The herald and news. [volume] (Newberry S.C.) 1903-1937, 1913-08-22
TiIIn7an Sees Decay Of the
Nation When Women Vote
Speaking With Oldme Fire. Senior Senator Scores Wo-
mans Suffrage,-Says Country Nseds Good Moth.
ers More Than Purifiers of Politics. Touch.
es on the Divorce Evil is Speech.

LIS uCIOIy duu LIS udL1S lIOAu dIg
suspicion OF sectional narrowness of
any kind, and above all of narrow
ness and bigotry towards the women
of any part of our common country.
A chief tenet of the school in which
he was reared was chivalrous respect
AMI reverence for women; and to him
good woman, wherever and under
whatever circumstances she might
live, was superior being, a sort of
divinity whose high and holy purpose
on earth was to bear, to rear and to
mould man into the image of his
Maker. In sadness, not in anger he
saw, or thought he saw, Northern
women surrendering their divinity
and high privileges for mere human
rights, and as an honest man, true to
the training ne had received from his
own mother and to the ideals which
that training had engendered, he kind
ly, but firmly, spoke his sentiments
The article first appeared in print
in 1871, in the October number of the
Southern Review, one of the broadest
and most scholarly periodicals Of its
day. 1t was the lineal descendant of
the once famous DeBow,s Review.
From 1916 until the close of the civil
war this latter magzine was a lead
ing exponent Of the hopes and aspira-
tons of the South; and when it, NOR
tally wounded, as it were, by the COL
lapse and fall of the Southern Con-
federacy, suspended publication short
ly after the end of the war, the South
ern Review was founded to take it's
place. DR.. Bledsoe was chosen editor
of the new periodical, and it was his
review of the then new published
History of Morals, by Lecky, which
led him to write "The Mission Of
Woman" The last chapter of Lecky's
history is a very brilliant and pro-
found exposition Of the condition. So
c1al rights and political privileges of
women in all ages. The criticism, as
it appeared in the Southern Review,
had been reprinted in pamphlet form
by some admirer of DR.. Bledsoe; and
Senator Johnson, of Alabama, (now,
alas! gone from us to his long rest
ing place. had come into possession
Of a copy, He showed it to me aud
asked me to have it printed as a pub
lie document. l glanced through it
hurriedly and was so forcibly impress
ed by the authors apt application of
Lecky's facts to the question of wo-
man suffrage, divorce, and material
ism, now so apparent everywhere,
that 1 asked to have it printed in the
Record as we'll as public document;
for thought it could not be given
too wide publicity because the coun-
try needs educating along these lines
more than any other just at this time.
Day of the Carpetbagger.
But Lecky's History, was only the
occasion of "The Mission of Woman"
The real reason for it's being written
was undoubtedly the deplorable con-
dition of Southern politics at that
time. AS senators will remember,
the reconstruction Of the South was
completed in 1868. Universal suff-
rage had been decreed by congress,
and men with Federal uniforms on
their backs and rifles in their hands
marshalled the newly freed blacks to
the polls and directed how th sy should
cast heir ballots. Thus, under the
leadership of Thad Stevens and 9TH
ers, the Northern fanatics sowed the
seed, and by 1871, the harvest Of evils
began to ripen The South, PROSTATE
and bleeding at every pore, her past
a hopeless memory Of bitter times. her
present a slough Of despond, and her
future hideous nightmare-the
South, say, was literally wallowing
in violence, corruption, dishonesty,
and political debauchery. 1t was pit
iful. The great South, than which
no fairer land hath fired poets
lay was become loathsome region,
full of hideous sights and sounds and
things unholy. Negroes, very few of
whom could read or write, and some
of them not three generations removed
from the jungles of Africa, controlled
our legislatures, while white scoun-
drels and thieves from the North rul-
ed the negroes and robbed our people
through them Many Of the magis-
trates and judges were negroes. The
State colleges and universities Of the
South, maintained by taxation, were
| controlled nv fructeaS elected hy the