The Brookings register. [volume] (Brookings, Brookings County, S.D.) 1903-1971, 1916-11-02

son, in her ~anti-suffrage speech, Of a
certain Roman senator who came into
the senate chamber one morning in 4
very perturbed and excited state of
mind, making sneering and uncompli-
mentary remarks because he had been
a~ssailed by a crowd of women carrying
III suffrage banners. "Votes for
women" is most significant. There is
nothing new or remarkable in this. She
need not go to Rome for such exam
pies. We have them in plenty in the
U. S. Senate today. She also told us
that the Roman Republic was so gradu-
ally, stealthily and quietly merged
created hardly a ruffle on the surface
of society. Now Miss Bronson is GER
tainly aware of this fact that it was
these same forces that | have been re-
ferring to that were directly RESPONSE
BILE not only for the overthrow of the
Roman Republic but the utter destruc-
ton of the empire as well. And that
these same forces are not only behind
her in her campaign against equal suf-
frage but are behind every purchas-
able man or woman senator, preacher,
teacher or what not in their effort to
%subjugate the people and retain the
prestige they now enjoy. Miss Bron-
son knows these to be facts but she is
not hired to give facts but to juggle
them at which she is an adept.
For fear that some may think these
statements unwarranted let me give
you some of the facts known to every
student of Roman history. Roman So
ciety was divided into two great
classes, the patrician, the representa-
tive of wealth, and the plebeian, the
representatives of labor, the common
people. The patrician, although the
much smaller numerically, had largely
through their wealth the management
of governmental affairs. This control
they retained exactly as they do today.
Their money was freely used. Every
purchasable element in society was
employed. Every legislative body, the
courts, the army, the press and even
the church were made tools to help
them retain their supremacy and bring
the plebeian into subsection.
!
Instances like what is known as the
massacre of Sudlow on which the
Rockefeller and ~Guggenheim interests
in Colorado shipped by special train a
lot of armed hired thugs (not Ameri-
can soldiers remember) into a little de-
fenseless mining town and deliberately
shot down by the score men, women
and children for no other reason than
that they were c~ontending for better
living conditions can be paralleled in
Roman history. Now what was the re-
suit of it all The breach between the
two classes became wider. The rich
became richer and the poor poorer. The
number of patricians smaller, plebei-
ans larger. The rule of wealth be-
came more arrogant and intolerable,
the little representation the common
people had in the government was
taken from them just as they would
like to do today. The democracy of
Rome gave place to an aristocracy,
ending up with a militarism that was
distasteful to rich and poor alike. And
the whole nation became so enervated
by idleness and luxury and dissipation
or the n hand and poverty and ignor-
ance and ~servility on the other that
there was no patriotism or sturdy man.
hood left to resist the ~barbarians from
the north from sweeping right down
upon them and wiping them out Of ex-
istence.
Is 1t any wonder hat some of our
women who know what it is to live in
the sod shanty" in their early pioneer
ing and who have given Of the very
best that is in them in the building up
of a state that we might be proud of
should resent the importation of the
hiring who would rob t hem of a just
and fair representation in the govern
ment of the state that they had done
so much to produce, and that feeling
these things so keenly and intensely.
and sensing the dangers confronting
us 80 acutely. they should do some
things that might be open to criticism.
Now dear voter when you open your
mail box on the day before election
and find 1t full Of antisuffrage litera-
ture some of it indecent and false and
all of 1t an insult to the intelligence of
the thinking man. remember who is
back Of 1t all and to vote with 10 to
vote for and he true and fair to the
thousands OF our best women who are
asking for the privilege Of expressing
their opinion in the only place that
counts. the ballot box and. vote yes on
Az Akh N~A~A--- AA.