Rutland weekly herald. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1859-1877, 1870-05-12

I1lSS DtChOAoOu tuSllguI IL d
thing" that the duty of voting should be
regarded SO lightly as it is. "At this
door stand ana knock" am told that
to cross this threshold is to degrade, dis
honor, and defle my womanhood. And
we call this country the hope of the world,
the refuge of the oppressed If we be-
lieve this, to govern the country as it
should be governed, is to elevate the door.
There is no crowned head of Europe that
answers such questions as are intrusted
to you, the voters OF to-day. Because I
believe | demand entrance at the door. l
don't stand there as woman-it is not a
question of sex. God forbid that | should
plead on such grounds 1t is because | am
an American, because l love my country,
because that flag is as dear to my heart as
it can possibly be to you. / ask passage
| way to work which should be done, a
duty which must be accomplished. There
are those who are able to see bat two
classes of women in our country
| the fashionable, useless women on one
side, an ignorant drudge on the other
and these they say cannot help politics. l
| do not see that these girls with-with
| twenty pounds OF hair about their heads,
| who go about boasting with what little
brains the Lord has blessed them withal,
will take part or lot in government, nor
| do / see that government will be much
| the loser. Applause. We are told that
every ignorant servant girl will rush to
the polls. Why not ? If primary meet
ings and the polls are such teachers of the
ignorant men in our midst, why not
teachers of the other sex? i should quite
as readily be governed by Bridget and
Dinah as by Patrick and Sambo. These
directors count out nine-tenths of the
women of our land--the great middle
class, women who would vote in the
futpre if not to-day women who support
themselves, the wives who support their
husbands. [ believe they would bring in
theelement that is needed in politics to-
| day. don't say that it will be better be-
cause women are more intelligent than
men, because I don't believe it. When
for single hundred years women are
given the responsibilities, the education,
the thought that men have enjoyed for
thousands of years, it will be time to
make such a comparison. But [ believe
thai women are more conscientious than
men, and that the want of American
politics is not as much brains as conscience,
minute attention, and close thought, and
that is what women will bring to this
question. The lecturer believed that all
the work of life was better done together
by two beings so utterly dissimilar as
men and women. From different stand
points they compare notes, and it is but
common sense to believe that the mat
| ter is better decided by the united view
of both than the half comprehension of
one The work to be done in politics
properly belongs to women. Miss Dickin-
soa thought that the days of violence-of
force-were over. The questions in pol
ities to-day are questions educational,
social, moral, and religious; the vast ques-
tins of work and of neutrality-suspicious.
| in which woman's interests are bound up
as intimately as are mans. They pertain
to woman's Judgment. Woman must not
vote as women, any more than man vote
as man, but as the citizen. We are told that
woman must not vote because cher
work is at home" Certainly a mans
work is not politics. His work is in his
pulpit, in his counting-room. He don't
vote either as man or worker, but as citi-
zen. Since Government makes women
citizens, since it taxes her and ranks her
/ with men as regards pains and penalties,
| il should rank her with men in regard to
duties and responsibilities. We urge it
for the sake of men putting women out OF
the view entirely. It will help men to a
better manhood. A coarse, ignorant and
brutal man desires ''to keep intact the
delicacy" of the woman he has made q
slave, in order to sew on his buttons and
cook his dinners. He feels her inferiority
because government ranks her beneath
him. Suppose this man and this woman
came to this hall and there came on this
platform the great political men of the
/ time, and they argue to the woman and
treat her as an equal for the sake of the
ballot she holds in her hands. The igno'
rant brute by her side must perforoe fee
some respect for one whom his master
treats as an equal. The old rule holds
good. unto him-or her-that hath
shall be given" Would such men as
i Philips, Tilton, Curtis, Deeoher plead 70,
anything that would not benefit men Of
well as women You may perhaps read
in some papers tomorrow that the woman
who has the pleasure of addressing you
is man-hater. Remember that the man.
hater stands here to protest against the
wrong men do to each other in such dis
cussions as ar instituted by such as Full,
ton, Bushnell, and Collier. No work that
man or woman was meant to do is de
grading and deflng. Miss Dickinson
did not believe that man would treat wo'
man coarsely and brutally at the polls
She thought that American men must
show a sweet courtesy, q rare Difference
because they couldn't help it. 1t is in
the heart and soul of every man with the
name, for every woman with the name,
wherever found. She will be treated at
the polls as in her own home. The lee
turer spoke of the first California pioneers,
who, without the influence of woman, re-
solved themselves into a state of society
which was shame to Christianity; and
exalted the ennobling and refining pres
ence of woman everywhere. The very
men who deny women the ballot because
it would hurt their fitness, their
delicacy, defame them as frivol-
GUS and petty. 1t is true. But [
don't accuse women; accuse the society
and training that make them what they
are. Men are told that they have duties
to society as we'll as to the family wo-
men, that their care, their conscience, and
thought, are to be bounded by the home
circle. Miss D. pictured wildly the ruin
which petty, ignorant, thoughtless wo-
man might bring upon noble man, and
deplored the condition of society, which
she thought produced this woman.
+" God did not create woman as violet,
to smell sweet, nor as a lutte to send forth
harmonies, but as He created man as an
immortal soul, and as such owing duties
and responsibilities to every other immor-
tai soul" The scales Of everlasting JUS
| tice were held in the hands of God and
must swing down at last She did not
expect miracle to be wrought she did
not believe that the millennium would
dawn when woman received the ballot.
What woman needs is the broadening of
brain, the expansion of character gained
through the power that will come with
the ballot. Women must help man as
well as be helped by him. She must in
spire him as well as be supported by him.
The nations of the earth will rise up and
call such one blessed, and God himself
will say to her " well done" No good
will come TO man and women in keeping