Show OUR PUBLIC FORU VII hon elihu root on womans comans sphere the question of woman suffrage la Is an issue before alie tie american people twelve states have adopted it tour mord more states vote upon it this tall fall and it Is strongly vt urged that it become a platform demand of the national political parties it Is therefore the privilege and the tty duty of every eadry voter to study carefully this subject lion ilon ellhu root awot in discussing this question before the constitutional tut tot ional convention of new york recently said in part 1 I am opposed sed to the granting of suffrage to women because so I 1 believe that it would be bb a loss to women to all women and to every woman and because I 1 bellove believe it would be an all injury to tho the state and to every man and every woman in the state it would be useless to argue this it if the right of suffrage were a natural right if it were a natural right then women should have it though tho heavens all dut but it if there therb be any one thing settled in the long discussion of this subject it Is that suffrage Is not a natural right but Is simply a means of government and the sole question to be discussed la is whether hother government by the suffrage of men and women will be better government than by the suffrage raie of 0 men alone into my judgment sir there enters no cl clement emerit of the inferiority of woman it la Is not that woman Is inferior to man but it Is that woman Is different from man that in the distribution of powers of capacities of qualities our maker has treated created man adapted to tho the performance of certain functions in the economy of nature and society and woman adapted to the performance of other functions woman rules today by tho the sweet and noble influences of her character put woman into the arena of conflict and she abandons these great weapons which control the world and sire takes into tier her hands feeble and nerveless for weapons with which she la Is unfamiliar and which she aho Is ii unable to wield woman in strife bec becomes otnes hard harsh unlovable repulsive as tar far removed from that gentle creaturo to whom we all owe allegiance and to whom hom we confess submission as tho the heaven Is removed from the earth tho the whole science of government lp I 1 tile the science of protecting life and liberty and tile the pursuit of happiness in the divine distribution of powers the ho duty and tho right of protection rests with the male it Is so throughout nature it Is so with men and 1 I for one will never consent to part with the divine right of protecting my wife my daughter the women whom I 1 love and the women woman whon when I 1 respect exercising the birthright of man and place that high duty in the weak and nerveless hands of at those designed by god to bo be protected rather than to engage in the stern stem warfare of government in my judgment tills this whole movement arises from a false conception of the duty and of the right of lot both men and women tile the time will never come w when benthe the line of demarcation between the functions functIon of the two sexes will be broken down I 1 believe it to be false philosophy lo I 1 believe that it la an attempt to turn backward upon the line of social development and that if the step ever be taken wego we go centuries backward on the mareb march towards a higher a nobler and a purer civilization must bo be found not in the confusion but in the higher differentiation of the sexes |