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inherited property in gambling and drinking, takes away the money starvation
has compelled you to earn, and then beats you for more, you must submit in
silence, for you can obtain no redress and if you clamor for reform, you will be
termed that horror of horrors 'a strong-minded man.'"
Thus taught and trained what sort of a man would he make ? If possessed of
any spirit would he not fret and beat against his chains? Then if parental
authority and society sneeringly smiled at any higher aspirations, ridiculed his
attempts to escape, and forcibly held him in his "sphere," (so-called), would he
not become an idling, inane, silly, dandified puppy.
Yet the majority of girls are thus taught and trained. From this false system of
teaching and practice, energetic reformers are endeavoring to emancipate
women. If freedom, education, labor, business, responsibility, franchise, and
aims are needed to fully develop men, are they not also needed to fully develop
women? Let women feel that they are "free and equal," that an occupation is
honorable, and that their acts, opinions and influence are of some importance,
and they will desert the ranks of ignorance, idleness and folly.
Suffrage is the gate to fields beyond. Fields of labor, of education, of
development. Merely the privilege of voting the Republican or Democratic
ticket is not our aim, but to make "perfect women, nobly planned."
Croakers prate of evils which will follow the legal and political equality of
woman. Every great change is accompanied by temporary evils. But this fact
still remains--right is right. And further, liberty does not mean license; nor does
the right of ballot annul woman's peculiar duties and responsibilities.
With woman's enfranchisement will come elevation and thorough education.
With thorough education will come a just appreciation and a better performance
of her duties. In the marriage relation she will take her true position as a helpmeet--a woman, not merely as a female.
"But women do not use the privileges they have, why give them more?" ask the
oppositionists. True, women as a class do neglect their privileges, they are yet
sleeping in a chrysalis state, but there is a promise of what they can be, of what
they may be. In the old slavery days, men said: "The slaves will not work
without a driver, they cannot support themselves, they are incapable of selfgovernment, and they must remain dependent." But the emancipation has
shown how unfounded, how empty their assertions. In the same manner the
emancipation of women will reveal stamina, powers and resources among them
yet unimagined.