The safety, foundation and base of any government rests in the homes of
the people. The stability and permanence of any government depends upon
the happiness and contentment of the people in their home relations.
When any radical change in the laws of the government is contemplated,
the first thing to be considered is whether or not that change will
disturb or make the home life of the people unhappy, and whether it will
have a tendency to destroy the home integrity of the people and their
love and attachment for each other and for their homes. Any change in
the government, no matter what it may be, that will cause the people of
the government to be discontented in their home relations, should not be
made.
The author cannot conceive how it is possible for any human being
to believe that if women are given the franchise, it will not disturb
home relations and the home life of the people. Women cannot take men's
places in politics, and at the same time make happy homes for their
husbands and other members of their families. That would be an
impossibility.
When women become legal voters, they will be, after that time,
just as much to blame for neglecting their duties, if they do not vote
and attend caucuses and conventions, as the men are.
There is one class of good women, who do not believe in giving to
women a legal franchise, and to my mind, if there is one thing nearer to
God than another, it is that class of women. Angels are not nearer to
God than they. They are the mothers of the angels. They taught them from
babyhood up by their own firesides and gave them their own life's
sustenance, their own power, strength, vitality and intelligence, and
prepared them, day by day, as they grew up in years, to be angels
acceptable to God in the world designed and prepared for those who do
good in this world.
That class of women does not believe in having additional duties
and hardships forced upon them. They do not believe in sending their
children out to be raised by servants and strangers, which must
necessarily be done by mothers, should they be compelled to accept and
attend to political duties.
Good mothers think they can accomplish more and greater good in
this world by preparing their children for life and caring for them when
they most need their care, than by spending their time attending to
excitable political affairs. They are willing to trust their husbands
and their sons with all political duties. The mothers are confident that
the men will take care of those affairs honestly, with ability and good
judgment, and they are always willing to send their sons to battle in
defense of their country. But they are not willing to accept additional
responsibilities and cares which would be placed upon them by giving
them the franchise.
At least some of the good which has been accomplished by great,
good and honest men should be remembered. Those men would not have
succeeded in accomplishing their great works had their mothers not
trained them, or had they sent them out into cold storage, as I call it,
because when babies do not have the personal attention of their own
mothers, they are cared for by those whose only thoughts are occupied
with doing the work mechanically for a mechanic's pay, and the children
grow up without the sympathy, love and affection expressed by a mother's
heart throbs pressed against their infant cheeks, and when grown up,
they will be more like the nurses than their mothers, and will carry
with them to the grave the doctrines and whims taught to them when
infants by their nurses.
Good mothers want to spend their lives in the natural way, and in
the natural place given to and set out for them in which they make
themselves happy by making home life and the world pleasant and
agreeable for their husbands and their families, and I do not believe
that any honest, wise statesman will take chances on trying to oppose
the natural course of creation by attempting to force upon women the
elective franchise.
We can build a dam between two mountains, and change the natural
course of the water back over its source into a canal, and empty it into
the ocean, but the shrubs, the flowers and the vegetation below wither
and die, never more to bloom or blossom again. The irrigated
agricultural country is turned into a desert waste. The fruit, the
vines, foliage and shade trees from which bowers the birds sent out
their cheering songs to the happy and contented inhabitants, are no
more, and the clouds of drifting, shifting, burning sand roll over the
desert plains in mocking laughing irony at those who would change the
course of nature as given to us by our Creator.
Yes, we can dam the river, and we can disobey natural law by
giving women the suffrage, dam the world, destroy our homes, and make a
hell in which little children will cry for the care and soothing touch
of the mother and the protection of the father.
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