The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1878-01-17
=" WOMAN'S DAY" IN THE SENATE.

" WOMAN'S DAY" IN THE SENATE.
Mary CIemmer Applies the Lash to the
Shoulders of the Senatorial SoIOns.
Washington Letter to the independently
On Tuesday the morning journals an
nounced that would be "Woman's Day.
in the Senate. The announcement in
/ the journals was made with dignity and
without comment. In the Senate the
petitions were presented without digni-
/ ty, and, with a few exceptions, with
comments which reflected with deep dis
credit ON the ones who uttered them.
1t is disgrace to the United States Sen
ate, which can not be wiped out, that it
will not present a petition coming from
thousands of honorable women in the
land without laughter, ridicule and
sneers. 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 being
should ask that she have some voice
in the laws that govern her.
Forty Senators presented petitions,
signed by thousands of men and women,
asking for constitutional amendment
enfranchiSing women. A few read the
petitions as they would any other, with
dignity and without comment; but the
majority seemed intensely conscious of
holding something unutterably funny
IN their hands. They appeared to con =.
slider it a huge joke. The entire Sen
ate presented the appearance of q
laughing school practising side-splitting
and ear-eXtending grins. Mr.. Wadleigh
leaned back in his chair and shook with
laughter, after portraying to his next
neighbor, Pinkney Whyte of Maryland,
the apparition of Pinkney's landlady
descending upon the polls like wolf on
the fold, to annihilate Pinkney'S election
an avenging landlady, of terrible re-
pute for executive temper, who, it is de-
clared, imprisoned Pinkney in his own
parlor, and barricaded another descend
ant of a signer of the Declaration of In
dependence, Hester Clymer, till to save
him from starvation, food was lifted to
him from the street on poles. Oglesby,
erst warrior of Illinois, spake with en-
dearing gallantry of his g dear constitu-
ents," whom he did all his wit could do
to make ridiculous, till the whole Sen
ate laughed, and even Roscoe Conkling,
who never condescends to sneer at a
woman in public, turned and listened
and smiled his most sardonic smile.
Then Thurman blew his loudest regula-
ton blast-sure portent of approach
ing battle-and rose and moved that the
petitions be referred to the Committee
on Public Lands, of which Oglesby is
chairman. At this oposition-in-
tended to be equally humorous and con-
temptuous-the whole Senate laugh
ed aloud. There was one Senator
man enough and gentleman enough
to lift the petitions from this
insulting proposition. 1t was Senator
Sargent of California, the husband of
the woman who, though a Senator's
wife, is brave enough to be the Presi-
dent of the Woman's National Suffrage
Association. He turned to Mr.. Thur
man and demanded for the petition of
more than ten thousand women at least
the courtesy that would be given to any
other petition. Whereupon Thurman,
with a flippancy of which l would not
have believed him capable, if had not
seen it, blew his nose anew, and declar-
ed that he "Only wished the petition
referred to the Committee on Public
Lands that the women might have two
strings to their bow" Then the craven
Senate declared "the notion which
was only an insult, carried. Let it be
recorded of the Senate Of the United
States of the forty-fifth Congress that
the one petition which it received as a
preposterous joke and treated with ut
ter contempt and outrage was the pc
tition of tens of thousands of the moth
ers, daughters and wives of the land !;
that the one petition which they receiv-
ed ana dropped with utter indifference
was the petition against intemperance-
the petition that seeks to tighten the
heavy load of degradation, misery, muir
der, that lies upon the land and most
heavily upon the hearts, the lives, the
homes of women.
In its minimizing utterance, the Cap
itaL of Sunday was perfectly correct
when it said: " The ladies managing
the business managed it badly. If they
had employed the female lobby or sent
in delegation of pretty Treasury clerks,
the venerable Solons would have soften
ed, and thrown open their doors as
readily as their hearts" 1t seems an
ungracious thing to say; but it is the
truth. The woman who wins her way
with the majority of these men is not the
plain, earnest-e eyed woman, with small
knob of native hair at the back of hel
head. 1t is the siren of the gallery and
the ante-room, who sends in her card
and the invitation to the Senator at his
desk. She never talks of "rights. >
She cares for no "causen but her OWL
cause of ease and peif. She shakes hel
tresses, q" banged" and usually blonde
she lifts hor alluring eyes, and nine
/ times out of ten makes him do as she
listeth. No wonder, when the earnest
/ appeal of honest women reaches hi:
hands, he has neither response, honesty
honor nor justice to give it. Tn,
Graphtc'S Peleg Albright was quite
right when he wrote:
As long as men are bosses,
There is reason to declare,
Womens work will be problem
Still of lips and eyes and hair.