Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1889-11-08
WOMAN'S RIGHTS AND WOMAN''
WRONGS BY A WOMAN
FOR A MAN

Inc following letter, as Will be seen,
was written for publication. but it's too
much for one lone individual of the male
persuasion, so we fire it at all the other
fellows.-Ed. Eagle.
To NJ n. Murdoch, Editor Eagle.
Dear Sir: Did it ever occur to you
that the law treats woman as infants ex-
cept at the tax collectors Office and at
the gallows. 1t may be safely said that
no man is ambitious to represent them
at those places. Men prefer to have
women perfectly independent there.
These are the only places where men and
women meet and strike hands on per-
feet equality. Elsewhere women are
legally infants they are tried and con-
demned without jury of their peers.
One Of these infants was hung in Wash
ington some twenty odd years ago I'M
der national jurisdiction, and being a
national affair, it ought to have aroused
the nation to the enormity of the crime
of hanging people untried by jury of
their peers. They strung her up be-
tween the heavens and the earth, and
5000, 900 of women, paralyzed by long
ages of political serfdom, looked indif-
ferently on, as dumb as the sheep be-
fore the shearers.
The question Of her guilt or innocence
is not to the point. 1t matters not how
black her crimes may have been; there
is one that outvieth them all in blackness.
and that is the crime Of the government
that shuts the voices of class of people
and then takes their lives. When this
government took the life of Mary Sur
raft it furnished the gallows of as deep
significance to the women or this land
as the gallows Of John Brown to the
black race. Though its victim may have
plotted treason and murder, uncon-
sciously she did something better; for in
ascending the scaffold she showed that
when women fall by the nations hand
they should have a voice in the govern
ment of the nation. And from the dying
breath of Mary Surratt rings out the
question: How long with sealed lips are
women to be launched into eternity, or
be sentenced for life to living tomb?
The crimes they commit may be bad
enough, but the crimes of those who
condemn them in direct violation of the
fundamental principles of the govern
ment and of common justice are worse.
Can it be supposed that men would be
willing that one of their number should
be tried, condemned and executed and
they have no voice in the matter? Not
man for juror, judge nor counsel?
Murder is murder, whoever falls victims,
but the worst of all murders is legal
murder.
We are told that the laws all favor
women; that they are made for their
protection. True. But where can we
find keener commentary on the polit
ical status of women than in these laws
for their protection? Why do they
need so much protecting? Simply be-
bause the law renders them powerless to
protect themselves, deprives them of the
means of selfdefense, and so has to
hedge themselves about with special
laws for their protection. 1t could not
we'll do otherwise.
That man would be fiend in human
form who could cripple another and then
deny HIM crutches. The laws do favor
women, but on the same principle that
the household favors the baby. All
must stand aside for the baby; all must
honor the caprices Of the baby; tyrant
on his couch is the tiny baby. And
why? Because, helpless as the wind
tossed leaf, he lies at the mercies of
others.
Woman deprived of the power of gov
erning herself lies at the feet of the gov
eminent only an overgrown baby.
Crippled by law, she has to go on the
crutches provided by the power that
cripples her Do they who maintain
that the laws place all the advantages
with women maintain that it is better to
hobble through life on clutches than to
60 on sound legs of your own? Do they
swallow such chaff themselves? Not
they.
A Connecticut lawyer once wrote an
article trying to show that the women of
his state had more rights than the men:
that the latter were the wronged party
if anybody. He probably had not read
the Sherwood case. which was in the
wrote his article. In that case woman
was arrested in her own house by
sheriff accompanied by her husband and
committed to the Bridgeport Jail, where
she Law for six months for the crime of
having retained possession of her own
property, she refused to sign it into her
,
the better part of her patrimony.
The supreme court of errors. into
which the case was carried, decided that
It was perfectly legal to imprison a wo-
man under such circumstances.
1t is only within the past ten years
that the laws of Connecticut have been
sufficiently modified to give a wife a
claim to her own earnings. Before 1877
e ~
husband.
There are other states where they do
still. In many states the children belong
to the father even to the exclusion of the
mother.
Thanks to the brave women who have
worked to modify these laws, Kansas
gives the mother half ownership in the
child she bears. Courts frequently and
perhaps generally assigns them to the
mother, for courts are sometimes kinder
than the laws. But without some
special act of the court they go to the
father.
This exclusive control of the child by
the father is elementary law. The right
the mother as the natural guardian to the
costody of her children, after the death
of the father, is inferior 10 the
right of a guardian appointed by the
court of probate. The mother is not. bv
law. the natural guardian OF her own
child,
1t is the custom of the Chinese women
in their daily devotion in their pagan
temples to pray that ii the next state of
existence they may be men, so crea, is
their political degradation in this.
Aud 1t Is the custom OF the TURK, in nis