Sara A. Underwood

“ The London National Reformer thus notices her address at a Conference of the Woman’s Suffrage movement in that city:
“The speech of the meeting was, however, made by a lady whose name will be familiar to all readers of the Boston Investigator. We mean Mrs. Ernestine L. Rose, of New York. The good old lady with her white curls, her erect, healthy-looking body, her clear, distinct voice, her occasional quaint phrases, her stern determination, and her real genius as a speaker, won from those present a far more hearty and lengthened tribute of applause than was accorded to anyone else.” ”

“ But this venture came near being her last, as the ship in which she set sail was wrecked, and she arrived in England nearly destitute of everything save her strength, health, energy, and education. All these stood her in good stead in this emergency. She immediately sought employment as a teacher of languages in London, adding to her income from this labor by the sale of her perfumed paper. It was not long, either, before she found friends, even in the great London, who were as radical and liberty-loving as herself. ”

“ All whose great desire is to ‘stand well with the people’ know full well that the secret of their success consists in swimming with the current—in not being too far in advance of society; and so in their writings and speeches they give the people, not what they most need and ought to hear, but what would be most acceptable to the pride, vanity, or interest of their hearers or readers. At times a step in advance is very desirable to attract by the novelty of the position, but they take good care not to go too far, lest existing prejudices should throw them off the track. ”

“ Rose presents a striking example of the truthfulness of the following part of her Edinburgh speech:
“It was a puerile and frivolous argument that woman, if she got the franchise, would cease to be womanly. Did a man cease to be manly when he got the franchise? She might become stronger in mind, more faithful to convictions; she might become more intellectual; she might take a greater and wider view of the duties and responsibilities of life ”

“ Rose has been an earnest and indefatigable worker on behalf of all reforms for the greater part of her lifetime. She was born in Peterkoff Tribunalski, in Poland, on the 13th of January, 1810. Her full name, as given by her parents, was Ernestine Louise Susmond Polowsky. Her father was a learned Jewish Rabbi, and she was brought up and educated in strict accordance with the tenets of that faith. She grew up beautiful and studious, and no pains were spared to make her education thorough, and such as befitted the daughter of a learned leader in Israel. ”

“ And the day is not so far off as many imagine when she will be given full credit for the noble courage and purity of purpose which forced her to declare herself an Atheist, in days when that word was a bugbear to all religious people. ”

“ But she had the happy consciousness of having done much of the hard pioneer work which had helped to make those reforms practicable and attractive, And she was not forced into quietude until the shackles had fallen from the black race forever, nor until public attention was at last so widely awake to the wrongs inflicted upon woman that there was no fear of its again relapsing into lethargy on the subject until those wrongs were redressed. ”

“ Her health, since her residence in England, has steadily improved, and we again hear of the active part she has been taking in the causes of Freethought and Woman Suffrage. We hear of lectures, addresses, and speeches from her, which show that with the return of health the old fire and force of youth has returned, improved by the ripened wisdom of a matured intellect. ”

“ Do the right, whate’er betide."
“In the winter of '37,” she says, in an article published in the New York Revolution, “when soliciting names for a petition to the Legislature to give married women the right to hold real estate in their own name, I was met with, ‘I have rights enough’; or, ‘The gentlemen will laugh at me,' from the women; and ‘They have already too many rights,” from the men. And so our first petition was graced by only five signatures ”

“ The Lord Provost presided, and among the speakers — we don’t know but that we may say the speaker — was our worthy and able Liberal sister and correspondent, Mrs. ‘Ernestine L. Rose. Her speech on the occasion, as reported in the Edinburgh Daily Review, abounds with all the pleasant wit, strong argument, and conclusive seasoning, that have long rendered her one of the best female orators of the day.”
In her own person, as one of the most truly womanly, and yet as one who is well calculated to take an active part in all public matters, Mrs. ”