The Emporia weekly news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1881-1889, 1889-11-28

DIR. Bowers Lecture at st. Marks Last Night.
st. Marks Lutheran church at the
corner of Constitution and Seventh
street, was comfortably filed last even
ing by very intelligent and apprecia-
tive audience. The lecture was the
last Of series which the ladies of that
church inaugurated some time ago.
DIR. Bowers, the lecturer, is of Pea
body, Kansas, and is a short, stout gen.
tleman, with a tenor voice which is
more or less crippled by huskiness. His
enunciation is slow and distinct. and
his ideas clear and consecutive. He is
not without a vein of humor, which at
times crops out in a seemingly uncon-
scious manner, that is somewhat cap
tivating to his auditors.
He announced as the subject of his
lecture lis Ours Government by the
People, or One Sex only of the Peo-
ple?" 1t is easy to see from this that
the burden Of his discourse was de-
Tense Of woman suffrage.
He began by assuring his hearers
that he did not aim so much to make
converts as to furnish half dollars
worth of intellectual pabulum for
them to carry away with them and as
simulate. He then took up his subject
and dwelt on the usual arguments
| heard so often from Iostrum and stage
concerning the enormity OF the wrong
| and injustice done to woman by with
holding from her those political and
natural rights of citizenship to which
she is equally entitled with man. The
| flag that hoated over slavery symbol
| lied a monstrous and a shameful lie.
IT. utters as braZen and stupid a lie
nov in pretending TO float over the
and of the free. Women are not
free, etc. The flag is a Haunting lie.
The nation is ruled by sex oligarchy.
By the constitution. and the lexicog-
raphies, both of the academ les and of
law, woman is citizen, but is classed
with infants, idiots, lunatics and
ex-convicts.
The lecturer, who was en- rapport
with his subject, even saturated with
it, vigorously dashed the millionaire
senatorial dotards with Bardolphian
noses, who laughed at the pretensions
and claims of women, and went ahead
trampling Oh right and justice, grant
ing the franchise to ignOramuses, sots,
tured women of the nation are ignored
as incapable" of exercising intelli-
gently such right!
The taxation without representa-
ton argument was handled quite well
as also the historical fact that women
were pronounced success in litera-
ture and schools. The record of
woman's debasement in past centuries,
and the fact that women have ably
ruled at one time or another almost
every country in Europe. were glanced
at, and the conclusion reached
that this thing OF one-half the people
governing all the people, was wrong in
principle, in ethics, in law, morals and
religion. Neither God, religion, eth
les, hunger or pain knew any distiDe-
lions of man and woman.A Why there
fore should government? Place wom-
an on the pedestal from which the sa-
loon is keeping her, and perhaps the
dawning of the millennium will be at
hand.
1t was noticeable that the lecturer
omitted any aIlusion to the well known
responsibilities that accompany the
elective franchise, the bullet and the
ballot argument. He also fought shy
of the Bible, net once remembering to
make any reference whatever to the
Mosaic regime concerning woman's
status, or that prescribed for her by
Peter and Paul, who We believe had
some well-defined views on this sub
jet
The lecture was an able one. and
very interesting, iDterspersed as it was
with humorous passages that kept the
audience in the best OF spirits.