The Bottineau courant. (Bottineau, Bottineau County, N.D.) 1895-1929, 1914-05-29


These are two important
questions which we are trying
to solve from an affirmative
standpoint.
We are often told that ,wo'
men do not need the franchise
as her position is already sc
high and so we'll protected by
the chivalry of man, that the
ballot is unnecessary, but
fear that facts do not bear out
this view. Theoretically it is
all right, practically it is al
wrong.
The laws of our own state
give women far more privileges
than the average state accords
her. The west with it's Cosmo-
politan ideas in this, as in all
other reforms, largely leads its
eastern sisters in advanced
thought along lines of equali'
ty, SO we shall speak more
particularly from a general
view, rather than from a spe.
cial one as regards our own
state.
l am told that the law OF
many states allows a man tc
beat his wife provided he does
not use a stick larger than his
thumb. The law compels her
to work for her husband for
nothing; everything she re
ceives' from the profits of their
joint labors being a gift toe
/! often grudgingly doled out.
She is Disseminated against
as a wage-earner, being often
paid less than a man receives
for the same service.
The mother of today stands
in the same position as regards
her children as the slave moth
err did fifty year ago, while the
father occupies the place of the
slave owner. In 81 states ht
may deprive her of her child
rem, he may train them in pur
suits conducive to immortality,
he may join with his neighbors
to open pitfalls at every corn
err, and she has no voice in thu
matter. She has legally n'
right to her children than the
veriest stranger.
Had the mothers had the
ballot do you think they would
so long have plead for the pro
hibition of those sources of evi
which are reaching out its
tentacles to draw within its
whirlpool of ruin those she
holds dearer than her very life;
Home protection is the
key word of wonan's work,
and it is to secure this, that the
ballot is of most importance tc
women.
The Justice of the claim 70,
equal suffrage lies in that old
article called our constitution,
and which has been repeated
in many generations since that
governments derive their just
lpowers from the consent of the
governed, and if this saying
is true, the world has seen very
little lust governed, tor the
consent of the majority has
never been asked. Lincoln's
favorite saying might be APP.
propriately paraphrased thus:
Government of the people, by
a minority of the people, and
in the interests of that minori.
ty, to the exclusion. of many OF
the right of the majority.
You may ask in what way
equal suffrage will benefit wo-
men in these matters, and
answer that it will increase the
respect in which she is held, as
we'll as give her a power which
may be felt. At present while
we hear a great deal about
woman's high position in Chri-
tian lands, we know that un-
derneath is a current bordering
on contempt, or at best good
natured federation of her, and
her opinions and interests.
In Wyoming where equal
suffrage has prevailed for many
years, women stand higher iii
the respect of their male com
peers, than in the states where
man suffrage prevails. for when
some of the Solons in the Ma
tional congress objected to her
admission to statehood with
the equal suffrage attachment,
woman was notsleft to fight hel
own battle, but the men united
with her, refusing the coveted
dignity unless the mothers,
sisters and wives, who had sc
far stood beside them, were al
. &AL A O&