The record-union., 1895-12-24
woMAN,s NATURAL DEBARMENTs.

If the Record Union had thought that
it would be isolated in its position
against the so-called emancipation Of
woman" it is not now at all lonely in its
protest.
Supplementing the thought Of Phoebe
Cousins, who to date was the latest to
declare that woman's experiment thus
far with the ballot defeats her advocacy
OF it, the action of the women Of Massa-
chusetts, the declaration of the Consti-
tional Convention of South Carolina,
and the failure Of woman suffrage in
Colorado, we have Florence Percy Ma
theson in the American Magazine of
Civics telling US of the Natural Debar-
ments of Woman From Political Serv-
ice" She believes that women do not
want to vote, that very small minor
ity is raising all the dust, and that the
vast majority of her sex is bitterly OPP
posed TO the dust-raising.
She cites the case of San Francisco.
In that city there are 10000 women.
Il is there we find the storm center of
the woman suffrage movement of to-
day, yet despite every effort of the dust
raisers to call out the women N an open
congress on the subject, less than 90
all told put in an appearance. That is
surely a very small proportion of the
sex to arrogate to itself, says the essay
ist, 'the right to speak for us all and
demand in our name something which
we do not want"
At the Woman's Congress hundreds
of the sex listened to the enunciation of
sentiments regarding the home with
which they were not at all in sympathy.
They were silent simply because they
did not wish to become targets for the
arrows of the masculine women who led
in the congress. Could she be con-
vinced that woman desires the ballot,
the essayist would Oe content to have
the experiment tried. Her investiga-
tions, however, and they have been
broad, convince her that the number
really desiring to vote constitutes a
very small minority, in which, however,
there are many able and noble women.
America do not and have not asked to
vote, much less demanded it. The num-
Der demanding includes many disap-
pointed women, those who have suf-
fered and are really martyrs. and these
permit their feelings to run away with
their Judgment There is another class
in the minority possessed by a mania for
notoriety, who array themselves under
the woman suffrage banner solely be-
cause of the opportunity ii affords them
to pose in public These are mainly I'm
sufferably conceited, iIlsoiently intoler-
ant and clamorously importunate in
and out of season" Such as these two
classes last named do not represent the
women of America
She is inclined to believe that as such
are nagging women, they will win their
point. but that possibility does not
modify her views. The women who
may win in this struggle will not be
content with that. The goal Of their
ambition is to hold office. The essayist
believes. and every man of thought
ought to hold with her, that while
woman might well enough perhaps
vote, she will not find time or oppor-
tunity without neglecting her other du-
ties-save in exceptional cases-to take
upon herself in her young womanhood
the duties of an important public func-
tionary, with the prospect of doing her
self or the Office any credit.
There is one single reason that con-
vinces Mrs. Matheson, and a practical
one, why woman is not fitted for po-
litical career, and that is the stubborn
fact of her physical organization. She
cannot ignore her womanhood. She may
affect maseuiinity, but 1t is an absurd