Fayette County herald. [volume] (Washington [Washington Court House], Fayette County, O. [Ohio]) 1860-1???, 1874-06-25
The Crusaders.-suffrage, etc.

Mark Twain (Mr S. W. Clemens) the noted
humorist, can write eloquently and sensibly
on serious subjects, as the following article on
the Womens' Temperance Movement, and Suf-
frage, contributed to the London Standard,
abundantly Demonstrates. The sentiments ex-
pressed will receive wide in 1orsemen. Listen:
Would you consider the conduct of these
crusaders iustifable. Ido-thoroughly justif fla
BILE. They find themselves voiceless in the
making of the laws, and the election of officers
to execute them. Born with brains, born in the
country, ed ucated, 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 laws, degrade the
| dignity of the former, and break the latter at
| his own sweet will. They see their fathers,
| husbands, and brothers, sit inactive 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, unrebuk-
| ed, elect them. They live in the midst of a
country where there is no end to the laws, and
no begin ming to the execution of them. And
when the laws intended to protect their sons
from lntemperance, lie torpid and without 81 gn
| OF life, year after year, they recognize that
there is a matter that interests them personal
ly--a matter which comes straight home to
them. And since they are allowed to lift no
legal voice against the outrageous state of
things they suffer under in this regard / think
it is no wonder that their patience has broken
uOMn dG 1dSbJ duO GlSy uuN2 Gfl0Q To pSfSudU0
themselves that they are justifable in breaking
the law of tresspass, when the laws that should
make the tress pass needless are allowed by the
voters to lie dead and imperative.
The present Crusade will doubtless, do but
little work against intemperanee that will be
really 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
that if women could vote they would vote on
the side of morality, even if they did vote and
speak rather frantically and furiously; and it
will also suggest that when the wamen once
made up their minds that it was not good to
have the all-powerful primaries" in the hands
of loafers, thieves, and pernicious little politi-
clans they would not sit indolently at home
as their husbands and brothers do 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 an set some candidates fit for human
beings to vote for. dearly want the womer
to be raise d to 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 B. F. Butler can still continue t
lord it in Congress; if the highest offices in th
land can still continue to be occupied by per
haps robbers; if another Congress, like th
forty second, consisting of fifteen honest mel
and two hundred and ninety-six of the othe
| kind, can once more be created, it will at leas
be time, fear, to give over trying to save tn
, country by human beings, and appeal to Prov
l idence. Both the great parties have failed
: 1 wish we might have women's party now
! and see how that would work. feel persuad
ed that, in extending the suffrage to women
country could lose nothing, and might gain
great deal. For thirty centuries history ha
been iterating and reiterating that, in mora
= fight, women is simply dauntless; and we al
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 tn
| present day. man, in q moral fight, has prett!
. uniformly shown himself to be an arrant COW
ard.