SENSIBLE MISS DASKAM.
Miss Josephine Daskam is a sensible woman. Of course, there are many sensible women, and in saying that 'Miss Daskam is a sensible woman it must not be inferred that she is the only member of the fair sex who has her share of gray matter. That would be a lurid falsehood, and, without proceeding any further, The Gazette wishes it to be distinctly understood that no such inference is intended. But Miss Daskam is unusually sensible. She is more than that. She is eminently practical. She sees things, not like Eugene Field's
in little boy saw them, but as they really are. She was a speaker at the convention of Pilgrim Mothers in Boston last week and this is what she said:
"If you cannot in this generation get your vote, you always can
get your voter. Women have always influenced man, and I don't see but what that's just as good. I think there is a great deal of unnecessary twaddle these days he about the increasing strenuousness of the young girl. I don't
think she has changed so much.
She has no more mind. She may use her mind a little differently, but it's the same old mind, the same energy that she uses. There are two things which women must always have had since the creation to be successful, and those two things are the same in at the far-off islands. of the Pacific and in the high school in Massachusetts. A woman to be successful must be good and she must be charming. There may be something interesting in the bad woman, but she can't perpetuate nations, and after all that was the main purpose of our creation, I think. If a woman is to good and nothing else, she will be as dull as anything the world ever made, but if she can be good and charming her heritage and posterity can ask absolutely nothing
better."
In a few words Miss Daskam N. has demonstrated the folly of the movement for woman's suffrage. With or without the franchise the woman who is "good and charming" exercises more power than the poor man with his ballot. She is a greater factor in shaping the destinies of the world than if she had a hundred ballots. Every married man knows that and every bachelor ought to know it. A Roman consul once said that a woman ruled the world and being asked to explain how it was, answered: "Rome is the mistress of the world; I am the ruler of Rome, and am I not governed by my wife?
'Man may think that with the suffrage he is running the government, but he is not infrequently the unconscious agent of some fair one who holds and
wields the scepter of authority. That he has been well directed the progress of the world shows. The old Roman, whose words we have quoted, understood it all. Miss Daskam understands it, and the rebuke she so cleverly administered to her too ambitious sisters was eminently just. Since the earliest times that we
know of, Eve has had her say whether in the garden of Eden gathering fruits, in the adjustment of domestic affairs, or in the hurly-burly of modern politics she has been the power behind the throne whose word is law and whose decree is irrevocable.
What in the dickens she wants to do with the ballot is beyond our ken. Why bother about the vote, when she controls the voter?
Lafayette Gazette 1/3/1903.
Women's Suffrage.
Ready for action. The first battle of the session is now being fought on the suffrage amendment. Decks have been cleared, linguistic guns have been repaired, worded ammunition has been provided, and the rank and file are watching each other, tactics will be employed to surprise the weak positions of the enemy but so far the various commands have only taken advantage of unconstitutional mounds upon the battle field to hide their forces behind. The field-marshall' hore has been mounted lately by his ordnance' officer and the marshal himself has fired the first gun in support of the suffrage fortress. In a skirmish of about two hours duration he reviewed the different positions assumed by the divers squads and ended his firing in acknowledging that it was not exactly what he himself would have done, but that it was the very best declaration of war against the illiterate, the paupers, the native born citizens and the negroes that could be mustered up under the circumstances and proud of his achievement his was sheathed once more.
As soon as the field-marshal had ended his linguistic assault which was also a beforehand defencing attack, the first squad under the command of Capt. Wise came on the field to sustain that position taken by the Marshall, adding that he had a gattling gun in the shape of a poll tax which could be easily adopted by the Constitutional army. Lieutenant Boatner followed with a discharge of rapid fire guns as well loaded and with plenty of ammunition in reserve attacking the strong fortifications and a protest against the electoral defences as proposed to be adopted by the army. It seemed to him that the militia had no business to plan for the regulars and he proposed to send back the protest without being looked into. This brought quite a wasting of ammunition of worded cartridges from Colonel Coco, who firing in rapid succession struck the Ware, declaring that the regulars were taken from the militia to to their will. Fire which was borne gallantly by Ware, who was by this time regarded his flag.
Lafayette Advertiser 2/26/1898.
A Woman's Work.
Very little, if anything of importance transpires in this world that a woman is not a potential influence on. Good or bad, the gentler sex are always in it, one way or another. Why then should she be bothering their men about women's rights, the franchise (unreadable words) why they want more when they already have more than their share of the affairs of mankind, from rocking the cradle to influencing elections and State affairs, is something we cannot understand.
Recent developments in England have shown that a woman was responsible for the escape from British waters of the Confederate cruiser, Alabama, which under the command of Capt. Semmes during the war between the States, pretty nearly swept the commerce of the United States from the seas. The Alabama was a veritable commerce destroyer, and Great Britain being held responsible for the departure from neutral waters, by the Geneva arbitration, paid the Federal government five million of dollars for her sportive career on the high seas.
A woman was at the bottom of the whole thing, and this is the way it happened:
The official documents which would have been a warrant for the detention of the Alabama was sent to the crown counsel, Sir John D. Harding, desiring to conceal the fact that her husband's suddenly becoming insane, kept the papers four days, hoping her husband would recover. An urgent government dispatch compelled her to reveal her husband's condition and return the documents. But they reached the British law officers a few hours too late. The bird had flown. The Alabama was on high seas, outside of England's jurisdiction.
Assuming to be true what is maintained in England, Lady Harding's devotion to her husband was a very costly affair to both countries. England paid 5,000,000 for lack of vigilance in permitting the Alabama to get to sea. The United States was nearly wiped out by the depredations of the Confederate cruiser. And all because of a woman's devotion to her husband and her purpose to hide his mental infirmities.
Lady Harding was not a woman howling for the ballot, and seeking to unsex herself. In this matter she was acting the true woman as God Almighty made her, and intended she should be; in other words, she was acting solely through her wifely devotion, pure, beautiful and heroic, to her stricken husband, and lo ! as if from her frail hands, sprang an episode which in its splendor and heroism is not over matched in the history of war.
From the N. O. States and in the Lafayette Advertiser of April 15th, 1893.
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