Ashtabula weekly telegraph. [volume] (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1853-1873, 1870-01-29
Mr.. AndersOn's Column.
Woman Question.
No. /.

Omans Advocate" Wbich IS puDllshcd at
Dayton, o., and which had never seen before.
IL is, as one might suppose, the Advocate" Of
Woman's Suffrage land so / found by con
versation, was she. III was Mrs. Grain, Of
Dayton
This lady. told me she had been advised TO
call on me before she began her work in this
town, because ! was friendly to her cause and
would aid her Since was, land ami lament
ably ignoranti and perhaps cupably so, of all
the various points at issue in the cause which
she very skillfully laid before me and had
but lily defined ideas at best OF my own real
position in the matter, save that my attitude
was entirely nUu-commttal which is n very
disagreeable state of things IL determined,-
after she had gone TO call on some ladies to
whom had commended her, and in whose
judgment had more confidence than had in
my own,-that | would set at work to discover
where stood on the question, and why stood
there.
The lady had left with me two papers, one
of the issue of Nov. 13, 80, and one of Jan. 8,
70. Both these papers | studiously read
through, advertisements and all,-fOr adver-
tsements give as much character TO paper as
do the leading articles, the contributions, or
the stlssofngs. / remarked that the paper
was well printed, with few typographical er-
rors, and one or two well written, forcible, orr
ginal articles, and one or two contributions
against which, taken esthetcally, l rebelled.
The body of the paper, however, gave me but
little light, and then put myself to studying
the platform of the Ohio State Woman Suf-
frage Association, of which this paper is evil
IDENTIFY the organ
1 found myself nodding mot with sleep over
each article, [they were penned, judge by
woman,l till came to the last but one and
that l read over again and again, while cur
rent began TO come to my thoughts and re-
solved that their results should go out to the
dear friends who MAY be led by paucity OF en-
tertaining reading, or extreme ennui, to wink
over the dry crudties of this column. Let me
give you the plank that struck me =
"Iesolred That the ballot means bread to
the working woman as well as TO the working
man that we sympathize with the laboling
classes of the country IN their struggle against
the encroachments OF capital that We demand
suffrage for the daughters of toll as the only
means OF obtaining equal pay for equal work"
Now what may be the possible effect of the
ballot in securing the end of giving women
their right remuneration for labor of course l
can only conjecture with the rest of the think
ing community,-and my conjecture is worth
no more than anybody's else. But one thing
is certain, that whether work is done by man
or by woman, lis value and its pay are not
necessarily, land should not be) governed by
the sex of the person accomplishing it,
Because piece of art is done by Rosa Bon
heur, or by Winnie Ream is it less valuable
than would be like piece of art done by our
lamented Eliot, or by Powers ? Because a
book is written by Mrs. Stowe or by Mrs
Charles, is it to bring less than one, no better,
by Ike Msfvel or DIR. Holland? Or shall we
pay less for lecture by Anna Dickinson, or
reading by Mrs. Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie,
than we do for the one mo better by Phillips
or Emefsdn and the other by Murdoch or
Griffith? Or when 1t comes to that, shall we
deny to these ladies of whom have spoken,
the right 10 paint, or chsel, or write, OF speak,
because they are women-when God has so
richly endowed them for their several spcciali
ties
Now 1t seems'to me that here comes a rule
if applicable in one la brilliant case, then ap-
plicable in another la common case That is,
that any person shall have the right, and the
opportunity, and the encouragement, TO do what
ever that person is fitted for, male or female,
with the compensation that the work perform
ed is worth If the person so working is a fe-
male painter, or orator, or clerk what is the
Z in
male clerk is worth $1,000, or $1,000 a year.
and woman can do his work just as well as
he, then why should she be expected to do that
work at $500 OF 800 year9
The census of 1860 showed our population
to be about 81 600, ,000,-ten times as great as
it was in 1890. 1t showed that there were in
the U. S. 100000 more males than there were
females. While Mass. lowing probably to her
factores,) had $1,000 more females than males,
Ill. had $4,000 more males than females, Mich.
10000, Wis $4,000, Cal. $1,000, Texas 10000
and Colorado, 20 males to each female.
But these figures have been greatly changed
since by the war. The whole number of L.
s. soldiers reported as in Cemeteries is psi 1927
in National Cemetaries, 666. Add to these
the rebel dead, and how huge the figure
The No. Brit. Review states, in an article
published not long ago, that the adult women
in England and Wales who must remain single
from disproportion in the sexes, is from 100000
to 100000 and that the actual number who
are single is 1,537,OO0, of whom 100000 are
between 20 and 40 years old ! This Article iuI.
ther says that of all adult women, five per cent
would voluntarily be spinsters-27 per cent
are actually such. OF women between 20 and
40, 90 per cent are married, 80 per cent are
spinsters, per cent are widows .--i. G. two out
of every five are single. "This is confined To
the upper and middle classes lowing to the
spreading luxury of the age, and to the too
prevalent sentiment on the part of indoent and
self indulgent young men in society that there
are many other luXuries much more difficult
to forego than the luxury of wife and home"
This give baldly, because comment is I'm
necessary, since the facts (becoming such as to
this country as well) make startling sugges-
tions us, both as to the state of domestic socie-
ty, and as TO what is technically termed "the
social evil"
II dur eyes could be opened to the fact that