Kansas agitator. [volume] (Garnett, Kan.) 1890-1905, 1890-10-06
WOMAN'S COLUMN.
Conducted by MRS. ANNA CHAMPE.
Free and Equal.

The following address was given
by A. l.. Mason, at the recent Indian.
apolis lawn tete in aid of the equal
suffrage amendment campaign in
South Dakota:
eve are met to celebrate the glory
of equality. From of old, English
men declared that all men ought TO
be free, but it was Frenchman who
first added the words 'and equal
"There is in these days movement
in society, world WIDE, which sets
toward human equality. Commence
ing in the last century, gathering
power in each generation, it has in
creased until it forms the most sig
nifcant fact of the age. 1t demands
the abolition of all conventional and
artificial inequalities in relation to
life. The food is out, and beyond the
power of man to stop. 1t carries Oh
its bosom a thousand reforms.
with us, it has abolished kings
and hereditary nobility. 1t has
equalized taxation. At death. it di-
vides the property equally among the
children. In fashion, it has done
away with liveries, and dresses mas
ter and servant in precisely the same
costume. 1t has changed the relation
OF parent and child, of husband and
wife, of teacher and pupil, of employ
er and employee; has brought them
nearer together, made them more
nearly equal. 1t has placed the pew
OH level with the pulpit; has achiev-
ed the extension of suffrage; has
caused the state to provide equal edu-
cation for it's children and equal char
tiles for its unfortunate.
Of this movement, Burns is the poet,
Dickens the novelist, Millet the artist,
and John Stuart Mill the philosopher.
"The woman suffrage movement is,
only part OF this modern
revolution, still unfinished, having for
its object human equality. When
Rosscau's splendid but diseased genius
famed across Europe, by its light men
saw that the perpetual, natural, un-
ceasing and indefeasible sovereign
was the people. Yet, the new forms
of government, both i'm America and
in France, were to srme extent recast
i'm the old mould of barbarism. The
wave could roll no higher.
AS in the most primitive stages of So
ciety, the political unit was made the
family, and not the individual.
The subsection Of woman comes
down to us from the earliest times. 1t
strikes its roots into that ancient law
which gave the father despotic power
over his children. Trace back these
notions far enough, and you will find
their source in caves and hollow logs.
The homes of our naked fOrefathers.
There, with forehcads an inch higl,
and teeth an inch long, club in hand
hey founded the empire Of force, the
of the family. The Preside
was the first place for the spirit Of
monarchy TO enter, and is tie last
place for the spirit Of democracy to
penetrate.
The progress OF civilization is war;
fare-a war of light with darkness. Of
ruth with falsehood, of the illnmn-
ated intellect and the rectified heart
with the barbarism of ignorance and
The animalism of the savage. Let us,
rs far as in us lies, help to carry for
ward civilization. Let us welcome
new ideas, and every reform which
seeks to destroy artificial inequalities
among mankind. Let us no longer
deprive woman of her ballot. Let us
open to her every path in life, so that
the may freely choose that for which
her nature best fits her.
''On The sun-burnt plains of the
vest, this new movement is now car