The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1916-11-23
THE LADY FROM MONTANA.

Miss jeanette Rankin, Congress-
woman elect from Montana, is said to be
an aggressive suffragist and prohibition
list, good seamstress and cook. She
is small and slight and has light brown
hair. Miss Rankin is graduate of the
University of Montana and of the School
of Philanthropy of New York City. The
lady's age is not given, and nothing is
said in the press reports as to personal
pulchritude.
The first Congresswoman will be sworn
in as a member of the House of Repre-
sentatiyes when the new Congress is
organized. 1t will not be many years
until there will be more women in Con-
gress. Woman's suffrage has come in
the West. 1t is coming in the East, and
in time women will be given the vote in
the South. The women of the South do
not seem to care greatly about the matter
just now but changes in business and
social conditions will bring it about in
Dixie as elsewhere.
The ballot was not given, we think, to
men of all classes of society because they
were supposed to be sufficiently informed
in public affairs to vote intelligently on
all questions that should come before
them. Only small per cent of the
people of these most intelligent United
States know anything worth mentioning
about the tariff laws. Few know any
thing of our foreign affairs, and foreign
affairs was the chief issue in the national
campaign just finished. The ballot was
demanded by the people and granted to
them to be used in their own defense
against those more powerful citizens who
may from time to time feel disposed to
go too far in exploiting the less FORUM
ate but greater body of the people.
The world has become very CONNER
cial-a very money eager world. In the
haste to get wealth women have been
crowded into the various fields of work
of all the Christian nations of the earth.
Man can make corporation but he
cannot give it a conscience. A corpo-
ration is an artificial body without even
an artificial conscience. 1t has all the
human qualifications for transacting
affairs save that which insures remorse
as a consequence of evil doing. Women
by hundreds of thousands are employed
in the factories, department stores and
sweatshops of the world, and in years
past they have been worked for a pitiful
wage. The story OF women as workers
is too sad tale to be told again and too
we'll known to need the retelling. The
women in those parts Of our country
where they are thus employed want the
ballot as protection against their en-
ployers. As the South becomes more
commercial the women wageworkers OF
the South will want the ballot, and they
will get it. ,-
81 Civilization will not turn backward
and change the condition that causes
women in highly concentrated states
to demand equal suffrage. The family
with one head has finally ceased to bt
the rule in society which expects wage
earning of women as we'll as of men
Whether the disorganization of the old
fashioned family means the beginning
OF the end of our civilization or TIT
insuring Of still higher and more desir
able order Of things, we do not know
Certainly there must be primary models
upon which society and government Cal
organize. The family has always beer
the first principle of all governmental
organizations in ages past and tn
strength and efficiency of the govern
ment has depended upon the respect 10
authority as taught the citizen or subjec
in the family with an authoritative head
A society and government built upon tn
individual instead Of upon the organize,
family may prove to be as efficient, o
more so. We do not know. But respec
for law, obedience to authority, must b
taught the children of this generation
for government cannot otherwise endure
The equalization of the sexes-the dis
organization of the family-means reor
ganization upon the individual; tota
reorganization of society if, indeed, W