The daily telegram. [volume] (Clarksburg, W. Va.) 1901-1926, 1907-01-31
Woman sunraee.


In view of the resolution intro
duced in the House Of Delegates OF
the West Virginia legislature by DR..
A. ]. Mitchell, of Writ county, pro.
viding for woman suffrage in the
State, the following opinions OF
Caroline F. corbin, president of the
Illinois association opposed to the
Extension of Suffrage to Women ex-
pressed in letter to the chairman
of the committee ON municipal cleo
tons of the Chicago charter conven-
ton may be interesting:
What the effect Of this so-called
emancipation of woman would be
upon our domestic and social life be-
comes in view of such testimony a
subject demanding the most pro-
found and careful consideration on
the part of both men and women.
for both are interested in the main
tenance of the laws and institutions
which protect the home and ensure
the operation of those refining and
spiritualizing influences which pro-
coed from 1t. It requires very little
study to see that these doctrines, II
carried into effect, would completely
reyolutionize the position of woman
in society.
Marriage, as at present constitute
ed, unites her to the father of her
children by legal tie, which cannot
be broken except by legal process,
gives her certain vested rights in
his property, legal claim upon his
labor for her support and a moral
claim upon. his love and protection
during the years Of her maternity
and those later years when age in
capacitates her for self support. All
these recognized and established
rights Socialism sweeps away at a
blow. Under its sway woman be-
comes an independent citizen, labor
ing for her own support precisely as
a man does, at the same tasks, for
the same pay, bearing the same poll
tical responsibilities, amenable in
short to all the duties of the outside
world, in addition to those which
nature places upon her in the bear
ing of children. Such an arrange
ment, we believe, would be most I'M
just and oppressive to women, a
high-handed invasion of the rights
and immunities secured to them by
the customs and traditions of civil
ization and by the government under
which we live. The maternal bur-
dens of woman as sex were placed
upon her by Almighty God, and men
either in their social or political ca
pacity have no power to relieve her
of them The devotees of Socialism
may, as they propose to do, tear down
the walls Of the home. destroy all its
legal safeguards: they may turn
women out into the world, leaving
their weaker physical nature de-
fenseless against the selfish instincts
and passions which ever control men
except as they are Influenced and
governed by the refining experiences
and memories of the home life; they
may make that virile strength which
nature intended to be the safeguard
OF woman's virtue, the protection OF
herself and her babes against rapac-
ity and wrongdoing, of none effect
for these purposes; put those sac
red functions which the home was
created to shelter and protect they
can never abrogate. Any economic
scheme therefore which puts woman
upon a unitarian equality with man,
and makes her his competitor in the
market places of the world, to the
destruction OF her value as a home
maker, which deprives her of that
virtue which alone FITS her for the
inestimably important and holy
duties of motherhood, by abrogating
marriage and encouraging promis-
cuous relations between men and
women. must expect that this fact
will be taken into account in the
worlds judgment Of It"