Page:A-Kentucky-Woman-Dec1892-NationalBulletin-p2.jpg

 vote. Indeed I fear that even with the help of woman's votes it will be long, long before we bring to pass the reforms we so much desire. Nevertheless I want the ballot, because, as a citizen of a "representative government," and a republic that guarantees "universal suffrage," and as a member of a party that believes in "the largest individual liberty," the right to vote is my right of which I am defrauded.

This is my sole reason: I want this thing because it is my own.

Do these words seem absurd coming from an obscure woman whose life is bounded by the four walls of home and whose days are filled with the homely duties of wifehood and motherhood?

Taxation without representation was the wrong that moved our forefathers to a bloody war. Doubtless, in those troubled days there were some coward souls who preached peace and forbearance to the freedom-loving ones to whom Justice was so dear that they were ready to die in her cause. Why did they not drink their tea and be at peace with England. Was not the taxed tea of England cheaper than the un-taxed tea of any other country. What mattered a principle so long as they got their tea?

The blood of men who fought in that Revolution flows in my veins, and when I hear men and women say "Why should you want to vote? What difference can it make to you personally, whether you are allowed to exercise your right of suffrage or not?" the spirit of my ancestors rises in me, and I can scarcely curb the indignant words that rush to my lips.

Have women no sense of right and wrong, no love for freedom, no patriotism, no self-respect that they are expected to roll injustice as a sweet morsel under their tongues?

Two years ago I heard from the lips of a lovely Southern woman a few words that I shall never forget. She was a typical Southerner, exquisitely dressed, fair of face, gentle and refined in voice and manner. We were speaking of the progressiveness of the women of the New South, and finally our conversation drifted to the ballot. "I don't know that I am very anxious to vote," she said in her soft, musical tones, "but I don't exactly like being told that I cannot." This is the utterance of self-respecting womanhood, that will have right because it is right, that hates wrong because it is wrong, and chafes under even the shadow of a despotism:

"The largest individual liberty consistent with the rights of others ensures the highest type of American citizenship and the best government." Therefore it matters not whether the majority of women want the ballot or not, they should have in this matter the same "individual liberty" that men have. If an honest man by any chance comes into possession of property belonging to another he does not wait for the owner to ask him for it; he goes straight-way and restores it. It matters not whether women ever use this privilege, or not, it should be theirs just as it is mans. It is useless to tell me that I have enough rights without this, and that if I had it I would not put it to a good use. As well might the thief with his hands in the coffers of some wealthy man excuse his robberty by urging that the man he was robbing had enough money without that which he was about to take, and that if he did not take it the lawful owner would probably put it to some bad use.

In "Looking Backward," Bellamy says "It seems to me that women were more than any other class the victims of your civilization. There is something which even at this distance of time, penetrates one with pathos in the spectacle of their undeveloped lives, stunted at marriage, their narrow horizon bounded so often, physically, by the four walls of home, and morally by a petty creed of personal interests. * *  *  From the great sorrows, as well as the petty frets of life, they had no refuge in the breezy outdoor world of human affairs, nor any interest save those of the family. Such an existence would have softened men's brains or driven them mad."

Is not this a perfect picture of the average woman's life today? And what has been the consequence to herself and to man?

In the language of Shylock women may say "If you wrong us, shall we not revenge?"

Wronged of her educational rights, her social rights, her political rights, condemned to be a "keeper at home," "a hewer of wood and a drawer of water," she has revenged herself on man by her stupidity, by her childishness, by her frivolity, by her weakness of body, her weakness of mind, by the thousand and one frailties springing from a case of "arrested development."

The varied objections to woman suffrage when sifted and analyzed revolve themselves into this, "Women must not vote because they are women."

On the contrary, if I were asked to give a second reason, it would be "Women ought to vote because they are women," that is, human beings, part and parcel of that "whole creation" which "groaneth and travaileth together in pain until now."

Once more paraphrasing Shakespeare we may say: "I am a woman. Hath not a woman eyes? Hath not a woman hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, heated by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same summer and winter as a man is? If you prick us do we not