Savannah courier. (Savannah, Tenn.) 1885-1979, 1890-04-03

Foes to the Cause of Woman Suffrage-The
Source From Which the Government De-
rives Its Powers.
At the twentieth annual meeting Of
the Massachusetts Woman Suffrage AS
sociation, the president, VIM. l. Bow
ditch. spoke as follows;
We have listened to earnest and able
speeches in behalf of woman suffrage
year after year for twenty years or
more.
1t is true, however, that there age
some classes of people whom we have
failed to convince. U Those men who
have real respect for women, and had
rather have them in subsection.
The want of respect for women exhib-
tied by this class of men is commonly
vailed by thin vaneer of outward cour-
tesy to at least some of the sex, but the
want of real respect for the sex as
whole is plainly manifest all the same.
Such are the men who say that the So
cial evil must exist as long as the world
shall endure. White slavery in the
Barbary States, as described by Charles
Sumner, has long since ceased to exist.
Must we continue to have far more
odious form of white slavery in the
United States? This class of our oppo-
nents have no more real respect for
women than the old STAKEHOLDER had for
his female slaves, or than the ranchmen
of to-day have for their cattle.
We say to these men, as the Lady said
to Comus, you are not fit to hear your
selves convinced. From this class are
recruited the petty despots frequently
found in homes If they could only be
induced to live In Russia, they might,
perhaps, find out by experience how nice
thing it is to be governed, taxed and
punished by laws in the making Of
which they have had no hand.
We have not convinced (2) those who
believe in the right of men to govern
women simply because they have been
born men, i. e., those who believe in an
aristocracy of birth.
Our Declaration of Rights tells us that
''the idea of man born a magistrate,
law-giver or Judge is absurd and unnat-
ural." In other words, our Governors
and Legislatures admit that it is absurd
and unnatural that the right to be a
magistrate, law-giver or Judge should
depend upon the accident of birth. Is
it not, then, the very height of absurd
ity, and the most unnatural thing in the
world for us to say as we do that a ma
jority of the people can not be either
magistrates, law-givers or judges simply
because they have happened to be born
women?
We have not convinced (3) Plutocrats,
or those who believe merely in the possess
sion of money and the social position
and power which grows out of such pos
session.
Such are the married men who, having
abundance of money, nevertheless COM
pei their wives (who work for them
without wages) to beg for every dollar
they need for their own personal wants.
When such men employ laboring women,
they treat them as hands to be worked
as long and as cheaply as possible, in
stead of considering them as human be-
ings with souls and minds to be culti-
/ waited and hearts to be cheered. Milton
tells us that Mammon was the least
erected spirit that fell. The fitting
medallion for this class of opponents,
considered as an order Of knighthood,
would be the clumsy silver dollar, with
its lying legend, "In God we trust" be-
cause the coin is really worth in the sill
yer market far less than its face value.
Our dollar is coined and stamped and
made legal tender for one hundred cents
for the payment of debts. although it
now has only trife over seventy
/ three cents worth of silver in its
composition. In our zeal for this
God in whom we trust, we
hunt down and imprison counterfeiters,
and yet it IL an actual fact to-day that
! eolnterfeiters can make better look
ing coin, with more real silver i, it than
our standard silver dollar has, and yet
make money. We have not on7inced
these people. among other reasons, be-
cause, like the silver dollar, they are
worth for all the benefcient purposes oi
life far less than their face value, for
they are really next of kin to the least
erected spirit who fell.