Wichita eagle., 1888-07-13
MATILDA FLETCHER.

Matilda Fletcher, of Des MONIES, Iowa
writes the editor of the EAGLE that she
will take the stump for the Republican
party. Her subject will be ''From the
Log Cabin to the White House" Ma
tilda is bright woman and an entertain
ing speaker it is said, but if she wants to
help the Republican party she can
readily find more effectual ways than by
taking the stump. 1t is just that phaze
of the woman suffrage question which
'sstumps the average man. Few object to
the idea or proposition per Sc of a ballot
for woman. 1t is the part and the figure
which Matilda proposes to cut that
prejudlces men against the whole
scheme of woman suffrage, which is adj
vocated almost altogether by women
whose ambition it is to play the part that
Matilda writes US that she proposes
to play down this way. The national Re
publican central committee viii make
mistake in employing any of these no
torious females to say anything for the
Republican party, for its principles or its
nominees. The Prohibition or Third
party believe in and endorse women in
public life. Let these women go to the
party which sympathizes with their
cause and talk with them. There is no
party that hates the Republican party so
insanely as do the Prohibitionists, whose
presidential candidate is one Fisk, and if
these women want to help along Repub-
lican principles let them exert their lnfiu-
ence with the st. John party, which
believes in and endorses the principle Of
public life for women.
We are being continually met, Matilda,
by the assertion that women would ele-
vate and purify politics. We don't
believe it, nor is there anything IN
history which even tends to warrant
such an assertion. Take the COM
mune, for instance, OF the anarch-
lists, two of the modern political
parties in which women have an equal
say whitman, and the result of her
presence in both organizations as fac
tor has not only been harmful but utter
ly demoralizing. Why; they hung the
male leaders of the Chicago mob Of
but they haven't been able to
even stop Mrs. Parsons tongue, nor
never will be till they have another
hanging and which, if she lives, will be
worked up soon by her followers. And
so it is with the Nihilistic party, another
modern political party IN which woman
is an equal factor with man. In short,
when women cease to be angels Of mer-
cy, queens of the home and moral teach
ers, or to be anything, outside of those
channels which lead directly to home and
to heaven, they simply destroy them
selves or play smash with somebody else,
generally speaking do both.
1t is not the woman of Des Moines
who writes to us that we have ought
against, personally. Presumably she is
both fair and smart, certainly the latter.
But she is not representative woman of
America in her spirit, even should
she be in physique and brains. She is
lot the woman whom we want our
daughters to copy or our sons to follow,
simply because abnormal things are not |
o be desired.
Matilda, for one we would prefer that |
you take the stump for the st. John |
party, or for the Belva Lockwood party, |
which latter party is not only properly !
your own but which fairly represents
he strength of the woman suffrage SEN
iment of the country. Brilliant how
,ver you may be, thrillingly eloquent,
which you no doubt are, young, beauti
ul and enthusiastic as you are repre-
ented, you will nevertheless inevitably
10 more harm than good to the Re-
publican party as a stump speaker; and,
his is a campaign in which we want as
much practical sense and sound prin-
,iple. and as little foolishness and I'M
meaning spread, of either petticoats or
# buncome, as possible.