The Labor enquirer., 1888-02-18
WOMANS COLUMN,
EA,.ed BY nrs. A. L. wssAs.-..
Cranka.


sive epithet was painful. 1t is so
no more. 1t has come to mean a
worker, one who not only thinks
but does something. The vast net
work Of cogs and pulleys which
move society are turned by cranks
and are turning. too. at a lively
rate which admonishes old fogies
to "move on" or "stand from
under.
No earnest. thoughtful person
be il man or woman is nowadays
without a hobby" to ride. and
since hobby riding has become the
fashion those who plod along on
foot in this hurrying, scrambling
age find themselves left" in the
race. People used to ride but one
hobby and though they rode we'll,
and triumphantly reached their
destination, as did Lucy Stone.
Abbey Kelly Foster, Wendell
Phillips, VIM. Lloyd Garrison and
others in the early abolition re-
form, they rode in the very teeth
of popular Indignation and preiu-
dice and received many a scratch
and bruisc before the gauntlet was
run and the traffic in black men
and women and their children was
stopped. By that time people
hal become somewhat familiar
lied with the well-worn steed and
the abolitionist crank was at last
tolerated and finally honored.
None but a veritable Rip Van
Winkle would now own his oppo-
sition to the abolition of chattel
slavery and those who delight to
honor the few survivors Of that
noble band OF tried and true
would like to forget that they or
their progenitors set price on
the heads of these early anarchists
or dragged them through the
streets of Boston until they were
obliged to seek safety in the Jail.
The great wrong of chattel
slavery is abolished; we have now
its younger brothers grown and
armed to vanquish, woman,slav-
cry, wage-slavery and rum-slavery.
A new crop of cranks have come
to take the burden from the
old who still ride on, many of
them in the effort to abolish the
subsection of women to men. of
labor to capital, OF virtue to vice,
OF the masses to the few.
The cranks of our day must
fight a half dozen gigantic wrongs,
the whole stalwart family Of the
vile parentage of human selfish
ness and greed. One hobby will
not do now, we must keep a
whole stable full of them and ride
them by turns while the army OF
cranks is recruited day by day.
Forty years ago a handful of
women and men, bold spirits
who loved liberty and justice, be-
gan to demonstrate against the
political and social subsection of
women. Year by year through
derision, insult and slander,
through pain and anguish and dis
couragement they perscvcred and
now the survivors of this handful
find themselves at the head OF 4
vast army of women clamoring at
the doors of the national congress
Tor recognized political equality.
Gradually. inch by inch, the
enemies of woman suffrage have
thrown sops to appeasc the right
cous clamor of one half the people
who in a government ostensibly
"of the people for the people and
by the people have denied rep
rcScntation to the mothers and
daughters of a so-called republic,
sops in amelioration of the laws,
property rights, marriage rights.
school suffrage and other inhni-
tcssimal concessions; but the
conservatism" (anothcr name for
Seldshuess and tyranny cries
Peace! Peacc!" There is no
peace" and will be none until JUS
tiee reigns and woman stands free
citizen with a free ballot with the
undisputcd right to make as well
as to obey the laws; to own her
self her children and the work Of