The Laurens advertiser. (Laurens, S.C.) 1885-1973, 1895-02-19
COLUMBIA COMMENT.
Bob IngersoH and Susan
B. Anthony Receive
Chill Welcomes.
Campaign by the Woman Suffra.
gists-The Ordering Of an Undem-
ocratic misunderstanding
the Party-Corruption
and Whiskey.
COLUMBIA, s. G., Feb. 10th, '05

house here but he met with q cold well
come. Not more than a hundred peo-
pie were out to hear him. His subject
was shakespeare" He was q distinct
disappointment to those who had read
and heard that Ingersoll was q great
orator,-a man OF wonderful magnetism
and power to ''stir mems blood. On the
contrary he impressed his small audi
dience as q man who had q critical
knowledge Of the rules and recipes for
defamation who lacked the natural
effective. His facility for turning
beautifully and richly expressed sem
fences Is remarkable however and it is
hardly possible that he has O rival in
the country in the art Of charming the
ear with the music of rhetoric.
AN ANCIENT MISS.
II there is O spinster in America it
is Miss Susan B. Anthony, of New
York. She lectured here Tuesday
night. Miss Susan's fame rests on her
advocacy of female suffrage. She is
one OF the foremost opponents Of that
utatlon for ability. She has in connec
tion with it a monotonous shrill voice,
q twang, and a most disheartening per-
sonal appearance. She is tall, bent a
little, angular and thin, has prominent
sharp features and gestures as though
she would cut her audience in pieces
with those long, bony arms and hands
of hers. Miss Anthony is not young
any more but it is easy to see that she
never was a sweet, tender thing ever
in the far off days when she was talking
abolition and firing the Northern
heart. But to return to her lecture
About half q hundred people heard it.
She devoted herself to proving what q
illustrated it by referring at length
to what suffrage had done for the ne
gro. In this she manifested a feeling
for the colored brother which Southern
people cannot sympathize with and
~thefefR~Praceaa herself out Of te1ch
with her hearers! She did no say any
thing especially offensive but alluded
to whites and blacks stopping at the
same hotels and other such meetings
of the races on equal terms as though
they ought as q matter of course to &C.
Il here and every where else.
Miss Anthony announced that at the
female suffrage convention recently
held in Atlanta, lat which General
Bob Hemphill of Abbeville. was n of
the speakers, by the way a committee
ioo oSSh opDoibOSu aiu lSSOul ok
chosen to discuss female suffrage in
this State before the assembling Of the
constitutional convention with the
view Of having it considered by the
convention.
SHOULD II LADIES VOTE?
And If they should not, why should
they not? Women as q rule are GER
tainly as competent to vote as men,
from a moral standpoint they are far
more worthy to vote and SO far as l
know not n reason exists why they
should not have all the rights Of citiz-
want it. But they don't want it. They
know very well that with the right to
vote goes commonly the duty to vote
and that its performance has numerous
unpleasant and altogether distasteful
Accomplishments. The truth is hal the
vast majority of Southern women rea-
lie that they L doing very we'll, that
the laws + already just If not partial
to their sex and they doubt if the &C.
ceptance of additional political rcspon-
sibilities would bring a proportional
gain in legislation. If the white wo-
men Of South Carolina were invited to
meet in convention and accept for
themselves the power to vote on terms
vi UhClI opCSlly lHS, l. pCllCNC Uud Ullty
would turn up their handsome noses
and decline without even q resolution
of thanks. Here and there in the
State are a few worthy and Intelligent
ONE who + really anxious to enter
actively into the field of politics but
they are only the exceptions proving
the rule.
SENATOR IRBY'S PRIMARY.
The state democratic executive com
mittee of which Senator Irby is the
body and soul has ordered q primary,
a democratic primary they call it, to
be held in July to nominate candidates
for the constitutional convention.
Now here are q few facts. Senator
elect Ben Tillman last month published
q letter in which he said that the
democratic party is stencil in the nos
own nostrils not excepted. He said it
and he said it without mincing words
that the time had come for the forma-
ton Of a new party under a new III
To be sure he said that he was still
faithful to democratic principles but
then he invited tho republican and
populist farmers of the West and North
west to align themselves with the
new party without abandoning their
principles. Now Ben Tillman is
not fool enough to fancy for one mo-
ment that several million lifetime
republicans are ready to be transform
ed into Democrats in principles mere
ly becaues he bids them. There
fore he must favor a new party
in it's doctrines as well as name or else
he cannot reasonably hope or believe
that it will draw strength from any
other section than the South.
But to the primary. When Senator
Irby and his committee met it invited
Tillman to meet with it. 1t wanted the
benefit OF his advice and approval
But it knew that Tillman could no
longer be classed as q democrat. 1t
knew that If Tillman's letter meant
anything that he would resent being
called q ''democrat,"-a name which
stinks in his nostrils and turns his
stomach. Therefore by inviting Till
man to meet with it it must have en-
dorsed and practically did endorse his
formal withdrawal from the democrat
ic party. What in the name of common
sense has it to do with the democratic
party? Was ever presumption of such
[ am not quite ready to advise that no
democrat should go into this primary.
/ entertain a vague, shadowy and un-
substantial hope that there will yet be
q coming together OF the white people
| in the election for delegates to the con-
vention with a complete ignoring of all
party divisions. But / maintain that
not the slightest obligation rests upon
any man who calls himself O democrat
to go into it, not the slightest moral,
formal or and r 1n alyiso