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LESSON OF THE LAST BIENNIAL.

eration of Woman's Clubs was from the National Consumers' League, of which she is vice-president.

On Tuesday, July 2d, Mrs. Moore, the President, announced that Mrs. Sarah Platt Decker, of Denver, Colo., scheduled to speak on the "Status of the Other Woman," was too ill to appear. The anxiety caused by the news deepened into apprehension when, two days later, Mrs. Decker was taken to a sanatorium to be operated on for an intestinal trouble from which she had long been a sufferer. At 8:15 on the evening of July 7th she died.

The death of Mrs. Sarah Platt Decker, former president of the National Federation of Women's Clubs, marked the passing of one of the foremost women of the nation. She was widely known as a distinguished club woman, philanthropist, leader of woman's suffrage, and a tireless worker in many public spirited movements. It was due much to her efforts that the Denver Women's Club became one of the most useful and widely known in America, and it was because of her recognized ability that the National Federation of Women's Clubs elected her their national president in St. Louis in 1904, and again in 1906 at St. Paul (Minn.)

Mrs. Decker, whose maiden name was Sarah Sophia Chase, was born at McIndoe Falls, Vermont. Her mother was a descendant of the famous Adams family of Massachusetts. Her father, Edwin Chase, was a prominent temperance advocate. The then Sarah Chase received a high school education, and made her advent into public life at Holyoke, Mass., where she was made one of the members of a board of trustees for the distribution of funds left for the deserving poor. At Queens, Long Island, where she went after her first marriage, Mrs. Decker was identified with the work of the Orphans' Home and the Child Welfare movement, but on her advent in Denver, in 1887, she was known only in the restricted circles of her own social set. Long before the Denver

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Woman's Club was organized, in 1904, and she, elected its first president, Mrs. Decker gave her money and support to the campaign for woman's suffrage. In the first silver campaign of Bryan, Mrs. Decker took an active part. During the second Bryan campaign, she presided at one of the largest political mass meetings ever directed in the United States by a

woman.

Mrs. Decker became the first woman member of the Colorado State Board of Pardons, and in 1908 was appointed a member of the Colorado Board of Charities and Correction, which has general supervision over all penal and reformatory institutions in the State. She was a member of the National Child's Labor Committee, member of the State Civil Service Committee, and was called into consultation at the White House by President Roosevelt and the Governors of the country in regard to the child labor question. Mrs. Decker was vice-president of the Woodrow Wilson Club of Denver, and was active in the spring campaign for the citizens' ticket, which was successful in Denver by a record majority. She had been mentioned prominently as a candidate for the United States Senate at the next election.

On Wednesday afternoon, July 4th, in Golden Gate Commandery Building, the election of officers took place, and the results, not announced until the next day, point out a fact of national significance: Few of the big men of New York, Boston or Chicago are city born and bred. The heads of the corporations, doctors, prominent actors and those who have risen to eminence in every walk of life, were with few notable exceptions educated in the country or in the smaller places. Even those who were born in the city were sent to private schools out of town. If Wall street were to lose its rural-trained men, it would have to go out of business.

Psychologists explain this by citing the law that for the highest development a man requires the association of

other men to sharpen his wits and to stimulate his ambitions, but solitude. in which to formulate plans and to broaden his mental horizon by meditation.

A review of the presidents of the different State federations represented at the Biennial Convention of Woman's Clubs would seem to indicate that women are also governed by the same law.

Out of fifty States and territories in which there are State federations (including the District of Columbia and the Canal Zone), only eight have selected for president a woman from the metropolis of the State.

The California Federation is fortunate in having found in San Francisco so able a leader as Mrs. J. W. Orr, a transplanted New Yorker, but a loyal lover of her adopted State.

Wilmington, the largest city of Delaware, is the home of its State President, Mrs. John C. Robinson.

Mrs. Royden Douglas, who holds that office in Louisiana, comes from New Orleans.

Portland, Ore., boasts of the election of one of her own, Mrs. Sara A. Evans; and Salt Lake City of Mrs. A. J. Gorman; Mrs. Clovis H. Bowen, of Providence, R. I., and Miss Mary Garritt Hay, of New York City, are two Eastern women who hold the highest club offices in their respective States -but the list ends here.

The other forty-two State Federation presidents are from small towns. Among the officials of the General Federation is to be found a condition that more fully bears out the theory of the dominance of the small town woman when she is brought in contact with her metropolitan sister.

New York's delegation had as their candidate for president, to serve from 1912-1914, Mrs. Phillip Carpenter, who is a woman of high intellectual attainments, a past master of the art and practice of diplomacy, a polished woman of the world, and an expert parliamentarian. She appeals more to the brain than to the heart of her audiences, but, if a carping criticism

of so noble a woman be allowed, she has not that warm love of humanity that may be described by our own country-born adjective "Western." Mrs. Carpenter leaves an impression of having passed her life in luxury, and of looking upon those not so favored by fortune with patient tolerance. Such sympathy as she expresses for their aims and aspirations seems to be rather academic than to spring from an intimate knowledge of their lives. She typified New York at its best.

Mrs. Percy V. Pennypacker, of Austin, Texas, the candidate who opposed her, and was elected, reflects the sentiment of the country at large more rearly than does her Eastern rival. A Virginian by birth and a resident of the Lone Star State since her early childhood, she has all the graces and charm of manner that belong by tradition to the Daughters of the South.

Mrs. Pennypacker is very frail in physique, but because of her maternalism, this frailty is in her favor. When she faces an audience to make a speech her earnestness carries conviction and stimulates confidence in her absolute sincerity. She has one of the calmest and most judicial of minds, and is given rather to listening to others' opinions than to expressing her own. The women of Texas recognized her great executive ability by electing her president of the State Federation of Woman's Clubs in 1902.

She did much to establish the present educational system of Texas, and is the author of a history of the State which is used as a text book in the public schools. Under her able guidance the concentrated efforts of the Texas Federation has been directed towards strengthening the financial condition of the public schools, with the result that the advantages of the State University and technical schools are available to boys and girls of small means. Her home in Austin, Texas, is a social and intellectual center from which radiates a hospitality marked by elegance and simplicity.

LESSON OF THE LAST BIENNIAL.

Mrs. Pennypacker's career is typical of all that is good and noble in the "new woman's" movement, and is an eloquent answer to the oft-repeated query, "whither is the movement tending." Her election to serve as president of the General Federation for the next two years is another victory for the small-town woman.

The "big city" elected one candidate, and only one. Mrs. L. L. Blankenburg, first vice-president, wife of the Mayor of Philadelphia, Pa., publisher and circulator of the History. of the General Federation of Woman's Clubs.

To Ohio is given the honor of the second vice-presidency, Mrs. Samuel Sneath, of Tipton, having won the office. The secretaries are from the West and the South. Mrs. Harry S. Keefe, of Walthill, Nebraska, takes the office of corresponding secretary, and Mrs. Eugene Reilley, Charlotte, N. C., that of recording secretary.

The Federation's finances are entrusted to Mrs. John Threadgill, of Oklahoma City, Treasurer, and Mrs. Charles H. McMahon, of Salt Lake City, Utah, the new auditor. The eight directors elected were Mrs. Grace Julian Clark, Indiana; Mrs. Francis D. Everett, Highland Park, Ill.; Mrs. J. Creighton Mathewes, New Orleans; Mrs. Wm. E. Andrews, Washington, D. C.; Mrs. Lucy White

Williams, Lapeer, Mich.; Mrs. Frank White, Valley City, N. D.; Mrs. A. S. Christy, Montana; Mrs. Wm. A. Harper, Seattle. The last three hours of the convention, those devoted to the discussion of voting upon resolutions, were the most exciting of its session.

First-To establish good roads to include a Lincoln highway from ocean to ocean.

Second-To establish a national park to include the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky.

Third-To establish a bureau of national parks.

Fourth-To teach sex hygiene in Normal schools.

Fifth-To train boys and girls after they leave school.

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Sixth-To encourage employers' liability bills.

Seventh-To appoint women immigration inspectors at all ports of entry.

Eighth-To establish women police. Ninth-To aid the families of convicts through the results of prisoners' labor.

Tenth-To urge the using of the Bible in literary clubs.

Eleventh-To maintain higher ideals of the stage.

Twelfth-To establish medical inspection of schools, school nurses and outdoor schools.

Thirteenth-To enforce to a letter the pure food and drug Act.

Fourteenth-To endorse the white slave laws and protest against the light sentences passed on white slavers.

Fifteenth-To protest against the imposing of any legal disability on women not imposed on men.

Sixteenth-To pass uniform marriage and divorce laws.

But the dramatic moment of the convention came when an attempt was made to get the General Federation to place itself on record as having officially endorsed woman's suffrage. No question except that of sex-relationship was as hotly debated; and even that question did not threaten to disrupt the organization as did the relentless partisanship of the antis and the suffragists. The battle royal began when, under the head of New Business, Mrs. Charles Farwell Edson of Los Angeles, Cal., presented the following resolution:

"Whereas, The question of woman suffrage is the most progressive and vital reform now, or ever, before this country, and the basic principle of all reforms; and,

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Mrs. Wm. Johnston of Wichita, Kansas, promptly claimed the floor, but President Moore forestalled argument by ruling the resolution out of order. She explained that under the laws of the Federation a resolution to be in order must be first presented to the Committee on Resolutions, and be found germane to the work of the organization. This resolution had been presented to the committee and had been pronounced not germane, hence was out of order. Mrs. Johnston urged that equal suffrage was germane to the work of the Federation and moved an appeal from the ruling of the Chair. The motion was ignored, and Mrs. I. Lowenberg, of San Francisco, moved that the president be sustained. Mrs. Johnston arose again, and asked that the opinion of the Federation's parliamentarian, Mrs. Emma Fox of Detroit, Michigan, under whose advice the convention operated, be obtained. The request was ignored.

Some of the views of members are here recalled:

Mrs. Sara Platt Decker was quoted in an interview as saying: "The General Federation is a constructive organization purely. It cannot take up and place in its life questions like woman's suffrage, prohibition and kindred and national questions. It has no platform and no doctrines upon which to lean back. Its mission is to go forward-to educate without creating differences between members. Its work calls for the united strength of the women of America, not the divided sentiment and interest of those women. Although it cannot, by its very nature, do reform work, as such, still it is the most effective of all reform organizations. It has really. achieved more practical good in its career than any other organization."

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Chicago, who desired an amendment written into the Constitution of the United States to legalize universal suffrage.

Mrs. Pennypacker had already given out the following signed statement:

"Personally, I believe in Woman's Suffrage. To me it is the only just and logical position. Since, however, the General Federation of Woman's Clubs is composed of women of all sections of the country, of all religions, creeds and all political affiliations, I feel it would be unwise to make suffrage the issue of this convention."

Mrs. Carpenter's statement was to this effect: "As woman's suffrage is a vital issue before the women of America, and there seems to be some doubt about my position in the matter, I am glad to say that I am a member of the New York Equal Suffrage League and a worker in the suffrage ranks. The General Federation of Woman's Clubs has been in my opinion a tremendous factor in the education of women of our country to think along all civic lines, and I believe that they are ready for the ballot."

Mrs. Moore yielded the chair to Vice-President Cowles, and explained to the Convention the reason for her rulings. She said in part: "This Federation is working for citizenship, which is the most progressive movement of the times. Its majority favors suffrage, but there is a minority of timid, conservative women that is not yet ready for the vote.

"If we passed this resolution, they would leave the Federation. We wish to educate them to exercise the franchise, not to lose them. Therefore, I have refused to allow the resolution to come before the General Federation at this convention.”

Thus the machinery of the conservative administration, directed by Mrs. Philip N. Moore, its president, ground into non-combustible dust the little heap of red-fire powder that the suffragists had arranged, with which to celebrate their victory in winning the franchise in California, and the convention adjourned to meet in 1914.

Pathfinding With Fremont

By John W. Connors

(Copyright, 1912, by the author.)

(Being some of the remarkable adventures of Lewis C. Shilling, who, as a young man, joined Fremont, the Pathfinder, Kit Carson and other notable history-makers, in their efforts in the '40's to add the great West to the United States.)

D

OMICILED at the ideal Veterans' Home, Napa County, Cal., is a modest, unpretentious and softly spoken old gentleman, who can be seen daily strolling about the beautiful drives and terraces of the park; a venerated patriot who is probably more closely identified with the early making of California and its conquest than living man. Capt. Lewis C. Shilling, now past eighty years of age, still retains a vivid and graphic recollection of his young manhood, and his many thrilling achievements, when he accompanied General John C. Fremont, the Pathfinder, on many of his perilous exploring expeditions through the unknown West in the adventurous period from 1842 to 1846.

Shortly afterwards, Kit Carson adopted him as his son. Thus, among this coterie of distinguished army officers and empire builders, this wayward youth found the consummation of his boyhood dreams. Under the experienced guidance of Carson he became a noted scout himself, and followed his intrepid leader on all of his hazardous trail blazing tours.

Captain Shilling claims to be the sole survivor of the ill-fated "Alamo," where, in 1836, Davy Crockett and Lieutenant Bowie gathered all the women, children and non-combatants within the enclosure of the Sacred Shrine, at San Antonio, Texas, and with their comrades heroically defended them, till killed by the attacking Mexicans. Shilling, at that time but four years old, lost his mother and sister in this awful massacre, but managed to escape their dreadful fate by concealing himself in an old bacon box, under a lot of old gunny sacks.

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Lewis C. Shilling, from a photo-
graph taken during the period of
some of his notable adventures.

When Mr. Shilling was a stripling of eight years, he ran away from home, having found employment on the first stern wheeler, called the "Little Cricket," then plying the Missouri. His first acquaintance with General Fremont, Kit Carson, Major Phil Kearny, Major Laramie and Lieutenants U. S. Grant and Albert Sidney Johnson dated from that period.

Mr. Shilling is the proud possessor of a fine medallion, made from the virgin gold of a Spanish doubloon, commemorating his escape from the

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