The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1878-02-01
Womanls Day in the Senate.

On Tuesday the morning journals an
nounced that that would be "WOman's
Dayn in the Senate. The announce
ment in the journals was made with
dignity and without comment. In the
Senate the petitions were presented
without dignity, and, with few excep-
tions, with comments which reflected
deepdiscrediton on those who uttered them. /
It is a disgrace to the United States SEN
ate which cannot be wiped out, that il
will not receive a petition coming from
thousands Of honorable women in the
land without laughter, ridicule, and
sneers. No matter what the personal
opinion of a Senator may be, the honest
petition OF any citizen, black or white,
man or woman, is entitled by that citi-
Zenship 10 his respectful cOnsidera-
tion." At least, he should be gentle
man enough, and have self-respect
enough, If he have ever so little for the
petitioner, to present her petition with
the manner and in the tone of a gentle
man. If we needed any added proof to
the already too evident fact that, as an
aggregate, the Congress of the American
people does not consist Of gentlemen,
we have it in their tones, words, and
manners when they present woman's
petition. Judging by these, you must
believe that nothing on earth is quite
so funny" as that tax-paying citizen
often the widowed head of a family,
an intelligent, educated, thoughtful be-
ing-should ask that she have some
voice in the laws that govern her; that
she should, at least, be free TO give that
consent Of the governed" on which
even the man-framed Constitution de-
clared all just government rests, which
is not denied the lowest creature that
crawls, if so be he happens to crawl in
the shape of a man. A woman of great
nature could afford to pity the men,
Senators of the United States, who that
day made themselves look so small.
Had she not been sure that, as a crea-
ture Of God, she was greater than they,
she might well have bowed her head in
humiliation and covered herself with
sackcloth and ashes, that more than
ten thousand women, her peers, have
come to sue at such court as that. Is
the caste of sex so all-pervading, so
omnipresent, that a man cannot read
even the petition Of a woman without
at once dissOlving into sneering, laugh
ter, and inane ridicule?
In autocTatic Russia to-day a woman
sits regent on the imperial throne, while
her husband and her four sons, beyond
L4c DauuDcf MEub tue Ddllles OF LDelE
religion and their race. The third vol
ume of the "Life Of the Prince ConsOrt,"
just issued in London, refutes forever a
favOrite assertion Of men that the Queen
Of England is but puppet in the gov
eminent Of her vast realm. In pouring
light upon the general management Of
public business in England, il shows US
in unerring outline the Queen, from the
beginning Of her reign TO this day. for
forty years, attending personally with
the minutest attention to the routine
business Of departments, carefully
studying and weighing every subject,
small or great, which affects in the
slightest the well-being of her people -
Let the women Of the world arise and
bless her, that she, a woman pre-emi-
nent in station, has for forty years
proved herself equal TO her opportunity.
Not only wife, mother, woman among
the best, but "every inch a queen.n
Prince Albert. writing of Napoleon
Third, said: "He seemed astonished
when I told him that every dispatch
went through the Queens hands and
was read by her; as he only received
extracts from them, and, indeed, ap-
peared 10 have little time or inclination
generally 10 read. When / observed to
him that the Queen would not be con-
Tent without seeing the whole of the
diplomatic correspondence, be replied
lnaJ he found a full COMPENSATION in
having persons in his own confidence
VINO reported directly to him. I could
not nut express my sense Of the danger
OF such an arrangement, to which no
statesman in England, at least vvonld
consent" Again Prince Albert ,rritas
from Paris 20 the Queen: srrba -,
peror told NE one ct the deenast i,,,
pressions ever made upon him Ues
when, after having gone from France
10 Rio JaneirO, and thence to the Tuited
States, he arrived in London sbor,IJ,
after King Williams death, and ss;,
you, at the age Of eighteen, goiur 10
open Parliament for the first time.n
Charles Sumner, in writing of the
same occasion, confesses that his preiu-
diees were all against the youthful
GGeen; but she won him completely.
not t,ore by the wOmanly trembling OF
her hands than by the splendor Of her
elocution, which, he declared to his
friend Hillard, he had never heard
equaled. It was the elocutiOn of q
woman, at eighteen a queen, upon al
occasion as august as the earth coulc
show. Not a man lived that would moi
have felt honored TO come within hear
ing Of that perfect voice. All THIS j
possible IN EurOpe-tO a woman. II is
in America that even the petition o.
woman is thing TO be laughed at aud