The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1877-03-02
WHO Is TO BLAMB9

The Albany Democrat, dealing in the
covert sneer style usual with the oppo-
nents of measures that they are too mar
row-minded to understand or too big
oted to investigate, attempts to throw
discredit upon the State Woman Suf-
frage Association by alleging that it's
last evening session was "disorderly.n
OF course the smaller fry of Democratic
journals that take their cue from the
Democrat, and whose editors sneeze
most vociferOusly whenever Mart.
Brown takes snuff, will catch up the re-
frain and talk of "hen conventions,
Growing hens, strong-minded females"
etc., and imagine that their puerile ut
terances will give the Woman Suffrage
movement complete quietus through
out the State, and their false statements
and base innuendoes pass current for
truth and fairness. Says the paper re-
ferred to:
The Woman Suffragists left this city last Fri
day. The meeting held by them the night be-
fore was rather disorderly. For all the good
that has been accomplished by these meetings,
we think it would have been just as we'll to
have continued the religious meetings at the
Courthouse.
Now, we ask, in the name of common
courtesy and candor, is this not a feeble
and contemplate missile to throw at an
organization whose members are as re-
spectacle, orderly, and order-loving as
any persons to be found anywhere?
Was it the members or sympathizers of
the Suffrage Association who were dis
orderly, or was it those who are taught
by the slang of such sheets as the Dem
Ocrdt that it is no crime or breach of
courtesy to offer indignities to Woman
Suffragists and disturb their meetings
We will venture to say, and we are con-
fident that the best citizens of Albany
will bear us out in it, that those who
made portion of that evening session
disorderly are sons of mothers who
''have all the rights they want" who
believe that women should sit at home
in supine helplessness, while their sons,
as soon as they are out of pinafores,
should be allowed the liberty of the
streets and the influences of evil COM
pany through all its grades-merely be-
canse "they are boys, you know"-this
being considered sufficient warrant for
any amount of evil doing, only so that
the misdeeds of the young scapegraces
do not land them in the penitentiary.
If boys grown to the stature of men en-
gagged in these 'disorderly" proceedings,
it was only those who are taught by the
helplessness of weak-minded mothers,
the example and precept of supercillious
fathers, and the innuendoes of narrow
minded journalists, that women have no
rights that the most unmitigated mas
culine hoodlum is bound to respect.
AS to the latter clause of the para
graph quoted above, we presume it is a
lamentable and incontestible fact that
neither "these meetings." nor the con-
tinuance of religious meetings, or any
other means of grace at the disposal of
hhibC "Oulu VI COulu OCuCllb W
any perceivable extent either the anti
suffragists who rendered the session dis
orderly or the reporter who attempted to
make capital against Woman Suffrage
out of the disgraceful actions of those
who hold his own views. The time will
come, however, when those who, "hav-
ing eyes, see not, having ears, hear not,
neither do they understand" will be
compelled to stand aside or divest them
selves of the prejudices that now cause
them to ''see as through glass, darkly."
Meanwhile, the question, "Who is to
blame for a disorderly meeting?" will
be answered to the satisfaction of advo-
Yates of equal rights and the discomfit-
ure and disparagement of the opponents
thereof.