Savannah courier. (Savannah, Tenn.) 1885-1979, 1890-07-17
One Dollar Per Year.
THE LABOR STANDPOINT.
The Ballot as Means of Securing to
the Working Woman Her Rights.

The Ballot as Means of Securing to
the Working Woman Her Rights.
Tho granting OF suffrage to women has
always seemed to me, says James w.
Clarke, in the Boston Globe, to be
matter of essential justice and right. AS
soon as / became of age, / became
woman suffragist. l should have done
that in any case, out of respect to my
mother. Since then | have acquired
five additional reasons for being a suf-
fragist, in wife and four daughters. am
woman sufrragist from the labor stand
point Our girls ought to have the same
chance in the world, the same equality
in work and wages, that our boys have.
When one man happens to have four
daughters in his house, and his neighbor
happens to have four sons, neither tho
law of Massachusetts nor Of the United
States has any right to discriminate
against the man who has four daughters
in favor of the man who has four sons
and that is exactly whatit is now doing.
The ballot is a protection. | was read
ing last night Chas. Summers speech
in the U. S. Senate in defense of the en-
franchisement Of tho freedmen. His
great argument was that the ballet was
protection. lie put this one thought
in a great many forms; that with the
ballot in his hands all other rights
would follow, but without the ballot all
other rights were of no avail. ''The
ballot" said Mr.. Sumner, sis
like charity-it covers all things"
That is as true for white women
as for black men. Give women the bal
lot, and they can get every thing else
that they ought to have for themselves.
But to-day who cares for woman's
rights or wrongs, her wishes or her OBJ
jcctions? Mrs. Livermore has very eff
fectively shown us what sort Of Legisla-
ture we have. under the male monopoly
of suffrage. was thinking, while list
ening to her, how quickly the Massa-
chusettes Legislature woke up when it
was proposed to muzzle the dogs all the
year round. Why was that? Because it
was found that there were 800 licensed
dogs in Boston alone, and every one of
the 500 was represented by ballot on
election day. The votes of 500 dog-own-
ers and their friends meant for the dogs
just what Sumner said it would mean
for the negro-protection They were
not muzzled, in Difference to those votes.
But within few days bill vastly more
important to our working-women-the
bill giving to them and to children the
ten-hour day already given to men-was
kicked on one side by the same Legis-
lature, with far less time and attention
than was given to the 800 dogs and their
muzzles. This will always be so until
women have votes. AS soon as it is
known that they can make and unmake
Representatives, Senators, Governors,
and Congressman, they will be sought
after just as every man who votes is
sought after to-day, and laws will be
passed to satisfy their demands and
remedy their grievances.
will say this for the press, to which
I belong; that, in Boston at least, the
press has given women fair and equal
chance in advance of the law. The time
Is near when the number of women en-
gagged in newspaper work, especially in
the higher walks of journalism, will be as
large, and as largely paid, as of men.
When that state of things comes about
1t can not be long before the ballot fol.
lows; for Wendell Phillips said, many
years ago, and it is just as true to-day,
that the government of this country is a
government by newspapers; and when
women are found to be actually in pos'
session of their half share of the news.
paper government, it will be impossible
to deny them their rightful half share
of power at the ballot-box.