The Iowa plain dealer. [volume] (New Oregon, Howard County, Iowa) 1867-1895, 1890-07-24
PLAIN DEALRR.
EVERYTHING N fHE LIE CO
JOB WORK.
Bill Heads, Cards, Pos
ters, Circulars.
satldaeiloo b neaiDess, Pro0Dlssss o.
pvies esara1teei.

for her to exercise thar function-how
do you account for the fact that what
ever forward step You have let her take.
she has justified it?
Not only in my mind is there no ar-
gument against woman suffrage. but
every argument for it. In the first place,
every extension Of intelligent
suffrage strengthens the body
politic. / must believe this, or
give up tho principle Of republican gov
ernment, which is the strongest and Sc
curest form Of government. ! know
some shudder littlo at universal suf-
frage, but 1t is ten thousand times more
dangerous to suppress and exclude
part of the people. The gases which are
harmless IL vented, may work ruin II
you confne them. There can in tho
long run be little danger when all arc
equally responsible. Suffrage is itself
an immense education; its absence
degeneracy. The broader the basis Of
your State, the safer. In the next place,
the influence OF woman hes refined
whatever circle It has been admitted
into under conditions of its own self-re-
spect History, homely experience. COM
mon observation, all confirm this Wom-
an suffrage would not debasc women and
politics 1t would elevate both. It would
add to the body polite the positive ele-
ments of feminine wholesomeness and
natural antagonism TO vice and violence.
A new interest for the securities Of
home and peace. sobriety and order,
would be evoked. Woman herself would
he benefited, as intelligent emancipa-
tion Of every sort and to whatever de-
gree always benefits its object.
l can not help feeling that hack Of all
this matter Of casting vote, lies still
deeper question of social integrity.
There Is at stake not the unrest of . few
women, leaders of the movement, but
the welfare-the moral and intellectual
status-Of the great body Of women who
are in the mass Of life, who foil in shops,
and whose character and fate are subject
to the molding Of their circumstances.
Any thing that attaches to them badge
or fetter Of inferiority, dependence, or
weakness, just 50 far hinders their ulti-
mate moral and intellectual self-sover-
eighty. When woman is under full
equality of rights and Of social respon-
sibility, thence will date the era Of
wholesomer social life, which now some
times seems to be the despair Of social
science.
The topic is boundless. ! have touch
cd only on familiar and practical as
poets, which come quickest home to the
sense Of Justice. To sum them up. it Is
right that women, equally burdened.
should have equal voice IN the adjust
ment OF the burden. 1t is despotic and
undemocratic to deny the equal right.
Nothing is easier than to arrange for
its exercise without injurious disturb
ance to social life or political stability.
Women would not be drawn from thei.
duties, or their time over-occupicd, any
more than now in the case Of men-and
we all know how little. how next to
nothing, that is for nine hundred and
ninety-nine in every thousand Of them.
No dangerous but better. element
would come into influence. have no
more doubt Of the ultimate voting OF
women than ! have Of the progress of
the human soul, or than / have that,
when that time comes, more enlight-
ened age will look back on our dis
elimination against one of the sexes in
this respect as q relic Of barbarism,
slowly-melting glacier of bourbonism
and prejudice. want to be on record
IS having melted out early, or rather as
having never been frozen in.