The Ward County independent. [volume] (Minot, Ward County, N.D.) 1902-1965, 1914-10-29

The Anti Suffragists are putting forth speech
made by Hon. Elihu Root before the N. 7. State
Convention Aug. 18th, 1894-I0enty years ago!
Perhaps the Honorable Elihu may have had
change of heart since that time, as many other
GOOD men have done. Hastily running thru his
address, we find it mass of sentiment from start
to finish. We are all more or less sentimental ana
dislike to have the regular routine OF our lives ais
tlrbed, but that is no reason why II may not De
GOOD for u.s. or of great benefit, to have that rou-
tine disturbed.
Sentiment is not reason. It is not argument.
The first thing the Honorable Elhu says is that
suffrage is not natural right. ms mas been re-
hashed SO often it hardly seems necessary to go
over it again. We will only say that 1t certainly
has not been given to all men in our country, ex-
cent after wears of struggle and even of blood
shed.
In our country we find that the ballot was first
piven to the believers in q certain orthodox re.
iiaion. Later it was extended to the owners OF
a certain amount of property. Later on, an Aris-
tocracy of Race became the dividing line; but for
a half century Sex has been the only standard up
on which is based the privileges of our rulers.
The men have certainly not found suffrage to be
a natural right
In the Honorable Elhu's next statement he
says there enters no element of the inferiorty OF
woman-but it is that woman is different from
it that one of the Ants stock phrases is about the
silent influence, or the indirect influence OF wo-
man. There is certainly contradiction some
where. If women are wise enough to use indirect
influence to have laws passed favoring women ana
children, if their work counts along sanitary and
many other lines, surely the depositing of slip
of paper in the ballot box to register her wishes
will not harm her.
: 5000, 900 women now vote in our own country,
and surely the Honorable Elihu would not have
the temerity to say that these 100000 women,
or any great part Of them, have become "hard,
harsh, unlovable, repulsive: as far removed from
that gentle creature to whom we all owe alleg-
lance, and to whom we confess submission, as the
heaven is removed from the earth.
81 The next statement is the tme-worn one of Pro-
tection-man is woman's natural protector. Men
some men-greatly fatter themselves. They are
woman's natural protectors, and yet 100000 of
women in the U. S. are wage workers. They go
to and come from their daily tasks-they earn
their own bread and that of multitude OF others,
and they do need prOtection-but not of the kind
the ballot to protect themselves All that the
working women ask in the way of protection is
the privilege of using the ballot to register their
views in reference to methods of protection And
these women are now asking the men of North
Dakota t ogive to their women this chance to reg
lister their views Not because they think it either
fair or just that the men alone should have the
giving or the Withholding of this right to vote,
but simply because the North Dakota men happen
to be the only people in the state. It is needless
to claim that rights withheld are compensated
for by mans protection of woman in a country
where wild beasts are not feared, where venom
our serpents hav ebeen exterminated, where saw
age Indians have learned the ways Of peace, and
where there is nothing in the world to be protect
led from except man himself If you do not give
women the ballot do not let it be on the grounds
of being women's natural protectors. Be honest
about it.
X, The last so-called argument that the Honorable
Elihu puts forth is that Of family government He
says that woman is supreme in the family and
that Woman rules the World Very fine in theory
but really it is all sentimental gush. Surely it
sounds all right if you happen to be of the null
titude who lets others do their thinking. But to
those who think for themselves, it is utter non
sense. Thousands of women would not be guilty
Of voting the way their husbands vote-how can
they "rule the world?" That is laying all the mis-
deeds of the world upon womens shoulders If it is
Family Government that the Hon. Elihu be.
iieves il, he certainly believes ii being the family
himself. If he represents his wife, his daugh.
tiers at the polls, he should have vote for each
I one and get them to tell him how to cast their