THE PIONEER OF THE WOMEN'S CAUSE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2921, 9 March 1910, Page 75

THE PIONEER OF THE WOMEN'S CAUSE.

(Contributed.)

"The autumn of the beautiful is beaut't fol," says the Latin poet. Lady Cook is an exemplification of the truth of the axiom, for although she has to her account some four decades of incessant and strenuous work, begun in the United States and continued in the country of her adoption, she retains the personal charm, extraordinary vitality and activity, and invincible courage in the enunciation of her unchangeable opinions which characterised her when she first battled for those equal rights of her six which have never been so near of fulfilment —at all events in the United Kingdom —as in the present year 1910. If to some it is disappointing that she has been seen so seldom enforcing her well-known, clearly defined, and logically unanswerable views on public platforms, it must be remembered to her credit that she has elected to take her place amongst those who "do good by stealth and blush to find it fame." She has toiled in the study, whence have issued countless articles on the subjects which constitute her life work —the emancipation of her sex from the fetters with which they have been bound for centuries and the raising of the status of woman to that of man.

A few honourable exceptions apart, the London daily press has done little or nothing to assist that woman's cause which Lady Cook still has as much at heart a.s ever. The suffragettes, as they have come to be called, have, on the contrary, been made the target of insult and ridicule, until, driven to desperation, goaded beyond the power of endurance, they have taken the law into their own hands, the only resource left open to them. With Lady Constance Lytton, Miss Pankhurst, and scores of others—many gentlewomen, and many less advantageously circum&ta.nced—Lady Cook has deeply sympathised, and naturally, for she herself has known in the bad old days the bitterest persecution and the most ignoble and unmanly treatment. From all the trials which beset her in her girlhood, and later in her womanhood, she emerged with undaunted spirit and undiminished pluck. She had been "tried by the fire," and so nerved to still greater efforts.

Since the early nineties she has developed an almost preternatural activity, and the closing month of 1909 witnessed her appearance in the character of a public exponent of the demands of women that justice which' they have been hitherto-denied. The scene of Ladv Cook's oratorical triumph was the Royal Albert Hall; the date Decembsr 11; the occasion a mass meeting organised by the Women's Freedom League. Probably not more, than two or three amongst that vast audience had ever heard Lady Cook deliver an address in public, so that their surprise and. delight were all the greater as they listened eagerly to the jewelled words as they flowed from her lips in a swift stream that nothing could check in its impetuous course. Lady Cook's speech was all the more strikingly marvellous from the fact that it was delivered without previous preparation of any kind, and without the assistance of a single note. But it did not suffer from the absence of these adventitious aids to successful oratory, which even the most accomplished speakers of past and present days—Gladstone, Disraeli, and Bright included—have not disdained to call into service when making their greatest efforts. Lady Cook spoke as one inspired by the truth and justice of her cause; and as she poured out her irony, invective, and poetic diction with the force of a mountain torrent, the immense audience listened as if petrified with admiring amazement, their silence being broken at intervals onlv by frenzied cheers. Now she made her points by a display of that playful and ever-present humour which is one of her happiest endowments; and then came Bursts of Homeric merriment—"laughter holding both her sides" —as man-made laws for woman's degradation were denounced with righteous indignation and scorn. Anon, in beautifullymodulated tones she pictured in plaintive phrases the hapless condition of her sisters in all countries and under all forms of government, going back to Biblical times and to the foundation of the Christian era for her parallels. Tears dimmed the eyes of many, and hope was engendered in the hearts of all who listened to the fair orator who at the clcse of the most stirring plea for women's equality ever enunciated in a building which lies vibrated to the notes of the world's greatest singers and musicians and to the fervent addresses,, of our Salisburys, Balfours, and Chamberlains was the recipient of a hurricane of applause and a chorus of the heartiest congratulations. The heroine of that scene, which will linger long in the memories of all who •have at heart the sacred cause of women's equality, had another claim to the plaudits of the immense audience, for she had just given to the Women's Freedom League a magnificent donation of £IOOO, an unparalleled act of generosity. Who shall say in how many homes the heartfelt cry went up, a few days later, "The merriest of merry Christmases and the happiest of happv New Years to Lady Cook, noblest of the noble."

When John Bright was attacking the Com Laws he denounced them as "a crime of the deepest dye against the rights . . . and the well-being of the people," and he added: Not all that heralds rake from' coffined clay., Nor florid prose, ncd honeyed lines of ihynie, Caa blazon •evil dsed's or consecrate a crime.

The Com Laws were repealed only because of the" threatening attitude of the people; But if those laws Were, in Mr Blight's wordsj " a crime cf the deepest dye," immeasurably greater is the crime of denying to women the rights conceded to men all over the world : and Lftdy Cook may well ask, ae she asked in effect a.f.

the Albert Hall, how much longer will the people permit governments to "blazon" such an "evil deed" and to "consecrate" such "a crime" as the deprivation of women of their just demands. Lady Cook's fame has been for decades widespread, not only in England, but in the United States, France, Belgium, and Portugal. Of late years she has frequently visited the United States, where she is always warmly welcomed, those who opposed" her and her sister in the early days of their career having passed away, giving place to those who have none but the kindest and friendliest feelings for the Tennie Claffin of the old days.