The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1895-02-06
SUFFRAGE MONOPOLY.
Mrs. Julia B. Nelson Writes a Very
Able Letter on the
Subject.
MEN SHOULD NOT HAVE A MON.
OPOLY OF VOTING.
The Millennium to BE Brought About
by Change.

TO the Editor:
David said in his haste, "All men are
liars" Had he taken the second thought
he would doubtless have excepted himself,
and possibly a few others. Some of the
Populists said in their haste and pardon
able excitement the election returns
from everywhere and the news from Col
orado in particular. "Al women are fools
and ingrates." A little reflection will con-
vince them that Mrs. Poyser was right in
saying, Women fools. The Lord made
them so to match the men," AS to ingrat-
itude, women have monopoly on that
baseness. That republics are ungrateful''
is a common saying, and women have here
tofore had no share in shaping the policies
or the destinies of republics Who voted
against the Populists in Minnesota? Not
women. If farmers and other workingmen
are deceived into voting for those who
would keep them in bondage, should all
women be disfranchised because some wom-
en- do not vote wisely? If they cannot learn
by experience they cannot learn at all, but
the positive assertion that women cannot
learn mathematics, cannot master the sci
coed in literary work, cannot practice med
icine cannot understand law or business,
has been so often and so thoroughly dis
proved that wise now has the
hardwood to say that women cannot learn.
Opportunity and encouragement are the
right and the left hand supporters of those
who have been made weak by the false
teaching of ages and to keep women or ne
Sroes out of school because they have not
graduated or away from the polls because
they have not learned to vote, is like for
bidding them to go the water until
they have learned to swim. Many women
and many men have been made to believe
that the Peoples party does not stand for
the foundation principles of just govern
ment, that it has taken up woman suffrage
as an eXpedient, and if the woman suffrage
plank which placed in the platform at
the conventions or the different states should
now be dropped, they would always think
so. When women receive wholesale con-
demnation for ingratitude to the Populist
party, it is rather interesting to read that
Senator Felker (of Colorado) is the mouth
piece of the 'anti-woman' faction, and in
Second1nS the nomination of Senator VOL
colt, took occasion to denunce the W. c.
T. I. with great bitterness as AN adjunct
of the PopuliSts party" An anti-woman
faction with a vigorous mouth piece is just
what newly enfranchised women and no
others need The "anti-woman' has a mis-
sion, but it has also lesson to learn which
ballotless mothers would never be able to
teach. l. d. says: The people declared
for womans suffrage in Minnesota in the
last campaign and doubt if a single
woman outside the Populist families ever
raised her finger or opened her mouth in
behalf of those who were trying to help
her. But did any farmer workingman,
or any other man outside of the Populist
families raise a finger open his mouth in
behalf of those who were exerting them
selves a great deal more to help him and
his class than to help even women of the
Miss Willard type? A free man
might raise his finger to some
purpose, but captive is more
apt to struggle for freedom than to at
tempt to fight the battles of real or pro-
fessed friends | call to mind a case of
ingratitude similar to that of women who
have pleaded in vain for freedom more
than 40 years. A mouse was set free by
cat again and again for the pleasure of
catching 1T. Another cat came along and
While the two felines were fighting, the
mouse ran away without stopping to
thank either of them. Both of the cats
We're indignant at being badly treated
Thomas b. said, as nearly as could be
translated: THE ungra teful creature! Had
1 not come to deliver her, where would
she be now?" And Thomas A. said: She
was completely in my power and she ought
to thank me for not eating her up before
Thomas r. made his appearance" And
mousie did not lift up her voice, though
her heart beat fast and she said to her
self, Il wonder if Thomas B. did come
along on purpose to deliver me? If 1 find
that he really did, 1 shall feel very
friendly toward him, and will take the first
safe opportunity to let him know it. If
he cared enough about me to make a fight
for me, how pleased he must be that |
am now free.'
Money is power and suffrage is power
and party which opposes monopoly cam
not consistently favor a suffrage MONOPOLY
and it cannot wisely do SO when Repub-
lican governors advocate equal suffrage
boldly, as Gov. Routt, of Colorado, did,
and as Gov. Allin. of North Dakota does
The latter in a message to the state leeis-
lature says:
women are citizens. Their civil rights
are not inferior to those of men, but with
regard to their political rights, they form
almost positive exception to the gem
eral doctrine of equality. They obey laws
ana contribute taxes and it is political
justice (and political justice always pavs)
that those who are subject to law and con-
tribute taxes, should have a voice in their
enactment and in the distribution of the
taxes"
But" says the partisan, Eve must drop
woman suffrage because women will vote
their way and not our way, and though
there is no sound argument against their
right to vote, it may not be for the best
superior judgment for them, as we have
always done, for their good" AS we'll
might Mr. Pullman say: These working
men do not know how to accumulate prom
erty. There is no use in paying them
fair wages They spend their money as
fast as they earn it, Some of them get
drunk. They are better off without money
than with it, and the community and the
whole country will be benefited by having
the wealth of the nation in the hands of
few who know how to use it. 1 am a
public benefactor because 1 provide luxuri-
Gus accommodations for all travellers who
can afford to pay for them Do not mill
fonaires endow universities in (which COM
ing generations may praise them and
build churches in which genteel people NAV
worship them? The right of man to
have a fair share in the wealth which his
labor produces is nothing compared with
the glory of the nation If the working
men cannot send their children to the uni
versities founded by the munficence of
great financiers for the children of great
financiers, they should rejoice that they
live in country where their sons and
daughters can see grand buildings on their
way to and from the sweat-shops. If thew
and their wives cannot dress we'll enough
to be treated with consideration if thew
should venture to enter the grand churches
built with the many ffttles of the laborer
which make the muekle of the capitalist,