"SISTERHOOD OF WOMAN."

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 7057, 19 February 1910, Page 7

"SISTERHOOD OF WOMAN."

■ "If iliad a million to spend on other women," says Mrs Raymond Robins, I would spend it helping women, form trade organisations." , "The brotherhood of man> is an. old cn-r-now; ■. The real now .mte of the twentieth eemtury. is the.sisterhood ot ■woman.." That is the confession of, faith of Mm Bavmcmd Robins, of Chicago, president, of- tho 2vationnl Women s Trade Union League of the . United : «Hati« (says an:Australian, paper). Defcro her marriage she was the beautiful Margaret BreW, daughter of Theodore th-eier, of Brooklvn, who, was several times a f millionaire.. Society still reniemlxrrs tho surprise of her romantic marriage to Raymond Robins, a young *>cio!o"ical worker in Chicago. She was thrfv-reaf founder of the Women's Trade Union League of Uow York, five years a-'o Koir she is the head of tho great national organisation; 'which represents already forty different trades, and num-Int-ra'iikwc than thirty thousand • women among its members. "She has been called "the first rich woman, to interest herself in,the cause"of labour." . "If I had a million dollars to i spend for other wo-m-eii,-". she says; "I'd not put it into hospitals, or rest homes.or houses of refuge or hotels for working finis.. ~ I'd use it in, helping women to form' trade organisations—aid then all the other things would bo added unto them. ■ "If I had the money'l d form an army of a hundred thousand girl walking delegates, to go from one end of the country to the other, and teach women to,unite. Tirint in Chicago I could pick out a hundred gin's this minute who would be tremciiidously successful in such work, They would succeed where I phould fail, because they would bo rc--pirded 'as comrades, not outsiders.

LADY BOUNTIFUL OF LONG AGO. "There is a big difference between the present attitude of the woman who would help her. fellow women and Lady Bountiful of a feneration ago. That sweet and tender individual ivas firmly convinced alio could redeem the race witlt fruit and (lowers anil doubleblankets and tracts—stir well aJid ad-

minister several times a year. Sho was sometimes depressed:, at the tardiness ot her millennium, but she never doubted it would come. Meanwhile she herseU was conscious of .such a comfortable plow of duty well performed .that she was doubly swro she would hit on ttie right equation to solve tho poverty prohlom.. . __, , "Ken--well., she isn't so s-ure. lhnt is for two reasons. The first is the growth of that strange thing we have named the social conscience. The modern woman is getting to feel that her own personal goodness and charity and purity aro not enough. She.is growing conscious of the necessity for the goodness, and charity and purity of all other worn-cm. Sho is even beginning to feel that, no matter how "good" Hive may bo individually,, if, socially speaking, she' force's twenty other women to be bad, she is really worse than amy one of the twenty. THE SECOND REASON. ■

"The .second rea, < ~on for a different attitude! on the part of tho lady who would be a benefactress is the rise of the spirit of democracy. American women have always been much more aristocratic than men. They have been kept• nipnirt, housed, nimny of tihem, like princesses, and inevitably, there Itas grown, up the feeling of caste. The favoured women have, consciously or unconsciously, held themselves apart from the unfavoured—dropping down benefits, with the netfonft. on the 'down.'. . . "Now, -ail -his seems to be '•changing. With the spread of the habit of selfsupport women aire getting on. a brund and equal basis. _ Another undoubted factor in this. f poling of equality is the increasingly .widespread desire for the ballot. . Rich women and poor alike are without this—a,nd are growing to desire it. The straggle for a common object must teirid toward equality-of. feeling. .

"So it is the sisterhood of women which is succeeding the cry of the brotliCT'hood of .man. The'"rich, woman of to-day realises that her nionoy, is just an aceidiant —for which the, in;.almost every case, is least of ail responsible. Rhie didln't ea-riri it or even work for it. It is up to her not to delude herself inifro. thinking that it makes- ker any different from a-jii.y other woman. —only a bit more fortunate than. some.".