March 23, 1872
[Pages 4-5]
STRAY SHOTS.
…Dr. Malthus asserted that “too many were invited to the feast of life, and that, consequently, some must go without share therein.” The worst paid class of workers are the millions of British agricultural laborers who put the aforesaid feast on the table. The question is, ought the latter to be deprived of the food their labors have produced, in order to make room for idlers with tickets, who at present are first served?
There are four revolutions in progress throughout civilization: social, industrial, political and religious. All are progressing; but the success of either cannot be predicted until they coalesce. Our present systems are not only useless, but mischievous and prolific of crimes and criminals. Under any circumstances, those relics of the dark ages are doomed. Let them pass. The world waits for the morning….
Our Social Science reformers are fond of amusing themselves with statistics. They compute that were it not for diseases, wars, and famines, there would not be standing room for our people on this continent by the year 3000. Probably they could add something to this useful information, by informing us from the present rate of increase, how many millions of dollars per capita the people ought then to possess, also into how many thousand hands it will be concentrated. Having solved the problem they can conclude their labors by estimating, form British statistics, how many hundred men will be likely to own this continent about the same period.
At the Court of Special Sessions, on Saturday last, three children were brought before Judge Dowling, charged as follows:
Lion Ullmann, aged 9, accused of stabbing Lawrence McEvoy, aged 10. Convicted.
The second, a wretched little fellow, aged 8 years, was charged with having stolen a wheelbarrow. Acquitted.
The third case was that of a child of eleven years, who was condemned for the crime of stealing a pair of shoes.
Two of these will most probably be sent to one of our houses of refuge, where they will cease to be burden to their parents, and where their physical, intellectual, and moral wants will be properly attended to. When the Japanese visitors come, let us not show them our tenement houses in proof of our civilization, but our alms-houses and prisons.
[Page 7]
THOSE WHO KNOW US.
TENAFLY, N.J., March 10, 1872
VICTORIA WOODHULL—Dear Madam: In answer to an article in your paper of last week, “A word to the wise,” let me say, that, as far as I am concerned, I ask no higher praise than to have it said that you—maligned, denounced, cruelly and wickedly persecuted by priests, politicians, press and people—ever find a warm and welcome place in my heart, and by my side. You are doing a grand work, not only for your sex, but humanity. I have read all your speeches and bound volumes on political and social equality, and I consider your arguments on the many national questions now moving popular though, able and unanswerable.
Do not let the coldness and ingratitude of some of your sex wound you, while such noble women as Lucretia Mott, Martha C. Wright, Paulina W. Davis, Matilda Joslyn Gage, Mary J. Davis, Susan B. Anthony, and Isabella Beecher Hooker, are one and all your sincere friends.
The latter spent a few days with me not long since, and one night, as we sat alone hour after hour, by the bright moonlight, talking over the past, the present, and the future, of woman’s sad history and happier destiny, and of your sudden and marvelous coming, she abruptly exclaimed, “that little woman has bridged, with her prostrate body an awful gulf over which womanhood will walk to freedom.” Many of us fully appreciate the deep ploughing, sub-soiling, under-draining you have done for public and private morals in the last year, and while the world sneers at your blunders, we shall garner up your noble utterances with grateful hearts. The WEEKLY is all that the most fastidious could ask this week. I specially liked the editorial, “Positive and Negative Reform.” I am amused in reading the Republican and Democratic journals to see how firmly fixed these old parties are to the faith that they are to live on indefinitely, when the democracy per se has been in the grave at least four years, and the Republican party is in its dotage, so weak in the knees it cannot bear its own weight, and so blind it cannot tell its own friends. The Labor party, in refusing to do justice to woman, has sealed its doom also. Now is the time for the advance guard in all reforms to organize their forces into a “Peoples’ Party.” Those who understand the true principles of government, if they would save what we have left of freedom, and secure equal rights for all, must now come to the front and be leaders of numbers, as well as leaders of thought. If we desire a peaceful solution of the many questions now looming on our political horizon, the best men and women of the republic must assemble at an early day, and take counsel together. When we get the united thought of man and woman on national questions we shall have the complete humanitarian idea, that harmony in political action hitherto unknown.
It is strange men do not see this; and yet, not so strange after all; for when we talk to them of the “feminine element” they think of the frail specimens of womanhood who preside in their households, and say what possible benefit could these bring to us? Forgetting that the poor, cribbed slave would be transformed in freedom, and in her native dignity, develop powers that he never dreamt she possess. Today, in dependence, she reflects the man by her side, not her own true nature, or her God.
We shall never know what a true grand womanhood is, until woman has the full liberty to bound her own sphere, and you, dear friend, are doing much to usher in that glad day.
ELIZABETH CADY STANTON
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