One of the delights of researching suffrage is reading the words of the women who participated in the movement. Sarah Kimball was one of the instigators of the Relief Society in Nauvoo, then moved west with the saints to Utah. At age 73, she responded to an anti-suffrage opinion column published in The Woman's Exponent in 1891. As part of that response, she write the following:
Women as a rule have listened to the asserting voice of men and have been led by their precepts too long. It has slowly dawned upon woman's understanding that man as a ruler is weak; in many respects very weak and unreliable, (remember we love him still,) and she has been compelled for the good of the great family to explore new paths leading to broader fields of helpfulness. Women will make mistakes, and profit by them, all along the unbroken pathway, but never so fatally disastrous mistakes as men have made while holding exclusive power.
You assert that suffrage advocates take a wrong shoot, start out on leaves, or small branches, and they must change tactics, etc., this reminds me of early Colonial history. Did our forefathers when they struck for freedom, ask their usurping oppressors what shoot they should take, what tactics they should adopt?
In her editorial, Kimball also argues in favor of women judges and women police forces. You can read her whole editorial here. There's also a full length article about her here.
Women as a rule have listened to the asserting voice of men and have been led by their precepts too long. It has slowly dawned upon woman's understanding that man as a ruler is weak; in many respects very weak and unreliable, (remember we love him still,) and she has been compelled for the good of the great family to explore new paths leading to broader fields of helpfulness. Women will make mistakes, and profit by them, all along the unbroken pathway, but never so fatally disastrous mistakes as men have made while holding exclusive power.
You assert that suffrage advocates take a wrong shoot, start out on leaves, or small branches, and they must change tactics, etc., this reminds me of early Colonial history. Did our forefathers when they struck for freedom, ask their usurping oppressors what shoot they should take, what tactics they should adopt?
In her editorial, Kimball also argues in favor of women judges and women police forces. You can read her whole editorial here. There's also a full length article about her here.
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