Martinsburg weekly independent. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1873-1875, 1874-05-23
TWAIN'S OPINION OF THE
WOMAN CRUSADE.

Would you consider the conduct
of those crusaders juslifiabIe L
do--thoroughly justifiable. They
find themselves voiceloss in the
making OF laws and the election of
officers. 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 laws, degrade the
dignity OF the former aad bread
the latter at his own sweet will.
They see the fathers husbands and
brothers sit inately 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, mrehuked,
elect them. They live in the midst
of a 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
cons from destruction by intern
perance lie torpid and without
sign of life year after year, they
recognize that here Is matter
which Interests them personally
Il matter which comes straight
home to them.
| cannot help glorying in the
pluck Of these women, sud as 1t
Is 10 see them carrying their grace
and their purity into places which
should never know their presence;
and sadder still as it Is to sec them
trying To save a set Of men, who,
It seems to me, there can be no
reasonable object i'm saving. 1t
does not b come us to scott at the
crusaders, remembering what 1t Is
they have borne all these years.
But it does become us to admire
their heroism--a heroism that
boldly faces curses, ieers, rihald
language. obloquy Of every kind
and degree-in word, every
manner OF thing that Eure-hearted
pure minded women such us these
are, naturally dread and shrink
from and remain steadfast through
it all, undismayed, patient, hope
full, giving no quarter, asking none,
determined to Conquer, and cue
ceeding. It is the same old SUI
perb spirit that animated that
other devoted, magnificent, mista-
ken crusade of six hundred years
ago. The sons OF such women as
these must surely be worth saving
from the destroying power Of
rum.
/ think tire crusade will cuSseot
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 furionsly and It
will also suggest that when the
women once made up their minds
that it WIS not good to leave the
all-pow. full primaries" in the
hands of leafers, thieves. and per-
nicious littlepoliticians, they would
not sit indolently at home as their
husbands and brothers do now,
but would hoist their praying ban
ners, take the field in force, pray
the assembled political scum back
to their holes and slums where
they belong, and set up some cam
didates fit for decent human beings
to vote for.
/ dearly want the women to be
raised TO the political attitude Of
the negro, the imported savage
and the pardoned thief, and allow
ed to vote. 1t is our last chance, /
think. The women will be voting
before long land then if b + But
Ter can still continue to lord it over
Congress /; ii 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 honests
men and 296 Of the other kind,
can once moro be created, it will
at last be time, fear, to give up
our trying to save the country by
human means, and appeal to
Providence. Both the great par
ties have failed. / wish we might
have a womans' party now, and
see how that would work. | feel
persuaded that in extending suf-
frage to women, this country
would lose absolutely nothing,
and might gain a great deal. For
thirty centuries history has been
iterating and reiteratiag that in a
moral fight women is simply
dauntless, and we all know, even
with our eyes shut apon Congress
and 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 $ own himself to, be
an arrant coward