Feminism -- Fiction; Sex role -- Fiction; Women's rights -- Fiction
But if you’ll believe it, I had hardly got the words out of my mouth
and Josiah had jest laid holt of the water pail, when in comes
Philander Dagget, the President of the Jonesville Creation Searchin’
Society and, of course, he had a job for us to do on our tower. This
Society was started by the leadin’ men of Jonesville, for the purpose
of searchin’ out and criticizin’ the affairs of the world, an’ so far
as possible advisin’ and correctin’ the meanderin’s an’ wrong-doin’s of
the universe.
This Society, which we call the C.S.S. for short, has been ruther quiet
for years. But sence woman’s suffrage has got to be such a prominent
question, they bein’ so bitterly opposed to it, have reorganized and
meet every once in a while, to sneer at the suffragettes and poke fun
at ’em and show in every way they can their hitter antipathy to the
cause.
Philander told me if I see anything new and strikin’ in the way of
Society badges and regalia, to let him know about it, for he said the
C.S.S. was goin’ to take a decided stand and show their colors. They
wuz goin’ to help protect his women endangered sect, an’ he wanted
sunthin’ showy and suggestive.
I thought of a number of badges and mottoes that I felt would be
suitable for this Society, but dassent tell ’em to him, for his idees
and mine on this subject are as fur apart as the two poles. He talked
awful bitter to me once about it, and I sez to him:
“Philander, the world is full of good men, and there are also bad men
in the world, and, sez I, did you ever in your born days see a bad man
that wuzn’t opposed to Woman’s Suffrage? All the men who trade in, and
profit by, the weakness and sin of men and women, they every one of
’em, to a man, fight agin it. And would they do this if they didn’t
think that their vile trades would suffer if women had the right to
vote? It is the great-hearted, generous, noble man who wants women to
become a real citizen with himself—which she is not now—she is only a
citizen just enough to be taxed equally with man, or more
exhorbitantly, and be punished and executed by the law she has no hand
in makin’.”
Philander sed, “I have always found it don’t pay to talk with women on
matters they don’t understand.”
An’ he got up and started for the door, an’ Josiah sed, “No, it don’t
pay, not a cent; I’ve always said so.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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