Chicago Tribune
MRS. W. I. THOMAS PUT ON
PEDESTAL OF SUBLIMITY
Prof. Ward Startles the Equality League with Two Assertions.
Mrs. W. I. Thomas was characterized yesterday as one of the two leading women in America by Edward J. Ward of the bureau of education at Washington, who spoke before members of the civics department of the Chicago Political Equality league meeting at the Congress hotel.
"I considered Miss Jane Addams the leading woman in America up to the time that Mrs. Thomas took Mrs. Granger into her home," said Prof. Ward. "And now she must divide honors with that extraordinary victorious soul who, beside her husband, exemplifies the contrast between the sublime and the ridiculous."
The knitters dropped their work, looked at each other in amazement at the suddenness of the statement — and then clapped hard and long. That subject was then as suddenly dropped by the speaker, and in a few moments another contrast startled the listeners.
It’s a Hard Name.
"Chicago is an anguillula," declared the educator, whose special interest is in the use of schoolhouses as forums of free discussion. (Now an anguillula is, by dictionary definition, a genus of minute nematode worms of which the vinegar eel is the best known member.)
"Chicago, the anguillula, has a nerve center in the upper brain, represented by the public school system as it existed under the guidance of Mrs. Ella Flagg Young, and another nerve center in the lower brain, represented by the corruption in the politics of the city. The entrance of women into the arena of public life will mark the actual accomplishment of greater things. Women are interested in finding opportunities actually to get something done; men in getting some adequate statement about it made."
"The German wife who stands for her husband’s subordination of his self-respect to the commands of William the Damned is a prostitute of her soul as well as of her mind," continued Prof. Ward.
Dr. Robertson Speaks
Dr. John Dill Robertson, commissioner of health of Chicago, who spoke at the meeting, assured the league that he would name every day as "spitless day" and do all in his power to punish violators of the anti-spitting ordinance. Mrs. Harriet Taylor Treadwell, former president of the league, arose to beg that all men caught spitting in public should be arrested. "Women do not go about spitting," said Mrs. Treadwell. "Why should men ?" Dr. Robertson offered her his policeman’s star for effecting arrests.
Miss Laura K. Kennedy spoke in behalf of the $60,000,000 bond issue for building a state-wide system of permanent roads, to be voted upon in the fall and indorsed by Gov. Lowden.
