The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-04-19
TILTON'S LITTLE GAME.
Fro,,t the ~ " World.

from tne NJ T. Hord
For some time past our happy country has
been blessed with two rival woman-suffrage
associations, each one claiming to be the only
genuine, and denouncing the other as an imi-
tation and an imposture. This state of things
naturally vexed the charitable soul of Mr..
Theodore Tilton. 1t was direct violation of
the peaceful precepts of the moral Watts who,
though he urged the propriety of non-inter-
vention in the case of dog-fghts, on the
ground that dogs and cats we're expressly Gre
ated for fighting purposes, strongly insisted
that the little hands of babes and women
should never be permitted to tear anybody's
eyes out. Wherefore Mr.. Tilton determined to
put stop to the disputes of the rival associ-
ations; and so, taking to himself two other
peacemakers more peaceful than himself, he
summoned the rivals to meet him and lay down
their arms.
Six persons of various sexes, three of whom
represented one association, while the other
three constituted themselves the represen-
tatives of the other, accordingly met Mr..
Tilton and his two hackers at one of our
hotels. But in spite of Mr.. Tilton's exhor-
tations, they made no progress towards
union. Each party was quite willing to eb-
sorb the other, but each stoutly refused to
be absorbed. And so, after everybody had
written his or her opinion on slips of paper,
after the fashion of children who play at "con-
sequences" and after it was found, on reading
these opinions, that everybody believed that
everybody else was frightfully in the wrong,
three of the delegates seeded, and left
the other six to follow the devices and desires
of their own wilful Tilton. Which devices
Immediately manifested themselves in the
shape of plan for a new woman suffrage
association, which was disgorged from the
Tiltonian pocket as soon as the Beceders had
departed. This plan met with the warm ap-
probation of Mr. Tilton, and was enthu-
siastically adopted by him, his five COM
panions yielding an easy consent to his elo-
quent proposal, and Immediately electing
him to all the offices of the new association.
Thus did Mr.. Tilton triumphantly carry out
his purpose of uniting the two existing asso-
Citations by the sudden establishment of a
third.
But, strange to say, there are certain
bigoted persons who fail to see that the
founding of a new association has brought
the friends of woman suffrage into any closer
| union than existed while there were only two
| rival bodies. These narrow minded persons
even go further, and impute to MIR. Tilton
the vaulting ambition of a seeker after office,
and assert that he has organized a new
association merely for the pleasure of being
its president. This view that amiable reformer
Indignantly rejects, and insists that he has
practically accomplished the union which he
professed to advocate, inasmuch as the origi-
nal rivals have only to disband their organi-
cations and to join his own private association
| in order to render the union of all the friends
of woman suffrage complete. However this
may be, the merely masculine world is de-
lighted to see third division in the ranks
of the aggressive females. The opponents
of female suffrage point scornfully at the
three hostile bodies into which the party OF
on riOhfo ia HiViHad and Qalk If this
is specimen of the capacity of women for or
ganized and effective political action. Ant
the wrath of the veterans of the woman
suffrage cause is kindled against the unfor
tunate Tilton, who meddled only to mar, ant
who, by rashly placing himself in position
SO conspicuous and splendid as that of tn
head of an association of six distinct ant
separate persons, has made himself the mari
for the shafts of rival reformers, who, bu
for the temptation of shooting at him, Nigh
have poured their fire into the common
enemy.