Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1913-02-20

Thus we are sentirely surrounded by
states which have marked their adj
vance by giving women the same right
to vote ON public questions and for
public officials as men. Two years ago
our Legislature proposed an amend
ment removing the constitutional bar
rier which denies women this right IN
Nevada. This amendment will have to
be favorably acted upon by your Hon
orable Bodies and finally submitted 10
vote of the people before it can be-
come a part of our organic law. The
sentiment in it's favor seems to be ov-
erwhelming and participated N by all
political parties, for which reason, and
from my own personal convictions of
its justice, | recommend that your
Honorable Bodies concur in the same
by appropriate action"
The 18th day of this present month,
the Montana Legislature submitted the
question Of woman's suffrage to her
people with only three dissenting votes.
Is not the evidence complete, abso
lutte, and does it not satisfy your minds
that Maine should delay no longer in
justice to the womanhood of the State?
The history of woman's suffrage has
been one of awful tragedy, Every ma
ton that has degraded its women has
been itself dethroned and destroyed.
When Queen Isabel pawned her jewels
and with the proceeds sent Columbus to
discover this land, he found there the
original American. the painted savage,
bent on war, who with his bow and
spear marched erect, while behind him
crept the wife, bowed to the earth with
the weight of the tent. the food, the
baggage and the child upon her back.
The slave OF the Indian, because she
was a woman, and today that same
savage, followed by this same slave, is
slowly but surely becoming extinct, be-
cause he degraded and enslaVed his
equal.
Today the unspeakable Turk, that
herds women under wells in a Turkish
harem, is meeting the retribution of
that law which destroys those who dis
honor womankind.
The American woman has Il history
founded in tragedy. When men. who
were in TIE old World denied the bal
lot fed from that oppression to the
new World woman accompanied them
to this continent, and here upon the
soil of America, she toiled by his side
in pushing back the forest, in making
the home, and building the Church and
the schoolho6se, in winning the indie
pendence of the citizens, and man
paused long enough in writing the Dec
laration of Independence, that all men
are created free and equal, to burn her
as a witch. And then man sat down to
nn or fhat dccIara nd decided
that ''all men did not include women,
but it did include the African slave.
They said because he was a male, he
was entitled to freedom and entitled
to the ballot And then came bloody
war among men and brothers to Sc
cure the rights of men. And when it
was ended and the African was free,
there came the question of the ballot,
and the immortal Lincoln said:
Il go for sharing all the privileges OF
government who assist in bearing its
burdens; therefore l am for admitting
all whites to the suffrage who pay
taxes or bear arms, by no means eX-
Guiding females
The eloquent Phillips, who had so
grandly fought for the slave, claimed
tiiSI HAIth ~ saw titS ptAAlol ~ ~
slave, you should give it to the woman,
and his arguments then hold good to-
day, when he said;
Then, again, men say She is so
different rom man that God did not
mean she should vote is She Then
/ do not know how to vote for her.
One of Two things is true: She is eth
er exactly like man-e&actly like him,
teetotally like him-and if she is, then
a ballot box based upon brains belongs
to her as we'll as to him, or she is
different, and then | DO hot know how
to vote for her. II she Is like me, so
much like me that | know just as well
how to vote for her as she knows how
to vote for herself then-the very basis
Of the ballot box being eapaeity-she,
being the same as l, has the same right
to vote: and if she is SO different that
she has different range OF aVoca-
lions and powers and capacities then it
| is necessary she should go into the
Legislature. and with her own voice
say what she wants, and write her
wishes into the Statute books, because
nobody is able to interpret her. Choose
which horn of the dilemma you please,
for On the one or the other the ques-
ton of the right of woman 10 vote
must hang.
But men said that because she was
a woman she was not the equal in in
telligence and morality with the Afri-
can, and they gave the ballot ana fun
suffrage to this low, degraded slave,
with the burden, of centuries of vice
and ignorance upon him, because he
was a male.
Then came the settlement of the ques-
lions growing out of the war, and the
American Congress met to devise some
punishment BETTING that arch traitor to
the Union, jefferson Davis. They could
kill him, but that would be savagery. and
would make him a hero; they could inn
prison him. but that would only make him
a martyr to d lost cause, and they final
| Iy proposed a punishment that shocked
the world They said, by aproposed bill
in Congress- that they would deprive
jefferson Davis of his ballot. and dis
franchise him, and put him on the same
level with woman. Those We're stirring
times in the history of this country, when
the South rose UP. almost again in arms,
and came to Congress and prayed and