New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1874-05-03
Ringing Words from Mark Twain On the
Woman's Crusade.


W0man's Crusade.
Mark Twain, writing to the London Stc,-
dard of the prayer crusade, says:
Would you consider the conduct of these
crusaders justifiablel l dO-thoroughly
justitiable. They find themselves voiceiess
in the making of laws and the election Of
officers to execute them. Born with brains,
born in the country, educated, having large
interests at stake, they find their tongues
tied and their hands fettered, while every
ignorant, whisky drinking, foreign born
savage in the land may hold office, help to
make the laws, degrade the dignity Of the
former and break the latter at his own
sweet will. They see their fathers, hus-
bands and brothers sit namely at home and
allow the scum of the country to assemble
at the primaries, name the candidates for
office from their own vile ranks, and,
midst of q country where there is no
end to the laws and no beginning to
the execution of them. And when the laws
intended to protect their sons from destruc.
ton by intemperance lie torpid and with
out sign Of life, year after year, they recog-
nize that here is matter that interests
them personally, matter which comes
straight home to them. And since they
are allowed to lift no legal voice against
UQO Outrageous stotC VI UuAukS UuCy kuuor
under in this regard, think it is no wonder
that their patience has broken down at last,
and they have tried to persuade themselves
that they are justiiable in breaking the
law of trespass when the laws that should
make the trespass needless are allowed by
the voters to lie dead and imperative. The
present crusade will, doubtless, do but little
work against intemperence that will really
be permanent, but it will do what is as much,
or even more, to the purpose. think. l
think it will suggest to more than one man
on the side Of morality. even if they did
vote and speak rather frantically and furi-
ously; and it will also suggest that when
the women ence made up their minds that
it was not good to have the all-powerful
primaries in the hands of l0aters, thieves.
and pernicious little politicians, they would
not sit indolently at home as their husbands
and brothers dc now, but would hoist their
praying banners. take the field in force,
pray the assembled political scum back to
the holes and slums where they belong, and
set up some candidates fit tor decent human
beings to vote for. dearly want the
women to be raised to the political altitude
of the negro, the imported savage, and the
pardoned thief, and allowed to vote. 1t is
our last chance, think. The women will be
voting before long, and then if a B. F. But
Ter can still continue to lord 1t IN Congress-;
if the highest Offices in the land can still
continue to be occupied by perjurers and
robbers; if another Congress-, like the
Forty second, consisting Of fifteen honest
men and S96 of the other kind, can once
more be created, it will at last be time,
fear, to give over trying to save the coun-
try by human means. and appeal to PrOvi-
dence. Both the great parties have failed.
wish we might have q woman's party
now, and see how that would work. feel
persuaded that, in extending the suffrage
to women. this country could lose abso-
lutely nothing and might gain great dead.
For thirty centuries history has been
iterating and reiterating that, in moral
fight, woman is simply dauntless; and we
all know, even with our eyes shut upon
Congress and our voters, that from the day
that Adam ate of the apple and told on Eve
down to the present day man in a moral
fight has pretty uniformly shown himaelf to
be an arrant coward.