Evening bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1895-1912, 1897-04-24
woman SUFFRAGE.
Goodwin smiths Account Of How
It WORKS In America.

/ tue LONDON Times as tollOws:
The cable tells us that Mr..
Beggs Female Suffrage Bill has
passed its second reading in the
House of Commons. We are
told that there it is to stop, and
that the debate was "jocular. "
Jokers, surely, are playing with
fire when the question concerns
the most vital interests, not only
OF the common wealth, but of the
home. A serious subject, at least,
this will be deemed by all thought
full women.
Since the issue was last before
you, we have had an experience
on this side of the water. The
three States in which female
suffrage prevailed, Wyoming.
Utah and Colorado, all voted for
Bryan and Reputation. Idaho,
which has now adopted woman
suffrage, went the same way.
Bryau's appeals to sentiment
took SO much at first that my Am
ericsn friends trembled for the
issue. Suppose all the women in
the United States had voted, what
would have been the probable re.
suit to the Republic ? Would
sound currency or would senti-
ment have prevailed ?
In Utah they have carried fe-
male suffrage to it's logical conse-
quepces. A woman has stood
against her husband for the State
senatorship and beaten him. A
reporter who interviewed her
found that she was in favor of
polygamy as we'll as of female
suffrage.
The movement, however, seems
to make little way in the United
States. Wyoming is a far western
State, still in the frontier stage.
Utah is wilder than Wyoming.
Colorado is a mining State. In
California, woman suffrage was
defeated by large majority, in
spite of the most strenuous efforts
of it's promoters. A very trust
worthy observer tells me that "in
the older and better settled States,
political suffrage for women is in
less favor than ever" The same
observer tells me that Except in
wildernesses like Wyoming and
Utah, the mass of women decline
to take any interest in the suffrage
question, aud that all we hear or
see comes from the abnormalities."
Such is the net result of an agita-
ton which has been going on for
more than thirty years.
Municipal suffrage, my friend
says, has not been sufficiently
worked to see what is in it. 1t
has been sufficiently worked in
Toronto to show that it is in favor
of sentimental Legislation and op-
posed to practical reform. A
strenuous effort made some years
ago by our leading men of busi-
ness and our principal ratepayers
to put a stop to the course of NAL
administration was defeated by
the women's vote. The activity |
OF the women in cauvassing, par
tcularly that of the "abnormali- |
ties" is extreme. |
We are seeing here, as they are
seeing in Utah, the logical out
come of the movement, which is
clearly part of a general revolt
against the limitations of sex.
Women have just been admitted
here to the bar, and we may be
destined in time to enjoy the spec
tacle of female advocate brow
beating witnesses and cabling a
Jury, to the manifest honor of her
sex, and the furtherance of the
ends of justice.
1t is not the interiority of in.
tellect in woman that makes it
dangerous to put the government
into her hands, though the diff
ference between the sexes in prac-
lcal intellect, or at least in prac-
;ical training, is fact which no
'ne who has respect for facts can
disregard. Ii is a woman's irres-
possibility, which no legislation
ian remove, Put the mower wbara
you will, the responsibility must
'est on man; and where the res
possibility is, the power ought to
De.
The question, as has been said
before, is not abstract, or the same
or all communities. England is
rot Australasia, or Utah. A
'onng democracy with little pres