CHAPTER VI.

MRS. POTTER PALMER'S BRILLIANT ADDRESS.
The Liberation of Women — They Now Have Time to Think, to be Educated, to Plan and Pursue Careers of Their Own Choosing — The Application of Machinery to the Performance of Many Heretofore Laborious Occupations of Women Relieves Them of Much Oppression — Public Sentiment will Yet Favor Woman's Industrial Equality and Just Compensation for Services Rendered — She Now Drinks Deeply of the Long-Denied Fountain of Knowledge— Is the World Ready to Give Her Industrial and Intellectual Independence, and to Open All Doors Before Her ?
IRECTOR GENERAL DAVIS announced that Haydn's chorus, "The Heavens Are Telling," which was No. 7 on the program, would be omitted, and then he introduced Mrs. Potter Palmer, President of the Board of Lady Managers. Mrs. Palmer's appearance called forth enthusiastic applause. Handkerchiefs waved from all parts of the building, and from the chorus stand came the shrill voices of hundreds of school children, joining in the sound of greeting. Mrs. Palmer read the following address: Official representation for women, upon so important an occasion as the present, is unprecedented. It seems peculiarly appropriate that this honor should have been accorded our sex when celebrating the great deeds of Columbus, who, inspired though his vis- ions may have been, yet required the aid of an Isabella to transform them into realities. •
The visible evidences of the progress made since the discovery of this great continent will be collected six months hence in these stately buildings now to be
dedicated.
The magnificent material exhibit, the import of which will presently be eloquently described by our orators, will not, however, so vividly represent the great advance of modern thought as does the fact that man's "silent partner" has been invited by the Government to leave her retirement to assist in conducting a great national enterprise. The provision of the Act of Congress that the Board of Lady Managers appoint a jury of her peers to pass judgment upon woman's work, adds to the significance of the innovation, for never before was it thought necessary to apply this fundamental principle of justice to our sex.
Realizing the seriousness of the responsibilities devolving upon it, and in- spired by a sense of the nobility of its mission, the Board has, from the time of its organization, attempted most thoroughly and most conscientiously to carry out the intentions of Congress.
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It has been able to broaden the scope of its work and extend its influence through the co-operation and assistance so generously furnished by the Columbian Commission and the Board of Directors of the Exposition. The latter took the initiative in making an appropriation for the Woman's Building, and in allowing the Board to call attention to the recent work of women in new fields by selecting from their own sex the architect, decorators, sculptors and painters to create both the building and its adornments.
Rivaling the generosity of the Directors, the National Commission has honored the Board of Lady Managers by putting into its hands all of the interests of women in connection with the Exposition, as well as the entire control- of the Woman's Building.
In order the more efficiently to perform the important functions assigned it, the Board hastened to secure necessary co-operation. At its request women were made members of the World's Fair Boards of almost every state and territory of the Union. Inspired by this success at home, it had the courage to attempt to ex- tend the benefits it had received to the women of other countries. It officially in- vited all foreign governments, which had decided to participate in the Exposition, to appoint committees of women, to co-operate with it. The active help given by the Department of State was invaluable in promoting this plan, the success of which has been notable, for we now have under the patronage of royalty, or the heads of government, committees composed of the most influential, intellectual and practical women in France, England, Germany, Austria, Russia, Italy, Holland, Belgium, Sweden, Norway, Portugal, Japan, Siam, Algeria, Cape Colony, Ceylon, Brazil, the Argentine Republic, Cuba, Mexico and Nicaragua, and although com- mittees have not yet been announced, favorable responses have been received from Spain, Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Panama and the Sandwich Islands.
No organization comparable to this has ever before existed among women. It is official, acting under government authority and sustained by government funds. It is so far-reaching that it encircles the globe.
. Without touching upon politics, suffrage, or other irrelevant issues, this unique organization of women for women will devote itself to the promotion of their industrial interests. It will address itself to the formation of a public senti- ment which will favor woman's industrial equality, and her receiving just compen- sation for services rendered. It will try to secure for her work the consideration and respect which it deserves, and establish her importance as an economic factor. To this end it will endeavor to obtain and install in these buildings exhibits show- ing the value of her contributions to the industries, sciences and arts, as well as statistics giving the proportionate amount of her work in every country.
Of all the changes that have resulted from the great ingenuity and inventive- ness of the race, there is none that equals in importance to woman the application of machinery to the performance of the never-ending tasks that have previously been hers. The removal from the household to the various factories where such work is now done of spinning, carding, dyeing, knitting, the weaving of textile fabrics, sew- ing, the cutting and making of garments and many other laborious occupations has
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enabled her to lift her eyes from the drudgery that has oppressed her since prehis- toric days.
. The result is that women as a sex have been liberated. They now have time to think, to be educated, to plan and pursue careers of their own choosing. Con- sider the value to the race of one-half of its members being enabled to throw aside the intolerable bondage of ignorance that has always weighed them down! See the innumerable technical, professional, and art schools, academies and colleges that have been suddenly called into existence by the unwonted demand! It is only about one hundred years since girls were first permitted to attend the free schools of Boston. They were then allowed to take the places of boys for whom the schools were instituted, during the season when the latter were helping to gather in the harvest.
It is not strange that woman is drinking deeply of the long-denied fountain of knowledge. She had been told, until she almost believed it, by her physician, that she was of too delicate and nervous an organization to endure the application and mental strain of the schoolroom — by the scientist that the quality of the gray matter of her brain would not enable her to grasp the exact sciences, and that its peculiar convolutions made it impossible for her to follow a logical proposition from premise to conclusion — by her anxious parents that there was nothing that a man so abomi- nated as a learned woman, nothing so unlovely as a blue stocking, and yet she comes, smiling from her curriculum with her honors fresh upon her, healthy and wise, forc- ing us to acknowledge that she is more than ever attractive, companionable, and useful.
What is to be done with this strong, self-poised creature of glowing imagina- tion and high ideals, who evidently intends, as a natural and inherent right, to pur- sue her self-development in her chosen line of work? Is the world ready to give her industrial and intellectual independence, and to open all doors before her? The human race is not so rich in talent, genius and useful creative energy that it can afford to allow any considerable proportion of these valuable attributes to be wasted or unproductive, even though they be possessed by women.
The sex which numbers more than one-half the population of the world is forced to enter the keen competition of life with many disadvantages, both real and factitious. Are the legitimate compensation and honors that should come as the result of ability and merit to be denied on the untenable ground of sex aristocracy? We are told by scientists that the educated eye and ear of today are capable of detecting subtle harmonies and delicate gradations of sound and color that were imperceptible to our ancestors; that artists and musicians will consequently never reach the last possible combination of tones, or of tints, because their fields will widen before them, disclosing, constantly, new beauties and attractions. We cannot •doubt that human intelligence will gain as much by development; that it will vibrate with new power because of the uplifting of one-half of its members — and of that half, which is, perhaps, conceded to be the more moral, sympathetic, and imaginative — from darkness into light.
As a result of the freedom and training now granted them, we may confi-
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dently await, not a renaissance, but the first blooming of the perfect flower of woman- hood. After centuries of careful pruning into convential shapes, to meet the re- quirements of an artificial standard, the shears and props have been thrown away. We shall learn by watching the beauty and the vigor of the natural growth in the open air and sunshine, how artificial and false was the ideal we had previously cherished. Our efforts to frustrate nature will seem grotesque, for she may always be trusted to preserve her types. Our utmost hope is, that woman may become a more congenial companion and fit partner for her illustrious mate, whose destiny she has shared during the centuries.
We are proud that the statesmen of our own great country have been the first to see beneath the surface and to understand that the old order of things has passed away, and that new methods must be inaugurated. We wish to express our thanks to the Congress of the United States for having made this great step forward, and also for having subsequently approved and indorsed the plans of the Board of Lady Managers, as was manifested by their liberal appropriation for carrying them out.
We most heartily appreciate the assistance given us by the President of the United States, the Department of State, and our foreign ministers. We hope to have occasion to thank all of the other great departments of the government before we finish our work.
Even more important than the discovery of Columbus, which we are gathered together to celebrate, is the fact that the general government has just discovered woman. It has sent out a flash-light from its heights, so inaccessible to us, which we shall answer by a return signal when the Exposition is opened. What will be its next message to us?
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