Show A SERIOUS MATTER PRESIDENT CLEVELAND was right when he said in ris response to the appeal of the woman suffrage association hi the tucker bill that it is a serious matter to deprive any class of citizens of the that such a course by legislation is unjustifiable any reader of the constitution can call readily dek determine ermine for or himself the franchise once possessed and exercised becomes a vested right and cannot be legally taken away from the possessor without due process of law that means a judicial proceeding ce not an act of the legislature if it were not so serious a mattert be remarks made by JAw lawmakers makers and editors in its justification would be very amusing the stock arga arguments ments against woman suffrage have all a vein of absurdity and are refuted by applying them to the sterner sex for al all that is urged hi against the ballot in the hands f women can be applied with equa force farce to the cases of a great many men all such objections object lona to giving the elective franchise to women are entirely out of place in reference to the question of taking it away from women who have lawfully held and exercised it for seventeen years conferring the franchise upon an excluded class is one thing depriving voters of that rightie right is another and different thi thing dg yet a great many persons who ought to know better attempt to reason upon the latter as though it was just the sime lime in principle as the former the tucker edmunds bill proposes to deprive alve a class of voters of the franchise without any process of law and this for no ase assigned reason if con congress ress has the power which is claimed for it to arbitrarily repeal an enactment of a territorial legislature it could thereby prevent any more women from being endowed with the suffrage but that would not take it away way from those who hold it as their property Dro perty it if it was a privilege when Tont conferred erred it became a right by posses sion and usage and cannot be lawfully wrested from the holders by le legislation isla in endeavors to excuse excuse the wholesale injustice and polin political cal robbery contemplated tem plated in the bill its supporters advance no tenable grounds for their post on mr tucker in his closing ch before the house on the passage of odthe the bill said I 1 when W vye exclude the me whole of womankind as a class gentlemen might as well sa say IV that they are condemned without without conviction to disfranchisement by the provisions vis totis of tuis bill and that they are condemned for foi tile crime of being bein g women now there is nothing in that POSit position iOD as I 1 shall show when I 1 come to discuss that point in the argument I 1 I 1 this waa a very convenient way to get rid c of a formidable objection the J e gentleman did not once allude to it again he never came to that point in the argument he shirked jt it eia and avoided it altogether it was too true trae to attempt to controvert it was wa easier to say there was nothing in it than to prove the assertion bat butt athe the press apologists forthe wrong assert that the measure 69 strikes a staggering blow at polygamy 11 when asked how the chiB cois ament ot of uon non poly polygamists amista is an assault upon polygamy they claim that the mormon men who are not polygamists believe in polygamy nd that ahat the women are completely under the control of the themen men and compelled to koteas vote as they command them this is a pure assumption unsupported by a single fact it is very unreasonable too and contrary to what is known of the nature of worn womankind unkind an attempt to coerce women holding the ballot would be ampre p r 0 likely to provoke tatem into I 1 contrariety t 1 than urge the them m w com 0 aliance ance and we have to repeat once more inore lor for the enlightenment of our contemporaries at a distance that the ballot in utah is strictly secret it a w woman wants to vote any kind of a ticket the power is in her own bands to do 40 sor so the slightest probability of y of detection where then does the coercion come Is in it may be bd asked what does the sixth section of the bill bilk mean which repeals the utah laws 11 provi providing m ig for the bering or identifying of the votes ivores of the electors ye ye answer it means that either mr and his bis associates were deplorably ignorant ot of the truth or they have perpetrated a shameful piece of deception upon congress and the country fortiere for there are no such laws in existence in utah but on the contrary the local election laws forbid any such numbering and identification fi there are other sections of the bill also for the repeal of assumed utah laws that are not upon the statute books and it if the implied falsehood of section six were a fact would not the the alleged laws for the identification of votes do away with the cie power to learn how any woman voted and thus destroy the pretended pie pt tended objection to her possession of the bal ballot lot but even if women voters were influenced fluen ced to cast their ballots as desired by others why should it be worse for them to do this than for men voters to do the same thing how is it in new york and in boston Bo sion and in st sp louks louis and in chicago po do men ever vote thero there as influenced leaders I 1 and bo bosses saes I 1 we refrain troia irona any comment upon votes bought or the coercion said to be used by employees upon their employed emp loyes but why should it be worse tot tol men to be induced to vote in any given direction in utah than to do so in any other part of the union and to come back to the central point w why by is it Wor worse sefor for women to be so influenced fluen ced than for men then as to the bearing of the question upon polygamy neither men nor women have ever voted at toe the polls tri in utah on that qu question atlon at all it has never cut any figure in territorial politics except that thai by congressional law all polygamists male and female are already deprived of the elective franchise no candidate is a polygamist no n voter is a polygamist no polygamous amous question or issue is voted on or presented at our elections therefore it is the bosh and nonsense to talk about taking the ballot from women in utah because they use it in favor of polygamy why the advocates of this abolition actually claim ehst 11 it will free the women from the tolls of et polygamy while they claim that the women themselves vote to 10 sustain polygamy 11 Is not this a striking instance of complete self con tra diction polygamy has been dinned dinnee so in much uch in the ears of the country and held up before the eyes of the public to frighten people into doing something desperate that anything pertaining to utah takes on a fancied poleg amic coloring neither editors nor the public seem to understand that this disfranchisement of women bears entirely upon non don polygamous voters both mormon and gentile and is simply political robbery there is not an argument in favor of taking the ballot from utah women that does not equally apply to utah men but what 18 as the real object in view of the real promoters of this measure it is a movement on the part of a small minority to lessen the number of votes of the majority there I 1 is 3 nothing more in the whole conspiracy than an attempt to put this territory into the political control jofs of a very few of its inhabitants to te dispossess the people who opened this region to settlement built up the country established institutions and regulations for the protection of life a anaf ird property handmade and made the territory what it is today to day of those political and personal rights to which they I 1 are eff entitled by their good works and honorable course every editor who advocates the passage of the tucker bill urges an outrage upon women and champions the cause of adventurers and scoundrels without character and without conscience and when he imagines he is helping to sup suppress ress polygamy he is deceiving himself himself acad his readers and is helping to consummate ja piece of political infamy that has no excuse in law or in religion in social exigency ori or nany public necessity Itis it is indeed as president cleveland has said a very serious seaous matter |