in. order to help in social, scryice, are beginning to, ask for their emancipation. . Thoy'study .economics: and sociology, ,and later, in some settle-: ment of a big city, study life itself. They see the poverty and, suffering of the people,