| Show SOCIAL what past bastory teaches individual FREEDOM that is the best mode mr eoutz on homad s guffra Suf fra editor f in my communication to you of the boat the purpose was to answer the argument not infrequently nada by the opposition to equal suffrage that the past furnishes a safe guide for the future in this matter let those who oppose the equality of the coxes point ont wherein their position derives the slightest from the past not bv bare assertion or general statements state menta but by fair argument ana valid reasoning if they will take the to carefully consider the not only will they find in it cold comfort but pi bof positive and the strongest evidence of their error for who will doubt that the whole history of hive society evidences a tendency to break down limitation and placed by law upon and classes and who will doubt that such tendencies by sweeping away unjust inequalities have produced endless good to the nations adopting them there is no difference more strongly characterizing and the institutions and ideas of the past from those of he present time than exists in ane fact that with rare exceptions nobody is now born lo 10 hia station in life and compelled by law to pursue the course marked out for of that station but all with few exceptions are left free to pursue tie t ie coarse dictated by their inclination each is fre to employ himself as he will and to aspire to any place position or honor to which any member of the society might attain society of the pant wag founded on a different basis the accident of birth by the institutions then existing surrounded each individual with an impervious barrier circumscribing and denning the social sphere in which be might move which were by no means to all equal all were lorn to fixed social positions from which they could not escape by any act of their own now some are born black others white 0 o then gome were barn slaves serfs and dictums Tic tums others freemen gome patricians others ians one noble the other ino bla even among the no blea the eldest son was the exclusive heir to his fathers possessions in the land of the or the Brahm ioB the Kahaly rye the vaiala and the this system a man must die a member of the caste in which he was birn b irn hia position and hia vocation in society was y fixed from the cradle to the bravo with ambition ho pelesa and talent powerless even another division below the aadra exited the poor pariah the aaion of human degradation who in time had all rights denied him and was taught he was without place in eier niev among the individual classes only born or admitted members of a guild could lawfully practice their callings I 1 have called attention to thesa mat tare to clearly distinguish tha former institutions from those ol 01 the present the doctrines now existing are diametrically etri cally opposed to those of the in most nations governments Govern menta do not now undertake to say bv whom any social or industrial function shall be performed nor how conducted but leave these things to the choice of the people themselves the old theory was that the government sovern ment possessed a wisdom superior to that of the individual that the least possible should be belt to hia choice and as much as possible pos aible be by government the experience of the last thousand yeara has produced the conviction that the individual goes right when left to his own discretion and that governments ern ments should only interfere to ore vent his doing wrong to others to allow each individual full freed m of choice is now known to be the best mean of throwing nto the hands of the people those things they are beatable and qualified to perform qua clin stion and competition of themselves will without dolbt place iu the ban is i best suited tc perform them all the BO i cial and industrial inda functions if the modern doctrine ia true in this 1 and borne out bv experience ID reason doea it not look a little that we should abandon it when it comes to g it 0 o the case ol 01 the oppi wite sex if it is not true it individuals are not better judges of their own vocations anh capacities than tha government we had beuer abandon it entirely and go back to the old rule of regulators and disabilities but if it io true why not act aa though we believe it and not maintain that to be born a girl instead of a bor any mire than to maintain that to be born black instead of white ahall cacide the persons tion through life and an impossible barrier from all the elevated social and all but a few of what are expressed aa the more re spec tiola occupations toe public sustains a loss bv ing women from public and denying tham the elective franchise no mitter how few persons properly qualified arp excluded by conditions ol 01 eligibility the government sustains a direct lois while the exclusion of dobda of unqualified is n i gain for if those who chuse the peranna to discharge public offices were disposed dispi sed it will hardly be denied that they may iad at jagt a few auch persona among th male aex whom they might choose rom in cur nation and the states com doaine it with few exceptions the die abilities to which joanen are subject are the solitary examples by which the fatality of birth is consi derel sufficient to deny to rna half of our people participation in the highest social funck eions it is the outgrowth of what history proves to be one of the fundamental laws of social progress single relic of the old world of thought and practice which I 1 pointed out in the beginning of thia article a principle crovea wron and discarded in else but still retained in this matter of such importance that it one half of the human race then I 1 ask in seriousness for I 1 ba lieve no question is entitled to more serious consideration at thia time than the question of woman suffrage what does the history of the past prove if it i does not prove satisfactorily either beide of this question s not its evidenced eviden cea in favor of re movine the dis qualifications of the opposite sex in all other where the imitations have been removed rem ovod none will but assert their existence was a mistake and the removal a step in advance in human society then why there remain the one eingle ex emption denying women the elective ran chiae D D HOOTZ |
