The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1890-12-19
W. c. 7. u.

L
in the world, and that our government is
the grandest government IN the world; it
has developed the highest type of human
ity; our men are head and shoulders above
the men of any other nation. Because you
are SO grandly developed We come and ask
you not to give up the ship of state, but to
work ont the great problem for all human-
ity. Cultivate the tree Of patriotism till
it shall take deep root and bear its appro-
pirate fruit. The hope of the world is in the
United States; by its influence all nations
are to be delivered.
Say not politics are necessarily vile: it is
not SO. The trouble is you have tried to
work out the problem of the whole with
people is the voice of God, but you let only
one-balf that voice be heard. When the
voice of the whole people, women as we'll
as men, is heard, it will be as the voice of
work out a problem without using all of
its factors. Here is this great problem
confronting us, and all these years you
have been trying to solve it will one of its
factors suppressed. The time was when
this was necessarily SO. While brute force
was in the supremacy, woman must be
shut up in castle and iarem, but just as
fast as mankind develops out of this low
plane into the higher one where spiritual
forces control, woman comes into her heri-
tage.
But. it is objected, women cannot fight.
This is a mistake, women can tight. They
have led armies; but history is full of
instances of women who have fought a
drawer fight tina that Fought by any army.
But it is in no degree necessary that she
should fight. 1t is good to have some
element in government which cannot fight.
Such an element will help on the suprem-
acy of spiritual power over that OF brute
force, and usher in the realization of the
beatific vision OF Isaiah when the lion and
the lamb shall lie down together, and a
little child shall lead the forces which will
find better work to do than cutting each
others tkroats and blowing each others
brains out. Woman's ballot will increase
the tendency toward arbitration between
nations, and thus hasten the time when
they shall learn war no more.
Forty years ago the women began asking
the mer for increased recognition; most
things We have asked nave been granted,
but atthe ballot box we are still suppiicants
creeping along in the dust, with out
stretched hand presenting coffee to Sambo
and Chris and Fat, begging them to vote
for the protection of our homes. O men,
is that the best you can do for your wives
and daughters, cultivated, Christian
women? If it is, you would better abdi-
cate, for you cannot rule.
We are classed with lunatics, criminals
and minors, but We have less hope than
they; a lunatic may regain sanity; a GRIM
inal may be pardoned and his franchise
restored; the minor soon grows to maturity.
but your wives and daughters, those whom
you hold responsible for the s~anctity of
your homes, those who are confessed ly the
eonseryators OF public and private morals,
are doomed to perpetual minority; nc
matter what her endowments or her cult.
ure, woman, deprived of the ballot, remains
forever non congp0s msntis in the eyes ofthe
law.
And you who condemn her to this furnish
no protection for her boys and girls. Lot
teries, gambling dens, brothels, are setting
Internal traps for their feet; the saloons
you license line every street to lure tn EN-
to destruction. You claim to be our pro-
tectors-make your pledges good; if you
cannot, put the ballot in our hands that we
may protect ourselves.
Ours is not a woman's rights agitation;
it is a human rights agitation, an agitation
for the right of humanity to protect itself.
Ours is a nation whose Fundamental
thought is a government for the people,
by the people. Have women ever come to
this free legislation to which they have a
right as a part of the people? To ask tho
question is to answer it. Then is not the
legislation OF a part, where the whole have
the right, unconstitutional? What is
government for? To protect the people in
health, wealth, morals. A government
which does not do this is as salt that has
lost its SAVIOR and ought to make place for
a better.
We are taxed; in Boston one seventh of
the taxes are paid by women; if we violate
the law we suffer its penalties, yet we have
no recompense in protection for our homes.
Under such humiliations women can never
be the mothers of noble men. / believe
the wonderful dearth of statesmen at the
present day can be traced largely to this
unjust subj ection of women. Another
half century of such subsection, and such
Inheritance will eat out the very heart Of
our social and political structure.
"The nations that forget God shall per-
ish." The truth of this declaration of
Holy Writ is demonstrated by the down
fall of every nation of antiquity. The
nation that forgets God, forgetst to be just,
and this injustice eats out its life with in
exorable fatality. That is where America
stands to-day it is forgetting God in it's