The herald., 1896-02-27

the home and leave the stockings undarned
and the cradle unrocked. etc., if she were
given the ballot. Men vote. Do they neg
lect their homes-or, if they do, is 1t for
that reason? The soldier, the statesman,
the mechanic, the merchant, the manu-
facturer, the railroad magnate ana eacn
and all find time to vote without negiectlng
their business. If they can, why cannot
women? One woman, when asked who
would take care of the baby while she went
to vote, replied: The same person that
takes care of it when go to pay my taxes
"If women will vote she ought to do milf
tary duty, we are told. True, and so she
does. Who walks the wards of the hospi.
tails in time of war? Women! Did not
Florence Nightingale belong to the Cri-
mean war equally with the Hotspursf
Was not the work of Clara Barton in our
eral in the field? 1t is a matter of his
tory that the canfederacy was sustained by
the women of the south. He cannot con-
sistently deny the franchise to women on
that ground. Moreover some women can
and do fight. Ask the husbands!
"'Well,' persist the objectors testify, tits
not womaniy to vote. IL takes woman
from her sphere II Is laughable. shis mas.
culine assumption of telling woman what
is womanly, as il she was not the best
Judge of that herself. The test Of sphere 10
success. Whatever God n,ads.A man or
woman able to do He must have intended
them to do, since He explicitly forbade us
to wrap our talents In napkin. II hum
dreds of women are successful In
business they were fitted for it.
If Harriet Hosmer can carve statues she
Was intended to be sculptor. IT Maria
Mitchell can read the stars God intended
her to be an astronomer. If Lucretia
Mott can edify q Quaker meeting God Mt
ted her to preach. If Madame Patti can
sing like an angel God gave her the divine
gift of music.
"UnwomanIy to vote2 Why is it any
more unwomanly than to sing in public or
act on the stage? Many of the obiectors
pay high prices to hear the singer and see .
the actress, who are Mortified at the
thought of hearing woman speak on the
platform.
'Indelcate for woman to go to the polls?
Who would see them? The men. Well,
she sees them now, occasionally. She
meets them OH the street, in places of
amusement, anywhere and even in church
she faces saint and sinner alike. 1t is not
more indelicate to put piece OF white
paper in box, even if she rides to the
polls on bicycle, than to sit in bare neck
all evening at the theater or perform the
holy mission of woman's sphere in the
same array dancing all night and not COM
ing home till morning.
"'But," persists Mrs. Grundy, woman
does not want 10 vote-many do not If
one woman d es want to vote, is it proper
to deprive her of her right because twenty
do not? Let the elegant ladies vino will
not soil their hands with the ballot stay
away, as their fastidious gentlemen hus-
bands and fathers do, on the grounds that
politics are ditry-as though it were not
their duty to make them clean. Tho in
difference of many should not influence
the right of even one. -
"Woman who does not want the ballot
should be taught to want it. She must rec
ogniZe it a duty to vote, even more than q
privilege. Her stake in the commonwealth
is as great as mans. The woman has
equal intelligence and more morality.
Wasted in trfies, cramped by routine,
lacking the stir and breadth of great ques-
tions, many women grope and futter on,
ignorant of tho real cause that burdens
their toll. starves their nature and strews
their path with thorns. Those whom cir
cumstances have lifted to broader views
must open to the less fortunate the advan-
tages they are striving for.
"After all it is a dreary work this an
swering objections which will never be ar
thousand new women taking their disputed
rights and exercising them. The success
full firmness of women in the enlarged
spheres of the new day will dissipate the
lingering preiudices of old fogies as night
mares vanish at daydawn.
1.-The new woman will preserve all the
delicacy, all the flavor, all the intuitiveness
of old, and add new elements of
beauty and attraction. 1t will be
just as delightful to make love
TO her, just as charming to have her for a
wife, just as enchanting to watch her with
her children. Her hand will be just as
cool on the fevered brow. Her spirit of
charity will be just as active, her social
duties just as numerous. and her disposi-
ton as coy and capricious as of old. But
the new woman will also be mere self-con-
ta;ned. more self-reliant, broader in her
views, wider in her sympathies, more high.
Iy cultured to be wife. mother, sweetheart
or friend, and better fitted to be mans