Women -- Suffrage -- History; Women -- Suffrage -- United States -- History; Women's rights -- History; Women's rights -- United States -- History
The good women who wrote and published this declaration, fancying
that they were throwing a bombshell into the gathered crowds of
American (male) citizens, are very much in earnest, doubtless,
and are entitled--we have platform authority for saying it--to
"respectful consideration"; but their movement scarcely rises, as
yet at least, to the dignity of a great historical event. There
is a prevailing indifference to their cause which is against it.
The public is not aroused to a fever heat of indignation over the
wrongs which women are everywhere suffering at the hands of the
tyrants called husbands. The popular mind is not yet awake to the
fact that men usually imprison their wives in back parlors and
maltreat them shamefully. The witnesses, wives to wit, refuse to
bear testimony to this effect, and the public placidly accepts
appearance for reality and believes that the gentlewomen who ride
about in their carriages or haunt the shops of our cities in gay
apparel are reasonably well contented with their lot in life. In
a word, it is not hostility so much as calm indifference with
which the advocates of woman suffrage have to contend, and
unluckily for them the indifference is very largely
feminine.--[New York _Evening Post_.
There is something awful in the thought that should the woman
suffragists be continually refused a voice in the affairs of the
nation they might at last in a fit of desperation, do what our
fathers did, and frame a declaration of independence, No, 2. Just
think of an army of crinolines willing to take arms against the
tyrant man, and sacrifice their lives, if need be, to carry out
their principles! It is easier to ridicule the woman suffrage
movement than to answer the arguments advanced by some of the
leading advocates of that question. It is only the innate
mildness of the position of women in general that has prevented a
revolution on this same subject long ago. One hundred thousand
such fire-eaters as Susan B. Anthony or Elizabeth Cady Stanton in
the land, could raise a rumpus which would cause the late
unpleasantness to pale into insignificance. Armed and equipped,
what a sight would be presented by an army of strong-minded
women! There would be no considering the question of whether the
cavalry should ride side-saddle, or _a la_ clothes-pin. Such
detail would be of too small importance to receive the slightest
attention; the more vital questions would be, "How can we
slaughter the most men?" "How can we soonest convince the demons
that we have rights which must be respected?" The fact is, that
if these down-trodden women would take a firm stand in any thing
like respectable numbers, and assert their claims to suffrage at
the point of the bayonet, they would be allowed everything they
asked for.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account