A WOMAN "CRUSADER."

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 10574, 27 January 1906, Page 1 (Supplement)

A WOMAN "CRUSADER."

A most extraordinary person is JSliss Phoebe Couzins, of Missouri; For a quarter of a century the most eminent advocate m the West of woman suffrage, she has renounced her faith m the ability of her sex intelligently to exercise the right of the ballot; and now has assumed the leadership of the organised woman's movement to overthrow th«J strenuous reform Governor, Folk, m thj enforcement of a Sunday closing salodn law. She retains the vigorous mentality that made her a formidable power among the exponents of equal privileges for her sex. . t ■•-''.

Missouri has been undergoing the experience of a new liquor law,, and, surprising as it may seem, the most stubborn opposition to the enforcement of the Sunday closing law has developed, not among the millionaire brewers,. whose business has suffered to the extent of thousands of dollars, but from the ranks of the women, who, under ordinary circumstances, are the most outspoken apostles of temperance.- The brewers have seen 400 saloons wiped off the map for violation of the, law or lack of business during the last eight months, but they counselled their patrons to obey the edict of the Governor, But the women planned a systematic campaign against the Sunday closing edict. Miss Couzins assumed the lead. She bitterly attacks the W.C.T.U., affirming that "they try to abridge tlie liberty of the citizens so as to make it impossible to live with any degree of comfort." A newspaper comments: — "In Miss Couzins the reform Governor is likely to find a dangerous enemy. She was fighting for equal rights for her sex- when Mr Folk was wearing knee trousers m a "little Tennessee town."