ocieties and
leagues in sympathy with her purposes, made up the sum of her existence.
Personally she was a woman of many attractions of mind and bearing; but
her fanaticism in the fancied cause of those who repudiated, in their
vast majority, her theories and aims made her the type of the restless
and radical "reformer."

Yet the efforts of the would-be female reformers, however, misdirected
in their immediate aims, did good in rousing the women of America to a
consideration of their place in the polity, at least in social matters,
of the commonwealth. They might not care to go to the polls and struggle
with the men in an endeavor openly to rule the destinies of the nation;
but they awoke to a more intelligent interest than they had yet
displayed in the theories of government and the social questions of the
day. Many of the chief reforms in these matters which have come about
during late years have been effected by the direct influence of the
women of our land, either in leagues or through recognized and
accredited representatives of some accepted theories. This feminine
interest in the larger affairs of the nation, rightly directed to
internal rather than to external policy, has been admirable in its
results, and its rise and development may in large measure be attributed
to the incitement of the reform spirit in other matters. That the
concerted efforts of the women of our country are invariably wisely
directed and governed it were folly to claim; but the spirit is always
pure and high, and the masculine framers or advocates of legislation are
not of such unimpeachable wisdom that they can afford to speak in scorn
of the theories or work of the other sex in this wise, while at least
the motives that direct feminine influence cannot be called into
question. The tendency of the sex toward extremes, and its blindness, in
its sense of the desirability of its end, to the unwisdom of the means
which it sometimes proposes to use, are occasionally in evidence in
matters of paternal legislation, but these are but minor flaws, and are
not incorrigible.

So the era of Feminine Reconstruction resulted in the working woman and
the thinking woman; and on these lies much of the hope of our country's
future. Thus the Civil War at the last brought us a blessing instead of
a curse, and in the halls of labor American womanhood once more joined
hands in amity and became a unit in its aims and influence.

CHAPTER XIV

THE CLOSE