Railroad Track Torn Up

New York, 1895

A Land Company Steals a March on Benjamin E. Valentine.

An abandoned stretch of track, running from the main tracks of the Long Island railroad at Woodsburgh to the old race track of the Cedarhurst steeplechasing and racing association, was torn up Friday night by a gang of fifty Italians from New York. The work was done under the direction of the Hewlett's Land and Improvement company, who by this means seek to prevent the Long Island railroad from continuing in possession of the land over which the track was built.

According to the improvement company, when the land was deeded to the Cedarhurst company on which to build the track a stipulation was made that, should the track at any time be abandoned, the land should revert to its original owners. When the Cedarhurst racing association gave up its grounds the track fell into disuse, and became overgrown with weeds and brush. It was practically abandoned save during the hunt, when a small horse car was run between the station and the Rockaway club's house for the accommodation of the members. Even the switch connecting the branch with the main track had been taken out.

About a week ago, however, Lawyer Benjamin E. Valentine, who is erecting a villa beyond the Rockaway hunt club's house, induced the railroad company to replace the switch, with the intention of using the side track to ship material to where he was building. No opposition was made to the replacing of the switch, but before the railroad has been able to run a train over the track the improvement company has torn it from its bed, and a fence now obstructs free passage over the old roadbed.

—The Long Island Farmer, Jamaica, NY, Feb. 1, 1895, p. 12.

Women In Parliament

1901

It is a fact seemingly known to very few people, that there are actually ladies who have the right and privilege to sit in the British parliament, writes Clement Scott in The Free Lance. There can be no doubt, according to many excellent authorities, that those few people who are "peeresses in their own right" can claim to sit in the house lords during any ordinary assembly that house.

Such ladies as the Countess of Cromartie, the Baroness Couyers and the Baroness Burdett-Coutts might at any time create a sensation throughout the empire by appearing in person and claiming to take their seats in that house, and if they can sit and vote there they can certainly take part in actual debates of the house.

What would happen should any such lady venture to exercise her peeress' rights in that direction the imagination fails to conceive, but it is easily seen that with the ideas which are at present in the air with regard to the advance of women we may ere long have some peeress in her own right or even more than one who will insist on these rights being accorded. Then what an upheaval of parliamentary tradition and custom there will be!

Could Not See Into Future

1919

Men of Genius Had Little Idea What Their Inventions Might Mean to the World

It appears that it is not infrequently the case that great inventors do not comprehend the significance of the things they have produced. Here are two examples:

When Hertz first began to obtain satisfactory results from his now famous researches into the possibility of transmitting electric waves certain men of science suggested that some day similar vibrations might serve to transmit messages through space. Hertz laughed at the hypothesis and assured all comers that his experiments were for laboratories only. Now, after a few short years, it is hard to find a single issue of a daily newspaper that does not record some noteworthy example of the use of wireless telegraphy.

Levassor was the great engineer who sketched the automobile with such skill that his design has not been materially changed to this day. After Levassor accomplished his historic trip from Paris to Bordeaux and return at the dizzy speed of about 15 miles an hour his admirers gave him a banquet. During the toasts one of them, stirred by the spirit of the occasion, rose and enthusiastically called on the assembly to drink to the approaching day when carriages should travel at the speed of 60 miles an hour. Levassor turned to his nearest neighbor and asked in a quick undertone:

"Why is it that after every banquet some people feel called on to make fools of themselves?"


Only One Foundation

Men best prove their right to rights by making good in little things. Rights are those things that grow out of universal justice. In the last analysis they are beyond price. Some folks say they have bought the right to certain things. That is only because custom has commercialized them. Such rights savor of monopoly and are as unstable as the dollars with which they are purchased. Right that rests upon divine law may seem very tame, but after all it's the only right that abides amidst the rise and fall of empires and the changing customs of men. To such rights every man is heir. — Exchange.

Massachusetts Court Severe on Husbands

1896

According to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court husbands can no longer rule their wives. The Court says, in rendering a recent decision:

"By virtue of this legislation a married woman becomes, in the view of the law, a distinct and independent person from her husband, not only in respect to her right to own property, but also in respect to her right to use her time for the purpose of earning money on her sole and separate account. She may perform labor, and is entitled to her wages and earnings. If she complies with the statutory requirement as to recording a certificate she may carry on any trade or business on her sole and separate account, and take the profits, if profits there are, as her separate property."

Her husband can appropriate neither her earnings nor her time, but he is obliged to support her as in the old regime. He has few rights left, though, for, "to a certain limited extent, as for example, in fixing the domicile and in being responsible under ordinary circumstances for its orderly management, the husband is still the head of the family." — New York Press.

"No Period" McGee Prophesies Revolution

1908

Railways, Navigation, Rights Granted

Dr. W J McGee, the distinguished ethnologist and geologist, who is the secretary and mainspring of the inland waterways commission, predicts a revolution within a few years, if the railways are allowed to continue grabbing riparian rights, throttling navigation and depriving the country of its greatest single source of wealth, its waterways.

And Dr. McGee is no wild sensationalist, but a cool-headed scientist and investigator. He points out that, with the exception of Vicksburg, there is not a single town between St. Paul and New Orleans whose river fronts and bridges have not been grabbed by the railways with the kind assistance of the legislatures. The doctor's idea is that by redeeming the river fronts and developing waste water power, the whole cost of improving the rivers would be paid for in a few years.

Dr. McGee is a self-taught scientist. While he was working on a farm he was studying Latin, higher mathematics, astronomy and surveying. He had charge of the bureau of ethnology from 1893 to 1903, resigning to become chief of the department of anthropology at the St. Louis exposition. He was the first president of the American Anthropological society, and later was president of the National Geographical society. He has done some valuable exploring work himself, his topographic survey of northwestern Iowa being the most extensive ever made in America without public aid. He is now secretary of the inland waterways commission, which has in charge the deepening and improving of our inland navigation, together with the reclamation of land and the development of water power.

Dr. McGee was born in Iowa in 1853. He is known among his friends as "No Period" McGee, for he never uses periods after his initials. He maintains that everyone calls him "W J," and that that has become his name and ceased to be initials.

No Equal Suffrage Movement in France After the American Fashion

1920

By Mme. Clemenceau-Jacquemaire, in New York Times

So far as I have been able to observe, there is no equal suffrage movement in France in the sense that you in America regard a movement. From earliest times the women in France have always held a high position in the community. They have taken an active part in business projects, and the professions have always been open to them. They have been prominent in literature, science, and art. Indirectly they have exerted great influence on the political life of the country. Consequently there has been no pronounced movement for equal rights in France such as has been started elsewhere.

The women of France are not anxious to vote or to be elected to office. Therefore I am not of the opinion that suffrage will gain headway in my country. Nevertheless I am watching with great interest the progress of the women of other countries. We admire your progressiveness and are interested in the experiment of sending women to congress, of giving them seats on the bench. This is, of course, in line with your advancement and liberal ideas. But our own traditions, our social and racial conditions, are very different.

I find no cause for anxiety regarding the competition of the sexes in business. Women who had taken men's jobs on the outbreak of the war are gladly relinquishing them, and peace adjustment is coming without bitterness.

Was it not Ellen Key who avowed that even if the suffragist was striving to be free she was making a mistake if she thought the vote would free her from the limitation of nature? Women cannot pass beyond those limits without interfering with the rights of nature and the potential child. Woman, of course, has a right to avoid marriage, and to allow herself to be turned into a third sex, provided she finds in this her greatest happiness. But when all is told, motherhood is the central factor of existence for most women.

Listen, World! — "Chivalry and Equality"

1922

By Elsie Robinson

And right now we're going to talk about this business of taking off hats in elevators or giving up seats to ladies on the street cars. It is generally conceded that such acts indicate a chivalrous attitude toward the ladies and the Advocates of Chivalry bitterly deplore the hatted head and the seated seat. My opinion is that the Advocates of Chivalry had better take a cold shower and snap out of it.

I too believe in chivalrous attitudes and marks of honor. But the highest mark of honor, to my mind, which a man can give a woman is to treat her as an equal. None of this pedestal stuff. I would feel much more honored if a tired man would ask me to help him carry his bundles than if he should take off his hat in the elevator in which we are rising. There's infinitely more freedom, dignity and true comradeship for me in sharing 50-50 with a man on amusement expenses than in all the knightly jousts that ever kicked up the dust in honor of some fair lady's glove. I would much rather stand while a busy man tells me of his work though he does it with a cigar in his mouth and his coat off than have him honor me by giving me his chair while he inwardly curses at the interruption.

And why, in the name of common sense and fairness, should the average man give his seat to a woman in the street car — provided she be neither old nor infirm? Does a man not grow tired as well as a woman? He does. Doesn't he have back aches and headaches and heartaches and fallen arches just as frequently? He does. Can't the average Young Person to whom he is supposed to give that seat out dance him and outrun him? She can. Can't the average Dowager out eat him and out-window shop him? She can. Then that's that.

What I want are the tokens of Equality. I don't give two hoots for the politeness that's handed out to me because I'm a Woman. But beautiful to me as a sunrise and as full of golden promises are the indifferences and rudenesses which I encounter as a FELLOW WORKER.

West Virginia's Vote Cheers Suffrage Head

1920

"The Struggle Is Over," Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt Declares.

NEW YORK, N.Y., March 18. — "Suffrage is won. The words are simple, but they thrill as few words do or can." This was the encouraging conclusion of Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, in a statement issued here on receipt of news that the West Virginia Senate had ratified the Federal suffrage amendment by a vote of 15 to 14. With West Virginia won and the Washington and Delaware legislatures meeting soon in special session, the opinion expressed at headquarters was that "the struggle is over."

"People who have followed the course of woman suffrage from the outside with indifference or small understanding of what has been at stake," said Mrs. Catt, "will have no comprehension of the real message which the West Virginia victory carries to women. To us it means that the nation is won, that the seventy-five year struggle is over, that the women of America are enfranchised women.

"And now whatever comes out of granting the suffrage to women, it is safe to predict that it will never be responsible for any offering to the general welfare except those things which have been well considered and intelligently endorsed."