Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1888-07-26
AN OPEN LETTER.

I. COTbln, of Chicago, addressed 10
her Dear Friend and Sister IN
Christ" Miss Frances f. Willard:
Fifteen years ago, when you were
Dean of the Woman's College at
Evanston, and | was in the early
stages Of my experience as wife and
mother, we used often to meet ana
take sweet counsel concerning the
work which women might do for
God and humanity. We were then
in substantial accord concerning the
current topics of reform, and both
ardently hopeful, then as now, for
the future of woman. Your life
during these intervening years has
been full of usefulness and blessing
in public career; mine has passed
in the shelter and quiet of happy
home, and as the result Of our diff
ferent experiences we have come to
differ widely, not concerning the
influence and activity Of woman in
the arena of human progress, but
only in regard to the means by
which this end is to be accomplished.
You have become not only a pro-
nounced advocate Of woman suf-
frage, but a skillful manager Of the
machinery Of caucuses and conYen-
tons, while | am firmly of the
opinion that scarcely a greater evil
could hefall the country at large,
ari woman herself, than that her
nature should be deformed and her
destiny traversed, as | believe they
would be, by the imposition Of
political responsibilities.
A fundamental issue involved in
this difference of opinion is that Of
relation between men and women
in regard to control or authority.
j. it possible or desirable that
women should exercise forceful con,
troll, either intellectual or moral,
over men? Has nature bestowed
upon them the power to compel
men 20 good morals, or to any given
lire of conduct, BY legal process?
In other words, would the ballot be
the same thing in the hand of a
woman that it is in the hand Of q
man, or would it be an emasoulated
agency?
When a woman bears a houseful
of boy babies, strong, turbulent, hot
headed even in infancy, and brings
them up, every one of them, to a
simple,
STRONG AND NOBLE MANHOOD,
as thousands of women have done
all over the land, she learns some
things about the nature of men
which, | truly believe, no human
being ever learned so cffectually in
any other way; and one of these
things is that of you, woman, wish
to employ force in your system OF
government, you may do it safely
ard wisely before your boy has out
grown his knickerbockers, but not
after that time. Every forcefu
method, every arbitrary restriction
on the part of his mother after tina
harms your boy From the time
when manhood begins to stir in biz
veins, he realizes more or less clearly
that he was born to physical anc
intellectual mastery over women
and the more manly the boy, the
clearer will be this sense "a him
Ueucoforth every forceful collision
with him, however it terminates
weakeus your influence over him
II you conquer him, it deals dead
ly blow as his affection for you anC
his own selfrespect. If he conquer
you it equally destroys his respec
for YOU, and fosters in him th,
spirit of the bully. DO you, there
fore, give up your control over hin
at this critical age? Not by an.
means, if YOU are a wise and faithful
mother. You have already laugh
him, it is to be hoped, implicit ODE
dieuce, the discipline Of duty, anC
have laid the foundation of thos
habits of selfcontrol which are t
be- the safeguards of his integrit.
In future years. Now you simpl,
change your tactics, and find you
rula of action ready made to you
hand in that "more excellent way
the way Of love, so graphieall
described by St. Paul in the TIM
tecuth chapter Of l. Corinthians Use
Revised Norsiou). And it is not E
perpetuate your own control wholly
nor indeed chiefly, that You max
this change. 1t is Gods appointe,
way, and there is no other, of Dc
ycloping and enuobling
THAT WONDERFUL LovE.NATUEE
with which your boy is endowed
and converting it from a fruitful
source of evil to a fountain @
perennial life and,eyer-spriuging JOY
Il is thus that you bind your boy &
You with hooks of steel, and max
it impossible that ne should eve
look upon q pure %omanhood witt
other eyes than those of the tende