Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 December 1892 — MARY E. LEASE. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

MARY E. LEASE.

Her Remarkable Career aa a Stump Orator and Pleader. Mrs. Mary Lease, who accompanied Gen. Weaver on his stumping tour throughout the country and divided the honors with him, is a remarkable woman. Those who have heard .her declare she has the gift of oratory in a marked degree. Her deep, powerful, and resonant voice commands instant attention, and enables her hearers to catch every word under circumstances most trying to a public speaker. Her style is her own, the sentences short and strong and poured forth with a volubility rarely equaled. It is a torrent of speech- launched at the most vulnerable point of attack indicated by her keen intelligence. Her -figure on the platform is commanding. She is tall and stately in bearing, and was once introduced by Gen. Weaver to a St. Louis audience as “Our Queen Mary. ” Mrs. Lease’s past experience has been more calculated to crush ambition than to engender it. Many years spent on a Kansas farm, under the most trying conditions of slender means, could not stamp out the determination to rise. It caused her to ponder upon the causes which were leading to a decline of the prosperity of the farming classes, and she resolved to acquire some profession

which would relieve her of the necessity for depending upon agriculture for a living. She turned to the study of law, and was thus engaged when the Union Labor campaign of 1888 claimed her services as a speaker. She entered the' campaign of 1890 with renewed zest, speaking almost daily in the open air and apparently never tiring. The People's party, under whatever name, has always claimed and had her services, not only in political campaigns preceding elections, but all the year round. The domestic side of Mrs. Lease’s life is,not the least of her creditable characteristics. She is a fond mother and good wife. Her home is in Wichita, where her husband, who is a pharmacist, is engaged in business. Her children are bright and well, trained, and the eldest son, now almost grown, will probably follow her to the rostrum. Ireland was her birthplace.

MRS. MARY E. LEASE.