The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1877-01-12
"THE TERRIBLE FRONT OF STU
PIDITY,"

We are sorry that it is so-but it is so.
nevertheless-that it seems utterly i'm
possible to make some persons comPre-
hend a truth'or grasp a principle, how
ever plain the one, or well established
the other, that is not sanctioned by Gus
tom, or against which their prejudices
contend. We have all heard of the
..'terrible front of stupidity, against
which the gods themselves contend in
vain," and few of US, indeed, there be
who, in the great conflict of ideas, the
contest between truth and error that
everywhere 90 on, have not more than
once shivered our lanees upon this ter
rible front without leaving a percepti-
bic trace of the onset. Stupidity, stolid-
ity, mpenetrability, indifference-call
it by what name you willard still il
is the most discouraging obstacle that
: stands in the pathway of reform.
The most potent and palpable truths
have no more effect upon it than
child's arrow upon the epidermis of
hippopotamus. Women safe in shell
tered homes, who look with unconcern
upon the tolls and sufferings of myr-
lads of their sisters with cold glance,
are the best illustrations of this phase
of human character. 1t seems utterly
impossible to make them comprehend
the injustice which walks hand in hand
with unpaid toll, or the woe that how
ers, "not less a bird of omen than Of
prey" about the social sins that are so
often the result of woman's inequality,
social, political, and financial.
The next best illustration of stupidity
or stolidity is found in the man (oi
woman) who will listen, with perhaps
sufficient politeness not to yawn in
your face, while arguments, incOntro-
vertible as truth itself, are advanced iu
support of the doctrines of equal rights,
and then innocently ask, "What it il
that women complain Off"
"What do women want ?" enquired
one Of these not long since. 81 have
listened to men make speeches ami
read their publications, and can't find
out"
Now we knew full well that we might
spend six hours of our valuable time In
piling up facts before this self-confessed
parcel of stupidity, and he would ask the
next sensible woman whom he met the
same question with the same patroniz-
ing airof superiority, ,so-surveying him
silently for a minute-measuringh his
mental calibre the while we replied:
"If you have all your life listened to
no purpose, and have read the New
NORTHWEST all these years without
receiving a ray of light, the probabili
ties are that you will depart this life a.
stupid as you were when you entered
upon it,"
"Well," he replied, nothing daunted
at so apparent fact, "if women want
men to wash the dishes and mind the
babies while they talk politics, they'll
never live to see the day that as men
will stand it,"
1t is an incontestible fact, that many
opponents Of equal rights are incapable
of taking broader grounds in opposition
so ealled-to the movement so earn
estly inaugurated and SO valiently car,
ried forward TO secure them, than il
shown in a driveling remark of this
kind. The precepts of the Golden
Rule are as meaningless to them a.
though written in the hieroglyphics Of
ancient Egypt, and appeal no more to
their understanding than does the glib
berish of the "heathen Chinese"
We never meet one of this class ot
persons, man or woman, and listen tC
their irrelevant and far-fetched remarks
and would-be witticisms but we repeat
again: 1.-THE terrible front of stupidity
the gods themselves contend against ia
vain," and pass them in silence by.