West Virginia argus. [volume] (Kingwood, W. Va.) 1877-1946, 1901-07-18
INCONSISTENCIES IN OUR GOVERN.
MENT.


telligent, how rich, how servicable
TO the State have been rendered
the political interiors of all men,
no matter how base born, how pow
eriy stricken, how ignorant, how
vicious, how brutal. The pauper
in the almshouse may vote; the
lady who devotes herself TO getting
that almshouse made habitable may
not. The tramp who begs cold
victuals in the kitchen may vote;
the heiresS who feeds him and en-
dows n university may not. Com
munities are agitated and Legisla-
lures convulsed to devise means to
secure the right of suffrage TO the
illiterate voter. And the writers,
journalists, physicians, teachers,
the wives and daughters, and com
panies of the best educated men in
the State are left in silence, blotted
out swamped, obliterated, behind
this cloud of often besotted igno-
rance. Today the immigrants pour
ing in through the open gates of
our seaport towns, the Indian when
settled in severalty, the negro hard
ly emancipated from the degradation
of 200 years of slavery, may all
share in the sovereignty of the State
The white woman-the American
woman-the woman in whose veins
runs the blood of those heroic col
onis;s who founded our country, of
those women who helped to sustain
the courage of their husbands in
the Revolution; the woman who
may have given the flower of her
youth and health in the service of
our Civil War, this woman is ex-
cluded. Today women constitute
the only class of sane people exclu-
ded from the franchise, the only
class deprived of political repre-
sentation, except the tribal Indians
and the Chinese.
This is an anomaly which of it
self suftices to explain much of the
dangerous vulgarization of political
ideal which has lately been noticed
among us; much of the fashionable
contempt which is beginning to be
expressed for popular sovereignty.
In theory, women are always
protected at home. In fact, laws
are constantly being required for
their special protection. Why is it
desirable to leave such legal or
social protection to be secured, if
at all, by tedious and roundabout
methods, through petitions, through
the efforts of other people, whose
warmest enthusiasm can hardly
ever equal the energy of those who
speak for themselves? Why should
not the women have the right to
speak for themselves, and by their
own mouths to make their own
wants known?
We demand the suffrage as a
right, not in a metaphysical sense,
but because we fulfill all the essen.
tial conditions which the State has
proclaimed necessary to qualify for
the electorate. We demand it be-
cause today, and not thousand
years ago, because in the United
States, and not in France or Ger
many or Austria, women are recog-
nized by law and custom to be per-
sons, and to possess intelligence
entirely equal to the average intel.
ligence of those who already exer-
else the suffrage. We demand it on
no new principle, but on the double
principle which runs through all
our institutions, namely, that all
the intelligence in the State must
be enlisted for its welfare, and
that all the weakness in the com.
munity must be represented for its
own defense.
The influence Of the women who
are now busily engaged in civilizing
the hordes of uncivilized people in
our midst will be utilized, not only
to kindle the tagging interest Of the
men Of their own class, but to so
guide ignorant woman voters that
they could be made to counterbal-
ance, when necessary, the votes Of
ignoiant and unintcrested men.
Here is broad channel for the
missionary enthusiasm of women,
now too often allowed to run TO
waste 10 the sands Of foreign heath.
endom
MARf PUTNAM jacob, VI. ID.
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