The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1890-12-19
Mother waIIace's Address at

Mother waIIace's Address at Atlanta.
My FRIENDs:-Hum anity is a great,
grand, lovable thing; next TO God the
greatest, grandest, most lovable thing in
the universe. If I do not speak so enthu-
siastically Of the nobleness of man as Miss
Willard does, it is not that / love man less
but hat l love woman more. 1t is because
of my love for man and woman-these two
which together make humanity-that I am
here to-day.
am too old to talk sentiment; / have
outgrown the poetry of this movement
but have not outgrown my love for hum
anity, l have not outgrown my hope for
it. Miss Willard h as pictured to you an
ideal home; what is the greatest foe of
this ideal home she has pictured? When
she is twenty-five years older she will re-
| cognize as | do now, that its two great
foes are lack of social purity and the liquor
traffic.
A prominent physician said to me, "You
work hard to put down the rum traffic,
but l speak what l do know when | say
that seventy per cent of the suffering in
| homes comes from lack of virtue" These
are homsly truths. but We are past the
age of sentiment. What is nov needed
are remedies-action. How long is this
thing to continue: Is there no balm in
Gilead!
I fully realize what men have done for
us; they have conquered nature; they have
delved into the earth and brought forth its
treasure of iron and coal. of silver and
gold; their brains have devised machinery
to do the work of the world; but when
man has brought his animal nature into
subsection as he has the earth, when he
can say to passion stamping her foot)
'stay there" he will be as much grander
than he now is, rs his present self is above
the savage.
Woman is held responsible for the moral
culture of the world, and this is right; it
is not for woman to GO into the world and
fight for the almighty dollar; God ordained
her for a higher ministry. She is the
great character-builder; the developer Of
soul wealth. For this she needs the
broadcast culture, the freest liberty.
AS you probably know, our w. G. 7. U.
works in forty different departments. each
with a superintendent, and every superin-
tendent thinks her department the most
important; Miss Willard thinks this of
hers, social purity; Mrs. Hunt of hers,
scientific temperance instruction; and l
am sure mine-franchise-is the most im-
portant of all. A great statesman said
that the place where power is felt is at the
ballot-box; there is registered the senti-
ment of the time; there is struck the key
note of progress.
There are only two forces, brute force,
| that which Bismarck calls the ''force of
blood and iron," and moral, spiritual
force. Public sentiment is expressed
through the ballot. box, there it is crystal
| liked into law. Hence the ballot belongs
to woman as the conservator Of public
morals.
There is corruption in the body polite;
this l cannot deny, though next to my God,
I love my country; but is it any wonder
there is corruption, when by the votes Of
men the governmen Mt has gone into partner
ship with 200, 900 saloon-keepers, and has
thus made every mothers door-yard fence
a dead line which her children cross only
at their peril: This liquor traffic, with
which it has gone into partnership, taxes
and trammels honest industry; turns wom-
en- and children out of doors; lays it's hand
on legislation; attacks liberty and the right
of self-government.
And women is the one most oppressed
by it; the time has come when men are
called upon by all the principles of honor
and chivalry to deliver woman from the
oppression of this acenrsed traffic. They
have not lone SO, g ither because they can
not, or because they will not. If they
cannot, they are slaves, and should cease
TO boast that they are free and brave. If
they can, and will not, they are than
slaves, and it is no wonder the body polite
is corrupt while ruled alone by them.
Said q noted statesman to me, Your
arguments for the ballot in the hand Of
woman are unanswerable. Nobody can ar
que against them three minutes" But We
dread the Generalization of our women"
says another; ''politics are SO demoraliz-
ing" SIS the ballot demoralizing, per seq"
l asked. He hesitated, as though fearing
where his answe might lead him, and
finally said, "Well, yes, | am afraid it IS"
'If believed that" l replied, II should
give up all hope Of republican institutions,
of popular form of government. We don't
wish to debauch our husbands, our broth
ers, our sons; let us give up our free in
situations at once, aud have an absolute
monarchy, that as few as possible shall be
forced to dabble in the dirty pool of politics.
We might stand the debauching of one
Mogul, but when it comes to making all
our men grand ~rascals, that will never,
never do"
We annot stand this, not only because
of our love to them, but because if thus de-
bauched they would transmit the evil to
their children. Thu sons of such men