Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1890-11-06
Pension Awards.
WOMEN IN PUBLIC LIFE.
The Manner of Their Entry Into 1t se-
verely Condemned


The manner of womens entry into pub
lie life has, | hold, affected mischievously
their attitude toward public affairs saws a
writer IN the HsStmjnSter Retieic. Ii has
confirmed In them tendency, already fos-
tered by the commonly used form of
speech regarding the sex, to consider
themselves as superior beings. with gen.
eral mission to reform the world and to
instruct mankind at large how TO behave.
should be the last to deny that women
have something 10 teach. something to
show, something 10 add to the sum of
human wisdom, OF that many of the affairs
which men have sadly buugled can be set
tied otherwise than by the Intervention of
women and by the acceptance of their
counsel and help. 1t does not follow that
there is any reason for the adoption of
superior airs on the part of women gem
orally merely because they are women.
The attitude is not becoming and tends 10
make the enemy hlaspheme The calmly
dogmatic tone so often assumed by those
who pose as spokesmen of the sex is not \
little trying to such of their fellow-women
as happen TO possess a sense OF humor or
of the fitness of things.
Depend upon it, il women are to partake
of the banquet of life, from all share in
which they have been debarred hitherto,
it is not in the capacity of official tasters
of food that they will be admitted. They
may feast, or they may look on; they will
not do both. 1t is natural, no doubt, that
after ages of repression women, gaining for
the first time in the long history of the
world freedom and right OF speech, should
be strongly inclined to repay repression
with repression and with force, il not of
one kind then of another. 1t is natural,
but it is unscientific; for actions Of that
kind can have but slight and temporary
place in the evolution of society. If any
thing that l have SO far tried TO maintain
is true, it follows that the power of woman
must be limited by their environment-by
the degree of progress which society has
attained. Whether they will tame and
rule that brute force which lies, overin the
background as the last and final resort, is
more than any one can undertake to say,
but at present they can only rule by its ac-
auiescence, and by the altered value which
scientific discoveries have given to merely
muscular forms of strength. At the same
time, we may see, from a glance at politi-
cal affairs, how misclievous is the attempt
W UOIu DdCh TIE VI tllc ClOCh MuSH
public sentiment has already marked the
hour.
While the right to exercise the fran
chise is persistently denied to women, their
mother wit has enabled them to lay firm
hold upon political power, and, although
still remaining officially unrecognized, to
attain position of no small Importance in
political affairs. Being refused responsible
power, they exercise it in an irresponsible
and, therefore. a mischievous form. Such
formal recognition of their position as,
say, the conferring of the parliamentary
franchise upon duly qualified women would
now act rather as steadying than an ex-
citing force. And here let me say, in
closing, that neither in politics nor in
anything else is the future direction of
women's proclivities as yet revealed. 1t
is the fashion, indeed, to assume complete
knowledge upon this interesting question,
and the strength and direction of feminine
influence is hsbitually discounted with the
utmost confidence. Now, if women are
entering, as Z hold, upon new era, it is
inevitable that their aims, ideals and
wishes should undergo considerable change.
The ideas of bondage are not the ideas of
freedom, and women have not wholly
emerged from one into the other.