Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1895-07-17
CORRESPONDENCE
Woman Suffrage and Prohibi
ton Discussed.

your pdpel 1@tI0i SN'S w
but would not have your readers
think am trying to forge into
publicity or aiming at boring them,
but am writing in self defence. If
l have controversy with any
one. I would rather have it out
face to face. In newspaper dis
cussions there is q constant shift
ing of position which is disgust
ing to plain truth-seeking man,
Several weeks ago your humble
scribe wrote an article against fe-
male suffrage, bringing forward as
bis principle argument the fact
that women would be drawn from
their sphere by voting, quoting
Tennyson and Mrs. Wilson as 10
what womans sphere is. Along
comes Dido who asks in an air of
condecension: "What is wo1nan's
sphere?" and receiving as al an
answer the word h0D1e. she in her
next etfuslon Of ''gush" is us silent
on this point as Sahara beneath
the terrors Of the king Of day. She
also turns up her nose at the idea
oi me being foolish enough to
quote Tennyson or Augusta Will
son on anything. Seeing her er-
ror, she begins to "crawfish" most
execrably and say that Tennyson
and Wilson were her favorite au-
thors. DO people often use such
terms about their favorlte au-
thors as Dido used some time ago?
If an author should commit such
glaring solecism on common
sense as Dido claimed that those
two did when they used the words
I quoted, sensible person would
at once discard them. Dido says
ovor-much about one Mrs. Bevjida
! G. Wallace. ! wonder il this Mrs.
Wallace gained her marvellous III
Inuence over her husband at the
polls or in the home circle. Would
she have been the model mother
she appears in Ben Hur (accord-
ind to Dido), if she had spent her
time and energy on politics? Could
she have raised to a noble mali
hood, Gen. Lew Wallace and two
other sons of her husband" if she
had spent her time in political
clubs and laying schemes to carry
the rabble and riff-raff on certain
measures. Dido charges me with
saying that. only 20 per cent of
tie men drink. J. said no such
thing. ! did say that only 20 per
cent of the women had to suffer at
the hands of drunken men, and
commen sense will bear me out.
In my own community less than
twenty per cent of the men are
what YOU might call drinking men,
and not one is that most damna-
bic of all Gods creation, a wife
bcater and prosecutor. However,
more than 20 per cent of our male
population may drink; / am not
concerned about that. But how
many men who help to drink up
Dido's gallons immeasurable, are
without any family connections
whatever. Much of the liquor
which Dido tells us about, is swal-
lowed down by clerks, railroad
men, tramps, adventurers, rich old
bachelors and widowers. outcasts
from society, and numberless 9TH
ers-all men without wives and
without family ties. OF course
much Of this whiskey is consumed
by married men, but large part
goes in the way | have indicated
above. So Dido if you should
make a thorough canvass Of the
country, you would not find over
twenty per cent Of our women trou-
bled by drunken husbands; for a
large part Of those countless gal
Ions, is drunk by unmarried men
and it has been estimated Mat at
least tace'aty per- cent Of tile achish'ey
IN this conntry IS consumed by abon-
doncd aconen- This statement will
not seem strange when we consider
the fact that in the South negro
women drink as coplously as the
men and in the North there is q
class to take the place of our ne
gro. Since Dido is still clinging
to her old hobby of prohibition
will answer her by quoting as near
ly as possible from memory a few
words spoken by Ben Tillman to
the prohibition convention which
lc addressed last year. you or
any other set of men or women can
mover frame law strong enough
to prohibit the manufacture and
uze of whiskey." l. saw this in the
Eews and Courier. He never ut
tsrod q sadder or trucr saying. Like
Dido, ! was at the time Mr.. Till
man spoke an ardent opponent of
Tie Diapensary law Oh the ground
that il did not go far enough, but
wo hed prohibition for four months
aat; | was convinced that the Dis
,,,.,..0r-r ,vns ;hn thi,1r prnh ibi
i:rn always hiss failed and always
wiil fail. | defy Dido to cite a
single instance %here q drunken
aIi.on has been mctamorphoscd
mia a SOBER people by simply en-
s,c;iGg s prohibition law. | hate
#hi,;hoy SIS bad as Dido, but we
nnDot shut our eyes to stubborn
t,.eic. fhat moral suasion about
y.:i3h DiGo spoke so snceringIy
a,.d 70 cruteuplouglv, is the only