The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1909-11-08
UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE

wants to swap positions? No. hers Is now, in this day and age. to lend her wisdom, patience. purity, love to the harmonizing of the larger household, and to do this best she must emerge gently, gradually into her new respon- abilities. We need, we must, we are going to have. iR due season, woman's grace, refining and elevating influence, her spirit of infinite patience and care, in the administration of our affairs of common concern as in every walk and talk of life, but. God forbidi let us not in the doing disturb the equilibrium of the eternal fitness of things. If woman is to assume this new respon- sibility. let her do so at the sacrifice iof none of her womanliness. Better far never to have achieved the goal of ballot and political preference than to suffer one. single fibre of the exquisite ed
 Sang the poet Tennyson. in the Princess"
 "woman is not undeveloped man.
 Yet in the long years Iiker they must grow,
 The man more of woman, she of man:
 He gain in sweetness and in moral She mental breadth.
 The true solution, then. and har- monious. satisfactory progress, the while. in this as in all monuments of refo-m,-or more accurately, transi- ton from one stage of progress to i the next above-lies, not in cumulative or militant measures but in education. This may in all truth be said; "When our sisters are READY FOR THE 1 BALLOT, THEY WILL have it." and when they are ready for it they will want it in the right sort of way. | The present condition is, seemingly, | that few women want the ballot -.. r-r- A s-x declare a boycott on the poor men to get 1t (that thought, by the way, is father no less to the desire to be rid of men altogether mirableau;) some women are beginning to see that it would be | a good thing in cases. some again are found to oppose 1t utterly: but most women are negative on the subject because they have not YET BEGUN ITO THINK ALONG THOSE LINES.
 The efforts, then, of those who have the highest good of the cause at heart should be directed to rousing the sis ters from their general and herditary apathy on the subject, not Of female ballot or office holding, but of govern ment in general, and to inspiring them to study and think along these lines with a view to fitting themselves to assume in due time the new responsi- bilities. All the means and all the time and all the energy that the pres ent earnests can combine may well and best, be directed to this end.
 Not all of our sisters are at present lqualified for the duties of citizenship there is no gainsay- In fact the pro portion of them that are as fit as the average man is greatly in the minority Hence it would be a mistake to inau- gurate all at one fell swoop universal suffrage All men who can read and write, regardless of moral standing have the right to voter Yes, but il should not be. No need, by granting III women the sane right, to repeal the past error. Let us, in this case ensure the future by beginning arighf from the very outset. Let us. in oth- CT words, only grant the suffrage tC those of our sisters who are actually
 unmistakably qualified for it. and ex'
 tend it only as the generations mea
 sure up to the standard Then WI
 shall make no mistakes to undo al
 some future time. and we shall ensure
 to ourselves from the start the fulles
 possible blessings from the co-opera
 tion of our sisters. Thus will best b'
 fulfilled the sincere desire of ever, honest heart and enable us. individ ually and collectively, regardless O. creed, race or sex, to solve the prob lens of the age and usher in the da. of perfect peace, the goal and idea
 of man since time began its endless rounds.