The Caldwell tribune. [volume] (Caldwell, Idaho Territory [Idaho]) 1883-1928, 1896-07-11

fluenceB of passion rather than employ
ing the intellectual forces as do men in
their civilized efforts to equalize and
subdue each other. The consequence
is that woman in many respects has
become dependent on man, while man
has fallen slave to woman, and in their
constant struggle for supremacy a
specie of antagonism is engendered
between them which inclines each to
consign the other to a particular sphere
in life in the vain hope that settled
status will secure uninterrupted har-
mony. Some thousands years ago when
the doctrine might is right was as
fashionable among men as monop-
olistic sleeves are now among women,
the status of woman was pretty
thoroughly established-she had none
She was mere Chattles merchandise,
hawked and bartered about like hogs
or cattle. But the record does not
indicate that that condition was per
fectly satisfactory to man or in any de-
gree promoted the harmonies and
felicities of life. Woman gradually
rose to higher plane, and man begun
to apostrophize her charms and i'm
mortalze her virtues in Yoluptious
verse. He deluged her with Odes and
sonnets, but he could not rid himself
Of old and ingrained notions; for while
he elevated her to the skies in poetry,
he consigned her to the Kitchen and
washtub in prose. He endowed her
with untold angelic graces and raised
her far above himself in moral and
spiritual virtues, but insisted all the
time on his own divine right to boss
the universe. He pinned to possess
and caress her and then considerably
devoted her life to the promotion of
his own personal comfort and pleasure.
Women could not understand this
thing The view they got of them
selves in poetry did not comport with
the treatment accorded in life, and
they began to imbide large
lubub VI WOlubuo Lucy
naturally concluded that if they posses
sed only a 1.-THE of the excellencies
which men attributed to them, they
ought to be important factors in the
direction of the worlds affairs That
made them FESTIVE and rebelliOus, a
little vain and quite arrogant. They
began to protest against abstract glori-
fycation and concrete serV:tude, and
their passage from the poetic and
ethereal to the real and practical was
begun. BY gradual progress they in
vaded the domain of man in every
field of endeavor and enterprise. They
drove him from the counter and fac
tory; they disposed him of the schools
and the hospitals; they riValed him in
literature and science and preceded
him on the bicycle, and now, finally,
they demand the privilege of the ballot
and the powers of government. The
onward and upward progress of woman
Is irresistible. She is the only animal
that man has failed to subdue. She
first enslaved him by her charms, then
ruled him by his passions; enthroned
herself in his affections and now seeks
to manage his estate and control his
destiny. Was ever before such tyranny
as this? But the beauty of it all is that
in her upward course, woman has
persistently elevated man. Sometimes
she has been obliged to drag him up by
the hair of the head, but she fetched
him. She has made him wiser and
-nobler than unaided he ever could
have been. She has tanned and civilized
him, refined and softened him; knocked
off the rough and rugged corners and
converted him into a social, present
able creature. When she enters the
domain of practical politics, she will
continue to exert the same benign in
fluences and force the male politician
to be respectable or quit. The world
is woman's sphere and her mission is
to make man worthy Of the ideal
woman his fancy paints in sounding
epic and tender lyric. Nothing less
than perfection will satisfy feminine
ambition, SO the lords of creation may
just as well begin to shed the purple
they have worn SO long and withal SO
awkwardly. Come equal suffrage,
come anything the soul of woman de-
mands bcauese love rules her heart
and heaven guides her hand.