Samantha on the Woman Question, Marietta Holley [epub ebook reader .txt] 📗

“Sez Josiah, ‘Does that thing know enough to vote?’”

“I don’t know as they can,” sez I, sadly.

“Jest look at that thing,” sez he again.

And as I looked, the hot blush of shame mantillied my cheeks, for I felt that my sect was disgraced by the sight. She wuz real pretty, but she didn’t have much of any clothes on, and what she did wear wuzn’t in the right place; not at all.

Sez Josiah, “That girl would look much more modest and decent if she wuz naked, for then she might be took for a statute.”

And I sez, “I don’t blame the good Priest for sendin’ them away from the Lord’s table, sayin’, ‘I will give no communion to a Jezabel.’ And the pity of it is,” sez I, “lots of them girls are innocent and don’t realize what construction will be put on the dress they blindly copy from some furrin fashion plate.”

Then quite an old woman passed by, also robed or disrobed in the prevailin’ fashion, and Josiah sez, soty vosy, “I should think she wuz old enough to know sunthin’. Who wants to see her old bones?” And he sez to me, real uppish, “Do you think them things know enough to vote?”

But jest then a young man went by dressed fashionably, but if he hadn’t had the arm of a companion, he couldn’t have walked a step; his face wuz red and swollen, and dissipated, and what expression wuz left in his face wuz a fool expression, and both had cigarettes in their mouths, and I sez, “Does that thing know enough to vote?” And jest behind them come a lot of furrin laborers, rough and rowdy-lookin’, with no more expression in their faces than a mule or any other animal. “Do they know enough to vote?” sez I. “As for the fitness for votin’ it is pretty even on both sides. Good intelligent men ortn’t to lose the right of suffrage for the vice and ignorance of some of their sect, and that argument is jest as strong for the other sect.”

But before Josiah could reply, we hearn the sound of gay music, and the Parade began to march on before us. First a beautiful stately figure seated fearlessly on a dancin’ horse, that tossted his head as if proud of the burden he wuz carryin’. She managed the prancin’ steed with one hand, and with the other held aloft the flag of our country. Jest as women ort to, and have to. They have got to manage wayward pardners, children and domestics who, no matter how good they are, will take their bits in their mouths, and go sideways some of the time, but can be managed by a sensible, affectionate hand, and with her other hand at the same time she can carry her principles aloft, wavin’ in every domestic breeze, frigid or torrid, plain to be seen by everybody.

Then come the wives and relations of Senators and Congressmen, showin’ that bein’ right on the spot they knowed what wimmen needed. Then the wimmen voters from free Suffrage states, showin’ by their noble looks that votin’ hadn’t hurt ’em any. They carried the most gorgeous banner in the whole Parade. Then the Wimmen’s Political Union, showin’ plain in their faces that understandin’ the laws that govern her ain’t goin’ to keep woman from looking beautiful and attractive.

On and on they come, gray-headed women and curly-headed children from every station in life: the millionairess by the working woman, and the fashionable society woman by the business one. Two women on horseback, and one blowin’ a bugle, led the way for the carriage of Madam Antoinette Blackwell. I wonder if she ever dreamed when she wuz tryin’ to climb the hill of knowledge through the thorny path of sex persecution, that she would ever have a bugle blowed in front of her, to honor her for her efforts, and form a part of such a glorious Parade of the sect she give her youth and strength to free.

How they swept on, borne by the waves of music, heralded by wavin’ banners of purple and white and gold, bearin’ upliftin’ and noble mottoes. Physicians, lawyers, nurses, authors, journalists, artists, social workers, dressmakers, milliners, women from furrin countries dressed in their quaint costumes, laundresses, clerks, shop girls, college girls, all bearin’ the pennants and banners of their different colleges: Vassar, Wellesley, Smith, etc., etc. High-school pupils, Woman’s Suffrage League, Woman’s Social League, and all along the brilliant line each division dressed in beautiful costumes and carryin’ their own gorgeous banners. And anon or oftener all along the long, long procession bands of music pealin’ out high and sweet, as if the Spirit of Music, who is always depictered as a woman, was glad and proud to do honor to her own sect. And all through the Parade you could see every little while men on foot and on horseback, not a great many, but jest enough to show that the really noble men wuz on their side. For, as I’ve said more formally, that is one of the most convincin’ arguments for Woman’s Suffrage. In fact, it don’t need any other. That bad men fight against Women’s Suffrage with all their might.

Down by the big marble library, the grand-stand wuz filled with men seated to see their wives march by on their road to Victory. I hearn and believe, they wuz a noble-lookin’ set of men. They had seen their wives in the past chasin’ Fashion and Amusement, and why shouldn’t they enjoy seein’ them follow Principle and Justice? Well, I might talk all day and not begin to tell of the beauty and splendor of the Woman’s Parade. And the most impressive sight to me wuz to see how the leaven of individual right and justice had entered into all these different classes of society, and how their enthusiasm and earnestness must affect every beholder.

And in my mind I drawed pictures of the different modes of our American women and our English sisters, each workin’ for the same cause, but in what a different manner. Of course, our English sisters may have more reason for their militant doin’s; more unjust laws regarding marriage—divorce, and care of children, and I can’t blame them married females for wantin’ to control their own money, specially if they earnt it by scrubbin’ floors and washin’. I can’t blame ’em for not wantin’ their husbands to take that money from them and their children, specially if they’re loafers and drunkards. And, of course, there are no men so noble and generous as our American men. But jest lookin’ at the matter from the outside and comparin’ the two, I wuz proud indeed of our Suffragists.

While our English sisters feel it their duty to rip and tear, burn and pillage, to draw attention to their cause, and reach the gole (which I believe they have sot back for years) through the smoke and fire of carnage, our American Suffragettes employ the gentle, convincin’ arts of beauty and reason. Some as the quiet golden sunshine draws out the flowers and fruit from the cold bosom of the earth. Mindin’ their own business, antagonizin’ and troublin’ no one, they march along and show to every beholder jest how earnest they be. They quietly and efficiently answer that argument of the She Auntys, that women don’t want to vote, by a parade two hours in length, of twenty thousand. They answer the argument that the ballot would render women careless in dress and reckless, by organizin’ and carryin’ on a parade so beautiful, so harmonious in color and design that it drew out enthusiastic praise from even the enemies of Suffrage. They quietly and without argument answered the old story that women was onbusiness-like and never on time, by startin’ the Parade the very minute it was announced, which you can’t always say of men’s parades.

It wuz a burnin’ hot day, and many who’d always argued that women hadn’t strength enough to lift a paper ballot, had prophesied that woman wuz too delicately organized, too “fraguile,” as Betsy Bobbet would say, to endure the strain of the long march in the torrid atmosphere.

But I told Josiah that women had walked daily over the burning plow shares of duty and domestic tribulation, till their feet had got calloused, and could stand more’n you’d think for.

And he said he didn’t know as females had any more burnin’ plow shares to tread on than men had.

And I sez, “I didn’t say they had, Josiah. I never wanted women to get more praise or justice than men. I simply want ’em to get as much—just an even amount; for,” sez I, solemnly, “‘male and female created He them.’”

Josiah is a deacon, and when I quote Scripture, he has to listen respectful, and I went on: “I guess it wuz a surprise even to the marchers that of all the ambulances that kept alongside the Parade to pick up faint and swoonin’ females, the only one occupied wuz by a man.”

Josiah denied it, but I sez, “I see his boots stickin’ out of the ambulance myself.” Josiah couldn’t dispute that, for he knows I am truthful. But he sez, sunthin’ in the sperit of two little children I hearn disputin’. Sez one: “It wuzn’t so; you’ve told a lie.”

“Well,” sez the other, “You broke a piece of china and laid it to me.”

Sez Josiah, “You may have seen a pair of men’s boots a-stickin’ out of the ambulance, but I’ll bet they didn’t have heels on ’em a inch broad, and five or six inches high.”

“No, Josiah,” sez I, “you’re right. Men think too much of their comfort and health to hist themselves up on such little high tottlin’ things, and you didn’t see many on ’em in the Parade.”

But he went on drivin’ the arrow of higher criticism still deeper into my onwillin’ breast. “I’ll bet you didn’t see his legs tied together at the ankles, or his trouses