The Monitor-register., 1896-03-06

With hands outstretched to uplift
The many who are now adrift
On downward current sure and swift,
To-day we women stand.
Then sister. falter not, nor shrink,
Lest some one standing ON the brink
Perhaps may falter, fall and sink
But for your helping hand.
One woman's hands may not be strong
To work against giant wrong
Link them together, and ere long
The battlements will fall.
So thus together let us stand
United head and heart and hand
For God and Home and Every Land.
And He will lead to light.
&c
Reasons Why the w. G. T. q. is a
Patriotic Organization.
BY BELLE H. MOONEY.
(Contsnued.)
Believing as we do, that the privilege
of exercising the right of suffrage must
form the basis of every patriotic ergani-
zation-we are here tonight to plead for
that privilege.
We are here to show you the possi-
bilities that the future has in store for
an enfranchised womanhood.. For one
of the greatest products of the Goth
century is the New Woman, and Brother
Jonathan-freighted as he is With the
alcohol and tobacco habit, will have to
make more rapid progress than be is now
doing if he keeps pace with Deborah
across the threshold of the Goth century.
Not long ago one of Pennsylvania g
statesmen said to me-the woman of the
past was good enough for him. Yes,
all honor to the brave, loving woman.
hood of America no; heart was purer,
none more loving, none more gentle
than the wives and mothers of the past.
But this old world is not standing still.
Because your fathers were farmers you
as their sous did not feel that you must
follow in their footsteps, and you would
not wish to be considered whit less
deceitful than the son who did. And so
we as daughters consider it poor, weak
argument indeed to hold up to us the
fact-that because our mothers did not
have the privilege of exercising God
given right that we should not ask for
it. The time is at hand for the intelligent
manhood and womanhood of this country
to join forces for the overthrow of the
liquor traffic and the evils that follow in
its wake. This we as women of this
country mean, and whether womanly or
unwomanly, whether dignified or undig-
nified, never shall we cease to marshal
our forces, never shall our voices be
silenced until national prohibitory law
encom passes our land. Not until free
recognition of suffrage upon every state
and national question is ours.
At an institute few months ago
expressed views somewhat similar to
these; some one said: "You are wrong
upon a good many points" I inquired
upon what. "Why upon the suffrage
and Prohibition question; you must get
the voting member of your household to
set you right" My reply to him is what
1t would be to any one else who would
confront me with such suggestion, and
that is that the voting member of our
household is too broad-minded, too
liberal, to ever dream of chaining free
thought, and this, believe, is and should
be the condition of every home where an
intelligent manhood sits enthroned. And
SO to-day see hundreds and thousands
of the new men in our country claiming
a common brotherhood with the new
woman. The keen-witted Scottish bard
has said:
"Auld nature sevears the lovely dears,
Her nobl est work she classes,
Her prentice hand she tried on man
Ana Jnen sne maue the lassies.
Again, in the very beginning of the
book of books in language too plain to
be misrepresented, too plain to be mis-
understood: "God said, let us make man
in our own image, after our likeness, and
let them have dominion over the fish of
the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and
over the cattle, and over all the earth,
and over every creeping thing that
creepeth upon the earth. So God created
man in his own image, in the image of
God created he him; male and female
created he them. And God blessed then Il
and said unto them, replenish the cart
aud subdue it; and have dominion over
the fish of the sea, and over the fowls OF
the air and over ever living thing that
moveth upon the earth."
Thus from the very beginning has the
seal of equality been stamped upon the
two alike. And new times, new duties,
and new customs demand renewal Of
that equality; demand that pure,
patriotic devotion inspire the heart OF
every American citizen; demand that the
artificial barriers of the past be swept
away, and that the soul assert itself above
sex, and that mental and spiritual powers
be made the criterion of value.
Woman suffrage does not mean as has
been charged-a desire upon our part to
assume masculine duties or masculine
prerogatives-God takes care of that
As some one has said: "The inmost desire
of the acorn is to become the oak, nothing
more" And the inmost desire Of woman
| is the fulfillment of her own womanly
destiny, and suffrage will be but a
development of her nature as a hitting
complement for the nature of man, bui
the only soil in which character will grow
is the soil of freedom, and to-day We ask
this freedom for ourselves at the hands
of you as voters.
When the freedman of the South wai
made citizen and franchised the question
OF ignorance was never mentioned.
claim birthright in the Republican
party, and believe that the stain ol
slavery's curse still oyershadows oul
South; yet would ask you. was it moi
rather for the party supremacy that the
right of franchise was granted the freed
men of the South, and is it not for the
supremacy of the liquor traffic that you
deny it to an intelligent womanhood to
day9 True, a few oolored regiments were
made up: but who suffered more keenly
who made greater sacrifices for the pre-.
servation of this Union of ours than the
i Ameriean wOmanhood And ko.dav
when she with moral character thai
knows no blemish, with an intellect