The Bottineau pioneer. (Bottineau, N.D.) 1885-1895, 1894-06-09

Communicated
EDITOR PIONEER.
Dear Sir
We have had considerable against
woman suffrage in your columns lately
perhaps it would not be out of place to
give a little on the other side.
am sorry that an intelligent fair minded
man like you should be guilty of throwing
a slur on those women of New York
many of them honored wives and mothers
from the ranks of the best and noblest
women of the state supported by many
of its best men.
/. Is it not a small view to take of the
question to suppose that it hangs on wo-
man entering politics and scrambling for
Office?
Rev. DR.. Henry M. Sanders, said in his
speech before one of the greatest gather
ings New York has ever seen assembled
for equal suffrage. I'VE are not going to
drag woman into the mire of politics, but
ask her to help us to lift politics out of the
mire."
The reform is broad and comprehensive
and tends toward the emancipation of
more than half of the human race and the
uplifting of the whole race. That many
good intelligent women oppose the measure
and do 40 conscienciously does not prove
it wrong. Many good Conscientious people
opposed the liberating of the slaves and
many slaves were contented as they were
and did not wan their freedom,-but who
will say to-day that it was a mistake?
Certainly many abuses have come of it
but the trend is upward-as it would be
in the other case-How absurd to p
that if woman were given her freedom
she would trail in the dust the noblest
power God has given her that of being a
helpmate for man and the mother of the
race. The luster of these powers would
be enchanced by her being a free unfet-
tered soul.-Look at things as they exist
now, is not the glory of wifehood and
motherhood sunk down deep in the mire.
Look at the annals of our divorce courts
and the thousands of little children who
never have a mothers care. From those
of the society woman who fondles her pet
poodle and leaves her children to a nurse,
the poor woman in the renement who
leaves them on the street while she earns
their bread, the over burdened mother
who has no time or strength left for them
from the tread mill of wash and bake and
stew to the woman who does not want
them and casts them on the mercy of the
world. How many mothers are such
from choice? even in the best outward
circumstances many are consoling them
selves with the old adage, what cannot
be cured must be endured" How many
motives besides the true one influence
women to become wives. Are not many
by existing conditions forced into these
relations who are totally unfit for their
duties-Exceptions only prove the rule.
There are many wrongs that need to be
righted. And we do not claim that
suffrage will do it all but it will be aSgreat
step in advance.
Woman should have the right to earn
her living in any vocation for which
nature has fitted her with equal pay for
equal worth and the right to her own
person, hut these with some other rights
E
would follow in the wake for suffrage as
an educative means excels all others.
When Madam DR. Storl was asked by
Napoleon, what she would do to elevate
the French people she replied II would
educate the mothers" Yes raise the
mothers and you raise the race. Not until
woman is a free born soul free to use all
the powers God has given her and &C
countable only to Him for the proper use
OF them will the race reach its highest de-
velopment for then she will choose to be
a wife and mother and fit herself for
their high and holy functions. Wo-
mans emancipation is coming and can
not be staid for it originate with Christ
the great emancipation of woman who
to redeem the world and it was He
who gave. the rule "Do unto others as
ye would that others would do unto you
which is all We ask Of onr brothers.
"A WOMAN.