Women -- Suffrage -- History; Women -- Suffrage -- United States -- History; Women's rights -- History; Women's rights -- United States -- History
Mrs. Stewart took up the objections made by many of the clergy to
woman suffrage and applied these to the ministers themselves. "They
should not vote," she said with fine sarcasm, "because like women they
are exempt from jury duty. They seldom go to war--some of them are too
old, others too delicate, some too near-sighted, some too far-sighted.
Ministers as a rule are not heavy tax-payers. Many of them do not want
to vote and do not use the vote they have. A preacher has not time to
vote. It might lead him to neglect his pastoral duties. Political
feeling often runs high and if he voted it might make quarrels in the
church. The minister has a potent indirect influence. He would be
contaminated by the corruption of politics. He is represented by his
male relations; they are not as good and pure as he is and are
probably immune from contamination by politics."
Mrs. Catt, who presided, in presenting the Rev. Mrs. Blackwell, one of
the first to make the fight for the right of women to speak in public,
said: "The combination of her sweet personality and her invincible
soul has won friends for woman suffrage wherever she has gone." Her
address on Suffrage and Education showed the evolution in woman's
work. "My grandmother taught me to spin," she said, "but the men have
relieved womankind from that task and as they have taken so many
industrial burdens off of our hands it is our duty to relieve them of
some of their burdens of State." Introducing Mrs. Coggeshall of Iowa
Mrs. Catt said: "When I get discouraged I think of her and for many a
year she has been one of my strongest inspirations." A Portland paper
commented: "Her snow-white hair and demure face give no indication of
the brilliant repartee and sharp argument of which she is capable." In
her Word from the Middle West she said: "Its women are determined to
have the ballot if they have to bear and raise the sons to give it to
them. This scheme is in active operation. I myself have raised
three--eighteen feet for woman suffrage--and others have done better.
No bugle can ever sound retreat for the women of the Middle West." The
_Oregonian_ said of Miss Laughlin's address:
Her arguments are the straight, convincing kind that leave
nothing for the other fellow to say. She comes to Oregon a lawyer
of New York who is proudly boasted of, and justly, by her fellow
workers as the woman who carried off the oratorical honors of
Cornell and won for that institution the championship in
intercollegiate debating contests.... In asking for a "Square
Deal" Miss Laughlin said:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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