Women S Rights Activists

"Every boy should have a special fitting for some aim in life. ..Industry is a great means of grace."

"In short, the training of our boys should be toward manliness, — towards gentle-manliness; so that they will be tender to children, courteous to women, helpful to the unable, and quick to recognize those in need of assistance. They should be so strong morally as quickly to repel temptation; so trained in the habit of doing right that it will not be easy for them to do wrong."

"Some one once asked Charles Sumner what bribes had been offered him in the course of his political career. “What bribe!” he replied. “No bribe has ever been offered me. I have never been solicited, with promise of payment, to pursue any course whatever. ” It could not have bene otherwise with Sumner. He as not a man to solicit temptation, or to dally with it, and people knew it. Usually, the people who are tempted are known to be in the market with principles to sell. But Charles Sumner, like some other great men of course country, had not a reputation of this kind."

"“Do you expect to train boys to the same standard of morality as girls?” I am asked. “It cannot be done. Boys will be boys, and young men will have their time of sewing wild oats.” And this is said as cavalierly, as if “wild oats,” when sowed, never come to harvest. As Gold lives, “whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he reap,” — “wild oats,” or whatever else. It is possible to train boys to the same standard of purity that is upheld for their sisters. It is not safe, and it is indeed cruel, to ignore this, when we consider the physical consequences and the moral debasement of a dissipated life. Every boy should be trained to courtesy, self-possession, and a regard for the rights and wishes of others."

"It is always important that the position of devil’s advocate should be well filled."

"Dr. Gertrude Kelly, a surgeon of great skill and a supporter of the Irish Republic."

"Thomas Hughes, the author of “Tom Brown at Rugby,” has written a little book called “The Manliness of Christ” It would be an excellent thing if our young men became sufficiently interested in this book to read it."

"The very highest function of woman is to raise and train the family; it is the very highest function of man also."

"Good health is a great prerequisite of successful or happy living."

"While it is undoubted true that the practice of tight lacing is regarded with growing disfavor, it is also true that the corsets in vogue, at present, are more objectionable than those worn even half a century ago."

"Children require simple food, early hours for retiring, and abundance of sleep, as well as freedom from social and religious excitements."

"Nature has so constituted us that the sexes act and react upon each other, making every “woman’s cause” a man’s cause, and every man’s cause a woman’s cause"

"the prophecies of evil always inspired by a growing reform"

"“What shall we do with our daughters?” is really the sum and substance of what, I popular phase, is called “the woman question.”"

"Obedience to the behests of duty gives peace, even when love is lacking; and peace is a diviner thing than happiness."

"Health is a means to an end. It is an investment for the future. That end is worthy work and noble living. And life has little to offer the young girl who has dropped into physical deterioration, which cuts her off from the activities of the time, and makes existence to her synonymous with endurance."

"In basing their demands on a claim of justice-women are human beings; therefore they ought to possess all the rights and privileges of human beings-the anarchist-feminists refused to make any extravagant claims for social and political benefits that would flow from equality. But they thereby lost an opportunity to appeal to men on the grounds most likely to gain their attention, those of self-interest. The early feminists had faced the same problem and their arguments also had failed to win masculine support. As a result, the suffragists at the end of the century often felt it necessary to exploit their womanhood in an attempt to render feminism more palatable to men. Such tactics were unacceptable to the anarchist-feminists, but a few of them did try to persuade their male comrades that women's equality was essential to a radical platform. Gertrude B. Kelly, for example, argued that a successful revolution would depend on a commitment to feminism, contending that unless radical men began to take steps to end the oppression of women, their attempts to remake the world would end in failure. She agreed with her male comrades who said that there was "properly speaking no woman question as apart from the question of human right and human liberty." But men often used such statements to try to persuade women to mute their demands for sexual equality until after the liberation of the "people" had been accomplished, implying that while the concerns of male revolutionaries were by their very nature universal, those of women were at best parochial. Kelly, on the other hand, insisted that without sexual equality no liberation could take place. Men hurt themselves as well as women by their refusal to recognize this: "No wrong can be done to any class in society without part at least of the evil reverting to the wrong-doers."...Gertrude Kelly's earnest attempt to enlist male support through appeals to self-interest was unusual. The anarchist-feminists recognized for the most part that women must seek their own emancipation. They placed (accurately as it turned out) little faith in the enlightenment of radical men. The significance of their approach may be seen most clearly by an examination of the anarchist-feminists proposals for the reorganization of society based on the premise of economic and psychological independence from men."

"humanity has moved forward to an era where wrong and slavery are being displaced, and reason and justice are being recognized as the rule of life. Science is extending immeasurably the bounds of knowledge and power; art is refining life, giving to it beauty and grace; literature bears in her hands whole ages of comfort and sympathy, industry, aided by the hundred-handed elements of nature, is increasing the world’s wealth, and invention is economizing its labor. The ages looks steadily to the redressing of wrong, to the righting of every form of error and injustice; and the tireless and prying philanthropy, which is almost omniscient, is one of the most hopeful characteristics of the time. It could not be possible in such an era, but that women should share in the justice and kindliness with which the time is fraught. A great wave is lifting them to higher levels. The leadership of the world is being taken from the hands of the brutal and low, and the race is making its way to a higher ideal than once it knew."

"no phase of the great movement for the advancement of women has progressed so slowly, as that which demands their technical and industrial training."

"Responsibility is the parent of morality"

"As Leslie Stephen has demonstrated, to suppress one truth is to suppress all truth, for truth is a coherent whole."

"Anarchist-feminists found it difficult to persuade their male corevolutionaries to take the Woman Question seriously...Gertrude Kelly berated them because she believed that by ignoring the demands of women radical men were actually retarding the revolution"

"Their blood, 'like Jesus Christ the spirit of sacrifice'. In real life, such admiration was often tempered by prejudice and hostility."

"Malkiel wrote of women as victims of 'the breeding beast', took a Jewish fellow socialist to task for praising women as 'instinctual, intuitive creatures' and looked forward to a socialist society in which 'women would cease to be idle candidates for marriage, children no longer a burden, and women would return to a primeval freedom'."

"In Malkiel's (fictitious) Diary of a Shirtwaist Striker, a work of propaganda, she puts into the mouth of her narrator, an American 'Mary', admiration for the Jewish girls who seemed to have in"

"If we continue to let children go to their deaths and thousands of women to their degradation, a clash is bound to come sooner or later. Why not avert it with your ballots?"

"Hundreds of thousands, nay millions of American children, are sacrificed yearly on its altar."

"There were a number of outstanding Jewish women among American socialists, chief among them Theresa Malkiel, who began her career as a union organiser in the 1890s, and Rose Pastor Stokes, who later became a leading figure in the Communist Party, but their involvement in union affairs was less important than their role as propagandists."

"Following the general deduction that the majority of children go to work because of the immediate need of bread, we must give them their daily bread if they are to live."

"We, the Socialists, claim that since child labor is a blot upon our civilization and since the children are sent to work because they must have bread and clothing immediately the State should assume the responsibility of supplying them with food and clothing, as it supplies them with books and instructors at present. We go a step further and say that since the children of today are the men and women of tomorrow it is in the interest of society at large to give each new born child an equality of opportunity, whereby it would be enabled to receive bodily care and a thorough education in order to fit it to take its place on the battlefield of life."

"Come, my sisters, let us shake off our fetters; let us rise and assert our rights. It is time! The bugle call sounds louder and louder; my toiling sisters of the world, arise!"

"The aim of Socialism is to place the adult worker in the possession of the necessary tools of production, so that he would not be compelled to part with the lion’s share of t his wage for the mere privilege of their use. Socialism proposes to offer each adult worker a certainty of livelihood and thus enable him to take care of his own."

"Your forefathers achieved independence by fighting with muskets, but you live in an age when the guns are in the possession of your opponents. You don’t need guns, for you can accomplish more than your forefathers did, by the use of your ballots."

"We are too tired to think, or read what others have brought out for us; when bones ache and the head reels, the bed, even if it is a hard one, is more inviting that then most attractive lecture room."

"Just as the philosopher or scientist must once in a while occupy himself with manual labor, so it is necessary for working girls to have some brain work to relieve their physical fatigue. If we come home with no other thought but the grind that awaits us again tomorrow, the best thing for us to do is to find forgetfulness in sleep."

"Toilers live the life of animals — that is work, and sleep, with short intervals for food. Now let us put our heads together and see if this is right; if things out to, and will, go on forever in this way."

"It is entirely different however, if you become absorbed in something which turns your mind into a different channel of thought, which makes you blood run faster in your veins, and makes life worth living. Try it, girls. I am talking from experience."

"I have toiled from morn to night, from week to week, from year to year, without any bright memories of the past or dreams for the future. Like you, I have lived to work. Every day brought forth the same dull program; the only variation being the time when work was slack, and then the fear of the morrow made matters still worse. We girls of the same workroom often rebelled against our nerve and body tearing tasks, often wishes for a glimpse of the clear sky and the bright sunshine, the green fields and shady woods, which very few of us ever got a chance to enjoy. But what was the use of complaining? We saw no remedy for it, and what was more, didn’t care to look for one."

"It is true there was the possibility of marriage, but how many of us look for the married life as a relief from hard burdens, as easier living. What with the housework and small babies, that come soon enough, a few boarders or some homework, or the job of a janitress, there is little time for recreation, or thought for better things."

"Some day we will work to live; there is a beautiful world ahead of us, a world with plenty for all. It is in your, in mine, in everybody’s power to bring it about, but we must all utilize our power, we must all put our shoulders to the wheel."

"There are millions of men and women who give up what is best in them for that very purpose. Girls, why not join hands with them? Every atom of their breath is devoted to the cause of the working class. They, too, work for a living and are tired when night comes; but within them burns a holy fire which gives them the strength and energy to go forth and proclaim the message of truth, to sound the trumpet announcing the coming of freedom, and, take it from me, sister workers, it is glorious to be one of them. The daily grind becomes only an incident in your life, there opens a far broader field to absorb your entire being; with millions of comrades, ready to welcome you in any part of the world you cannot help feeling that you are higher than the mere tool, or band that you are supposed to be, from the boss’s point of view; instead of looking up to him, and often forgiving him his liberties with you, you learn to look down at him, and pity him for his ignorance and shortsightedness."

"Again and again we will hear a despondent voice exclaiming: “What is the use? Life is too dull and empty; it is hardly worth living.” And yet there is so much to live for, there is so much to be accomplished in this wide, wide world, and neither father, brother, husband or sweetheart can do our art for us. She who wants to be free must herself strike the blow; and strike we will, my sisters. Not with swords and hatchets, as man was wont to do, but through our intelligence and energy, through our efforts to rise above the spirit of greed and exploitation."

"Anna Dickinson, in the Philadelphia Mint, working for a pittance and making impassioned speeches on various occasions for the enslaved black man, was regarded as a nuisance. But Anna Dickinson on the platform, with impassioned speech and fervid moral earnestness, pleading the cause of the slave and receiving $100 and $200 a night for the service; Anna Dickinson in the Connecticut and New Hampshire Republican campaigns, thrilling both States with her eloquent utterances, the acknowledged power that won the victory in both for the Republican party, became the heroine of the hour, and was hailed as the Joan d’Are of the nineteenth century."

"The march of events has at length brought us face to face with the question which cannot be said to be one of public expediency and of military necessity. To-day the question presented to us is one of abstract right and wrong. The republican party must proclaim as its watchword universal liberty if it ever hopes to win, and if it ever repudiates that watchword it must die."

"Slavery is a poor school teacher. No one denies that these men must, to a great extent, are in the condition of the prisoners of St. Mark, who, after being long imprisoned in the dark and filthy dungeons for months and years, ten, twenty and thirty years, when brought into the great square of St. Mark, and standing in the sunshine so long shut out from their eyes, they stood stricken blind for ever. It is not strange that these slaves, freed from the dungeons and caverns of slavery, brought into the full blaze of light, into the bright sunlight of liberty should be dazzled and lose their eyesight at least for a little time, and confound friends with foes. T"

"What are our sufferings to those of the slave girl, or the slave mother, lashed from the embrace of her children? Has your purity no feeling for purity outraged? — your parental affections no sympathy for the lacerated love of the slaves? Can you hesitate to speak the word — Be free? God has put slavery into our hands to choke it. He alone should be able to take it out again alive. Let us storm the slave system, as Smith took Fort Donelson. If the President will not give us the order, let us go ourselves."

"Our history, the history of our fathers, who to a man loved liberty yet sustained slavery, who prayed that justice might be established in the time to come yet secured the oppression of the present, and who said the men who come after us will secure it."

"Kentucky, which fished the halter for liberty in the person of John Brown (abolitionist), has strangled her again, through her representative in the Presidential chair!"

"In the field, Gen. Mitchell rejects the bondmen who flee to him for protection. everywhere those who bring us the most important intelligence are liable to be thrust back into slavery, there to be whipped, tortured, burned to death."

"All we want to-day is to have the temple erected to liberty perfect and entire. There is but one way for the right to go, that is straight ahead, whatever may stand in our way."