The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-05-31

this country have neither been urged on one
side nor answered on the other-those which
have their basis not in the weakness but in
the power Of the other sex.
The removal of the disabilities of women
has ceased in some of the American States to
be looked upon in the half-serious light in
which il is at best regarded here, and the
prospect of having to deal with it as a prac-
tical question is evidently causing a great
deal of annoyance not only to the men but
to that great majority of women whom their
agitating sisters have not taken the precau-
tion to consult. But the discussion of the
most probable results of giving women votes
has sometimes turned in the United States
not on oonjectures as to what would be their
influence in politics if they we're plain, mid
dle-aged, and clever, but on guesses as to
what that influence would be if they
were young, pretty, and no better nor worse
intellectually than they are at present. A
wellknown American newspaper cites recent
case of competition among sculptors for the
honor of executing a statue which is TO be
erected at the public expense A young
''sculptress," as the American phrase goes
was candidate for the distinction, and, after
personal canvass of the trustees she was
chosen. She was very good-looking and had
a very charming manner and address, but she
had never made a statue in all her life. The
American Journalist reasonably asks whether
this practical illustration of feminine inau-
ence in sphere of public activity does not
suggest a great number of reflections It is
difficult to give the hint without the appear
ance of discourtesy, but thave not all of us
been good deal affected, in the
opinions which we have formed on
the subject, by the accidental circum-
stance that the ladies who have come promj-
nently forward to claim the franchise have
had good many of the powers which cousti-
tute the strength of men, and for the most
part but small share of the powers which
constitute the strength of women? Amid
the outcry which has been made concerning
mans oppression of woman, it has been
little forgotten that woman has extraordinary
influence over man. The literary advocates
of the enfranchlsement of the sex have
stronglysprotested against the commonplace
aphorisms, once greatly in vogue, which at
tribute to women every imaginable form of
Stiffness and frivolity; but there are another
set Of long-descended commonplaces, made
more honestly, and seriously framed by their
first authors, which speak of the power of
women and of its immeasurable consequences.
1t the nose of Cleopatra, says the most
famous of these, had been a hairs
breadth longer, the fortunes of the world
would have been altered. What change has
come over the influence of women since the
beginning of history, except that it is in
fnltely subtler, wider, and moro penetrating
than it once was? The arts which made the
Greek hero spin and the Jewish hero betrav
the secret OF his strength are literally copied
nowadays only by those who empty the
pockets of the navy new from his railway or
OF the sailor fresh from his voyages but there
is an ascending scale of attraction from that
which conquers brutal coarseness to that
which is irresistible to the highest intellec
final rafin0maOt II 10 of
fuence which still occasionally makes the
politician vote in the wrong lobby, or, by a
more lmperceptiDle operation, turns the
prophet of o. pOste1SorS philosophy into the
impulsive spokesman of a prioa5 theorists.
The truth is, there are few more extraordi-
nary phenomena of our day than the levity
with which the advocates of woman's rights
propose to introduce into political life force
of enormous but quite unknown intensity
We venture to assert that nobody has the
faintest conception of what the true effects
would be of giving women votes. To take
an example suggested by those who advocate
the step, we might perhaps have guessed
what would have been the consequence of
giving votes to male negroes We might have
predicted that the enfran chised slave would
prove in politics weak copy of his former
master-that he would exhibit less political
courage and capacity, but that his principles
But there is not shadow of probability that
women, as politicians, would be the least like
men. They have for ages in their own sphere
been IN possession of immense power, but it
has been power of very peculiar kind ex-
ercised In very peculiar way. Nobody who
has any idea of the wonderful skill with
which families are managed, and at the
same time of the nature of the
influence which enables this skill to be exer-
nIG Iickn mill
himsy, haphazard arguments which usually
second the proposal to give this particular
form of ability the political world for its
field. The materials for any sort of opinion
on the point are as scanty as possible. All
we can say is that when the springs of action
which were at first confined to the interior of
the family have at any time become motives
OF political conduct, the result has been
serious, but very far from admirable. The
patriarch, whose relations to his children con-
stituted society in the beginning of things,
has become in these latter days the pere de
JdnltHe, who, according to Talleyrand, is
capable de tout and at least century of
English political history is filed with the
records of shameless family jobbery. The
present proposal is to give political power to
the sex whose ideas and interests, ambi-
tlon and cares, have hitherto from all
time been bound up with the family.
Is there anybody who sincerely believes
that female politicians would not job for
their husbands, their sons, and their bro
thers? Is there ANYBODY who would blame
them for jobbing? Is there ANYBODY who
does not feel that pernicious change would
have come over society when they ceased to
job? Men doubtless job now. Sometimes
most unblushingly, but still on the whole less
than they did. But among the many results
of admitting women to political privilege