WOMEN: Gone

There are two fields of public endeavor in which women have equalled or eclipsed men. One of these is the formation of clubs. The other is public reform. In the field of reform, it will be years before the name of Carrie Nation is forgotten. With a fame not so flamboyant as Carrie Nation’s, but equally enduring, the name of Lucy Page Gaston will survive. Miss Gaston passed away last week.

At Delaware, Ohio, in 1860, Miss Gaston first came into the world. At an early age she evinced a desire for improving it. In 1899, she founded and became Superintendent of the Anti-Cigarette League of America. She joined heartily in the reform work of the W. C. T. U. She prosecuted cigarette dealers whenever the law enabled her to. She agitated for anti-cigarette laws and ordinances. She edited reform papers.

In 1919, after a rumored disagreement within the Anti-Cigarette League of America, Miss Gaston resigned and announced that she was a candidate for President on a platform of “clean morals, clean food and fearless law enforcement.”She retired from the campaign, however, before the election.

About the same time Miss Gaston undertook to write to Queen Mary, reproving her, if press reports had been corect, for enjoying a cigarette after luncheon. She declared that it would be “exceedingly unfortunate”if English standards were lowered by a Queen’s example. Miss Gaston aided in the campaign which put a law against cigarette smoking on the statute books of Kansas. She also entered another organization, the National Anti-Cigarette League, but departed when the Board of Directors decided that her methods were too “drastic.”

Some months ago she was injured in a street car accident ; since then her health has failed. She died last week in Chicago, and press dispatches ascribed her demise to a “malignant growth in her throat” — surely not a cancer derived from too much smoking.

Her funeral services were held at the First Presbyterian Church and were attended by a few friends. Among them were two little boys and two little girls who arose, pointed to the coffin, recited: “Miss Gaston, we thank you for what you have done for us,” and followed this by repeating the “Clean Life Pledge,” which Miss Gaston had taught.

Afterward Miss Gaston’s body was taken to a cemetery and cremated, according to herwishes.