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About The illustrated west shore. (Portland, Or.) 1891-1891 | View Entire Issue (April 25, 1891)
THE ILLUSTRATED WEST SHORE. 271 Much local matter is crowded into next week by the very welcome cor respondence from distant states with which we present our readers in this issue. The Versailles, Kentucky, Clarion, of April 16th, contains a ringing editorial, which declares, among other good things, that "it is impossible for a man to raise a single objection to equal suffrage which does not disfranchise himself.'' By far the most fair and candid of the many press notices of Mrs. Mary Lease, of Kansas, which we have yet seen, appeared in the April number of the Review of Reviews. The Evening Telegram, which has recently been enlarged to an eight page journal, is developing a commendable spirit of progressive journalism. We note with pride that it deals fairly with the woman question; and it always respects itself. " We, the people of England," cried the three tailors of Tooley street, and "we, the people of America," cry the editorial coadjutors of the slums and dives who imagine they have achieved a lasting victory over a "dying cause," when they have temporarily whipped their mothers at the ballot box where the fight was as unfair and one-sided as usurpation and tyranny could make it. It would be idle to ask a "remonstrant" to remember that the new state of Wyoming is the only stale of the union where an impartial, and therefore a just vote has yet been had for the woman suffrage cause. Such men are like the gander of a flock, which, no matter how soundly the mother geese may chastise him for his folly, will always return, bragging to the disgusted geese, as soon as the punishing contingent lets him go. The late lamented Jefferson Davis in petticoats was a marvel of dignified and successful strategelical warfare compared to the croaker who ignores the self-evident fact that women do vote for liberty whenever they have a chance, and then hiding behind his own false statements, exclaimi, " The women don't want to vote I Don't you see? These people (meaning of course the man's rights men) have proved it." Get ye to Wyoming, brother, do, go, go I Friends of the equal suffrage cause, or any other movement which in creases the prosperity and happiness of the unrepresented half of the people, are requested to write to us promptly whenever anything transpires in their midst which will assist or encourage other women in the promotion of their work in any and all departments of usefulness. We are indebted for much of the information we lay before the reader, concerning current events about women, to our esteemed contemporaries of the Boston Womails Journal and the Washington and Nebraska Woman's Tribune. Both of these journals are doing excellent work in keeping woman's cause before the people, and each deserves the large patronage it receives as an exponent of liberty and progress. The managing editor of the Ortgonian thinks the men of the country ought to shut the women out of their domain in the Columbian exposition be cause Miss Couiins is having difficulty with the executive board of lady managers. What a pity this editor isn't a mandarian in China 1 In that glorious country, in which he would be a shining light, it is the custom to nip " wrangling " among women in the bud by strangling the girl babies. THOSE "REMONSTRANTS." All women owe a vote of thanks to those anonymous "remonstrants" who have conveniently tabulated the men's majority votes against woman suffrage that have been thrown for the past ten years for their future refer ence. Not only does this statement fumish a convenient bait with which the true patriot may catch willing gudgeons and provide readily padded editorials for journalists whose stock of platitudes periodically runs low, but it also serves as a valuable text for any number of unanswerable equal rights sermons. It is a pity to spoil the fine writing of those painstaking advocates of malc-sex-suffrage who hide themselves behind the skirts of some silly woman while pretending to express wise women's sentiments i but the equal rights journalist must tell the truth, though tyranny falls prostrate. Just where such writers can find the crumbs of comfort they pretend to have discovered, when parading the almost universal uprising of women who demand the ballot, as a proof .1.... their "cause i, dying out, cannot be understood by the average woman, owing possibly to her "illogd mind. Neither can she see wherein the proof of their oft reiterated sta.ement that "woman do not want to vote," is sustained by the parade of studied records, all showing that the defeats they hive so for encountered, and of which the enemy constantly boasts, are caused by the vote, of men alone which by no fiction of editorial fustian can be thrust down the throats of intelligent women as the votes of "the people." ANNA DICKINSON. This remarkable woman, who began her public career in the troublous times when the war spirit overshadowed the land, who stirred the English speaking world with the magic of her eloquence through the most eventful period of our country's later history, and whose subsequent aspirations for theatrical triumph ended in complete failure, is now the victim of a more serious calamity than the fatal one which befel Joan of Arc. It has long been an open secret among Anna's literary Iriends that her mental troubles began with the sudden termination of her matrimonial engagement with Whitelaw Ried, whom Miss Dickinson first met as an obscure and Impecun ious journalist in a western town. The famous girl was favorably impressed with the talents and personelle of the struggling boy, and on her return to New York, induced Horace Greeley, with whom she was always on friendly terms, to give him a situation on the staff of the Tribune. It has long been known by the rending public that Horace Greeley met his death, at the close of his presidential defeat, the victim of a broken heart i but it has not been known, except by the great journalist's most intimate friends, tliat it was not the presidential defeat that broke his heart, but the far more crushing blow he received at the hands of Whitelaw Ried, to whom he had delegated the edi torial control of the Tribune during his campaign. After the contest was over, Mr. Greelry returned to his sanctum and . penned a vigorous leader for the Tribune, which, to his surprise, did not appear on the following morning. He at once repaired to the office to learn the cause, and was coolly met by Mr. Ried and informed tliat his editorial control of the Tribune was never to be resumed. Mr. Greeley returned to his home a broken-hearted man. His wife, who had long been a mental sufferer, died in a few days, and the great journalist, who had nursed the viper, winch stung the heart of Anna Dickinson, met his death from the same treacherous cause. The daughter of a New York millionaire became the double deserter's bride, and Anna Dickinson, the greater sufferer of the illustrious twain, is the victim of an insanity as h"f less as it has been slow ol growth. If she had been an ordinary woman she might have become the prey of qukk consump tion i or, failing, because of a robust constitution, to become the bride of death, she might have married that wonderful "ten cent man" whom the Ortgoman paraded t few days ago as the proer catch for a " forty dollar woman." Then, no doubt, since self-evident facts do testify that such mar riages are not a sure siecilic for insanity, she would have ended her days in mental derangement, all the same as if unmarried, with this imKHant differ ence: that, since "ten cent men" are noted for Urge families, her calamity would have been transmitted to future generations, through tlie geometrical progression of heredity. Everybody but a man's rights monomaniac knows that insanity is not restricted to spinslerhood and none, save those whose CmIwmJ m fjgt 1J4.