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Show Official Organ of the Utah Federation of Womens Clubs. 81.00 PEE VOL. II. PUBLISHED EVDEirsr STEIA.R. SALT LAKE CITY, OCTOBER 30, 1897. WBIHIIC. NO. 5. Universal Suffrage Justified. William Lloyd Garrison . I have read with interest the Educated Suffrage Symposium , in the Womans Journal of Oct. 2, and gladly comply with the editors request to present some considerations adverse to the positions of the writers. For I dissent strongly from their assumptions and conclusions. The question is one affecting , so.yerjiment.. Holding, t.o J:he belief that the governed have a right to a voice regarding those who shall govern them, a denial of that right on the ground of expediency seems to me to strike at the foundation of democracy. To claim that certain acquirements, which wecall educational, must precede the exercise of a fundamental right, is to mistake the means for the end, to stand the pyramid on its apex, to put the cart oefore the horse, to expect the fruit before the seed has been planted. Holding also, with Commenius, that things that should be done must be learned in their doing, and with another wise man who said, Education is not preparation for life, it is life, and with Lowell that the best way of teaching a man how to vote is to give him a chance to practise, I protest against exclud- - ingtlie ignorant from the suf-rag-e school. The talk of fitting people for the suffrage by forbidding them to exercise it is the old talk of fitting men for freedom. After , Macaulays memorable demonstration that only freedom can properly prepare men to be free, and that to expect such preparation in slavery is as foolish as to forbid children to go into the water before they can swim, such reasoning seems obsolete and mediaeval. Miss Curtis approval of Washingtons shallow excuse to the actor Bernard for retaining his negro slave is astounding, but absolutely logical from her point of view. The South always held that liberty can become a scourge; yet where in history did liberty ever scourge a people as did slavery in our Civil War? For one I dissent with indignant verhcmence from the assertion that a mistake was commit- ted bv the enfranchisement of the freedmen. It is a pure assumption that disfranchisement would have been better for them and for the South. I believe that the bestowal of the ballot upon the freshly liberated and ignorant black man was the wisest and most act of statesmanship that illustrates the reconstruction era. To point to the misuse of this priceless boon as a reason why it should have been withheld, is to betray either a credulous faith in the immediate virtue of a ballot, or to imply that the civilization of the country would have gained by suppressing the negros vpte. The latter is simply a matter of of unsusceptible conjecture, proof. Against it we have the marvelous progress ot the colored population of the South since the war, a positive and not a negative fact. If misuse of the ballot is a warrant for withhold-in- g it, it is also a warrant for its forfeiture. If unwise or injurious voting brought disfranchisement, our government today would be an oligarchy like Hawaii. Misuse of the ballot! As well decry mistakes in school or in life. Mistakes are the most efficient teachers, inflidt selfpunishment, and are the precious lessons that make experience for men and nations. Democracy is chiefly valuable because it allows men to make mistakes which are the necessary stepping-stone- s to higher things. Government is not a machine to make people Advertise your Christmas Goods in The Review. Woman in Utah will read your ad. far-seei- ng Every Club . . |