Conservative *
governor in appointing mo , an old-time
republican , was not taking that way of
reminding mo that it was not the proper
thing to bolt your party's nomination.
My second thought was , what a gracious
Providence I had been the subject of , in
having escaped from all the dire consequences
quences that these long-haired men and
short-haired women so eloquently pre
dicted. I wondered that I had never
heard of any of their wicked doings
before I came to that convention. I
therefore concluded that my entire
ignorance of the question at issue , along
with my lack of experience in parlia
mentary usages , warranted me in not
attempting to take any part in the
debate.
In addition to these facts , a tall 6 < j
foot democrat , from the Keystone state ,
got the floor , saying that Pattison , in
appointing him , knew he would make a
speech , which ho did , adding a little to
the volume of windy vaporiugs , without
adding any to the edification of the con
vention or the object of its assembling.
The writer was engaged in conver
sation with a delegate from Oregon ,
without any thought of making a speech
or even asking the privilege of the floor ,
when fo his surprise , Governor Nelson ,
the presiding offlcersaug out' 'the gentle
man from Pennsylvania , J. B. Corey ,
has the floor. " I must confess I never
was more taken back. I arose to my
feet intending to respectfully decline to
make a speech , apologizing for my lack
of knowledge of the question under con
sideration , when the thought flashed
into my mind to ask the honorable
gentlemen who had been occupying the
attention of the convention for the latter
part of two days to give us the name of
one of these trusts , who composed it ,
where it had headquarters and whom it
had injured in business etc. Had an
anarchistic bomb been exploded in the
hall it would scarcely have created a
greater consternation than the asking
for that information. The entire dele
gation of pops were on their feet at one
and the same time , yelling at the top of
their voices :
"What ! a delegate to an anti-trust
convention who has never heard or
kuowu of a trust ! " The confusion be
came so great that Governor Nelson
was compelled to adjourn the conven
tion , it being noon hour , until 2 p. m. ,
saying the gentleman from Pennsylvania
would have the floor on the assembling
of the convention. The governor called
me to him as I was leaving for dinner ,
saying he hoped I would reply to some
of the arguments that had been made.
I said I had never given the question
any consideration and was not an orator ;
that he had better secure some one more
familiar with the subject. The gover
nor insisted I should reply to the popu-
Istio arguments. On the reassembling
of the convention I began my address
by asking the gentlemen and ladies who ,
before wo adjourned so vociferously had
promised , to furnish me with the names
of trusts and persons composing them
and parties injured by them. Among
those who had declared their willing
ness to furnish the desired information
was the Hon. Ignatius Donnelly , who
claimed he was entitled to the honor of
having originated the call for the con
vention ; presidential candidate of the
populists , James A. Weaver ; a dignified
delegate of Illinois by the name of
Lloyd , and a short-haired woman from
some state , along with a savnge looking
westerner from Nevada and a tall , slim ,
long-haired fire-eater from the state of
Mississippi. They all , with one accord ,
were on hand intent on getting the
opportunity , as I thought , of furnishing
the promised information ; but instead
of naming a single trust of their own
personal knowledge , they started up
such an uproar of yells , cat-calls and
other disorderly acts that Governor
Nelson in using the mallet , which had
been made from the ship of Commodore
Perry or Lawrence , that was sunk in
the naval conflict with the English navy
in 1812 , broke the head off the mallet ,
which flew out into the audience , during
the efforts of the chairman to secure me
an orderly hearing. This exhibition of
ill temper surprised mo all the more ,
from the fact that I had only asked the
anti-trust people to furnish us with the
name of a single trust , the people com
posing it and its headquarters. Gover
nor Nelson in pleading with them to
give me a hearing said I seemed to be a
mild-mannered man ; he did not think I
would indulge in any abusive language
or personal epithets. The Hon. Ignatius
Donnelly sprang up and said ho was not
going to be insulted in a convention that
he himself had been the originator of. I
"You thin-skinned.
replied : are very -
You have for two days been hurling
your anathemas upon the heads of every
statesman the nation has ever produced ,
vilifying the living and the dead. You
ought to bo willing to stand a little of
your own kind of logic. "
I wns allowed to proceed without fur
ther interruption. When I finished the
editor of the Omaha Bee , who single-
handed and alone had contended with
the fiery orators for two days , and who
was chairman of the committee , called
for a vote on the question and the result
was the anti-trust fanatics were beaten ,
after polling the convention , two to
one.
one.Then
Then Ignatius Donnelly and his follow
ers bolted and hold a rump convention.
When I saw that Hon. Bourke Cockran
and Win. Bryan were delegates to the
late convention I felt certain if Cockran
got a chance he would let the wind out
of the Bryan bubble. I was very much
disappointed that Bryan's discretion
prevented the American people from en
joying the fun ; but I was amused and
pleased to see Gookran's argument was
on the same line of my impromptu reply
to the same class of fanatics in 1898
"that calling an aggrogatiou of capital
a combination ; that nothing frightens
the people as incomprehensible names ;
a noise they cannot see , that men can
be put to intellectual flight by the terri
fying noises of sound , " as the San Fran
cisco Call so tersely puts it. That is a
correct estimate of Mr. Bryan as a
tocsin , a drumhead , a gourd full of
peas , making a noise inexpressive of
thought. J. B. COUEY.
Fifty-five years
AVOMKX IN
MKDICINK. ago there was no
opportunity for a
woman to study and graduate in medi
cine in this or any foreign country , and
even twenty years ago a woman physi
cian was next to a freak in her com
munity , and contemptuously frowned
upon by the profession. But last year
fifty-six were graduated from the
Woman's Medical College of Philadel
phia. There is no reason why women
should not bo physicians but there are
many and pressing reasons why they
should practice medicine. While there
are a few things in the profession that
they might not bo as well adapted to as
men , they are quite as well adapted to
even the exceptional duties referred teas
as men physicians are to many delicate
duties they now perform for women
without complaint. In a large majority
of ailments to which humanity is sub
ject , women physicians with equal
intelligence and skill , are certainly the
equals of men in professional usefulness
and there are immy complaints of their
own sex that should especially command
the services of women physicians.
The world has advanced with wonder
ful rapidity during the last half century
in the recognition of the rights and
capabilities of women. The first class
to graduate in the world was composed
of eight brave girls as follows : Anna
M. Longshore , Susanna H. Ellis , Angen-
nata A. Hunt , Hannah E. Longshore ,
Frances Mitchell , Ann Preston , Martha
A. Swain and Phoebe M. Way. They
faced a severe ordeal when they ventured
out in the fifties , but all attained promi
nence , particularly Anna M. Longshore ,
who , in addition to earning a fortune in
her profession , is today recognized as
the leader in the higher education of
popular physiology.
It is less than sixty years since married
women in Pennsylvania had no right
over even their own property acquired
by either their own labor or inheritance.
Today the only just complaint that
women can make is against the yet
prevalent custom of paying women less
than men are paid for precisely the same
service. Women are quite as refined
now as when they were unknown in the
great battles , and the whole tendency of
the ago is towards the only manly course
of giving women fair play all round.
Crokerism represents a machine with
a self-confident engineer at the throttle.
PS-
"
! TfjAk"
