Josiah Allen on the Woman QuestionHolley, Marietta
General
Josiah Allen on the Woman Question
Holley, Marietta
Feminism -- Fiction; Humorous stories; Sex role -- Fiction; Women's rights -- Fiction
As I've intimidated before, to a smart hustlin' bizness man who looks
out for his own interest, it is absolutely appallin' to see how
Woman Suffragists stand in their own light. But in my talk about the
shiftless ways of these wimmen, and their tetotle inability to see
where their interests lays, I want to make a honorable exception of
the modest retirin' She Auntys. Them wimmen, though females, have got
some good horse sense; they know which side their bread is buttered and
they lay out to keep it right side up. They know who helps butter that
bread. They know it is better to ride round in palace cars to their
lectures agin Female Suffrage, helped by them who hate that cause like
pizen, than it is to walk afoot. And they know enough to grasp special
priveliges, and enjoy 'em, and they lay out to help the ones that help
them.
Liquor dealers have got oceans of horse sense, and oceans of money, and
they let that money flow along where it will do the most good, into
female channels if necessary. Anything to dam up the big waters of
Reform from risin' up and washin' 'em away, and stop Woman Suffragists
from ruinin' their bizness, and tellin' petickulars and votin'. And
I'll ask this question of any man or woman with the brains of a
angleworm or caterpillar--Hain't it easier to float along with the
current, than to fight agin it and go in the other direction? Why a
fool ort to know it is.
You won't ketch them She Auntys a peekin' round huntin' for every
little petickular about what the Liquor Dealers' Association stands
for, and talk and tattle about the effects of liquor sellin', no
indeed. And I want to say and own up that when I find a spark of horse
sense in a female, I'm willin' to own up to seein' that spark shinin'
out agin the background of females' nateral ignorance and folly.
We Jonesvillians reconize smartness and horse sense, and I want to
encourage and happify them She Auntys by sayin', that the Creation
Searchin' Society of Jonesville will never be found throwin' out no
slurs agin them. Neither will I as a male man, and a celebrated author,
ever be found mockin' and sneerin' at 'em.
Of course they are females, but considerin' the limited amount of
brains that females have and their scurcity of horse sense, they have
done and are doin' the best they can. The Creation Searchin' Society of
Jonesville and the Liquor Dealers' Association stand up hand in hand,
with me in the midst, and publicly reconize their humble helpfulness,
and what more in the way of honor can any human female ask for?
I always despised petickulars, every male man duz. It's nateral when
our minds are took up with big things, big thoughts, petickulars jar on
us; we hain't got the time for 'em in our busy lives. But I believe few
of my bretheren can say what I can, that petickulars come within one of
bein' the death on 'em.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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