The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-12-16
SPIRIT OF TEE PRESS.
EDITORIAL Opinions Of the Leading Journals
Upon Cdrrent TOpics-COmDlled Everv
Dnv for the Evening Telegraph.
FOSTER ON REPRESENTATION

From the N Y. Tribune.
There are men who are nothing if not
paradoxical, and of their manner is Mr..
Stephen S. Foster who would seem to prefer,
at any time, rather to astonish than persuade
his audiences. He likes to startle his hearers
into surrender, and to convince them by
sort of galvanic moral battery. Long expert
enoe has perfected him in this method of
warfare, which-fatal as it is to good judg-
ment, to careful thinking, and to sound and
logical conclusions-may have its uses when
the main purpose is to awaken apathy or to
stir up mob. 1t is Mr.. Fosters idea that, to
be at all right, one must reject what all
others receive, and disbelieve whatever is
accepted by the rest of mankind Thus he
tried on Tuesday to bully the women at Wor-
cester into declaring that men were tyrants,
when the dear creatures persisted in say
ing that they didn't think anything of the
kind Thus, little farther back, he took
occasion, in the recent Womans Conven-
ton at Cleveland, to inform the astonished
congregation that ''he did not believe in
Representative assemblies at ALL" while the
body which he addressed was, if not "a repre-
sentative assembly," something less than
nothing at all. He also avowed his faith In
"a pure democracy, by virtue of which every
man would be his own member OF Congress,
were it not that in the sublime and millennial
condition for which Mr. Fosters soul yearns
there would be no Congress for the man to be
amember Of OF course the projection of these
theories to their logical conclusions would
leave society without any political govern
ment whatever; as there could be no
legislation without the full and unani-
NOUS assent of the whole population,
it would follow that there could be no
laws binding upon the minority; the doc
trne of its theoretical assent, which is the sole
safeguard against anarchy, would be dis
carded; and nothing short of a radical change
in human nature-a change which we have no
reason to expect-could save us from that
brutal domination of the physically strongest,
which, if it effected nothing else, would make
short and sharp work of female suffrage"
Mr. Foster, no doubt, has in his minds eye
(Which rolls in fine frenzy, if a minds eye,
CAM an election such as it would be in heave-
if the angels only voted. The citizens -
both sexes, clothed in white and wrefnoo
flowers, to the music of lutes and sc
corders, approach the glorifedpols, e1 en- VIII
the same ballot in hand, and all of Cu GO aoooru us
ent mind. But under such circrias'anSSes S 81: vi
complete serenity, and of brot0.isy .iso anu Sio e
terly love over all, what will Un 700 VI
voting at all And how sl4l we De sure,
when everybody is witt ehe byGGuS o;t;uSs olSo so
agreeing, and all the he ~ 9no oiSlAons "5e
voting as Wordsworth 10y ouWs "efe s eI teeo-
g Eostar v.;ll not o-mly appear to denounce
a. noi oa'oi VIZ lo noS sngs as a covenant with
Jaoth 81 a. 90 sement with the place which |
. 81 L ~ 80 Sioned to ears polite ? We
10y nos 20 = possible state of things in this
Tou,d a .''S;at gould be safe from the Fosterian
49, Wuu a.ticism. He is the one man in the
snSrSd =, Sse existence makes nemins contra
%;.nat, impossible and unG 0Oce out of the
os,.Uoo1,|son. He is like the Hindoo philosopher
4IL.,when his wife told him that his rice was
"ady, would cry out:-"What is rice? Is it
positive or negative Is it entity or quid-
,dity P"-and SO on until the rice was cold. He
laughs to scorn the notion that there are only
nine parts of hair. He could himself dis
criminate and dissect ninety
1t is peculiarly of Mr.. Foster, and of the
Jess distinguished disciples of his school, to
bay their say at inappropriate moments and
hinder distinctly inopportune circumstances.
it is this which leads them their race, and
Btarts bewildered minds, just as they are about
to find standpoint, once more upon their
travels in search of nobler notions. 1t is the
mission of Mr.. Foster to bewllder the weaker
brethren and sisters, and to transmogrify
them into Wandering Jews of a disputatious
turn. Here is convention met to consider
the question of suffrage for womcn unless its
members believe in representative assem-
blies," there is literally no business before
the house: but while fair delegates are
dreaming of the day when under the
dome of the Capitol they will grace
fully move to the desk of the Clerk, and
with low, sweet voices take the oath of
representative, up rises the form of Mr.. Fos-
ter, with negative in every line of his coun-
tenance, and denounces all congresses gene
raj courts, legislatures, and assemblies what
ever? Here is a wind of doctrine which sets
only in one direction, and if it be strong
enough can only blow the delegates home to
their babies and their pie making. What do
they in Cleveland? What do they want?
With what are they dissatisfied? Of what
earthly use will the ballot be, if they are to
be allowed to vote for nobody? If this re-
public is to get along with the mJst exquisite
smoothness without Presidents Vice-Pres-
dents, congressman, mayors, aldermen, Sc
lectmen, and other representatives" this
vouble battle for female suffrage" is after all,
but vile waste of breath. There should have
been a convention, not to promote the admis-
sion of women to political privileges, but to
take measures for sweeping politics altogether
from the face of the earth. The theory of Mr..
Foster, If it is to be accepted, is irrefragabe
argument in itself against all voting, whether
the voting is to be done by beings in panta-
looms, or by beings in petticoats; OF by those
who reject both styles of costume and walk
in anomalous attire With his peculiar, and.
we may say, unique opinions, how was it pos
sible for Mr.. Foster TO feel anything but con-
tempt for the convention, and how was it
possible for the convention to feel anything
but contempt either for Mr.. Foster or itself
The delegates took the blunted horn of the
dilemma. The report before us says simply
''Foster was overborne." At any rate he did
not raise his voice very loudly again in that
convention. Votes and voting proved alto
Zoo him. toI