Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1914-02-19


to make themselves heard, and this
has led a Republican to compare the
present condition TO an old time melo-
drama and what he says perhaps is
worth telling, even If people do not
agree with him. Here is the Repub-
leans story:
Like MeIodrama of Nellie.
In melodrama called Nellie, the
Beautiful Cloak Model the villain
meets Nellie, the beautiful one, on
the Brooklyn bridge and attempts to
throw her over the rail into the East
river. She is rescued just in time.
In the next act the villain seizes
the fair Nellie and ties her to the
track in the subway. A guard res
cues the sweet girl just in time to
prevent her from being run down by
the express train.
In the third act the villain meets
Nellie on the platform of an elevated
railroad station and tries to throw
her into the street. Again she is res
cued, and the william is baffled.
In the next act the villain meets
Nellie on the street and she shrinks
from him, whereat he inquiries: Mel
lie, why do you fear me-?
If you can find a parallel in this
story to the case of the business men
who do not want to come to Washing
ton to be heard in antitrust matters,
why find it. l think I found it some
time ago"
Wilson and suffragists.
There has just been another parade
of suffragists on Pennsylvania avenus.
1t was by no means as big a parade as
that one of March, 1913, but the par
Elephants marched IL behalf of the
same cause-woman suffrage. Every
body probably remembers the trouble
which the women had in March last
trying to make their way through the
crowds of rowdies and worse who in.
suited them at every turn. The lack
of police protection for the women at
that time nearly cost several officials
their jobs. This time the women
marched without interference and I'M
The last parade was composed of
working women from the industrial
centers of many states. The process
sion formed at the capitol. and march
ed up Pennsylvania avenue to the
White House, where the leaders plead
ed with President Wilson to give the
light Of his approval to the cause of
suffrage. The president gave the suf-
fragists a verbal expression of well
come and then gave a pantomimic ex-
hibition Of sidestepping which was the
counterpart Of his step Of evasion"
on previous occasion when the wo-
men called on him to ask him to urge
the house of representatives to au-
thorize the appointment from it's mem
bership of a committee on suffrage.
The suffrage organization under
whose direction the women were
marching and pleading is not entirely
removed from the suspicion that it is
antagonistic in its spirit to the Dem
ocratic order, a spirit moved to resent
ment because it is the Democratic
party, as the organization views it.
which is doing what it can to defeat
the women's cause.
There are troubles in the suffrage
ranks in Washington and the thorns
seem to multiply daily. All the wo-
men are moving to the same end and
their paths are different, but they
run close enough together to allow
the pilgrims to exchange reproving
words and occasionally to reach
across and to indulge in little hair
pulling.
Can't SIdestep Much Longer.
Suffrage, men here say, is bound
to come and it makes absolutely no
difference about how it is to come.
The days of sidestepping everybody
seems to believe soon will be num-
bered There is too much at stake in
1916, and also, by the way, in 1914,
to make it seem wise for men with
ambitions to continue to voice dis
approval when women already are
enfranchised in many places and soon
are to be enfranchised in all places.
There are a few curious things to
be found in this tumble of troubles
which is affecting the women suffrage
cause at this time. The congression-
al unions headquarters are in Wash
ington and as everybody knows, here
are also headquarters of the congress
sional branch of the National Suffrage
association. Mrs. MedilI Mccormick,
chairman of the latter organizations
branch in Washington, takes the view
that the women should work for suf-
frage and ''be antagonistic to candi-
dates for congress no matter to which
party they belong provided they are
opposed to the great cause
Union After the Democrats.
The chief desire of the congression-
al union just at present seems to be
to defeat Democrats. Pretty soon it
is expected the charge will be laid
against the union that it is working
in behalf of the cause of the progress
siye Republicans, of whom the chief
tains today are Bristow, Borah, Cum
Minis and La Toilette.
In one of the Washington papers
within a day there has appeared an
article from the pen of a noted suf-
fragist. She does not like Theodore
Roosevelt. She charges that the Ma
tional Suffrage association through
its Washington branch is working
first for the Progressive party and
second, if at all, for suffrage. So we
have it that the congressional union
Is RAINING aWay at the Democrats
perhaps in behalf Of the progressive
Republicans; that the congressional
branch of the National Suffrage asso-
citation is working in behalf Of the
Progressive party. and that both
think as much of the politics of the
thing as they do of the suffrage of
the thing"
the nationwide agitation, pro and con,
regarding slavery. When in 1916 q
hill concentrating $4,000 900 for the