The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1895-09-11
The "NeW Woman "

am still exercised, o, INTELL1GENCER.
about the raid which the New Woman "
is making upon public honor5. have just
read list of prophecies foretelling the
blessings coming upon the country If wo.
man becomes a suffragist. Such as these:
It will purify politics.
It will cause the nomination of better
candidates.
1t will increase mems respect for women.
It will increase women's self-respect.
It will increase the efficiency Of our
police.
It will put an end to class legislation,
meaning that which excludes one sex.
And one of these was not prophecy,
but an e1egesis OF Scripture, which left off
the main part it.
Thus: ''It is not good for man to be
alone" Il. e.) in politics.
The suffragist who penned this reason
for woman's rights, left off the reason as.
signed in Scripture, why it was not good
for man to be alone, that is, he needed
help, meet for him. The helper is usually
subjoined to the leader. And this helper,
Scripture goes on to tell us, was taken ont
of man and made what is called woman"
commission into this world. That is the
reason why she exists. Her constitution
tells what she is here for: to rear and
shape a generation. And to rear and
shape generation from the very peep of
infancy up to manhood requires house
and a woman to keep it. So that while
man is pursuing "the Amalekites." wo-
man may "abide by the stuff" There is
no politics in this latter business. 1t takes
up all the time and all the powers of wo-
man, physical, intellectual aud moral, to
accomplish it. Even then her w0manly
powers are exhausted in the mighty task.
SO that it is mot good for her to be alone"
Did you notice that all The above reasons
given for woman's claim on political rights,
assume that she is disfranchised? II she
has become so by Statute, it is news to the
civilized world. If she Is 30 by silent con-
sent, then some Of the instincts Of our
common humanity have produced her
habitual retirement from the precincts of
voting, and she has herself voluntarily
ceded franchise, of which she had never,
by formal statute, been deprived. This
was beautiful, this was womsnly. this was
to say that she had 10 time to come down
from higher and nobler business.
And I wanted to say 0! INTELLIaENCER,
that it Is significant of moral deterioration,
something unwomanly, when the female
suffragist advances her claims to polite
honors. When she must, per force of her
peculiar situation, accept the protection OF
her husband from violence or war, yet
decline to entrust her political franchise
to him; when she refuses the honorable
reciprocity Of guardianship on one hand
and trust on the other; when she proposes
to go out from the safety and purity of
home into political gatherings among men
and 80 into dangerous proximity to politi-
cal intrigues: when she thus comes into
contact with sociabilities that too often
suggest the most irrepressible of human
proclivities, the attraction Of the sexes;
when she runs the risk of those furious
iealousies which result in murder; then, l
say, she is silently cooling her husbands
or lovers ardor and laying snare for her
own fest. D. E. F.