WOMEN IN THE ALLIANCE. 309 



be told by her father, brother, or husband, that such questions are not 

 the concern of women. But the Alliance has come to redeem woman 

 from her enslaved condition, and place her in her proper sphere. She 

 is admitted into the organization as the equal of her brother, and the 

 ostracism which has impeded her intellectual progress in the past is 

 not met with, and men have begun to recognize the fact that, when 

 the women are educated, the battle for human rights will have been 

 fought and won. 



Her position in the Alliance is the same as it is in the family, the 

 companion and helpmeet of man. In it she is given the opportunity to 

 develop her faculties. She is made to feel that she is the equal of man, 

 and that she can make herself useful in every department of human 

 affairs ; that her mission in the world is more than merely to be called 

 wife or mother (both of which are honorable), but her work is one of 

 sympathy and affection, and her help is as much needed in the great 

 work of reform. 



Only in late years have women been considered a necessary factor in 

 reform movements. This has been brought about by advanced thinkers, 

 who have studied sociology and the science of intellectual and moral 

 development. Society seems never to have thought of the fact that 

 there is no progress without opportunity, and that depriving women of 

 their social and political rights has taken from them the inducement to 

 become educated upon great questions. The Alliance contemplates the 

 opening of every avenue of intelligence, which will induce women to 

 become educated, and capable of taking care of themselves in the 

 struggle for existence, and the establishment of a social system which 

 will guarantee to every human being the results of his labor. The con- 

 dition of the wives and daughters of the farmers is but little better than 

 that of the women who work in factories. In probably a majority of 

 instances, in the South and Southwest, the women assist in cultivating 

 and gathering the crops. Such a condition of industrial serfdom the 

 Alliance, with other reform organizations, expects to overthrow. 



In the effort for reform, none can be more interested than women, 

 as they are the chief sufferers whenever poverty or misfortune overtakes 

 the family. They are the ones to look after the welfare of the children, 

 of the family*. They, more readily than the fathers, see what is neces- 

 sary to make the family happy and comfortable. But, having been 

 educated to believe that bad conditions are caused by Divine Provi- 

 dence, or are the result of mismanagement, many of them have borne 

 the social evils in silence, and trusted for happiness after they shall have 

 crossed "the silent river." 



