The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1875-11-19
ONE THING AND ANOTHER.
PAPER NUMBER THREE.
TOO MUCH VOTING.

ground, and OF late we have noticed LDaL
it is recommended as the true policy of
women to work for qualified suffrage.
The chief objection to Woman Suffrage
found by its most intelligent opposers, is
that there is already too much voting,
though they do not pretend to deny that
it is very absurd to enfranchise an ig-
norant foreigner and withhold the bal
lot from an Intelligent woman who is a
patriot because her country is the land
of her birth. Our most eminent states
men have not hesitated to say that they
trembled for the future of our country,
because the peculiar form of our govern
ment gives us no effectual protection
from ignorance and ignorant prejudice.
Our free schools and various institutions
of learning are laboring hard to dissem-
mate knowledge; yet every year-yes,
every month and week-fresh loads of
Ignorance and corruption are washed
upon our shores, and each election day
finds this mass welding power that
should only be placed in the hands of
the wise and the good. The beggarly
condition of the majority of those who
come to US is sufficient to terrify prop
erty-hOlders who so soon find them to
be political equals; yet we would have
little to fear from them on account of
their poverty were they wise and Virtu-
Gus, and such we would have them if
they must govern us. Intelligence
alone should not confer the right of suf-
frage, for there are other qualifications
equally as important. A criminal has
no right to help make laws for peaceful,
honorable citizens; yet to-day, while
the most ignorant man can make the
vote of the sage of no effect, the man
whose hands are stained with the dark
est crimes can cast ballot that will
match against that of a Christian phil
anthropist. This is true, not only be-
cause criminals evade justice, but be-
cause it is the practice, not only of the
Governors of Oregon, but of the Cover
nOrs of other States, to pardon rascals
out of the penitentiary just before cleo
ton days for the sake of their votes.
same ship of State and must share the
same political destiny, and when the
bad have voice in the management Of
the ship that must be heard and needed,
we can look for nothing but repeated
blunders and peTils. Daniel Webster
once said to friend, "1f religious books
are not widely circulated among the
masses, and the people do not become
religious, do not know what is to be-
come of this country" He saw that
the voting population ought to be moral
as well as possessed of a certain amount
of learning; but as we cannot hope to
reform all evil-doers, we cannot do bet
! ter than to deprive them of the power of
governing us. The educated villain is
even less to be trusted to make laws or
hold Office than the ignorant man who
is virtuous. 1t has been said that Civ
ing the ballot to women would not rem
edy the existing evil, as there would
only be an increase of votes, for the votes
of the good women would merely go to
destroy those cast by the inmates of
brothels and frequenters of the haunts of
infamy. 1t is no doubt true that some
of our votes would go that way; but as
there is only a very small fraction of
womankind that are disreputable in
character, there would always be large
surplus of ballots that would do much
! toward helping good men in their eff
forts at political progress. This argu-
ment alone should be enough to con-
vince intelligent men that under the
present system women ought by all
means to be given the elective franchise.
A friend of ours, though an enemy to
Woman Suffrage, once said, and we
have heard it repeated thousand times
since, "If women vote, then all the
fallen of the sex will be placed upon an
equality with our own good wives and
mothers; and what good will it do for
our wives aud mothers to vote, if bad
women must have the same privilege ?'I
We wondered if that man ever thought
that by voting he was placing himself
upon an equality with every creature
that might come to the polls on election
days. We ridiculed his logic by asking
why good and bad women were not on
an equality noU, there being no political
distinction, and also asking what good
it did men to vote when there was moth.
ing to prevent the veriest wretch from
having free access to the ballot.
We are thoroughly convinced that we
have too much voting, and that twice
the number of ballots would increase the
evil; but we have too much ignorant
and unprincipled voting. Sex we con.
slider the sillieSt qualification that could
possibly have been thought of, and
were it, instead, intelligence and mora
character, just as many women as meT
would be found exercising the rights o.
citizenship-and we are not certain but
there would be more. Dear ladies, were
these the qualifications, then we woulC
all vote. Let a man be as low, vile
and ignorant as may be, and his sea
alone will enfranchise him. Let &
woman be as wise as Solomon and a.
good and pure as an angel, and the un
important matter of sex will disqualify
her. Yet it cannot be that sex eithel