The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1897-02-19

she has made room for herself on the
forem and in every rank of labor.
She has won her way to the schools
and conquered rules that shut her out
from higher education. For a thou
sand years men said that she had no
reason, but. great intuition, akin to
inspiration-her love must have been
rendered immortal by kinship. The
argument has been made that
woman's brain is smaller than mans
and that therefore she cannot develop
as much. On this theory the elephant
and whale should outthink the world.
Cromwells brain weighed far more
than that OF any other great man.
yet an ignorant negro's brain largely
outWeighed his, and this theory has
now been discarded. 1t is the develop
ment and not the size that counts.
Woman has won the right to make
a living for herself. According to the
last general census, women were
engaged in 3,400 different employ
ments. There are typewriters by the
thousand, grave and gay, red headed
and rebellious, as the case may be-.
Three million women are earning
their own living, and in New York
City alone, $1,000 are supporting BIZ
peds in breeches who style themselves
their lords and superiors.
The crusade of temperance sprang
from the loins of woman's intellect.
In the history of reforms, no or saniza-
tion OF men is more perfect than that
led by Frances Willard 1t is the finest
moral picture of the age. This has
paved the way to another crusade
that for social purity. Lust is the
destruction of the home, and social
sin is the greatest and most hardened
evil of the day. Our cities reek with
immortality. OF the 10000 illegiti-
mate children born annually in three
largest cities, not five per ce 1T receive
recognition by their parents. The
modern Babylon still thrills with the
exposures of the Pail Mall Gazette
The world seems rotten with lust.
For 1,SO0 years the world has been
passing through the Gethsemane of
prayer without result. The age of
tears is over and the age of activity
has come, and it is time to adopt
holder tai tics. The leaven of truth
is working everywhere, and the time
has come to destroy the double stan
dard of morals that is a greater evil
than the double standard of money.
Woman was the orafiamme of the
revolution, and of abolition. She is
the priestess of liberty in every
land and .cli ne. She is almost the
last prop and hope of buffeted re-
ligion.
Now for the future. Women will
get the ballot when she asks for it
with unanimity. That it is her right
cannot be met in argument or logic.
Taxation and representation are CO.
equal. She who can vote bank or
railroad shares at a stockholders
meeting should have a voice in the
legislation regarding banks and rail-
roads. She who can vote for school
directors should have voice in pas
sing on educational laws. She who
pays taxes should have a Voice in how
and where the taxes should be ex-
pended. She who has a home and
children should be allowed to vote on
the graft questions concerning these.
Women understand public questions
as much as four-fifths of the
voters do. Women could take
their opinions from the news
papers, their husbands, and from in
tercourse in society, and when the
time came to register their clear con-
victions they might deposit their vir-
tuous ballots as well as drop their
mail into the postoffice or 60 to
crowded theatres or in crowded street
cars. Woman may do anything now
but raise her hand to register her pure
convictions. The fear that somehow
she would lose her charm and delicacy
is a giant bugbear. If this were true,
it would strip the world of sentiment.
and leave US poor indeed.
Men are failing in their duty in
graphing of mighty moral questions:
in the struggle with the liquor
traffic: the Cuban question, when
we should meet the appeals
of this republic over the sea;
the Armenian question, when Sails
bury in London hurls back the mer-
cenary cry of the markets as Europe's
reply. Who can doubt that God holds
in reserve some new force in this
crucial hour of human destiny-the
splendid army of home walking to the
overthrow of wrongs, on it's banners
the hope of nations aud the honor of
the world? The expediency of
woman's voting is open to debate. but
as TO her right there can be no oues-
tion. There is work for humanity be-
yond the sacred precincts of home