Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1912-10-17

nunofea WORDS treating OF tOVtce v INV
Anent Political Female PowwoWs."
To the Editor OF the Evening Star:
In your edition of October Il Mr..
Edward W. whitehead writes as fol-
lows:
The most beautiful scene in ths
home life of Newark is the family
circle, with the mother, the daughters,
the wife and the bride-to-be instead
of a noisy. political female powwoN
in Military Park or any other place
conducted by ladies', who, in strenu-
Gus political times, would lend more
grace and sweetness elsewhere.
However this may be. 1t is one OF
the sad features Of this years DO
litical conflict to nave women mixed
into 1t as they are, and a big lot Of
sensible men are downright sorry TO
see and know it,"
This little objection Of Mr.. White
heads Is couched In language SO mild
Int appealing that the women con
cerned can hardly 1t. Sui
fragists have passed through such
storms in the past, since they began
to rescue women from the mediaevaf
conditions that surrounded them one
generation ago, that such gentle dis
appreciation as this can only render
them grateful.
For instance, in 1854, Elijah et
Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony
asked the Legislature of New York
State to give married women a right
to their own earnings, and presented
q petition for their bill with 5.931
signatures. Assemblyman. Burnett.
of Onondaga, speaking On this bill
said:
They do not appear to be satisfied
with having unsexed themselves, but
they desire to unsex every female in
the land. n to set the whole COM
munity ablaSe with unhallowed fire.
"The object of these unsexed
m is to overthrow the most
sacred OF our institutions, to set at
defiance the divine law which declares
man and wife to be one, and to es-
tablish IN its ruins what will be in
fact and in principle but a species of
legalized vice"
When Mr.. Burnett thus boiled over
not a woman in the world could vote.
Now that they are voting on exactly
equal terms with men in six States
OF this Union, and have some form
of suffrage in twenty-six States, MI.
Whitehead objects thus mildly. When
just a few more States have enfran-
chised their women we won't hear
any objection at all.
Has Mr.. Whitehead never taken a
trip West, to Colorado or California;
Ii so he must have beheld home
scenes quite as ideal as those he de-
picts in Newark. even though the
I'M vote in those States. Does he
forget that over a million American
m will vote for President in Mo-
vember? And does he suppose for a.
moment that the wives and mothers
of the six States where women vote
are not just as good as the wives and
mothers of New Jersey?
The issues at stake in this and in
other campaigns concern the lives
and the homes both OF women and
their children, and in matters which
concern the lives and the homes CT
their children and themselves women
will no longer be told that they have
no business to mix. They will take
such part as seems good to them
selves. as.
The idea that politics, through
which this government Is rum, and
which determine the rulers and the
conditions under which women must
live, are a thing in which they have
no business to take any part. Is an
idea which can never again be ac-
cepted by intelligent people.
MINNIE j. REYNOLDS.