It has failed in many earlier attempts because personal justice was lacking; but even one generation of sustained effort to simplify conditions would insure not only a different ideal for those who think at all, but the birth of something better for every child of the Republic.
For the individual standing alone, hampered by many cares and distracted over the whole household problem, action may seem impossible. But if the most rational members of a community would band together, send prejudice and tradition to the winds, and make a new declaration of independence for the worker, it is certain that the tide would turn and a new order begin. Till such united, concerted action can be brought about there is small hope of reform, and it can come only through women. Dismiss sentiment. Learn to look at the thing as a trade in which each seeks her own advantage, and in which each gains the more clearly these advantages are defined. It is a hard relation. It demands every power that woman can bring to bear upon it. It is an education of the highest faculties she owns. It means a double battle, for it is with ourselves that the fight begins. Liberty can only come through personal struggle. It is easy to die for it, but to live for it, to deserve it, to defend it forever is another and a harder matter. Still harder is it to know its full meaning and what it is that makes the battle worth fighting. Union to such ends will be slow, but it must come:--
"Freedom is growth and not creation: One man suffers, one man is free. One brain forges a constitution, But how shall the million souls be won? Freedom is more than a revolution-- He is not free who is free alone."
Is this the word of a dreamer whose imagination holds the only work of reconstruction, and whose hands are powerless to make the dream reality? On the contrary, many years of experience in which few of the usual troubles were encountered, added to that of others who had thought out the problem for themselves, have demonstrated that reform is possible. Precisely such conditions as are here specified have been in practical operation for many years. The homes in which they have ruled have had the unfailing devotion of those who served, and the experiment has ceased to come under that head, and demonstrated that order and peace and quiet mastery of the day's work may still be American possessions. Count this imperfect presentation then as established fact for a few, and ask why it is not possible to make it so for the many.