The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1894-11-13
A SHOT AT WOMAN SUFFRAGE.

| The Republican platform fashioned
at Provo contained an ambiguous an
nouncement as to woman suffrage. 1t
was:
We favor granting equal suffrage
| to women
I That formed food for mirth during
the late campaign. But it also occa-
stoned considerable doubt as to the
| sincerity of some at least of the per
sons who framed it. Taking it literal
ly it signifies nothing. It announces
| the inclination of the Republican party
iof Utah to grant women equal suffrage
with each other, but does not say
| what or how much that shall be. Those
who give it strict construction are COM
PEELED to say it is merely nonsense.
Those who construe it loosely or Iiber-
| ally say it means that women shall
| have equal suffrage with men.
When the constitutional convention
shall meet it will be known how many
| Republican delegates are really IN ia
vor of comforting upon women the
| right to vote at all elections The
1
political equality of women with men
and demands that recognition in the
state constitution
The question Of the sincerity of the
Republican party on this important
matter is raised by the attitude of the
Salt Lake Tribune concerning it. No
sooner as the election over than that
lyo
suffrage editorial, containing the same
old platitudes that nave been in use
| for at least a; quarter of a century by
opponents of the ballot for women.
After speaking of the defeat Of
Waite in Colorado through the vote of
the ladies who, itis claimed, redeemed
the state, the Tribune incidentally
casts a reflection upon their true wo-
manhood" and wants to know whether
''the most gifted" among them has
not "since felt that while perhaps the
work she did was good work, there is
a little something lost of that divinity
which used to hedge her about?" And
1t goes on to say;
THAT is all the point there IS in the
matter Of woman suffrage. There is
no doubt about woman's intelligence;
there is no doubt about womans pa
triotism; there is no doubt about the
superior morality of woman over man.
The only question is, when woman
comes down from her exalted realm to
figure with the baser elements which
encompass mankind, can she retain in
her own soul the full consciousness of
the same delicacy, the same freedom
from contact with anything impure
that used TO attach to her? We wish
the ladies of Denuver would come to-
gether and tell us frankly and fairly
if when they went home, after the polls
closed, and took their accustomed seats
at the head of the table, whether they
did not feel Il. little more mannish than
they ever did before, and consequently
that little that was pproachaol ole
in them before mad been worn off by
the contacts of the day"
SO that is all the point there is in
the matter of woman suffrage" EN-?
a government of the people. have no
voice in the government counts for
nothing, then. The plea that hundreds
Of thousands Of them are taxed with
out any representation cuts no figure.
And the fact that the women citizens
of the United States are governed
without their consent is not to be con-
sidered. For all the point there is to
woman suffrage is in the measly little
notion that dropping a ballot in box
makes a woman "mannish," and going
to the polls robS her Of some Of her
''delicacy' and 'divinityr'
Why a woman must be mapnish in
order to choose a ballot, enclose it in
an envelope and deposit it with a judge
of election, any more than in visiting
a store and buying goods Of a man
clerk, does not appear to the naked
eye. Why a woman must lose some of
her delicacy or her divinity by going
to the polls, more than in going TO a
concert or a theatre or any public en-
tertainment where there are crowds of
men, is not explained by the objector
If woman's intelligence, patriotism
and morality are conceded, and it has
been demonstrated that she can use
all in politics for the redemption of
state from the craze of Populism,
what earthly reason is there that in
that good work she should lose one in
finitesimal particle of the sweet bloom
of her delicacy, or dim a single gem
in the crown Of her divinity?
There is no need to go to Colorado
for report of the sensations exper-
fenced by intelligent, patriotic and pure
women, when casting ballot for good
government and expressing their choice
of men to act as their public servants
There are thousands of the tender sex
in Utah who once held and exercised
the suffrage and against whose right to
do so the Tribune warred both savage
ly and relentlessiy. They know and so
do their husbands. fathers and broth
ers that it took no charm from their
glorious womanhood, and did no dam
age either to the community or their
personality in any form or degree