Page:Woman of the Century.djvu/334

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GOUGAR.
GOUGAR.
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forever the right of women to take an active part in political warfare without being compelled to endure defamation. As a speaker she is earnest, easy, dignified and at times impassionedly eloquent, HELEN M. COUGAR. wholly without affectation or oratorical display. She speaks without manuscript or notes, rapidly and convincingly. Her special work in reforms is in legal and political lines, and constitutional law and statistics she quotes with marvelous familiarity, when speaking in public. She has been repeatedly called upon to address special committees in Congress, also the legislatures of Indiana, Illinois, Nebraska, Iowa, New York, Wisconsin and Kansas. She recognizes the historical fact that popular governments are overthrown by corrupt municipalities. She believes that the "home vote" is the only power that can control the proletariat mob of large cities, and this causes her to espouse woman suffrage on the platform and with a forcible pen. Mrs. Gougar is the author of the law granting municipal suffrage to the women of Kansas, and the adoption of the measure was largely due to her efforts. She proved the correctness of her theory by redeeming Leavenworth, the largest city in the State at that time, from slum rule by the votes of women. The success which has attended that law, in the interest of political honor and the exaltation of public service, is well known. As a writer she is concise, direct and fluent. She was for many years a contributor to the "Inter-Ocean" and is still held in high esteem by the management of that Republican organ, notwithstanding her radical Prohibition party affiliation. As a business woman she is thorough, prompt and systematic; as a companion, cheerful, witty, voluble. In her domestic life she is happy and fortunate, the wife of a man of wealth, education and refinement, a successful lawyer, respected and beloved by all who know him, and whose affectionate sympathy, self-poise and financial independence have sustained her in the aggressive methods peculiar to her public work. Their home in Lafayette, Ind., is one of unusual elegance and comfort Although childless, both she and her husband are fond of children and young people, and they are seldom without a youthful guest in the house, the children of her five sisters, or other relatives or friends, and sometimes a waif of charity, who share the cheery hospitality of their elegant surroundings.


GOULD, Miss Elizabeth Porter, critic and author, born in Manchester-by-the-sea, Mass., 8th June, 1848 She is the daughter of John A. and Elizabeth C. Gould, and is descended from generations of worthy Essex county people, including the famous schoolmaster, Ezekiel Cheever. ELIZABETH PORTER GOULD. Had she never given to the public any other work than her "Gems from Walt Whitman" (Philadelphia. 1889), she would be entitled to a lasting place in the literary world. No word said of the poet has brought a deeper expression of thanks from him than the essay in the book on his life among the soldiers. Her essays on education during the past ten years have been valuable additions to the educational thought of the day. One, "John Adams as a Schoolmaster," published in pamphlet form, attracted the notice of the leading educators of die country. Through the courtesy of Charles Francis Adams, who called it a most thorough piece of his- torical work, it has been placed in the leading libraries of the land. Another, "Daniel Webster as a Schoolmaster," with other articles on that great statesman, gave her an honorary membership in the Webster Historical Society. Those on "Robert College" and "Bulgaria under Alexander," the former the only full account of that American institution on the Bosphorus ever written, brought her most complimentary words from the ex-Prince himself. Others, such as, "Friedrich Froebel." "School Life in China," "The Steele Orphanage in Chattanooga" and "The Woman