The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1874-06-19
DR.. Holland vs.. the Needs and Rights Of
Woman

instruction, both to men and women
that they demand more than a passin1
consideration, especially in their bear.
ing upon some of the most stirring ones
tions of the time.
Why is it that the hardened rum-seI-
Ter who, behind his bar, has dealt out
the liquid death to his victims for years.
auails before band OF praying, beseech-
ing WOmen-women who, coming from
their comfortable Retirement, brave
wind and storm and mud-brave OBJ
loauy and Misrepresentation and curses,
and all the harsh obstacles that bru-
taIity can throw in their path, to COM
pass a reform that shall keep their nat
ural supporters and projectors pure and
prosperous?
First, of course, because there is no
man, however brutal, who does not
know that the women are right-that
whisky is a curse, not only to those who
drink it, but to the uuOffending who do
not drink it. All men, who
deserve the name of men, desire the re-
spect of women; and when man finds
himself ina business which fixes upon
him the disapprOval Of whole COM
munity of women, power is brought TO
bear upon him which he certainly can
not ignore. y mans self-re-
spect can only be nursed to its best es-
tate in the approval Of the finer sense
and quicker conscience of the woman
who knows him.
And now for the lesson which this cru
SADIE teaches US. 1t will be a hard one
for some women to learn, but q desire
for the conservation Of the best forces Of
society demands that it shall not only
be stated, but needed.
Does any one suppose that the moral
power which the women WELD to-day
would be in their hands to WELD if they
held the 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 ends TO seek. II the
women had the ballot, how long is it to
be supposed that this crusade would be
without political leadership and pOliti-
cal perversiOn? If these women were
the representatives of political power,
how much liberation would they receive
at the hands of those whose interests
they imperil or distrOy? What kind of
| treatment would an office-holder have in
their ranks? Would an office-holder
dare to be seen in their ranks at alp II
woman had the ballot, such crusade as
this would simply be impossible. To re-
spond that il would be unnecessary, Is
| to trifie with the subject.
| Further, let it be witnessed, that the
women who are doing the most Of the
work in this crusade never have asked
/ for the ballot and never will do so. They
would regard the cOnferment of political
suffrage upon them as a calamity. It
would rob them Of their peculiar power
a power which all experience proves can
not be preserved too carefully. Woman
can not afford the ballot. IL would tie
] / l.. 4
stroy her disinterestedness in the treat
ment of all public questions, and open
into the beautiful realms of her moral
power ten thousand streams of weakness
and corruption. This
crusade does not mean the ballot;
it means that woman does not need the
; ballot, cannot afford to take the ballot,
will not have the ballot; and with this
cOnvictiOn let all American society
gratefully felicitate itself-Dr. j. q.
Holland, in ScriJHer's Monthly for June.
Utterances like the above come with q
strange, unnatural ring, and seem to
lack that prepOnderating element Of the
nineteenth centuTy-commOn sense.
Had the auther slept like Rip Van Win
kle in the mountains, the victim of
} some powerful potion, and had only
aroused and come down to find all OF
/ lis Ohh E1-AANAeNtADh HeAo7GNA away anu
! ideas and customs changed, he could
not less truly reflect the vital thought
of the day than in the extracts above
quoted.
1t seems very much as though DIR.
Holland looked ut woman from a myth
ical point OF view-and also from q self
ish point. Women are indeed flesh
and blOOd-nOt angels, very often far
from saints-nor are they idiots. They
are of the same humanity as man; sub
ject TO the same conditions and held
strictly amenable to the same laws.
] 1t seems incredible that a man with
/ the fine culture of DIR. Holland can
contemplate with any complaceny the
thought OF "beseeching women coming
/ from their comfortable retirement, brav-
/ ing wind and storm and mud, obloquy
and misrepresentation and curses, and
all the harsh obstacles that brutality
can throw in their path, to compass 8
reform that shall keep their natural
supporters and protectors pure and pros
/ perous.n
What a burlesque to apply the term
| "their natural supporters and prOtec-
! tOrs'' in such a connection How utter
| the seliishness which is willing to re-
gard women Gin a beseeching" attitude,
and subjected to repulsive conditions for
/ the sake of bringing about a reform
which it is their right to legislate into
being! How utter the inconsistency
which, cOnfessing belief in the exalted
nature Of women and their potent in
/ tiuence in the world, yet lauds them for
l humiliating themselves to conditions
which all the high insticts of a wom-
ans nature and all the true instincts in
man must cry out against And vet to
contend that this idealized being of DR..
Hollands, rather than touch the "pOor
machinery of politics." rather than de
file her dainty fingers with the white
ballot which used uncorTuptibly is
pure as truth itself, should grOvel in the
slime Of saloons for the sake of proving
her "disinterestedness and the beauti-
full realms of her moral pOwer'-this
indeed seems one Of those absurdities
which the ordinary brain, travelling III
the ordinary orbit, can hardly fathom.
DR.. Holland draws a graphic picture
Of the humilatiOns to which the "cru-
saders,r who he states DO not % want
the ballot, have voluntarily subjected
themselves tO-tacitly admitting them
to be, instead of the peers OF men,
their interiors in everything but an IN
definable. mythical moral lnnuence,
which nevertheless, to establish Its
su,ov has 10 drive its victims to lncredt-
Iia aLu.,,.jfation and the most unpleasant
;,,,acif,..bIe positions. This, then, Is
n-eferable TO legal f-proteetion-this,
iben. is preferable to that other method,
calm, quiet, dignified, yet potent, which
no AnItrican man is too low, or too
high, too bad, III. out Of PRISON., or too
pure, to avail himself of-the ballot.
No, no, not is disgrace to Ameri-