Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1899-06-29

ed With the history Of the equal lights
movement that he actually attributes
its growth to the lack of energetic OPP
/ position. He says:
Men have carried conventional de-
ference toward women to a rather dan
| gerous extreme. The same courtesy
and consideration which they show the
sex in the daily intercourse of life, they
have also shown upon the platform
and in public discussion AS an ex-
ample Of this courtesy in discussion,
Professor Peck calls the uteraEces of
the women who do not agree with him
"the neurotic catwaulings of feminine
hysteria." But this is mild to what
the pioneers had to encounter. Mrs.
Stanton and Miss Anthony were as
sailed with hootings and s~pit-balls;
Lucy Stone was played upon with cold
water through a hose while lecturing;;
and for half a century all the advocates
Of equal rights have been deiuged with
an unmeasured vituperation. PROBES
sor Peck must have awakened from a
Rip Van Wrinkle sleep to declare that
now for the first time some n must
speak out frankly in opposition!
EVERY STEP HAS BEEN OPPOSED.
Every step of womans' progress, in
education, property rights, or access to
the trades and professions has been OPP
posed with the same prophesies OF dis
aster thai Professor Peck now makes in
regard to economic independence and
the suffrage-tnat it will lead to the
| asctrf1crion cf c1njety AMI the plimina
destruction OF society and the "elimlna-
ton of lex" Economic independence
is coming gradually and inevitably,
with the invention of machinery and
the transformation OF modern INDUS
try.
Suffrage is already a fact in five
States or the Union, as well as in Eng
land, Scotland, Canada, Australia and
New Zealand, and the elimination OF
sex" has not followed.
Prof. Peck, OF course, misrepresents
Mrs. Stetson's argument. He could not
answer it II he ald not. he says that
if Mrs. Stetson's economically mdepend-
ent I'M ever married, she would
do so in an Unconditional way, and
would take a husband as she would
lease a house. with d view TO purely
practical considerations OF eXpedlelcy'
in plain terms, fer money. One of
Mis-. Stetson'S arguments for the eco
nomic independence of women is that
women then would marry only for love,
ana not for purely practical considera-
tons of expectancy"
No one wishes 10 abolish love. But,
as one indignant matron remarked al
ter reading Professor Peck, If a wo-
MAI were nothing but a bundle OF emo
tons she would not be fit to bring up
children"
LONG LIST OF MEN WITH BACK
BONES.
Perhaps the funniest part of Pro-
fessor Peck's very funny article is his
scornful aliusiOn to the meek and
spineless men" who favor equal rights
for The latest man of promi-
hence to come out for woman suffrage
was Colonel Roosevelt, who is popular
ly credited with one Of the sturdiest
b%ackbones in the United States. Our
Secretary OF the Navy, Hon. John d.
Long. is now generally regarded as an
lnverlebrate, put he mas proved him
self an inlmitable presiding officer on
the platforms where these women
hold their poW-woWs."
Garrison and Philips, Abraham Lin
coin, Charles Sumner, Whittier, Emer-
on, Robert Browning, Henry Ward
Beecher, George William Curtis-the
list is so long that one hardly knows
where to stop.
Any one of these men had backbone
enough 10 fit out a dozen average citi-
zens. In the past, indeed, it has been
only men of exceptional backbone who
] have championed the equal rights
movement, because until lately it has
been an unpopular cause. ANY piece
of driftwood car float with the cur
rent, but it takes a live fish to swim
up stream"
Professor Peck predicts that III of
these days the men will set their foot
on the equal rights movement and
crush it, suddenly, sharply and forever.
The friends of equal rights can afford
to smile at the prophecy. The signs OF
the times are ali the other way.
FAIR PLAY IS RECOGNIZED.
While we do not believe that men
monopolize all the generosity and jus
tlce OF the human race, we know that
the majority Of men have a fair share
of these qualities, and we see that as
enlightenment increases they are more
and more recognizing the principle CT
fair play, and applying it to women.
1t is Professor Peck and his like who
are destined TO be crushed in the ineyl-
table march of progress.
Meanwhile, his articles may do a lit
tie harm by increasing the arrogance
of such men as happen to be arrogant
by nature; but, on the other hand, they
make every woman who reads them in
dignant-even women who had never
suspected that they were suffraglsts.
We are often told that what is needed
is to convert the women. and ultra
reactionary articles Of this sort help
powerfully to that end.
There is an oriental saying, "A man
may live in a cabbage-garden and
dream of Paradise, or he may live in
Paradise and dream of a cabbage-gar-
den." Professor Peck is proof that a
! mans body may live in the nineteenth
century while his mind lives in the
dark ages.
ALICE STONE BLACKWELL.
! EPW0KTH LEAGUEs