The farmer and mechanic., 1915-03-02
Equal Suffrage
fCntinued from Page Sixteen>


IF there is lack of sanitation, their
children suffer and die. II puDHc
morals are not guarded the evils lali
upon their sons Ii wars consume Tue
youth Of the land they suffer more
than the fathers. They nave even
more interest in good government aho
in preventing bad government tnan
the men. They are as intelligent and
| as patriotic as the men. 1t Will ado
| to the stability OF the government 20
give them a share in its control.
3. Mr.. Lincoln in his celebrated
| Gettysburg speech said that this IS
government Of the people, by the
| people and for the people. Ihe
| United States Supreme Court has SOL
EMMY decided that women are peo-
pie. We knew it before the court told
US So Yet we have a government OF
all the people, for all the people, put
by half the people. No wonder MT.
Lincoln said that it was unjust 70 ex-
clude the women from the suffrage.
/ 4. There are those who are afraid
that the women will seek office and
thereby crowd out the men. But that
has not been the experience where
equal suffrage obtains. AS a rule they
do not seek office. They have more
sense than men IN this regard as Well
| as in some others. Their interest IS
more in obtaining good government
and seeing that the men run it right.
| They remind me Of an instance that
I observed when / was in Kansas.
There was & line field Of wheat OF
some 80 acres near Topeka, and
gentleman told me that man and
his wife had raised the crop and
harvested it. I told him | had seen
the man on the reaper bat I had not
seen the woman taking any hand. He
said that she had done 50 ali the
same: that she had always sat at the
door and whenever the man sat down
! to rest she had shaken the brOOmstick
at hinl. That is the vocation Of the
women as q rule Where they vote.
1t does not follow because the Wo-
men are not office seekers that they
are incompetent to fill office. We
know that in scripture times Deborah
was Judge over all Israel Besides
many other noted female rulers. the
| best two sovereigns that England has
ever known were Victoria, and Eliza
t beth. The greatest sovereign of Rus
sia was Catherine the Great: ia Aus
t tria Maria Theresa and in Spain Isa-
bella to whom the world owes the dis
, coyery OF America by the aid she gave
f to Columbus.
A Logical Developments
.. Equal suffrage is not only a de-
L Velopment of democracy which has
! gradually extended the suffrage to all
0 men ana IS now extending it to wo-
S men, but it is also logical develop
ment Of the movement which has
$ elevated women to the rights Of hu-
S man beings. Up to about one hun.
Ia dred years ago a rule they were moi
= educated. When the first college fo,
y women was established some eighty
+ or ninety years ago it's dangerous ten.
h dency was denounced even more mar
SuiIraSe IS now. After education was
acquired, then the movement beran r.
give them property rights. Up to 1855
IN TINS State upon marriage all q wo
n mans personal property became abso
lutely that of her husband. And he]
real estate became his for life. Wher
Al 1t was proposed to change there wa,
IF howl all along the line that II W.
men owned their own property ever,
or couple would become divorced Rn
~ tnat movement succeeded. Up 10 1877.
the supreme Court of this State hel,
y lhat II man thrashed his wife Will
81 sWltch no larger than his thuml
J.. ana dld not permanently iniure her
=, Inat the courts would not protect her
IN that year, just forty-one wear
or ago, Judge Settle of this city oon
IS 1erred lasting honor upon himself an,
upon tne supreme Court of this Stat
s. by holding that we have .'at last ad
he vanced from that barbarisrn.'' and De
10 nled the right of husbands 10 flo
a tnelr wives any longer. In the las
O. rev years the court has held that ;
&c woman acquired any property d
ts her needle or otherwise it became tb
IN property of her husband, and thar ;
In like Mrs. Price. of Charlotte, she los
IL limb in railroad accident her hus
MT band and not herself was entitled +
as pay for her physical injury and s,f
of fering and loss of time The leer;eIa
ture has since changed this and man
e other unjust things which woni
on never have existed il the women ha
ch had the right of suffrage.
tie I will not take the tinoe ~
m ton the determinations in tho -.
us against women, which have ohfaino
on because they had no voice in chooe
We ing legislators and judges ~
en- shadow cast by the coming era
r. eauaI s suffrage has already cause
'e- some Of these discriminations -
tic repealed. AT this session a. vo,,n
islature they have already permitts s