Semi-weekly herald., 1909-03-22
womAN's RIGHTS.

Wendell Phillip in Worcester, Mass,
Oct. is, 1851:
It seems to me to have been proved
that government com
menced in usurpation and oppression:
that liberay and civilization. at pres.
ent, are nothing else than the frag~
ments of rights which the scaffold
and the stake have wrung from tho
strong hands of the usurpers. B~
step of progress the world has made
has been from scaffold to scaffold and
from stake to stake.
The law has always been wrong
Government began in tyranny and
force, began in the feudalism of the
soldier and bigotry of the priest, and
the ideas of justice and humanity have
been fighting their way. like thun-
der storm, against the organized sell
fishness of human nature.
We are not here tonight to assert
that woman will enter the lists and
conquer; that she will certainly
achieve all that man has achieved;
but this we say. Clear the lists and
let her try"
Difference OF religion breeds more
quarrels than difference in politics
Yes we allow women to choose
their own religious creeds, although
thereby run the risk of wives being
Episcopalians while their husbands
are Methodists. or daughters being ,
Catholics while their fathers are Cal
vinists.
Theories are but thin and uE~e-
siantial air against the solid fact OF
woman mingling with honor and profit
in the various professions and indus
trial pursuits OF life.
You give her nothing but mans
little printed primers; you make for
her a whole world of dolls and then
complain that she is frivolous. You
deprive her of all the stimulus which
the good and great of all nations, al
societies, have enjoyed, the worlds
honors, its good and its fame, and
then you coolly ask of her. why are
you not as well disciplined as we
are?"
Woman can never study those great
questions that interest and stir most
deeply the human mind, until she
studies them under the mingled stim-
| ulus and check of this responsibility.
Better that our women, like the
| German and Italian girls. should labor
| on the highway and share in the toll
| of the harvest than pine and sieaen
| in the indoors and sedentary routine
to which our superstition condemns
them.
Why does man so much oftener
! than woman surmount few years or
months of sensual qualification and
emerge into a worthier life? II Is
not solely because the worlds judg-
ment is SO much harder upon her.
Man can immerse himself in business
that stirs keenly all his faculties and
| thus he smothers passion in honorable
care. An ordinary woman once fall.
en-, has no busy and stirring life in
which to take refuge, where intellect
will contend for mastery with passion
and where virtue is braced by high
and active thoughts. Passion comes
back to the empty" thought swept
and garnished" chambers, bringing
with him more devils than before.
While woman is admitted to the
gallows, the jail and the tax list, we
have no right to debar her from the
ballot box
When infinite wisdom established
the rules of right and honesty he
saw TO 1t that justice should be always
the highest expediency.
| know that the humblest man and
the feeblest has the same civic rights,
according to the theory of our insti-
tutions. as the most gifted. 1t is never
claimed that the humblest shall be
denied his civil right, provided he be
man. No. Intellect. even though 1t
reach the Alpine height OF Parker
-ay. setting aside the infamy Of his
conduct and looking at him only as
an Instance Of intellectual greatness
to the height of a Webster-gets no
title of additional civil right, no one
single claim to any greater civil privi.
iege than the humblest individual who
knows no more than the first elements
OF his alphabet, provided IT,. being
man Il ought to say. white man.)
Grant, then. that woman Is intellec.
tually inferior to man, It settles moth.
ing. She is still a responsible tax
mn 49,