The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1888-06-07
A PLEA FOR WOMAN SUFFRAGE.
Mrs. Northwestern Has Hard Time to
Catch the Ear

Mrs.. Northwestern Has Hard Time to
Catch the Ear.
ST. LOUIS, June 6.-When the convention
consented to give the ladies hearing Mrs.
f. A. Merriweather of st. Louis, one of the
talented ladies who are engaged in the ele-
walton of womanhood, came on the plat
form and was received with cheers from
the delegates and audience. Mrs. Merri-
weather was introduced by Chairman
Collins, and spoke as follows:
GENTLEMEN OF TIE DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION
Time and again the women OF this country have
appeared before your Legislative bodies, as well
as your grand political conventions, asking that
the practices OF this government be made to
comport with its principles. the basic principle,
the fundamental principle and the foundation
stone on which rests this government of equal
rights.
AT this point there was some disorder in
the back part of the hall.
The chairman said:
THE chair will insist that order be main
tanned, especially when a lady has the floor. u
Mrs. Merrlweather continued
Throughout this broad land no where yet do
equal rights prevail. On the one side we see a
privileged and governing class, on the other we
see subjected and governed class One-half
of the people of this great and so-called repub-
lie yet live in precisely the same political soil
tude their forefathers lived in under the
king of England before the colonies re-
beled and seeded from the British empire
Our forefathers thought their condition was
slavery. II il be slavery for them, how is il not
slavery for us. | am to appear before you and
ask you to right these great wrongs and CON
slider this great question of equal rights. A
declaration coming from this great body of the
people, also noble and grand, will send thrill
through humanity's great headland, carry
very end of time itself, but it, gentlemen, YOU
refuse this plain principle of right and Justice
then suggest TO you that you add 10 your
platform of principles the following preamble
WHEREAS, All history proves that education
units human beings for the condition of sub
lection and awakens in the human soul aspira-
tons for larger liberties and higher life. ICON.
siderable confusion here occurred.
The chairman said: Gentlemen, keep
quiet"
Mrs. NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS., you are not
troubled with women often, and you ought
TO hear one once. They do not
trouble you political men often Mrs
Merriwether continued the regular course
of her remarks as follows: and whereas
during the last fifty years We the voters of this
land, have committed the great mistake of per
hitting a subjected class 10 enter schools of
learning. thereby expanding their brains and
quickeaing their thoughts and breathing disaf-
lection against our time-honored rule these
women going TO and from over the land knock
ing at the Legislative doors demanding TO know
why the glorious doctrines of the democracy
should not apply 10 women as to men and
whereas all history proves that the greater and
denser the ignorance in whcha class is held
considerable confusion.
Mrs Merriweather made several efforts
to be heard, but after a while when she
found the convention was unwilling to listen
TO her further she desisted. The resolution
which the convention refused to hear, is as
follows:
Resolved, That we, the democratic men of
America, in convention assembled, advise and
fbp lao laftt In ff l,t 4
union to enact such laws as will forever plit a
step 70 the education of the women of this land
and thereby put stop TO the clamor OF equal
rights as will forever close the doors Of every
school, public and private, TO the female chill
dren of this country We advise and urge that
it be made penal offense, punishable by fine
and Imprisonment, to teach any girl child the
letters of the alaphabet. and any woman con
victed OF reading u newspaper or book or Of
entering the lecture halls, whether as a listener
or spectator, be severely punished by law.