Women -- Suffrage -- History; Women -- Suffrage -- United States -- History; Women's rights -- History; Women's rights -- United States -- History
One can not but wish that with his expressed desire for "fair
play" and his policy of "a square deal" it had occurred to the
President that, if five million American women are employed in
gainful occupations, every principle of justice would demand that
they should be enfranchised to enable them to secure legislation
for their own protection. In all governments a subject class is
always at a disadvantage and at the mercy of the ruling class. It
matters not whether its name be Empire, Kingdom or Republic,
whether the rulers are one or many; and in a democracy there is
no way known for any class to protect its interests or to be
secure in its most sacred rights except through the power of the
ballot....
There had been about this time in high places an outburst of attacks
on woman suffrage and predictions as to its dangerous possibilities.
Dr. Shaw referred to their authors as Oracles and said: "The great
difficulty is that when one Oracle claiming to be divinely inspired
has laid down a specific line of conduct which if implicitly followed
would lead to the proper development of woman, the happiness of man,
the good of the family and the well-being of the State, another Oracle
also divinely enlightened lays out a different path by which these
ends may be secured, and then another and another until poor women if
they should try to follow these self-appointed divine revealers would
not only have to be hydra-headed to see these devious paths but
hydra-footed to walk in them." Referring to Cardinal Gibbons, she
said:
The Oracle of Baltimore tells us that the education and culture
of women are good up to a certain point, no further, but he
sagely fails to define the point, simply declaring that "too much
education of the head is apt to cool the heart; the cultivation
of the soul is too much neglected in the higher education; the
head and the heart and the body should all be educated together;
then they develop equally." There certainly can be no
disagreement among us as to the latter statement but why is it
more applicable to women than to men? The Oracle does not leave
us in doubt as to his view, for in response to the question,
"What do you think of the societies and club organizations which
attract women so largely just now?" he replies: "A society like
the Daughters of the American Revolution I heartily approve of,
for it tends to foster patriotism and keep it alive, but other
clubs of all kinds for women I strictly disapprove of."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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