Madeline McDowell Breckinridge and the Battle for a New South by Melba Porter Hay

Author:Melba Porter Hay [Hay, Melba Porter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, Historical, history, United States, State & Local, South (AL; AR; FL; GA; KY; LA; MS; NC; SC; TN; VA; WV), Social Science, Women's Studies
ISBN: 9780813173269
Google: wXvfgqGu_A8C
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
Published: 2009-04-24T00:11:03.111522+00:00

It is the sphere of government that has changed; not the sphere of women. The government has grown away from the foundation principles. The women are only demanding the vote to keep the rights which they had when the government was founded. The original purpose of our government was to control measures for offense and defense. Now it has branched out into a thousand directions. It has taken charge of the schools; women have always been the educators. It has interested itself in charities and hospitals; from the beginning, nursing the sick and aiding neighbors were duties imposed on the women. In order to maintain their positions as teachers and neighbors women have had to go out and seek the vote. I do not say that had the government not been slowly developing into a paternal government[,] women would not have sought the ballot. I am a democrat and as such I believe in the right of women to vote.21

Newspapers across the South gave Madge’s speeches extensive, and usually favorable, coverage. The Houston Post reported that “as the great-granddaughter of Henry Clay, she is said to have inherited his power of oratory combined with a degree of personal magnetism that has made her one of the foremost public speakers of her sex in the South.” An Atlanta paper called her “an able speaker, a brilliant woman, a leader in the various movements which have kept the progressive women of the country busy for many years.” When sending newspaper clippings about the speeches to her mother, Madge noted with wry humor: “I am sure you are tired of reading newspaper notices of me and the same old speech—so don’t read the enclosed if you don’t want to.”22

Along the way in her travels she ran into former Lexington residents and an old friend from Miss Porter’s School. All in all, she had a “good time” on the trip and experienced only one major disappointment. Desha had to make a trip to New York City, while Madge planned to attend a meeting there, so they hoped to get together and have a few days of vacation. “I am quite excited over the idea of seeing you in New York, and am very glad we are going—Even if it is only a little bit of a holiday, we’ll have the trip back together,” she wrote Desha. However, it was not to be; Madge’s meeting was postponed, so she extended her speaking engagements in the South. “It seemed to me I couldn’t get reconciled—I was looking forward to the little holiday with you so much . . . and it seemed too good to be true to do my duty and yet get the fun of being with you,” she lamented. “I think you have a right to feel positively bitter about it,” she concluded, “but I must stop crying over skimmed milk & the trouble I gave you now. And maybe time will finally pass till we see each other again—And then I’m not going away any more until you do.

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