Ellsworth American., 1917-05-02
WOMAN SUFFRAGE.

'OMAN OOE L RAUL.
tfapes y DR.. George A. Phillips. read beyoy.
"omans Club Ut Bar Harbor.
Let us not deceive ourselves, we who
are the "iords Of creation" Let us be
honest when we inquire the reason for
opposing women's franchise, when we
| scorn their desire to vote. When we
inquire for the real reason. it IL a bit
humiliating, for it came down to us from
iar oack In time. 1t is the same reason
that had US keep SO long to the reasoning
OF Plutarch, who represents the advanced
thought Of Greece. He said, IA wife
should have no friends but those Of her
husband, she should have no gods but
those her husband address,
No one at all acquainted with the SUBJ
tect will deny, 1 think, the vast relative
change in the status OF women. Back in
the days Of Grecian civilization, at it's
"high noon," at Athens, sThe Age Of
Greece" the "Mother Of Arts" stands
Pericles, the great orator, himself incar-
nate, Greece, speaking the Grafton over
the Peloponnesian dead, be said: 1.-THE
greatest glory of woman is to be the least
talked Of among men,"
The chief monument OF Roman civiliza-
tion is the Law which underlies our own.
Burke quotes the great commentator on
that law as saying: ''It was the dis
tinction OF Roman law that it treated
women not rs persons, but rs things"
The mother of Demosthenes was left by
| will to Aphothas, and under the old
Roman law the husband had the power of
life and death over the wife, the mother Of
his children.
You may know that no Jewish rabbi, in
the days when their faith was young, was
| allowed to speak to a woman in public.
Turning to the writings OF great scholar
Of this early civilization who has been
quoted far and wide approvingly because
OF his rare knowledge OF people and events,
we find this then accepted estimate Of
woman: "Women at all times have been
inconstant, even among the celestials.
In infancy the father should guard her, in
youth her husband, in old age her chill
dren, for at no time is q woman flt to be
trusted with liberty. Infdelity, violence,
deceit, envy, total want Of good quail
ties, with impunity, are the innate faults
OF womsnkind."
1t Is in the more ancient drama that we
find the wife addressing her lord and master
in the dialect Of slave. The Turk would
blush and apologize when he mentioned
his wife, as il guilty OF an impertinence.
Going farther back into prehistoric times,
to the cave-dweller, there we find our
first known brute law handed down even
to now with lessening force the brutal
tyrant with his club, the meek, subser-
Went slave worshiping her lord and
master as the lazy cruel wretch drove
her to her toll.
Here we have the answer. Here is the
reason OF philosophy OF evolution, the
only real reason why man has fought
universal suffrage through the last CEN
OF name. 1t has come down with race,
slowly, under the great law OF evolution
giving way, but still with US in both
sexes brutality and submission.
rising between her and all progress,
social, religious or political, blocking the
door OF the church, standing at the en-
trance to literature, art, to legal enac-
ment and institutions OF learning, to the
business and professional world, ay, to
dignity and Independence, has risen
dark and awful and unholy, the spectre
OF ''woman's sphere"
From Caesar to Lincoln; from her days
OF degradation in the past to the
civilization in which we live and in
which we glory; from the slave to the
queen, every step has been challenged,
every mile has been fought against the
heralded belief that only repeats but
never surrenders, that no change in her
condition can occur without loss OF that
grace which men declare they SO much
admire and which belongs alone to
woman's realm. But, step by step, by
that process that lies beneath and behind
all change, that pushes US on whether we
will or no and whittier we cannot see, she
has entered and conquered thousand
battIefields. And what man shall say
that in all that is full of grace, all that
we call feminine, and all that is serene
and fair to look upon, woman ever held
at her best place so complete, ever
praced her throne with greater charm,
than now.
II would be interesting, il time allowed,
to trace the gradual emancipation OF
women, il that term is allowable, but we
cannot do SO in the time you have SC
kindly loaned me. 1t must be confined,
however, mostly to suggestion. From the
old Roman days to long after Shakespeare
outside Of few immortalized in religious
history, the growth was slow as to respect
and reverence. The same old prejudice
was there.
Let us glance moment at nearer years
1t is only back to Johnson's time thai
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