Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1889-11-08
ally devotion to thank his God that he

What is this thing called government
with which women are told they must
have nothing to do, must stand outside
OF and be Indifferent to? 1t is the thing
that concerns them in all the relations OF
life; 1t concerns the bread they eat, the
clothes they wear, the shelter over their
heads, the education to fit them for life;
it Is the thing that imprisons the wife
for holding on to her own property; 1t Is
the thing that blots her name and her
self as an individual, responsible being
out of existence from the hour she turns
from the priest married woman. 1t IS
the thing that clutches the last dollar
from the widows pocket to pay the taxes
on the little house that shelters her and
thrusts her aside and tells her she has no
voice in the matter. 1t is the thing that
kidnaps the child from the mother who
| gave it existence, then tells her she has
no control over it. 1t is the thing that
confronts them with grinning teeth at
every turn and corner.
| Where shall we go to get outside of IT.,
and to be Indifferent to it, unless you
drive them forty miles into the bowels of
the earth, or as far the other way in a
balloon? Had all the governments that
( ever existed been perfectly successful,
there would still be no argument for
shutting women out. The principle
would still be the same. But when we
reflect that no such government is
known in the sannals of the world, the
inconsistency of such arguments appear
still more remarkable. Kingdoms, en-
pires and republics, unstable as the sands
of the desert these wrecks strew the
pages of history from the day of Baby
lon the great down to our own Babylon
of modern slavery.
They track their way down the ages in
one red stream of blood. The proudest
dynasties have kissed the dust. and those
still left are tottering to their fall. In
their pride men dreamed their kingdoms
would last forever, but they died. In
their pride men dreamed their empires
would last forever, but they died.
In their pride they dreamed
their republics would last forever, but
they died-died and went under the sod
and left no trace behind, and the winds
that blow their requiem ask where? No
| one supposes women could have pre-
vented these results, but it is not within
the bounds of possibility that they could
have made things worse. Probably they
could not vote the millennium in were
they allowed to try, but it Is equally GER
tain that they cannot reach the most
distant approach to it without the ballot
Had nature intended women to be as
subordinate as the cattle on thousand
hills. she would have given them as
little sense. But when, in her divine
economy, she endowed them with souls
and brains of their own, she enacted q
law higher than that on any statute
book, and legislators who address them
selves to the task of annulling this law
will fad in the end that it is a task as
difficult as that of voting the planet out
of its orbit.
We are governed here, as in all other
worlds, by the same laws of positive and
negative principles, or masculine and
feminine. They are the centripetal and
centrifugal forces that uphold the planets
and bear us on our flight through space
thousand miles a minute without the
deviation of a hairs breadth, and as
gentle as though rocked in the arms of a
mother. The principles permeate all
nature and they are as important in the
machinery of government as in that of
the planetary system. But governments
have thus far ignored one of these prin-
ciples, and governments have thus far
limped on one leg.
But these principles cannot forever
be ignored, for advancing science will
discover that these two principles COM
plement each other, and that each is
equally important to well balanced
government. You cannot legislate a
true principle out of existence; it will
assert itself.
Happily principles do not die with
their advocates. They carry in them
selves the element and the guarantee of
success and no amount of opposition can
kill them.
You may fight sunbeam with all the
implements of modern warfare, but the
sunbeam will come off victorious. Were
every word and trace of the movement for
womens enfranchisement to be blotted
from the records and from the memories
of the people, and were every one Of its
advocates to die tomorrow, before the
sod above them had grown green the
element for similar movement would
be at work, and coming generations
without any hint that such movement
had ever before existed. would carry it
on to victory. We are enlisted in war
that is to be carried on, not by bullets
and bombshells, but by the batteries of
Gods eternal truth, more potent than
all else. The world has celebrated
a good many victories; trumpets have
sounded them, cannons have Numbered
them, poets have sung them; but the
world has never seen the day dawn on
such a victory as it will see when one
half the human race shall come up from
their state of ignominious subsection
into the full light and possession of
liberty.
see in the Sunday EAGLE that the
Rev. Dewitt Talmage defines womans
position, but please tell me what would
Talmage do with the woman who starts
in LIES matrimonial boat with fair
winds and fine prospects, who in after
years meets with squalls in the shape
of an improvident or drunken husband
shall she desert the ship. or shall she
take the helm in her own hand and fight
life's battle bravely and well for herself
and children? Shall she not deserve to
be called ''womanly woman:" Or for
this must she be styled a "manish
woman" and out of her sphere"
have not written these pages with
thought that they would influence or
change your ideas one iota, but to show
why / am one of the so-called "strong
minded women" you so often ridicule
Hoping you will kindly read to the end
and then consign to the waste basket, l
am respectfully, E. NJ PACKER.
Wichita, Kan, Nov. 5, 1889.
NATIONAL FARMERS CONGRESS.
From the Toueka CAPITAL