The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1896-08-18
ESTIMATE OF MRS. LEASE.
The New York Tribune Thus Speaks
Editorially of Mrs. Lease.
rFrom the New York Tribune.1


Nevertheless" said Mr.. Beecher,
YEARLY, at one of his prayer meetings
as the angular and crotchetty sister
sat down, who had occupied most of
the evening with a tiresome and mo-
notonous dingdong of pietistic dis
course, nevertheless, I continue to be-
heve that women have just as good
right as men to the free expression of
their opinions"
Doubtless many earnest persons of
both sexes who have been engaged
these many years in the effort to put
the two sexes on the plane of political
equality, and who sincerely believe
that the influence of woman in poll
tics, the stump and at the polls,
would be elevating and purifying, read
ing of Bryan sympathizerS on Monday
night at which Mrs. Mary Ellen(Or Eliz-
abeth) Lease was the principal speak
er and the chief attraction with a SIM
liar feeling of WEAKNESS and the same
sort of nevertheless prefacing the
reiteration of their continued belief in
women's rights and the political equal
ity of the sexes.
1t does not necessarily follow be-
cause Mrs. Lease somewhat unsexed
herself by her indulgence in turbulent
and inhammatory discourse at Coop
er Union that all women are untitled
by nature to participate in, the excite
ment of political contests or have a
voice in the calm and deliberate dis
cussions which ought always to at
tend upon the settlement of grave and
serious governmental problems. We
might as we'll say that the similarly
wild and reckless OutgiVingS of the
Tillmans and Altgelds demonstrated
the unftneSS of the Sterner sex for
self government. But there is this to
be said, of which there can be no de-
NAL, that Mrs. Lease upon the pOliti-
cal platform or stump, uttering invec-
tives more than masculine, and ap-
pealing to the brutal passions of the
oh h1~4 - 4 -
reasoning men and women, must be
treated the same as any other mob
leader, male or female. She cannot
shelter herself behind her sex while
appealing to blood thirsty passions
and melting laWless riot.
Mrs. Lease is representative Of the
party-We will not call it Democratic
which presents Mr.. Bryan as a can
didate for the suffrage of the voters
for the highest office in the nation. In
deed, 1t may be said with perfect truth
that in the principles she avows, and
the policies she advocates, in the
coarse vigOr of her speech and the
startling aggressiveness of her man
ner, she is in the highest degree the
platform and party. In the eXtrava-
gance of her language, the wanton-
ness and reckleSsnesS with which she
appealed to class hatred, pointing out
by name as the proper objects of pop
ular vengeance good and honora BILE
citizens whose only offence is the pos
session of property accumulated hon
eStly under the laws, she may have
seemed to be in advance of her party.
But only a step; just enough to bring
out with clearness and dfstinctness the
real spirit and purpose of the revolu-
tionists and anarchists who are bent
on the destruction of public credit and
the overthrow of social order. A step
behind this raging virago, foaming
with fury and blazing with wrath, is
the wild mob of Jewellers eager for
the general distribution Of spells; be-
hind them the Terror, with it's bloody
bacchanals and merciless savagery
Better than the weak and windy ac-
cident of the convention-the boy ora
tor who was on show last night-Mrs.
Lease stands for, and with brutal can
dor gives volub1e expression to, the
motive, the purpose and the tendency
of the whole Bryan business.
She fifty preceded the candidate
himself in opening the campaign. It
was well that she did. For she cast
the glare of a calcium light over the
political field and the meaning of the
Bryan campaign which win soon be
forgotten