The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1881-02-22
Rutland (Vt.) Herald.l
Clubbing Their Own Cause.

The Woman's Journal publishes a letter OF
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps to Lucy Stone, from
which we take the following extract:
$50 far as understand the municipal suffrage
plan it is the nert thing for us women. Hundreds
of women will vote on sharply y-defned moral ques-
tions like the liquor problems. who would not move
for anything else 1t is true that the sefrespect of
women not met by the limited school bill.
more just and generous opportunity will meet a
just and generous response. l. for one, sympathze
with the reluctance of women to play beggar maid
to that little Cophetua.'
If this means anything it means that the
reason why women don't avail themselves
more generally of the limited school suffrage
y,anted them in Massachusetts, and New York
is because unlimited and universal suffrage
was refused them. Miss Phelps seems to think
that women who refuse to vote on the
school problem would vote on the liqnor
problem. Very likely Miss Phelps is right,
but women who cannot see that the educa-
tional problem includes the best and most
hopeful solution of the liquor problem, would
not make very desirable addition to our vot-
ing class; we have plenty of that class of vot-
ers now, who believe that people are made
sober or the reverse by voting up or down
some stringent liquor law. If the liquor prob
lem is not near solution it is not for the lack
of temperance voters the voters in most of
our New England communities will readily
vote the most iron-cad liquor law that is pro-
posed, but to solve the liquor problem is anoth
er matter, and that can only be done bv the
extension and multiplication of that form of
education found most efficient for the early
growth of good sense and good morals. Women
naturally stand very near the early education
of the children; they are in closer and deeper
sympathy with the young than men; they
manifest excellent tact and talent for the work
of the teacher, and we know of no reason why
u thoughtful woman should look with disdain
upon the opportunity offered her to vote for
school officers, to vote in school meetings. and
to hold important school offices of large and re-
sponsibe trust Intelligent interest in sound
education never has too many votes, and if
woman'S vote and voice is to be for good rath-
er than evil in social government and political
order, the schools are as good place to begin
trial as voting on the liquor problem. If the
advent of women to the school suffrage and
school offices gives us sounder and cleaner
basis of good morals with the young generation,
the liquor problem will be nearer a solution
than it is now, and remembering that the pop
ular warrant for limited woman suffrage at all
is not question of primitive human rights,
but question of human expediency. il
seems to us melancholy that able women
like Elizabeth Stuart Phelps and Lucy Stone
should not be practical enough to see that they
only stamp out the flame of their new lit torch
with their own feet when they encourage wo-
men not to avail themselves of limited suffrage
on the plea that universal suffrage is the right
of women, that to take half a loaf is unworthy
the dignity of the cause. Society, however, is
not all sentimental about this subject of the
suffrage; it does not believe that it is the right
of anybody to vote unless it be clear that the
cause of good government would be enlarged
by the enlargement of the suffrage; if it seems
| to be expedient for the highest welfare of So
| ciatV woman ShOul1 vote than w
men ought to vote, and this question of the
practical wisdom of extending the suffrage to
women will be decided on this ground
of expediency, not upon any plea
of 1nexorable right, for men do not
include suffrage among the natural inaliena-
BILE right of human natures like life, or liberty.
Now in New York, Massachusetts, and Ver-
mont, men have fairly said that the near rela-
tion of woman to the schools for the young
made her presumptively person whose vote
would be worth invoking; at all events they
deemed the experiment worth trial, and fairly
said that tax-paying women should vote in
school meetings. Now if women taking coun-
sci of those who say limited school suffrage is
| an insult, show themselves Indifferent to the
initial experiment, it will be perfectly futile
hereafter to plead for universal woman suf-
| frage for people will say, "You were neither
faithful nor interested in few things, aud it
| is not worth while to elevate you to the charge
| and consideration of many things" 1t is no
to the suffrage, for that is no reason why these
political mutes should be enlarged by the ac-
| cession of women, who have been distinguished
| by nothing so much as Indifference to the ex-
ercise of limited suffrage. Wendell Phillips in
| recent speech said:
AS to voting under the school suffrage law, am
| glad that women have been too wise to be caught
in it. know more than thirty women who say
| they cannot afford to vote under it. One of them
| has 50, 600, on the income of which she lives. II
has escaped the notice of the The tax
| it would be $50, one-hfth of her scanty income.
Men would not vote in such a case.
Because this woman cannot vote without re-
vealing the fact that she has hitherto evaded
her legal taxes Phillips thinks she is woman
of sense and spirit. Is it worth while to en-
large the suffrage law so as to add to the num-
ber of tax-dodging men this tax-dodging
woman, who thinks suffrage is public right
worth exercising only when it does not inter-
fere with evading the assessor? Wendell Phil
lips reads rather weak in spots sometimes,
when he is manfully supporting women in the
wrong.