The herald., 1896-07-21

|
female suffrage that if woman was given
the ballot she would neglect her home.
Men have voted for years yet the vast
majority of them never dream OF neg
lecting their business because OF the
franchise. If men can be spared from
the workshop. the bank or the court
| long enough to drop ballot. surely
women can do the same without any
very great danger to the household
| machinery. Men vote and yet the num-
ber of professional politicians are few:
| il women were granted the franchise
| there is no reason to suppose they would
/ become professional politicians en- masse
| any more than the men.
Many urge that if women voted they
should be obliged to do military duty.
| They have done 1t for years in the COM
! missary department, in the wards of the
| hospitals and in strengthening and sus-
! tanning the fighting force of the nation.
| Military science does not consist in
| fighting alone. In our day moral service
i is recognized as of equal value with
| physical even in war. Brute force must
| be fed, clothed. sheltered, nursed cheered
and this is the peculiar sphere of woman,
| has been and will ever be.
Until clergymen are diSfranchised and
| soldiers who are detailed for camp duty
because they do not shoulder musket,
| the franshise cannot be consistently de-
| ried women on that ground.
| To the objection that it is unwomanly
and indelicate to vote. it was answered
that it was not more so than thousand
other things that women are doing to-
day and always have done.
At the close of the address steps were
taken looking toward the organization
of woman's suffrage club at Long
Beach.
EVENING SESSION
A short program occupied the first
ntteen minutes of the evening session.
Among the good things on the list was
the reading of the famous Chariot Race
from Ben Hur. by Miss A l.. Murphy,
given by special request. Rev. Anna
Shaw then took the platform and an
nounced as her subject The Effect Of
Woman's Ballot on Government. She
began by referring to the lecture given
by the Rev. Carlos Martyr on The New
Woman saying that the question for
us to consider is the relation of this
new woman" to government She
quoted the universal law that in a repub-
lie every class that votes affects the
government in the long run along the
line OF its nature, and showed that the
monopolies of this country depended for
their success upon their power over eau
cuses the ballot box and the halls of
legislation. This fa.t holds true of all
bodies of people seeking any form of
legislation. Whether their purpose is
good or bad, and no body or class of peo-
PIC Cdll dlitfl government unless tneN
have the power of the ballot, which is
the lever by which these forces are set
in motion.
She referred to the fact that all re-
publics had grown along the lines of
the masculine character. and that they
had decayed along the lines of the fem
mime character That this law was uni
form and true of all republics. Men, she
said. are the great material force of the
world, While women are the great moral
and spiritual force. All republics have
been strong where men are strong and
have attained to their period of glory
through the development of the mater
ial side of their life. They, on the other
hand, have been weak where women are
strong, and have decayed through the
moral and spiritual side of their life.
The student of our history sees clearly
defined these lines of strength and
weakness in our own country, and if we
are ever to become an harmoniously-
developed nation it can only be possible
when women as we'll as men are able
through the machinery of government to
impress the strength of their nature
upon laws and customs. Everyone will
admit that women are more moral than
men, that the great moral force of the
| world is its womankind. The experience
| in states where women vote has shown
| that While women are not so strongly
| partisan as men they compel. according
| u the statements Oh senator AdTy
| Wyoming. both political parties to put
| in nomination men of good moral char
| acter, and instead of selecting candi
| dates who bid down to the lowest vote
! they select those who can bid up to the
| highest. Women are more temperate
| than men. and yet when this question,
| which perhaps more than any other eff
| fects the life and happiness of woman,
| is to be settled, the ballot is put into
| the hands of the distiller, the brewer,
! the saloonkeeper the bartender and the
| male drunkard, and is kept out of the
| hands of the class of people most effect
ed by it. Justice demands that all class
| es effected by any business shall have
| an equal voice in deciding what shall be
the conditions regulating its existence.
| Women are more peaceable than men.
| This some say is an argument against
| woman's enfranchisement-th the bal
| lot and bayonet must go together That
| might be true if all there is of war is the
! fighting, but since that is only small
| part of it, and all the conditions of life
are affected, and the burden of MAIN
| tanning the army in the field and the
family at home largely rests upon the
women, and when death takes away the
| man, leaving the woman alone and sin
| gle-handed to rear the family, women
find their part of the burden of war by
| no means the easy part. 1t is easier to
march behind flying banners and mar
| iasm and a countrys plaudits than to
| toll at home with no banners floating,
| with no music inspiring, without glory
or honor, listening and waiting with
| aching heart day by day for news of
| him who never returned. War is cruel
TO men and women, but harder for wo-
| men to bear than men. Miss Shaw then
| pointed to the fact that this is the only
| civilized nation which had never erect
ed monuments to loyal and patriotic
women. No monument anywhere in
honor of the women of the war, not
withstanding their noble services in hos
pital and camp, on the battle field and in
the sanitary commission, at home in
Held and workshops, in store and fac
tory. doing the work of men to support
the family that the men might be spared
to fight their country's battles.
Then women are more aw-abiding
than men. 1t is a universally accept
ed fact that everything in a republic de-
pends upon the obedience of the citizen
to law and that the class who best obev
the law are most fitted to make it.
She showed from statistics that wo-
men are ten times as obedient to law as
men. That this is not due to their dis
REIMBURSEMENT was proved from the fact
that al the close of the census Of 1870
the only state in the union in which there
was not a woman criminal was Wyo-
ming, where women had been VOTING
twenty-one years.
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