"Crystal Eastman is dead. And all over the world there are women and men who will feel touched with loss, who will look on a world that seems more sober, more subdued. In her short life Crystal Eastman brushed against many other lives, and wherever she moved she carried with her the breath of courage and a contagious belief in the coming triumph of freedom and decent human relations. These were her religion. She preached it in many places and in many forms. In the struggle for woman's suffrage and for equality between men and women; in her work for peace and the rule of reason among peoples; in the fight for social justice and human liberty-as feminist, pacifist, socialist-she fought for her faith. Her strength, her beauty, her vitality and enthusiasm, her rich and compelling personality-these she threw with reckless vigor into every cause that promised a finer life to the world. She spent herself wholly, and died-too young...As a feminist Crystal Eastman was more than an ardent, militant advocate of votes for her sex. She was to thousands of young women and young men a symbol of what the free woman might be. Unlike some of her contemporaries, embittered by the long and unreasoning struggle, she never lost her sense of balance or her friendly sympathy with men. She fought not for a sterile victory for her sex but for her religion-the triumph of freedom and decent human relations. Since they could be won only through the winning of equality and the vote-those must come first. But she was fair and steady and consistent... Her spirit and her steady faith in peace and freedom and justice lent strength to our own purpose, and they will remain with us."
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Lawyers from the United StatesAnti-war activistsWomen authors from the United StatesWomen activists from the United StatesWomen in law
Original Language: English
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Obituary by Freda Kirchwey, The Nation (8 August 1928). In Crystal Eastman on Women and Revolution
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Crystal_Eastman
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Crystal Eastman
Crystal Catherine Eastman (June 25, 1881 – July 28, 1928) was an American lawyer, antimilitarist, feminist, socialist, and journalist. She is best remembered as a leader in the fight for women's suffrage, as a co-founder and co-editor with her brother Max Eastman of the radical arts and politics magazine The Liberator, co-founder of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, and co-founder in 1920 of the American Civil Liberties Union. In 2000 she was inducted into the National Wome
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