Middletown transcript., 1897-05-01
WOMEN WILL VOTE.

WOMEN WILL VOTE.
There will be an important election
in MiddIetown on Monday and the
women are going to vote, in compli-
ance with the law passed at Dover
four years ago, giving every tax payer,
irrespective of sex, the right to vote at
said election either in person or by
proxy, the same being entitled to one
vote for every dollar of town tax paid
by "him, her or it" within one year
preceding the election. There will be
no politics in it. and the suffragists
and anti-sufragists, conservatives and
ultras will 60 to the polls together to
name man to be member of the
Board of Light and Water Commission
for Eve years ensuing, for which Office
an honest, good-sensed, practical busi-
ness man is wanted, and the women,
who own two thirds Of the property in
Middletown and pay two thirds Of the
town taxes, are very glad to have a
chance to say who they want and dom
want to manage the town wells, furna-
ces and finances, and they don't seem
one bit afraid of being unsexed thereby.
In fact the Middletown women have
voted on several former occasions, and
the world wagged on much the same,
and when they returned home from
the polls they found the sacred shrine
uninvaded, their husbands and little
ones and even their darning bags none
the worse from their having been out
to vote, and some OF the real fighty
ones have been heard to say that vot-
ing is not half as hard as some other
things-house-cleaning and soap-mak-
ing for instance, and having once tried
it are quite willing not only to take
part in the municipal elections but &C.
tually want their franchise extended TO
stateand national affairs, ,and this in con-
servative Delaware. with her whipping
posts, aud other relics and antiqnitiesl
The men, too, some Of them, are much
in favor of woman suffrage, and out Of
the thirty delegates elected to frame
new constitution for the state seven
voted in favor Of extending the fran
chise to the women, SO this thing is
spreading.
There are great many honest, brave
hearted men and WON en- who verify
believe that woman suffrage is the great
panacea for all political ills, and once
give the women the right of franchise
political reforms would follow as nat
urally as day follows night. The ad-
vance agents of that blissful era told
US all about it in their campaign of last
winter, when they were working SO
zealously for the emancipation of the
women of Delaware at the hand of the
constitutional Convention. First and
foremost, that giant evil, the saloon
would go, and as natural sequence
the almshouses and jails would follow,
for everybody knows that without the
former we would have no use for the
latter r-and bribery and all other poll
tical corruption would disappear under
the refining and purifying influence of
the ballot in the hand of woman-and
though large majority Of the women
don't want it, many others, stirred by
the crying need for political reform,
are willing to make the effort, and feel
ing the delightful sense Of the power of
the ballot in municipal elections, and
having occasion to criticise masculine
management Of public affairs, are
eager for suffrage privileges. But per-
haps they have not considered all the
points to be gained or lost. It Is one
thing to vote, very easy thing to vote,
but it is quite another thing to infiu-
ence and control legislation. If wo-
mans mission is really to purify poll
tics she ought to know what agigantic
task is before her, the Augeau stables
could not compare with this herculean
undertaking, but men, some ofthem The
seem to think that woman, with her
zeal, her persistence, moral courage,
conscientiousness and tact, can do
anything, and though she already is
bearing the greater part Of the worlds
burdens, and is having nervous ex-
haustion and prostration and similar
ills therefrom, she's bracing up for her
new duties and privileges incident to
the franchise, for when seven men in
a Delaware Convention favor this
measure, it's foregone conclusion
that it is near at hand.
Politics need purifying, truly, but
we'll have to begin good deal further
back than the ballot box. The springs
of government are In the primaries,
and respectable citizens have left them
almost entirely in the hands of igno-
rant, unprincipled men, ward politic-
ians and party heelers, and tie women
must grapple with them If they would
work any real reform. Mot a very in
viting prospect, but refOrmerS cannot
choose their company.
!. It is one of the easiest things q wo-
man can do to put q little slip OF paper
With the name of her fayorite candid
ate in the ballot box; it does not take
I BIZ longer to do it either than 1t does
ID nay her taxes, and no home or social
duty is neglected, but woman suffrage
means much more than that, and II
women want to purify and reform poll
sIcs, Trey must count thecost first.