Pike County press. (Milford, Pa.) 1895-1925, 1900-01-19
INCONSISTENCY OF
OUR GOVERNMENT.

WIN w tlAtNttiG = " .
Our government claims to he Dem
ocratic. Its laws are supposed to be
made in accordance with the wish
and will of Che people. As a people
we hold tenaciously to the theory OF
popular representation. Any plan or
suggestion to cut Off from this divine
privilege any class, large or small,
would be met with such a storm of
opposition as is rarely seen. It's advo-
cate would be denounced asa an enemy
Of our institutions, as a traitor to hu-
man rights, and his measure would
be struck dead by that fatal word
''unconstitutionaP' and buried for
ever beneath the avalanche of public
opinion.
And yet in this Gland of the free
and home of the brave" in this year
of our Lord 1900, in an age of en-
lightenment, progress, Thought and
{ nth, in this flee, educated, Demo-
attic America, our nation is hug
ging to its bosom an inconsistenc.
and an absurdity, in its continual re-
fJsal to entrust with The privilege
the right, the duty of the ballot, NOR,
than one half her citizens.
The ignorant foreigner, knowing
little or nothing Of our free institu
tons, can vote. He can help say
what our laws shall be. The educat-
Cd woman, born and raised here,
trained, it may be, in our higher in
stitutions oflearning, with the broad,
progressive, enlightened views, must
be dead as a mummy on election day.
The tramp, whiskey-soaked and
tobacco-cured, may drag his Tags
back to his native town and sell his
vote on election day for few drinks
ofpoor whiskey, but the noble-heart-
cd, pure-minded mother must sit
still with as little influence as a stat
ue, while the tramp helps to make
laws which may make her boy a
tramp too.
The low ward politician, who keeps
the "dirty pool politics. as muddyas
possible in order that he, with other
reptiles, may make a dirty living,
has a voice and vote, but the noblest
woman in all the land stands before
the law as a nonentity, while he i.
king,
If there is a bare-faced adsurdity
anywhere on earth which exceeds
this, will someone, somewhere have
the goodness to point it out? We
say to womanhood:
''You shall obey our laws, if you
steal, we will imprision you, if you
kill, we will hang or electrocute you
if you own property we will
tax you, but we will not
give you a chance to say what
those laws shall be. You shall be
our sisters, wives and mother, you
shall train up our children, shall be
educated, we want you to think, but
you shall have no voice in that which
has to do with the larger affairs o.
government. When it comes to this
we put you below the tramps, We
class you with the criminals, with
the slave Of former generation, We
will give you no more voice than We
accord the horse or the OK which ser.
YES us. Foreigners, tramps and
drunkards, saloon-keepers, libertines
and schemers shall have hand in
this law-making business; womer
and children, idiots, criminals and
cattle shall not"
1t is the nightmare of paganisn
struggling against the progress Of al
awaking age. 1t is the narrownes,
of despotism lingering in the breadth
Of democracy. 1t is out of place and
is destined soon to be sentenced tC
death by the untrammeled thougtanC
resistless logic of an advancing age.
REV. c. c. PIERCE.