Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1888-02-24

frage. AoiA"'e SUI
AS 10 womans wages to be corrected bv
". ~omans vote, l nave not much faith in
mat. Women are harder on women than
men are. Masculine employers are mean
enough IN treatment of women. Int If Won
want to hear beating down of prices and
wages IN perfection, listen how some wo-
men treat washer. women aud dressmakers
anu female servants. Mrs. Shylock is
more merciless than Mr.. Shylock. Wo-
men, fear, will never getrighteous wages
through %oman's votes, and as to unfortu-
nate womanhood, women are far more
cruel and unforgiving than men are. After
woman has made shipw:eck of her char
ac'er men generally drop her, but women
40 not SO much drop her as hurl her with
the force of a catapult clear out and off,
and down and under.
have not much faith that women will
ever get merciful consideration and iustice
through woman sutflage, yet like expert
ments, and some Of my friends in whose
Judgment have confidence are so certain
that alienation would come by such process
that would if l had the power, put in
every woman's hand the vote. 1 cannot
see what right you have to make q woman
to pay taxes on her property to help sup
port city, State, and National Governments,
and yet deny her the opportunity of help
ing TO decide who shall be Mayor, Governor,
or President. But let every wife, not wait
ing for the vote she may never get, or, get
ting it, find it unbalanced by some other
vote not fit to be cast, arise now in the
might of the eternal God and weld the
power of sanctifed wifely ambition for a
good approxmating the infinite.
No one can inspire man to noble pur.
poses Us noble woman, and no one so
1Sy Ia 0,,,;Go
worthy tendencies. While in my text we
have illustrations of wifely ambition en-
ployed in the wrong direction. society and
history are full Of instances of wifely am
bltlon gloriously triumphant in right direc-
tons. All that was worth admiration in
the character of Henry VI. was reflection
of the heerics of his wife Margaret.
William, Prince of Orange, was restored
to the right path by the grand qualities of
his wife Mary. Justinian, the Roman EN-
peror, confesses that his wise laws were
the suggestion of his wife Theodore. An
drew jackson, the warrior and President,
had his mightiest enforcement in his
plain wife, whose inartistic attire was the
amusement OF the elegant circles in which
she was invited. Washington, who broke
the chain that held America in foreign vas
salage, wore for forty years chain around
his own neck, that chain holding the
miniature likeness of her who had been
his greatest inspiration, whether among
the SHOWS at Valley Forge or amid the
honors of the presidential chair. Pliny's
pen was driven through all its poetic and
historical dominions by his wife Capurnia,
who sang his stanzas to the sound of flute
and sat among audiences enraptured at her
husbands genius, herself the most enrap.
tured. Pericles said he got all his elo-
quence and statemanship from his wife.
When the wife of Grotius rescued him
from long Imprisonment at Lovestein by
means of n bookcase that went in and out,
| carrying his books to and fro, he being one
day transported, hidden amid the folios, and
the women Of besieged Weinberg, getting
permission from the victorious army to take
with them SO much of their vnluables as
they could carry, under cover Of the prom
Use, shouldered and took with them the
most important valuables, their husbands
both achievements in Il literal way illus.
trated what thousands of times has been
done in q tigurative way, that wifely am
bition has been the salvation of men.
De Tocqueville, whose writings will be
potential and quoted while the world lasts,
ascrbes his success to his wife, and SAYS
"Of all the blessings which God has given
to me, the greatest of all in my eyes is to
have lighted on Maria Motley" Martin
Luther says of his wife: 81 would not en-
change my poverty with her for all the
riches of Crtrsus without her." Isabella
of Spain, by her superior faith in Colum-
bus, put into the hand of Ferdinand, her
husband, America. John Adams, President
of the United States, said of his wife:
"She never, by word or look discouraged
me from running all hazards for the saliva
ton of my country's liberties" Thomas
Carlyle spent the last twenty years of his
life in trying by his pen to atone for the
fact that during his wife's life he never
appreciated her influence on mis- career and
destiny. Alas, that having taken her from
q beautiful home and brilliant career,
he should have buried her in the home Of
recluse and scoded her in such Ian
guage as only a dyspeptic genius could
manage, until one day while in her in
vnlidism riding in Hyde Park, her pet dog
got run over and under the excitement the
coachman found her dead. Then the liter
ary giant woke from his con ;ugal I'M Justice
and wrote the lamentations of Craigen-
Puttock and Cheyne Row. The elegant and
fulsome epitaphs that husbands put upon
their wives tombstones are often an at
tempt to make up for lack of appreciative
words that should have been uttered i'll the
ears of the living. A whole Greenwood
of monumental inscriptions will not do a
vile 80 nOCu BOOu u1Lor she HAS lllL tuc
world as one plain sentence like that which
Tom Hood wrote to his living wife when
he said: II never was anything till ! knew
YOU"
Oh, woman, what is your wifely ambition,
noble or ignoble? Is it high social posi-
ton? That will then probably direct your
husband, and he will climb and scramble
and slip and fall and rise and tumble, and
on what level or in what depth or on what
height he will after a while be found l
cannot even guess. The contest for
social position is the most unsatisfactory
contest in all the world, because it is SO
uncertain about your getting it, and SO in
secure possession after you have obtained
it and so unsatisfactory even if you keep
it. The whisl of lady's fan may blow it
out. The growl of one bear or the below
ing of one bull on Wall Street may scatter
it.
Is the wife's ambition the political pre-
ferment of her husband? Then that will
probably direct him. What a God for
saken realm is American politics those
best know who have dabbled in them.
After they have assessed man who is a
candidate for office which he does not get,
or assessed him for some Office attained,
and he has been whirled round and round
and round and round among the drinking,