University of Virginia Library

Fourth Objection.

A few years since I was unexpectedly called on to make a few
remarks to some two hundred women, teachers in our public schools.
I began by quoting the lines:

I added: "You observe that Browning calls man the meanest of
God's creatures." Immediately one of my auditors, in a stage whisper
that was heard all over the room, snapped out: "That's true;
that's just what he is." Now I admit that a man without a soul side
to show a woman when he loves her is a powerfully mean creature;
and to preserve this soul side I would deny women the right to vote,
for the soul side which a man shows a woman when he loves her
makes him more Godlike than any other faculty he possesses; and
the greater his resemblance to his maker the better for women. To
give women votes will mar this soul side, and tend to destroy sentiment
between the sexes; and you will remember that even the
equal suffrage advocate who would not "stand for the chivalry of the
sweatshop," declared that to eliminate sentiment between the sexes
would give us a "foretaste of hell." I would save my countrymen
and countrywomen from this foretaste in the hope, amongst other
things, that thereby they may escape the full draught.

Am I urging an ideal? I am and I should; for conditions are the
outgrowth of ideals, and the higher the one the better the other.
This is a materialistic age. The world and his wife are shop keepers,
and the many inevitable tendencies of the times are against the
higher ideals! and there is therefore so much the more need to
guard those ideals in every possible way. I have always advocated
enlarging woman's bread and butter sphere, for often a woman's
needs may require her to engage in work not most suitable for
women; and by engaging in such work she should not suffer in the
esteem of any, for most women so employed can, and do, retain in
great, if not always in perfect, degree those qualities which pleasantly
distinguish them from men. Unfortunately, however, these
occupations, for one reason or another, too often cause men to
display to women the soul side with which the men face the world;
and to inject women into politics will intensify this disposition and
multiply the opportunities for its exhibition. A father and his sons
are more apt to agree as to matters political than a father and his
daughters; the occasions for differences as to politics are perennial,
and the whole atmosphere during a political campaign is so full of
charges and countercharges of all kinds of bad faith, selfishness, and
wrong purposes, to say nothing of the wisdom or unwisdom of the
policies at issue, that every one taking part in the campaign, or especially
interested in it, is likely to be affected by its spirit; and
many political battles will resolve themselves into contests between
the sexes. The influences of a political contest will more intensely
affect the women than the men of a community because of the
greater emotionalism of women. We should not forget that women,
even those of normal health and strength, are often subject to hysteria,
a condition that men are seldom subject to, except when on
the verge of madness. A man of wealth who had spent years in
travel and visited all parts of Europe and other portions of the world
once said to me that the women of our country should thank God
daily that they are Americans. Undoubtedly the American women
are the most fortunate women in the world; then why destroy, or
endanger even, a condition for which daily thanks should be given?