Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1896-06-25
LIVE QUESTIONS.
A Series Of Articles Contributed by
Advanced Thinkers.
IMPARTIAL FRANCHISE-GOLDEN RULE
OF POLITICAL EQUALITY.

cry way to his relativity. There were
vassals, serfs, slaves, soldiers and sail
ors, toilers on the land and toilers ON
the deep.
The masses of mankind were every
thing indeed but men. This century is
witnessing a similar transformation of
ideas concerning women. The world
has always valued women relatively as
daughters, sisters, wives, mothers. Now
they have an individual as well as q
related life. They are, in short, becom-
ing recognized as human personalities,
owing an allegiance to their own nature
as we'll as to the claims Of those about
them.
have been told by missionaries that
often among people SO simple hearted
as the Armenians the man is won't to
say when the suggestion that the wom-
en- folk should learn to read is made to
him, my wife is SO much cleverer
than 1 that if she should learn to read
she would do it SO much better that she
would begin to think that Twas not the
master of the house, and every man
must bear rule i'll his own home" l
suppose the missionaries do not think it
wise to break to this benighted brother
the fact that it is by no means necessary
that he should "bear rule, " but the no.
blest and happiest homes in these days
of democratic development alNthose in
which the dual and equal headship of
the husband and wife, father and moth
| anl nc
the only just and golden rule fashion of
settling the question that has been moot
ed since the world began. What an in
stitution it is-the golden rulel How
little we have looked into it! How slow
of heart we are to comprehend its uni
versatility, its practical utility, its neces-
sary relation to the common joyl
1t is i'll the nature of ignorance to
magnify false distinctions. To the In
dian his tribe is all, to the statesman
his nation, to the philosopher the world,
since the wider intelligence alone per-
ceives that community Of interest which
wider outlook alone reveals.
In like manner the ignorant manor
the philosophic-malzes much of sex
distinctions, overlooking the larger gen.
eralization of humanity which includes
men and women equally, for it has
been demonstrated that sex does not de-
termine any single function Of human
life, except that it debars u woman from
being father and man from attain
ing the vicarious sacrifice of motherhood.
In the lower orders of mammal sex
cuts absolutely no figure in the allot-
ments of their toll under the law of
mans self interest
Probably some Yankee farmer will
triumphantly point to the COW as an
animal of the female sex whose work is
differentiated from that of the male
bovine in manner analogous to that
between man and woman in less en-
lightened days, but then he does not
know that i'll great nations of Europe
and the east no such distinction pre-
walls Our contention is and always will
be that woman is, first of all, a daughter
Of God, whose powers of thought and
action should be left free that she may
know the truth, and that next she is a
daughter of humanity, whose relation
to the state should be equal to that Of
her brother, man.
The empress of Japan takes the lead
ership of the Red Gross and makes no
distinction between Chinese and Japan
ese in her ministrations of mercy; today
she is the central figure in her empire
for Christian progress. The dowager
empress of China is the same in that
great realm today; she is reader of the
New Testament, and as much outraged
by the recent massacres as we are. The
same place is accepted by the queen
regent of Spain, who will not attend a
bull fight, and was by the empress re-
gent of Germany in her meroiful work
for the flood sufferers during the 100
days when Frederick the Good was
nominally, but the empress really, at
the helm of state; SO was the empress
regent of Brazil, when, during the abb
sence of Dom Pedro, she freed the
slaves. Why will not good men, beaten
as they are at every turn i'll their strug-
gle to make government more humane,
see that it is only by unshackling the
merciful hand Of woman can they secure
power enough to carry to success their
measures of benefcence in country
where the side always wins that has
most votes?
The general dictum of our opponents
is that every male enemy Of the home
may vote if he keeps out of Jail; every
wicked man who leads the sons and
daughters Of the home astray may vote,
but no one home maker shall vote i'll all
the land, because, forsooth, she does not
fight But surely she who bears soldiers
need not bear arms, and when she votes
the pugilistic encounters on large scale
that we call wars will cease
In primitive days we had the matri-
archate, which means the rule of the
mothers, and now for painfully length
ened period we have had the patriarch
ate, or the rule of the fathers, but we
begin to see the dawn of the amphir-
chate, or the joint rule of joint world
by the joint forces of its mothers and
its fathers. Happy are they who put