第53章 CHAPTER XII.(1)

WOMAN'S SUFFRAGE

In all ages woman has taken an active part in the defense of man. She is the best defender he ever had on earth, because she is his mother.

True mothers think more of the interest of their children than of their own. God intended it so, All animals have a care for their offspring.

The hen will fight the hawk or dog, even man, to defend her little chicks.

The farmer's wife will not set a hen the second time that will not fight for her little chickens. Such hens are taken to market. I have heard my mother say: "I must set that hen again for she is such a good mother." The mother bear will die fighting for her cubs. The hunters say they dislike to kill her, because of her mother love, that never yields up those two little cubs that she places behind her, and then fights until she dies. This is the mother love of a brute,--what ought to be that of the human family?

If a man starts a ranch to raise cattle he protects the females in raising their young. He will kill the animals that will destroy his stock, and if he produces the pelt or scalp of these animals the state pays him a bounty. How is it with the human mothers? They produce the most valuable offspring, but this licensed traffic is defended, while children are murdered before our eyes and our hands are tied so we cannot rescue them. No one will say but that woman represents more morality than man, also that the mother is more interested in the children than the father; then of course, the party who has the most care and love should be allowed the largest privilege to exercise it.

America claims more civilization than any other nation on earth. In the main this is so. But certainly she is not true to the motherhood, and THIS is her peril.. Some of the best reigns have been those of queens.

All nations have had their women rulers, but the mothers of America are not allowed to say who shall be the ones to help them make good citizens of their own children, while their bitter foes prey upon their offspring as cannibals. A widow with six sons has a little home. She is taxed the same in proportion as the brewer, who carries on the human butcher-shop that grinds up the six sons of the widow. He and his crowd (republicans and democrats) have the ballot that smashes the poor widow's boys and takes her substance to prosecute her boys after they are made criminals, to pay for their arrest, to build a jail for them. Her heart is broken, home is gone, and disgrace is hers. To accomplish this she is rendered helpless by having no voice or ballot to protect herself.

God never made an animal that he did not give it some means of defense.

While I am writing this I am in Bridgeport, Connecticut. I find this a city of eighty-two thousand. The PRESIDENT of the board of education is P. W. Wren, who is president of the Connecticut Breweries and owner of one of the largest wholesale whiskey houses in the state. This is as consistent as if one were to start a ranch to raise chickens, ducks, pigs and calves and then place a wolf to guard them from harm, The business of the brewer is to sell beer. No animal but mankind will use this rotten slop, for the others by instinct know it is poison. No man would let his horses drink it, for they would be dangerous instead of being useful. The only way to make the brewer's business profitable is to have boys and girls as consumers. The brewer is not the worst to blame. It is the voter. Mothers would never vote for such a man to be the public guardian of the morals of their children. All liquor men, or liquor license men, are opposed to woman's suffrage, for the reason that should women vote, we would have prohibition or abolition of the vice. The women saved prohibition in Topeka in the year 1903 by five hundred majority, while it would have been lost by two hundred if men only had voted. The contest was between the WET and DRY mayors. Where women have the ballot, even in municipal affairs, no state has resubmitted or brought back the saloon. God said: "It is not good for man to be alone.

I will make him a helpmate, a partner, a companion, a guardian." When man elevates a woman he elevates himself. A degraded woman means many degraded men. Free men must be the sons of free women. This land cannot be the land of the free or home of the brave, until woman gets her freedom and men are brave and just to award it to her. No man can have the true impulse of liberty and want his mother to be a slave.

The constitution of the United States starts out by saying. "We, the people of the United States." Women are people as well as men. Therefore I advise all women to go to the polls and vote in spring and fall elections.

We want the moral, intellectual electorate. The brewer, distiller, saloon man, their agents, even the colored man was given a vote, and never asked for it. The foreigners in a few months, or a year, after landing, are given the ballot, but the loving, true defenders of God, home and all the best interests of humanity, are compelled to see their sons, husbands, and fathers, murdered before their eyes, without the sign of a protest from the government under which they live. The outrageous unfairness of this is quite evident when we consider that the ballot is represented and controlled by the worst element, when it should be by the best. The women are more affected by oppression than man. She is the mother, the rest are the children.

The mother would vote to save the boy.

The mother would do nothing to injure her boy.

The mother makes a good citizen of her son.

The saloon man votes to make drunkards.

The saloon man does all to injure.

The saloon man makes bad citizens.

The best voters are cast out for President, the vilest are put in, no wonder we have a snob and brewers choice.