Chapter 2

In my early womanhood I knew our honored president, a fair, happy, healthy, active English woman; and she appeared to me (sobered by the loss of most of my family) to rejoice in a fulness of life. We were maidens, and her interests and activities were in domestic and social life. I have not lost the fresh memory of her in those days.

She was our president for ten years, and afterwards our honorary president. The activity of her life has made the deepest impression upon me. Every member of our association and of sister associations will agree with me, that never a woman brought a more cheerful and willing spirit to her official duties than did she. She rejoiced in her place, delighted in her privilege, and fully enjoyed the recognition and good fellowship of other clubs. This cheerful service, rendered for years, made her widely known in the club world. She responded to personal influence and suggestions made directly to her. She was most receptive to practical ideas, and adopted methods readily, and her liberal service brought to her just recompense.

For years it required sacrifice on her part to attend the regular meetings of Sorosis, for she had daily occupation, and a lost day must be redeemed. But when an officer she made the sacrifice cheerfully. She was social and hospitable. Freely her house was given to us for lectures, receptions to distinguished guests and business meetings. For years the Positivists held their meetings at her home. She found her pleasure in pleasing, and in helping others gave herself joy. She loved her work for clubs, and you will remember that she had several business enterprises connected with them, during the years that she was an active clubwoman.

I was in this country while she was preparing her history of clubs (not the history of Sorosis), and she brought the interest and enthusiasm of a young woman to the work; with a satisfied pride she showed me the material she had collected for the history. Nothing else to her mind was more important, or to be thought of until that was accomplished. I believe that her usefulness to clubs has been commensurate with the interest and gratification she had in the service.

During the years of our acquaintance our intercourse was genial and concordant, and the results of our early work in Sorosis cannot equal the sweet satisfaction that came with its performance.

In the early life of the club many of us were young mothers, and our domestic duties had strong claims upon us, and one prominent thought in connection with the formation of Sorosis was that the attention of a large class of thinking women, directed in concert towards important domestic and social questions, could be secured; and, while the character of the club should be pre-eminently social, we hoped to quietly bring in important reforms, or at least some effective action on these questions, and, above all, to secure an intelligent social intercourse without increasing our domestic duties and responsibilities. Have we not accomplished this?

As the smallest consoling thought is greater than the most eloquent expression of sorrow, so do we find some consolation in the fact that fate was kind to our friend, and led her away when she could no longer enjoy life, and that she went while with us whose hearts were warm with an active sympathy and tender helpfulness.

Our kind purpose to her name lifts our acts above criticism, and fortifies them by our love and worthiness of intention. Let us live to live forever--so shall we never fear death; let our warm human love be the prophet of a union for greater benefits; and let us have faith in the love that lives in human bosoms still:

"Lives to renovate our earth From the bondage of its birth, And the long arrears of ill."

Address by the Rev. Phebe A. Hanaford, Vice-President of the Woman's Press Club of New York City

I am requested to speak of the excellent work done by its departed president, in and for the Woman's Press Club of New York City. To others is assigned the testimony in reference to the career and work of our departed president as a press woman, and her place in literature.

We are not here to analyze her character, or to chronicle her work. Nor are we here to dwell on those biographical details which belong to the pen rather than the voice; to the book and the reader rather than the address and the hearer. We are here to testify our regard for one whose busy pen is laid aside, but whose example of industry we may well imitate; though in the journalistic field the women of to-day will never have opportunity to emulate her perseverance and fearlessness, since her entrance in times long gone by on this untrodden path bore an important part in opening the way and obtaining results for women with whom the pen to-day is a power.

Mrs. Croly was the founder of this club in 1889, and for twelve years and to the day of her death, its only president. It started (as she tells us in the large quarto volume relating to clubs--which was the closing, if not the crowning, effort of her busy pen) with an invitation sent out by herself in November, 1889, to forty women, a number of whom were then engaged upon the press in New York City, to meet at her residence, and consider the advisability of forming a Woman's Press Club. It was eminently fitting that one who had been stirred in former years by the absence of social recognition in journalism as within woman's province, on the part of the men of the press, and moved to take a prominent part in the formation of Sorosis, should organize a club of women writers--women journalists especially--which should be known everywhere as distinctly a Woman's Press Club.

The response to her call was most gratifying. Her ability as an organizer, and her social qualities which could attract and hold women together in strong bonds of mutual esteem and fellowship, were again evident, and on November 19, 1889, the organization was effected and a provisional constitution adopted.

At first the literary features of the new club were considered secondary to the social and beneficiary, but gradually they grew to their present importance.

In its early days, like most clubs this one was migratory, and its work incidental. Gradually it came to have a more permanent home, and its monthly programmes which, as Mrs. Croly herself stated, "are more in the form of a symposium than of a question for debate," came to be so attractive and varied, and in every way so excellent, that they are often declared to be unsurpassed in interest by any woman's club. This was a matter of exceeding satisfaction to its founder, who saw the club grow from its membership of fifty-two to two hundred. She was never weary of recounting its successes, literary, musical, artistic and social. The Press Club was her joy and pride from its organization to the very day when she last met with its members, devoting on that day her failing strength to a cause that was beyond expression dear to her heart. I think I shall only be saying very feebly what the members of the club, especially those who have been members from its organization, now feel--that they regard her presence with them on the recent day of installation of new officers as a benediction, though they little knew that in her feebleness she was bidding them a loving farewell. When the news of her departure reached them it was received with surprise and deep sorrow. By prompt action the officers at once came together, and immediate measures were taken for appropriate expression of the Press Club's loyalty and love.

Its members are here to-day not only to express their own high regard for their departed founder and president, but also to unite with Sorosis, the London Pioneer Club, and other clubs in the State Federation, who, by their presence, speech, or song, indicate the sympathy they have with those who will hold in fadeless remembrance their ascended president, who has learned ere this, that

"Life is ever Lord of Death, And Love can never lose its own."

As members of the club she, who has now passed into the eternal light, founded may we seek earnestly to walk in the light of Truth, strenuous for that more than royal liberty of conscience, which means liberty under righteous law and seeking for the Unity which obeys the Golden Rule, and thus binds heart to heart. So shall the Woman's Press Club of New York City truly honor the memory of its founder and first president, Jane Cunningham Croly.

Address by Orlena A. Zabriskie, President of the New York Federation

That the New York State Federation should be called upon to attest its love, devotion, and admiration for Mrs. Croly and her wonderful work among women, is a privilege we appreciate, and I shall try in a few simple, honest words, to explain a little of what her influence has been to the New York State Federation. We all know she was an organizer and founder, but it is well to repeat those words, although I think there is little danger that we shall ever forget them. From all over the State have come messages to me from different members of the federation, expressing their love and obligation to Mrs. Croly for what she has done for them individually, and for the State. One letter said:

"I shall think of her always as that lovely, sweet-tempered woman who, under the most trying circumstances, never lost her temper, or felt she was at all aggrieved. She took it in the right way, and was just as lovely and kind at the close as at the beginning."

I saw her at Friendship, a little town in the northwestern part of the State, before the meeting at Buffalo, and there we had a long talk about matters of Federation interest. She gave me some good advice in her own gentle way, that I shall never forget, and I am only too glad to have this opportunity of saying it helped me to carry through that convention as I could not have done otherwise.

What was the secret of her power as an organizer? I think this--she saw the little spark of good in each woman, every woman she came in contact with, and even in those she did not come in personal contact with. She knew it was there and she had the ability to call it forth, and that magnetic influence drew them together, so that they realized that they could do more in large numbers than they could as individuals. Knowing our power, she urged and encouraged us to do our best. When with her we did not feel as though we had a "specked" side. I think it was just that that gave her power and influence in the clubs she founded, to make them live and be a greater power than ever they could have been without her memory and example set before them.

She has done good work, and started us on a task that she saw had practical possibilities, and now we can carry out those ideas of hers, and give them force in years to come. It may take a long time, but we will keep on being patient, cheerful, kind-hearted, and considerate, as she was. Let us therefore be grateful we had her as long as we did. She was for us a grand inheritance, and let us appreciate it.

Address by Carrie Louise Griffin, President of the Society of American Women in London

If I could only command that physical self as I would like to, I would tell you how grateful I am to be privileged to speak, and how much I think we have to be thankful for to-day, in the life of our dear one, which was given us.

I am new in this club, and, as most of you know, my friendship with Mrs. Croly is not yet three years old, but I have been singularly privileged and honored in loving her, and in the love which she gave me.

She came into my life (I must be just a little personal for a moment) as our first luncheon, in our little Society of American Women in London, was about to be given. The president of Sorosis had written to London saying: "Do you know that Mrs. Croly and Mrs. Glynes are to be in London, and I think they would help you?" Bless her, and Mrs. Croly: she came as a benediction to the few of us who were then novices in what we were doing. I can never tell you what a benefit she was to us in the difficult work we had undertaken. You have given me exceptional privileges in coming among you, and I am grateful for the help you have been to me, but I would say to you--and you have given me this privilege--I have never met a woman who seemed to have recognized the birthright in women as the birthright in men, to create that link which binds our powers to our intellect. It seems to me that it was with Mrs. Croly as it was with our late Majesty, Queen Victoria, that she was an influence, perhaps, rather than a power. She conceived great ideas and passed them on for the executive work of others to fulfil. I can assure you she was everything to us. Her English birth gave her an instinctive insight into English character. English women seemed to know and understand her, as she knew and understood them, and there has been no finer link between the women of America and the women of the Old World than Mrs. Croly. It was my privilege to be with her personally a great deal while in London, not only when she stayed in my own house, but when I have gone back and forth with her as her guide to the many functions we attended together. We can all be proud of her. Wherever she went she was not only hailed as the pioneer woman, but also as one who did honor and credit to the name of American womanhood, for, although born in England, she still claimed that she was an American woman, as you know.

I shall never forget a little picture she gave of herself one day. She told us of her life in her home in a little town in the north of England. Her father was a Unitarian, and often had classes in his house for teaching the working people. His views, as you may imagine, were quite contrary to the views of the orthodox Church of England, and the people there rebelled, stoned the house, and wanted to turn them out of the town. The mother said to the father: "I wish you would take little Jennie by the hand, in her white frock, and lead her out to the people; perhaps when they see her they will not throw stones." That was her earliest memory of that little English town. Later, I believe, they left in the night and came to America, in order that they might live out the courage of their faith.

At our luncheon Mrs. Croly said: "I want English and American women to love each other. I remember with pride and honor my English birth. I can see my little room now--a small room with a lattice window over which the roses grew, and as I stood at the window on tiptoe, I could look into the old-fashioned garden below. I stood on an old chest. In the winter my summer frocks were kept there, and in the summer my red woollen dress. I loved it; it was beautiful, and it made me love England. When I am in England and I hear anything not quite kind about America, I am sorry and my heart aches, and if, when I am in America, I hear something not quite kind about England, my heart aches again, because I love it all."

In talking with Mrs. Croly, she said to me, "I hope some day you will come to a General Federation." Quoting Matthew Arnold, she said: "If ever the world sees a time when women shall come together, purely and simply for the benefit and good of mankind, it will be a power such as the world has never known." And she said, "There you will find it." We had talked about it and looked forward to seeing it together, but that will never be. It was her hope and dream that there should be such a General Federation of clubs as to bring in the women of the Old World with the Federation of Clubs in the New, that we might stand hand in hand together. She said to me, "I think you are narrow in your society--its members are only Americans." We have often talked this over, and have decided that in order to strengthen our centre we must keep it, at present, to American woman; but it may be possible to have an associate membership--the thin edge of the wedge looking toward the realization of her dreams.

Address by Cynthia Westover Alden, Vice-President of the Women's Press Club, and President of the International Sunshine Society

Mrs. Croly has left us. Yet I cannot think of her work as ended, of her mission as closed. You may go over every line she ever wrote, you may recall with, microscopic exactness every word she ever spoke, without finding one single grain of bitterness towards any human creature. Her active life was such as must find the ripe continuance of its activity in the better country whither she has preceded us. I feel that there is no hyperbole in applying to her memory the striking words of Lowell's Elegy on Dr. Channing:

"I do not come to weep above thy pall And mourn the dying-out of noble powers; The poet's clearer eye should see in all Earth's seeming woe, seed of immortal flowers.

"No power can die that ever wrought for truth; Thereby a law of Nature it became, And lives unwithered in its blithesome youth, When he who called it forth is but a name.

"Therefore I cannot think thee wholly gone; The better part of thee is with us still; Thy soul its hampering clay aside hath thrown, And only freer wrestles with the ill.

"Thou art not idle; in thy higher sphere Thy spirit bends itself to loving tasks, And strength to perfect what it dreamed of here Is all the crown and glory that it asks."

The women of America owe much to Jenny June. By example she showed them that the career of letters was open to them. Her style, cheerful and vivid, sometimes epigrammatic, always entertaining, was her own. It could not be copied, it could not be imitated, it stood by itself; her career, filled with a large measure of the courage of her success, belonged in the broadest sense to women as women. How many worthy ambitions that career has stimulated to fruition we know not, and never shall know. One thing, however, is certain--that if you deduct from the literature of America the names of women who have followed Mrs. Croly's example and have been cheered by the fact that she did not fall by the wayside, you leave a void that never could be filled. How consciously they have been affected by Mrs. Croly's blazing path I cannot tell; but the influence has been none the less real and none the less powerful.

Woman's battle for literary recognition will not have to be fought over again: it belongs to the past. The old contempt of editors and publishers, aye, and of readers as well, has gone to join slavery and polygamy and human sacrifices in the chamber of horrors. But we can never forget the woman who braved that contempt, and faced it down by achievement that could not be ignored. Mrs. Croly belonged to the period of that early struggle. In her sweetness of temper she lent to its very asperities the charm of a tournament, overcoming evil with good, and triumphing at last over prejudice which thousands of women had feared to face. We loved her for herself. We are sad in spite of ourselves that she has gone. But we shall only remember her as one of the greatest benefactors of woman in literature; one of the most delightful of all the delightful characters that we have ever known.

"This laurel leaf I cast upon thy bier; Let worthier hands than these thy wreath entwine; Upon thy hearse I shed no useless tear-- For us weep rather thou, in calm divine."

In the Silence

_By May Riley Smith_

They are out of the chaos of living, The wreck and debris of the years; They have passed from the struggle and striving, They have drained their goblet of tears. They have ceased one by one from their labors, So we clothed them in garments of rest, And they entered the chamber of silence;-- God do for them now what is best!

We saw not the lift of the curtain, Nor heard the invisible door, As they passed where life's problems uncertain Will follow and burthen no more. We lingered and wept on the threshold-- The threshold each mortal must cross,-- Then we laid a new wreath down upon it, To mark a new sorrow and loss.

Then back to our separate places A little more lonely we creep, A little more care in our faces, The wrinkles a little more deep. And we stagger, ah, God, how we stagger As we lift the old load to our back! A little more lonely to carry Because of the comrade we lack.

But into our lives whether chidden Or welcome, God's comforters come; His sunshine waits not to be bidden, His stars,--they are always at home. His mornings are faithful,--His evenings Allay the day's fever and fret; And night--kind physician--entreats us To slumber and dream and forget.

O Spirit of infinite kindness And gentleness passing all speech! Forgive when we miss in our blindness The comforting hand them dost reach. Thou sendest the Spring on Thine errand To soften the grief of the world; For us is the calm of the mountain, For us is the rose-leaf uncurled.

Thou art tenderer, too, than a mother, In the wonderful Book it is said; O Pillow of Comfort! What other So softly could cradle my head? And though Thou hast darkened the portal That leads where our vanished ones be; We lean on our faith in Thy goodness, And leave them to silence and Thee.

Jenny June

_By Fanny Hallock Carpenter_

A beautiful soul has journeyed Out from the Now into Then. Her voice echoes back to us, waiting, The sound of the great Amen.

Her life was a song so winsome It sung itself night and day Into the hearts of the people Who met her along the way.

Her life was a flower so fragrant That every one passing her, knew By the perfume from it exhaling, The love out of which it grew.

Her life was a book so vivid That all, though running, could read The story of earnest endeavor Written for woman's need.

Her life was a light whose radiance Brightened all woman-kind, As sunshine wakens the flowers, Or genius illumines the mind.

Her life was a poem so tender It thrilled with its cadence sweet Many a life prosaic, Which caught up the rhythmic beat.

Her life was a bell whose ringing Gave no uncertain sound, Its chiming rang out to the nations And girdled the world around.

Her life was a deed so holy, So noble, so brave, so true, That it set all womanhood noting The good one woman could do.

Her life was a brook, that swelling Grew to a river wide, That freshened the souls of the many Touched by its flowing tide.

The song has trilled into silence, The flower is faded and gone, The book's strong story is ended, The light is lost in the dawn.

The poem's sweet rhythm is ended, The chiming has ceased to be, The deed is fully accomplished, The river has joined the sea.

She dropped the pebble whose ripples To the shores of all time shall extend, She has spoken the word into ether Whose sound-waves never shall end.

She has started a light on its journey Out into limitless space, She has written a thought for women Eternity cannot erase.

A wonderful soul has journeyed Out from the Now into Then, Her voice echoes back to us, waiting, The sound of the great Amen.

Resolutions and Tributes From Clubs

Resolutions of the New York State Federation of Women's Clubs

In Memoriam

_Mrs. Jane Cunningham Croly_

We have tenderly laid away to rest our beloved honorary president, Jane Cunningham Croly, to sleep the blessed sleep that knows no waking in this toilsome, troublous world.