Jamestown weekly alert. [volume] (Jamestown, Stutsman County, D.T. [N.D.]) 1882-1925, 1885-03-05

suffrage with the mental reservation that
prostitutes be absolutely forbidden the
elective franchise and from entering the
polling places during the progress of an
election. That is all very fine spun
theory, but did it ever occur to the News
th.t for every female prostitute there is at
least one-and perhaps ten of the OPP
posite sex of like character among those
who now vote al our elections? In the
late presidential campaign Rev. Henry
Ward Beecher made the broad and com.
prehenslve declaration that if all the men
of this character in the state Of New
York should vote for Cleveland he woald
carry the state ty two hundred thousand
majority. Coming right down face to
face with the cold moral facts, We ask
the News how, why and wherein, is the
female prostitute any worse than her
male consorts? Who makes the desplsed
and degraded prostitutes hut those who
have or will have the right Of ballot un.
der our existing lawsS
This one-sided moral restriction pro
posed and advocated by the News IL an
absurtlity in the very nature of things.
II condemns IN one party Of equal part
ners IN vice what it excuses in the other.
The gateway through which girls pass
into this debasing vocation is the decep-
ton and seduction Of those who hold the
elective franchise and should be their
protectors instead Of their destroyers.
1t is very doubtful compliment to wo.
man to iasinuate that the proportion of
her sex who arc morally debased is so
large that 1t would be a dangerous ele.
ment in politics, aud that the whole sex
should remain disfranchised rather than
admit this element to the polls. There
may be good reasons somewhere in the
unexplored realm of logic for withhold.
ing the ballot from woman, but this Is
neither sound nor respectful one.
A lady writer on this subject, after CIT
ing the fact that hundreds and thousands
of girls and women in the eastern facto-
rles are making shirts for four cents
apiece which are sold in the stores At
Sl.50 each, and working al starvation
wages IN other industries, brings the fol.
loving terrific indictment against the
protection they receive at the hands of
those who hold the ballot: "There are
thousands of women who are tying to
earn their bread and hold their purity
sacred; there are hundreds who give up
their purity for the sake Of bread they
cannot earn, and many woman goes to
life of degradation and pollution, shed.
ding burning tears over her four cent
shirts. We are told that men protect US,
that they are generous, an even chival-
ric in their protection. Gentlemen, it
your protectors were women, and they
took your property and your children,
paid you half as much for your work,
would you like such protectioD' When
chivalrlc men make laws which allow an
assault upon their mothers, wives and
daughters virtue to be less offense than
stealing pig, COW or horse, it certain
ly shows an incapaclty to make laws for
woman's protection. You talk about the
dirty pool of politics; if it is dirty you
alone are responsible for Its condition,
because you have excluded the moral
scrubbing broom of woman. Let US in
and we will soon change the face Of
things and bring politics to be the grand
est theme of study for the human INTEL
lect -