Eliza Calvert Obenchain

“ I once heard a good Methodist minister say with emphasis "There is not a comfort that man enjoys that women do not have to suffer for." In return for all this vicarious and unavoidable suffering so patiently endured by women, it would seem that men, from the depths of their tender chivalry, would have said long ago: "If there is anything in this wide universe that you covet, O, Woman: name it and it is yours, if my effort can obtain it for you. ”

“ If every reform advocated by every party could be carried into effect tomorrow, I would still be a woman suffragist. There are two vantage grounds for a woman who wants to vote; one is on the shifting sands of expediency, the other on the solid rock of eternal justice. ”

“ Why Democratic Women Want the Ballot.
As a woman, and a Kentucky woman, I must say at the outset that it seems to me an impertinence for any man to require me to give a reason for wanting the ballot.
Men everywhere, and in Kentucky especially, pride themselves on their chivalry, their absolute devotion to woman. Now when a woman makes a request of a man, it is not chivalric to demand the reason for that request, whether it be for a new spring bonnet or the right to vote. It is not chivalric in the first place to allow her to ask for what she wants. ”

“ In the course of his graduating oration I once hear a young man say: "Why should any woman want to vote in Kentucky, where every woman is a queen?"
"Every woman a queen!" There may have been some in that audience who were weak enough to feel flattered by such gallant words, but as for me, I had a vision of the "queens" who had gone from house to house begging their loyal subjects to consent to a petition that prayed the legislature of Kentucky to grant to married women the right to own and dispose of their own property. ”

“ Real chivalry would lead men to anticipate the wants of woman, and spare her proud, gentle spirit the pain, the humiliation of having to ask for what she wants.
"That comes too late which comes for the asking," says Seneca, and I have often wondered how a man could have evolved such a thought, for it is the perfect expression of that exquisite womanly dignity which, realizing its right to homage from men, is outraged by having to beg for that which should come without asking. ”

“ The chivalry that leads a man to give a woman a seat in a street car, but at the same time does not prevent him from looking on with apathetic indifference while she is defrauded of her property rights, is not the sort of chivalry that a self-respecting woman values. ”

“ I think he must have realized this, for, facts failing him, he fell back upon metaphor and exclaimed poetically, "Would you purify a cesspool by throwing a rose into it?" "Why of course not," exclaim the opponents of woman suffrage. "A cesspool cannot be purified by throwing a rose in it, therefore women ought not to vote."
This, you will observe, is the sort of thing that passes for logic with the anti-suffragists whether they be "most learned judges" or ignorant clowns. But suppose we drop metaphor and come down to plain speech.
Women are not roses.
Politics is not a cesspool. ”

“ These felicitous words were certainly not dictated by the spirit of chivalry, let me say in passing, and a Kentucky woman hardly feels complimented at being called a "squaw."
According to my observation the women who want to vote are found mostly in the People's Party, or the Prohibition Party, or any other party that champions some moral or social reform. This means that women, as a rule, do not want to vote unless there is some palpable advantage to be gained by it. Expediency is the keynote of all woman's protests against disfranchisement. ”

“ Go where you will, do as you please. "The Queen can do no wrong.' The right to perfect liberty is yours by reason of your humanity, and if it were not, you have earned it by reason of your womanhood." ”

“ There is one all sufficient, all-embracing reason why women should vote, but in the extremity of their need, women have seldom been bold enough to urge this. They have taken refuge behind a score of minor reasons, and their appeals are more to the pity than to the reason of men. ”

“ If an honest man by any chance comes into possession of property belonging to another he does not wait for the owner to ask him for it; he goes straight-way and restores it. It matters not whether women ever use this privilege, or not, it should be theirs just as it is mans. ”

“ However, as things are not as they should be in this "naughty world;" since women have not only to ask but give a reason for asking and get generally a curt refusal for all their pains, it becomes them to descend from their "thrones" and "shrines," and meekly give thanks for merely the opportunity to ask and explain why they ask. ”

“ As well might the thief with his hands in the coffers of some wealthy man excuse his robberty by urging that the man he was robbing had enough money without that which he was about to take, and that if he did not take it the lawful owner would probably put it to some bad use. ”