The morning call., 1893-09-02
WOnEN IN POLITICS.

Two varieties OF the political woman are
now before the public, and though they
sprang from very different sources, they
seem to have reached somewhat similar
conclusions regarding the needs of the
world and their own destiny. One of these
is named Emma Goldman, who is from
central Europe. Poland or Bohemia; the
other is Mary j. Lease, who grew up in
the stimulating air of the Missouri Valley.
Both ladies agree that the time is out of
joint, but unlike the Prince of Denmark.
they do not consider it cursed spite, but,
on the contrary, an uncommonly lucky
thing that they were born 10 set it right.
Mrs Lease carries knife tor the politi-
cal parties. To her Democrat and R5pub-
lican are as Trojan and Tyrian, she will
sever the carotid of either with equal Joy.
She whetted her virgin blade on the
wicked throat of ex-senator Ingalls,, and
when the deed was done she repaired to
the Senate chamber to see the corpse. To
her the bitter president pro tenn. replied !:
Tell Mrs. Lease that she ought to be sat
ished with having slain me; it is needless
cruelty to want to hold a wake over my
remains" With which the BelI0na of the
prairie had need 10 oe content and to con-
sole herself with adulterating the ozone
of her native air by slanging the New York
bankers for asking the Kansas banks to
.strslghten their accounts.
Emma Goldman is young lady OF very
advanced ideas indeed. She is the wife of
the very good friend of the man who shot
Mr.. Frlck. She considers the would-be
assassin as the noblest specimen of inde-
nj oh hoe ha
glasses and short, curly hair. She has a
way Of appearing at anarchist meetings
and of leaping Oh tables, from which
vantage ground she discourses in German
on the duty of driving the knife under the
fifth rib of policemen or capitalists
Strange to say, the police of New York
and Chicago cherish an unreasoning preju-
dice against Emma. anu have a fashion,
which cannot be too severely reprehended,
of cutting her off in the middle of her
most impassioned periods and yanking her
out of the hall. She simply readjusts her
curls, and goes TO get her picture taken at
the nearest photograph gallery.
Ii these two ladies are the types of our
coming political leaders, when woman
suffrage is established, men had better
look for some hole to hide in while it is
still time. In The old days, Susan 3.
Anthony and Lucy Stone were women
whom no one could help loving and rever-
encing. They were gentle and kindly and
generous minded. In their honest con-
tention for a principle they harbored
malice for none. They had hearts as well
as heads. Their lineal successors seem to
be deficient in both divisions of the human
on o hall 70
screeching and scolding females against
whom ouI ancestors protected themselves
with the ducking-stool. Their prototype
was the cruel queen who painted her face,
adorned her head with a tire. and donned
her royal robe as tie usurper approached.
and when the eunuchs threw her out OF
the window sprinkled the wall and the
horses with her blood. For the woman
Goldman the excuse can be made that she
is probably unedueated, and like the fe-
malls nihiiSts takes no counsel save of heI
unreasoning passion But Mrs. Lease is
not illiteTate. She has evidently had some
schooling and has acquired rudImentary
knowledge of politics. Yet she goes round
Kansas preaching that the working people
in New York are dying by the scores from
starvation, and from diseases produced by
starvation, while, in fact. the death rate
of August in that city was lower than
usual. only at the rate Of % for the year
and the benevolent societies report thai
they have been unable 10 find single case
of starvation, and that if times should
grow worse they stand ready TO feed the
hungry no matter how numerous they may
prove.
This would be a dreary world without
women, and it is pretty safe 10 reckon q
mans civilization by the regard he enter
tains for the sex. But does it not seem
from the examples before us that there
are better spheres for female activity than
the rough and tumble of practical politics