Woman's chronicle. (Little Rock, Ark.) 1888-1???, 1890-03-01

was woman. When he was installed in her
place. one of the English papers expressed sar-
castle hope that the gentleman would find himself
equal to the mothering of all those babies
1t is said that women must not vote because
they cannot fight The military statistics taken at
the time Of our late war show that of the DOCTORS
lawyers, ministers and editors examined for mill
tary service, the majority were found to be physi-
cally disqualified; while of tanners, iron-workers
and other unskilled laborers, only very small
fraction were disqualified. Yet it will hardly be
claimed that professional men are less valuable as
voters than the unsked laborers. All men over
forty-fve are exempt from military SERVICE but
they do not lose their votes on that account In
short, our constitution and laws do not recognize
the slightest connection between the right to vote
and the power to perform military service. AS
long as the DID, the infrm, the lame and the blind
among men are freely admitted to suffrage, some
better reason must be found for excluding women
than the fact that they cannot fight.
Again, if women do not render military serviet
they do render equivalent service of a kind which
men cannot give; for it is women who bring all
the soldiers into the world This is service both
painful and perilous, and ought in fairness to be
held at least an equivalent for the military ser
vice from which the mothers of men are exempt.
1t is said that women ought not to vote, because
the majority Of women do not wish to vote. A
great English novelist has said that there is moth
ing like algebra to clear the mind of can't A, B
and are all Of them citizens and taxpayers. A
and do not care to vote upon the expenditure of
their taxes, therefore C should be forbidden to do
so. This reasoning would be considered prepos-
ferrous if A, and C stand for Alfred, Benjamin
and Charles. Why is it any more sensible if the
same letters stand for Alice, Barbara and Char
lotte? Voting is not compulsory. 1t is not pro-
posed to "force" suffrage upon anybody, but only
to give each woman the option Of doing as she
chooses in the matter.
Very lately more than four thousand miners
were admitted to the full right to vote in Pennsyl-
vania. The great majority of them were foreign
ers who could not speak our language. Very likely
they could not read their own. In the four new
States just admitted to the Union are many thou
sand Indians who still wear war paint and feath-
ers but they are welcomed as voters on the easy
condition of taking land in severalty.
Theodore Parker used to say: "The apple tree
is very foolish tree, but if you take out load
after load of loan from its root and put in load
after load Of sand the apple tree, though a very
foolish tree, will find it out after while, and bear
only poor apples and few of them"
In the same way this country will find out after
while what it loses by admitting to the body pol
tito thousands of men who know nothing Of repre-
sentative government or even of our language,
while it excludes millions Of excellent end intelli
gent women.
The State needs the best that its citizens can
bring to it, both men and women.
What Is She DOing2