Litchfield enquirer., 1874-07-16
Suffrage and the Crusade.

to the suffragist, the editor of Seribner avoids coming to conclusions that would be distasteful to him by errors in reason ing which become readily apparent on examination.
 He comedies, in the first place, that nothing makes man feel his immortality and selfishness like being brought face to face with the morality and unselfshness of woman. GA mans self-respect," he says, ''can only be reused to its best es- tate in the approval of the finer sense and quicker conscience of the women who know him." And the crusade had such a tremendous effect because it brought the moral power of woman to bear on class of men who had never felt 1t before. What did the Ohio saloon-keeper know about the Ohio lady till she came suddenly down on him singing psalms and praying and beseeching? No sooner did she make herself known to him, than, degraded as he was, he felt her power and yielded to 1t.
 Moreover, Dr. Holland acknowledges the wonderful earnestness and self-sacri- flee that has characterized the women of the crusade:
 They go from peaceful home pursuits, from the retirement winch IS most con- genial to them, from prayers where they have begged for the blessing of heaven upon their enterprise, into the street, into foul dens of debauchery, into private ex- postulations with brutal men, into atmos- pheres reeking with nbaldry, and all to save others. No man with a spark of manliness in him-which, after all, is on ly gOdliness expressed in human charac- ter-can regard such a spectacle as this without being moved to admiration and reverence.
 In short this opponent of the suffrage comedies to woman quicker conscience than man, a great moral power over him, and an earnest desire to exercise that pow CT for good, though it should lead her ''into foul dens of debauchery, into pri- vate approximations with brutal men, and into atmospheres rocking with ribaldry." :" Would not the possession of the suffrage give her most favorable opportunity for exercising this influence? Is not the bollot box in deadly need of just such an unselfish morality as woman could put in- to it? and could she not exercise through it an influence vastly more important, vastly more permanent, than the most sanguine temperance advocate can hope from the Crusade? Just here Dr. Hol- land escapes an unwelcome conclusion by shying from the main question to a side issue, and taking as we believe the wrong side even of that side issue. If given the ballot, he says, the Crusader would leave praying and take to legislating and Prohibition is failure. Moreover she would lose all her sweet disinterested- ness and turn office seeker.
 Granting that Prohibition is failure, that is not the only nor even the chief is- sue before the voter; and for fear woman should go wrong, there, must the suffrage lose the purifying influence it so much needs in other respects? If ''a mans self respect can only be reused to its best es- tate" by woman's approval, in what for lorn condition do existing arrangements leave the nnlitician vuhoan above .t~ -~->I whose work do not know woman's infiu- ence! Living in sphere from which she is debarred, he deals only with the coarser nature and moro selfish character of man. His constituents do not concern themselves with purity or morality; it is well if they require even honesty. And yet good men like Dr. Holland lament the immortality and selfshness of politics! Worse yet, such is the distrust of woman hidden under all this fine rhetoric, they actually seem to expect that the posses sion of the ballot, which may perhaps pervert one man in thousand into an office seeker, would demoralize the whole female sex and turn them all into office seekers!
 Returning to the side track into which Scribner has so handily "shunted" its train of reasoning, we fail to see much force in it's argument on that narrow ground. ''Does any one suppose" it says, ''that the moral power which the women wield to-day would be in their hands to wield if they held tho ballot? Not bit of it. They are strong because they are not political. They are strong because they have no party to serve, no personal ambitions to push, no selfish end to seek" To all which we confidently reply l that the moral influence of woman would be doubled by tine knowledge that it had tho political power of the ballot behind it. If Dr. Hollands position is correct, we should disfranchise all moral people, al
 ministers, and church members! Yet if any one absurd enough to suppose that {
 church would be strengthened by having
 no voters, and consequently no office hold
 CTS in it?
 We agree that Prohibition has provet
 in most instances a failure. And we at
 tribute that failure to the fact that thos
 who have voted to enforce total absti
 hence on others have not been ready t practice it themselves. Were woman ad
 mitted to the suffrage, the proportion 0 abstinent voters would be greatly increas ed, and the opportunities for successful Prohibition would be increased in exactl the same proportion. But, more than al
 that, the corrupting influence of the dram
 shop would find it's natural antidote in tn opposing influence of woman-an infu ence the power and earnestness of whic is indicated by the Crusade.
 We shall not expect any permanent re
 suits from the Crusade beyond its demon stration of womal's immense moral fore
 and earnestness-hithert turned to little
 soeial- aud no palitissl aGeapRs5T7sRd it , before notably declining. Much of tn