The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-12-25

The educated women OF California do
| wish to vote. When / say educated l
mean in this line, for have never known
a woman who has studied this subject
thoroughly, and with an unprecedented
mind, but who believes in the enfranchise-
ment of woman, and if every mother,
wife, daughter in our fair State will take
pains to read all that can be found on this
subject we will get the answer from all,
with few exceptions, "We do desire to
vote" Let us ask why the women of
California wish to vote.
The reasons are too numerous to men
ton, but some we will note. The most i'm
portant of all is this reason: Taxation
| without representation is against the spirit
of our National constitution, and one
third of CALIFORNIA; taxes are paid by
| women.
The California woman wishes to vote be-
cause she believes she could, with the help
of the good men of our State, make better
laws to govern this State and execute
them. We have been boss-ridden and mo-
nopoly- ridden for more than three decades.
| Think you, Mr.. Editor, if women voted,
that there would be $500 drinking saloons
open at all hours in the City of San Fran
cisco? Think you if California's woman
he'd ballot in her hands. those dark dens
of infamy where our youth go down to
ruin, the poolrooms, would be open?
There are so many reasons why Califor-
MIA women would be so glad to stand be-
side the citizen who look beyond the pelf
of Office getting and has an eye single to
the betterment of the race and the uplift-
| ing of sunken humanity. The question is
often asked, What does woman want more
| than she has already? Is she not respected
and honored? Wherein are her rights in
fringed or her liberties curtailed2 1t is
not that she is abused or neglected; most
of the noble women who have fought for
the enfranchisement of woman have been
either happily married or enjoying a
peaceful life of single blessedness, not from
necessity but from nobility. They place
not the interests of woman in antagonism
to those of her brother, for
The womans cause is mans;
They rise or sink together,
Dwarfed or God-like, bond or free.
| But they ask for her as for man equality
before the law and freedom to exercise all
| her powers and faculties under the direc-
ton Of her own judgment and volition.
We protest against the tyranny of that
public sentiment which assigns any arbi-
trary sphere to woman. What right has
man to give to himself privileges which he
withholds from woman? Is he any better
made than his sister? What has this self
made lord fed upon that gives him
| the right to dictate? We believe the
real cause of the degeneracy of the
race may be traced to the long continued
| disregard of the laws of God in relation
to man; and never until human wrongs
are righted shall we enjoy the perfect
happiness which our Creator has pre-
pared for his children.
Not that the Acknowledgement of woman
will be the panacea of all political ills, but,
as time moves on. with the working to-
gether of the humane and noble of both
sexes, we shall see better times, better
laws and laws better executed; we shall
see woman emerging from the shell of
| ignorance and superstition, shall see her
building her home. the foundations of
which shall be justice and equality
to each and every member. and this
home shall be what it should be
not living place only, but q place
where father and mother stand on an equal
plane, where brother and sister have equal
advantages. This will make our boys
better boys and set up for them standard
higher than poolroom or the racetrack.
1t Will make them more loving, more
homelike, more patriotic, more like the
true California woman desires to see them.
the perfect embodiment of an American
citizen.