| Show REV UTTERS OTTERS LECTURE kev dvid david utter delivered the following interesting and instructive lee ture tore on suffrage and education before camp 5 of the patriotic order sons bone of america october SUFFRAGE AND EDUCATION any government may he be regarded As a A compromise between liberty and power oue one extreme would give absolute liberty to every individual anti and then there Is and emu be no govern a condition that some intelligent inteli igent people in our time sincerely believe in thinking tA inking that a higher anil and more per feet order of society would ensue under the regime of perfect liberty of all individuate individuals divi di duals than can otherwise be produced the other extreme would give control to absolute authority and all possible power to one man head or king of the nation and only such liberty to individuals as the central authority deemed wise and good such would be an ideal strong government power at the maximum liberty abolished or forgotten between these extremes the pendulum of human society has been vibrating for more years and centuries than all history can count it Is conceivable that the pendulum will some day settle down in the golden mean of the greatest individual liberty consistent with a due regard for the rights of others and the successful carrying out of such public enterprises as 88 require U united action and promote the gea general n welfare but as the world is already very old it Is a curious question why the pendulum still vibrates why the golden mean or equilibrium has not been reached long ago it seems reasonable to think that many a nation would long since have reached perfection or drawn near to lo it in the way of adjusting the opposing claims claim of power and liberty but for the fear of neighboring nations or the ambition of conquest men do not love tyranny and they do not need much intelligence to know how bow to throw off the yoke but they love their country and they fear other peoples and they on en dure much oppression rather than to so far cripple the power of their govern ment as to risk defeat in war 80 it has baa happened that the freest govern heuts have been those most isolated and best protected from all outside foes by such barriers as mountains or oceans neither a republic nor a constitutional monarchy has haa the military strength of an unlimited monarchy other things being equal and so a nation surrounded by watchful and balous rivals is in in a measure compelled to sacrifice L liberty to power in order to preserve lip existence the common fate of republics has been to prosper proper in times of peace and furnish the best beet of soldiers for a necessary war but when the great general delivered his bis country from foreign dangers he became dictator and then king our own republic however much it owes to the liberty loving law abiding te temper of the people who came here to settle upon our fertile lands doubtless owes more to the broad oceans that separate it from europe and asia the isolation delivers us from fears of foreign invasion and allows us to develop our free institutions unmolested so here the great experiment of building up a government of the people for the people and by the people has been tried under conditions the most favorable ever presented in human history has it been successful Is it the triumphant success the fathers predicted and that their sons expected this is not a fourth of july oration and our answer need not be a foregone conclusion an optimistic view of the affairs of our country has its value but truth has always the highest value and truth compels us to confess that we have met with unexpected difficulties in the perfecting of the government of this thin american re republic p ubi I 1 c no fear of a diep dictator not even at the close of the war when grant was elected president no fear of warlike invasion requiring great standing armies oppressive conscriptions script ions and burdensome taxation and yet a danger very real and great threatens threaten A peaceful invasion from many lands simultaneous silent constant has slowly changed the character of our sovereign whom we trusted truo ted our sovereign the perfect perfectly in ln whom our faith remained unshaken for near a century our sovereign the people has become so so changed that our faith and loyalty are weakened this weakening of faith in our sovereign may not yet be very widespread but it is in ominous because of the qu quarter in which it appears for it is in among the most intelligent wise and farsighted far sighted that the doubt to is expressed for instance here Is an ex tract from u review article that appeared some ten or more bearis years ago written by francis park man under the title the failure of universal suffrage 0 the fathers of our republic had never a doubt of this kind universal suffrage was the panacea for every ill they believed in the people as the saint bej believes levee I 1 in n god u unquestioningly ti question I 1 ugly and perhaps they were right considering si the people in whom they believed parkman gayb A new england village of olden time that is to say forty years ago would have been safety safely anti ana well governed by the votes of every man in it but now that the village has baa grown to ft a populous ous city with its factories and workshops its ito acres of tenement houses and thousands and tons tens of thousands of restless workmen foreigners for the most moot part to whom liberty means license and politics mean plunder to whom the public good to is nothing and their own most moat trivial interests everything who love the country for what they can get out of it and whose ears are open to the of every rascally agitator the case is completely changed and universal suffrage becomes a questionable blessing A questionable blessing to himself and an unquestionable curse or burden to the nation it surely is to give a vote to a man who is both ignorant of the first principles principle sog og good government and by nature kattire and education disloyal to all government we have them here in our beloved country thousands of them tens of thousands against all government and we call them citizens and clothe them with power and theirs is the dominion it truly seems as though our people had made a fetish of universal suffrage during the entire history of our nation the tendency has been towards extension of the franchise with hardly hard ly a single exception in the way of limiting it most of the states and I 1 think every one of the original thirteen began with several limitations among which was a property qualification one by one these laws have been repealed until in only six states to is there any restriction of the ithe franc franchise bise except as to youth and sex and time of residence in the country state and precinct the six exceptional states are connecticut delaware florida mississippi sip I 1 massachusetts and rhode island Y in delaware the qualifications of a voter are that he must have paid a poll tax and passed the age of twenty two years in addition to being a citizen of the united states in florida one must have paid the tax for two years before he can vote connecticut and massachusetts chu sette have an educational qualification in connecticut it is simply that the voter shall be able to read the constitution ution of the united states in massachusetts he must do this and also be able to write and must have paid the capitation tax for two years in his mississippi sis sippi requirement the is rather amusing it ft to is that the citizen proposing to vote shall be able to read or understand the constitution I 1 havi have heard of a hunter who said that he so aimed his gun to hit if it was a deer and to miss mies san if it was a cow 22 the last clause of the mississippi qualification is evidently intended to admit the citizen if he barour friend and to exclude him if he be to Is our enemy rhode island has a property qualification the same that has been in her constitution for more than a hundred years and many thousands of her citizens are thereby dis dig franchised the requirement is that one must own real estate to the value of or an annual rental value of 7 before he can be allowed to vote very strenuous efforts have recently been made to repeal this law but the smallest state in the union that begun by being the most radical and progressive proves now to be the most conservative conservative how ever in this thie case with very good rea son the thoughtful man la is apt to believe with her limited area and great manufacturing cities the land owners would be in a hopeless minority if all the factory workers were allowed to vote the beat citizens those most moat interested in good government are undoubtedly the native born the agriculturists and the owners of the factories and homes and house lots lota in the city the government to is in their hands bands as things are why should they give into the hands of demagogues and ward politicians as they would do to repeal the law or amend the constitution so as to remove the property qualification fiCat fi iOD as to voting in this thia matter of extending the privilege of the franchise the work is done once for all there is no going backward for no one will willingly relinquish a privilege and a power that he has once exercised the constant widening of this privilege toward universal suffrage that has gone on during the entire history of our cou country and not only here but in most nations of the old world as well seems to nave have produced an almost universal conviction that the right to vote is one of mans natural and inalienable rights this conviction however to is one of those popular feelings that do not rest upon any solid basis of fact or philosophy equal rights for all is an excellent general idea but in making any just application of it in a state where men differ so profoundly as they do here some regard should be had to character and condition in the matter of the franchise this principle has always been recognized paupers haupers are usually forbidden to vote and criminals in prison children and imbecile and insane persons and until recently and still in general women to recognize the ineligibility of any one of these classes is really to abandon the plea that the right to vote is a natural right the right of suffrage belongs with those upon whom rests the responsibility of upholding and maintaining the government to make this clear think of some institution corporation or society those who belong to the society the members are the voters if some members take more interest than others put in more money it to is C cammon to give them more power in the way of voting to balance their greater interest and responsibility and this is universally conceded to be lust just A vote is an exercise of authority and a right to it to is derivable only from a measure of responsibility and interest now our government is a society in which while each citizen has a certain interest some have naturally much more than others and naturally must bear a greater responsibility res poris ibi lity where a man has no interest in the welfare of the nation and feels none he will feel no responsibility and if a vote is allowed him he is apt to use it in some trivial and selfish way apt to sell it or give it as some friend shall dictate there should be no hesitation in refusing the elective franchise to such as far as we can describe and distinguish them as a class but the greatest danger of all probably is the ignorant class clas cla s good government in our day depends upon many other things besides good intentions commercial and economic questions that seem at first to have no morality or justice in them are yet fraught with disaster and misery if not met and decided with ade adequate quat knowledge and wisdom and yet in our way of voting the totally illiterate man exercises the game power as the college professor there may maybe be sound reason in giving every citizen a vote upon some questions as for example for president of the united states or for governor but that one who cannot read shall vote concerning all questions or for men for all offices seems an absurdity that ought to be remedied but as was said a little while ago jt it willbe will be difficult to apply the remedy in the way of dis franchising any mail man or class of men mein who have been accustomed to vate the lower in the scale of humanity they are the more efficient would be their resistance to any such attempt for purchasable votes belon belong to demagogues and lobbyist hobbyists and un scrupulous politicians by a natural law and these men wield influences influence r 5 than which none are more potent it would seem that the only hope forthe for the present is in the enfranchisement of women not universally because they are women s nor because of their natural right to the ballot but as we are doing it piecemeal giving certain women the right to vote upon certain questions or in certain elections |
