The herald., 1896-10-18
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( ABBOT KINNEY'S :
I SUFFRAGE LOGIC:
n
BY JAMES q. CLARK

Some weeks ago long article appear
ed in the Sunday Herald on Woman
Suffrage, by Abbot Kinney. I was at
the time, urged by some leading lady
friends of the cause to answer Mr.. Kin
ney, but the request coming just as
was starting for a few weeks outing in
San Diego, the matter was neglected,
and did not until early this week even
read Mr.. Kinney's A'ticle-in fact, since
reading and answering one of his anti
suffrage pleas some three years ago in
the Farmer and Labor Review, a paper
since merged and evoluted into the
Civic Review, I have paid no attention
to his essays in that line, as they con-
tain no arguments that will bear ana
lying.
He usually writes we'll on almost any
other subject, but seems to lose his rea-
son and common sense the moment he
tackles the new woman. His chief fear
seems to be that If woman has chance
to express her opinions and honest con-
victions through the ballot she will inn
pair her instinct to love, marry and help
"multiply and replenish the earth"
OF course it must be admitted that If
the sex were to all unite in 'sympa-
thetic strike" on this proposition the
prospects would indeed be dark. We in
Stinctively shut our eyes at the mere
suggestion Of such calamity, for 1t
would be more disastrous than Noah's s
flood, which left at least one family to
conduct business Mr.. Kinney quotes
as object lessons various nations of an
tiquity whose decay was marked by
general indisposiion on the part of rep
resentative women to be mothers, etc.
To me this fact is altogether in favor
, of the new woman, as it proves that
Oh lndeDen-
dence to cease reproducing race that
had become despotic, licentious and cor
rupt through wars of conquest and
through ages of self-indulgence and
economic injustice, that made the rich
richer and fewer and the poor poorer
and more helpless, numerous and SER
vile, which was emphatically the case
in all the nations which Mr.. Kinney
cites, and whose decay and downfall
he credits to woman. While very much
of Mr.. Kinney's recent suffrage essay
in The Herald consists Of excellent
homiletic platitude, which applies equal
ly to both sexes, and would read we'll
IN school text book on physiology, he,
nevertheless, presents a few original, if
not eccentric, reasons why woman
should continue to be deprived of the
elective franchise. For instance, he
cites those natural and organic dis
tinctions existing between the sexes in
claims that it would be no less unreas-
enable for one of the sexes to complain
that God was unjust in making the two
sexes alike, than it is for woman to ac-
cuse man for appropriating the ballot
to himself and Withholding 1t from wo-
man. But Mr.. Kinney seems to forget
that men are not gods, and that man, not
God. is the creator of the ballot-that
artificial distinctions are not natural
ones. and that the latter are not, nor
mally, rebelled against, because they are
inevitable and cannot be changed by
protest. while man-made distinctions
are subject to the accidents of human
law and change, and hence are and
. ought to he. the source of more or less
friction and complaint until removed,
But even If Mr.. Kinney's masculine OBJ
ject lessons in the brute creation were
selfish enough to arrogate to them
selves certain grassy, well-watered por-
t1ons OF the pasture or commons, and
then forcibly exclude the COWS, on the
plea that unrestricted pasturage and
drink were mot privilege, but duty"
, we would feel like setting the dogs on
them for their selfish impudence. Cat
| tie however, would not be guilty of
| s1ch an outrage, for their sex -distinc-
tions are born of God and not of the
principle that might makes right. In
addition to this. they are too gentle
manly to indulge in such mannish
conduct
Mr.. Kinney says: "There may be
! put forward this maxim of government: /:
No rights are long maintained by those
| who cannot defend them"
| The vital objection to woman suf-
| frase Is on account of the logical Sc
quence which the official imposition of
| male duties of government must bring.
The suffrage is not a privilege but a
duty"
'Those who have the franchise must
! in duty express it. The ballot is only
a compromise of war. 1t is the substitu-
tion by agreement of count of heads
instead of decision by war. Behind the
ballot stands the force to carry out its
edicts.
''Our civil war shows us that the ar
bitrament Of the sword is not far off in
our system"
Now. all the foregoing. while in the
abstract and in certain imaginary and
impossible conditions. true, has no log
ical bearing upon the subject