There is not associated with this, in the statute, the slightest clause in
favor of the mother; nor anything which could limit the power of the
guardian by requiring deference to her wishes, although he could, in case
of gross neglect or abuse, be removed by the court, and another guardian
appointed. There is not a line of positive law to protect the mother. Now,
in a case of absolute wrong, a single sentence of law is worth all the
chivalrous courtesy this side of the Middle Ages.

It is idle to say that such laws are not executed. They are executed. I
have had letters, too agonizing to print, expressing the sufferings of
mothers under laws like these. There lies before me a letter,--not from
Rhode Island,--written by a widowed mother who suffers daily tortures, even
while in possession of her child, at the knowledge that it is not legally
hers, but held only by the temporary permission of the guardian appointed
under her husband's will.

"I beg you," she says, "to take this will to the hilltop, and urge
law-makers in our next legislature to free the State record from the
shameful story that no mother can control her child unless it is born out
of wedlock."

"From the moment," she says, "when the will was read to me, I have made no
effort to set it aside. I wait till God reveals his plans, so far as my own
condition is concerned. But out of my keen comprehension of this great
wrong, notwithstanding my submission for myself, my whole soul is
stirred,--for my child, who is a little woman; for all women, that the laws
may be changed which subject a true woman, a devoted wife, a faithful
mother, to such mental agonies as I have endured, and shall endure till I
die."