December 9, 1871
[Page 14]
WOMAN ITEMS.
Twenty young ladies are now employed in the registry of deeds office in Portland.
Laborers are scarce at St. John’s, N.F., and women are employed on the wharves to load and unload vessels….
“My daughter Julia,” says the editor of the Seymour (Ill.) Times, “becoming disgusted with the roving printers we had to employ, determined to do all the work herself. She set every type in the current issue of the paper, including new advertisements, and had three columns left over for next week; besides which she did a big washing, read about fifty newspapers, and took two days’ recreation at the county fair.”…
“There is nothing new under the sun:” Who could have supposed however, that it would be our privilege, in this nineteenth century, to give a veritable extract from one of the Ante-Nicene fathers in condemnation of the monstrous fashions of our own day, aptly entitling it, “Tertullion on the Chignon?”… “Why is no rest allowed to your hair, which must be now bound, now loosed, now cultivated, now thinned out? Some are anxious to force their hair into curls; some to let it hang loose and flying….It has been pronounced that no one can add to his own stature. You, however, do add to your weight some kind of rolls, or shield bosses to be piled upon your necks. If you feel no shame at the pollution, for fear you are fitting on a holy and Christian head the slough of some one else’s head—unclean perchance, guilty perchance, and destined to hell….”
[Page 8]
EDITORIAL CORRESPONDENCE.
WHAT IS THE ISSUE?
WEDDELL HOUSE, CLEVELAND, O.,
November 24, 1871
The present political issue is, plainly, the common right of self-government specially involving the right of woman to it. Self-government means either that people may govern themselves or have a direct voice in the election of those who shall frame the laws; that is, shall be represented in the law-making power. If a person be not represented in the law-making power, and is not himself a part of that power, then he has no self-government….
[Page 9]
ARE WE A CHRISTIAN PEOPLE?
BUFFALO, Nov. 26th, 1871.
This may seem a strange query to ask in this advanced day and age. But if we are to base our pretensions to being so upon the exemplifications of the precepts and practices of the Man of Nazareth it is seriously to be doubted if we have any just right to that name. That we make great professions is very true, but what do we bring to the support of them, in our everyday lives ?
On every hand people live simply for self and seemingly absorbed in the things of the material world, as ends. Very few are they who regard their acquisitions of wealth in any other light than for personal comfort and gratification. Millionaires reside in sight of the starving and forget that they are their brothers and sisters, all owning a Common Parent.
And when we talk of an order of things that shall look to an equalization of comforts for humanity, those having them in greater abundance than they can in any way make use of, cry out against the “intended injustice,” and denounce us as desirous of disturbing the foundations of society, to introduce Communism.
If we mistake not, our great Master and Teacher and his disciples and their followers had all things in common. He even commanded “Go and sell all thou hast and give it to the poor.” The fact is there are no Christians. They are all the merest pretenders and shams/ They affect Christ and him crucified, and live the life of the Scribes and Pharisees. If there is a Godly Christian in the land who will not greedily take the wealth that a hundred laboring men create, toiling all their lives, let him call himself a Christian, since he renders justice; but that Christianity which permits a few favored people to grasp the entire proceeds of the million’s labor, and riot in it, while they barely exist, and at the end of a life find themselves possessed of no more than they begun it with, savors almost too much of hypocritical pretense to stand the test of a growing intelligence among the people.
It is a barefaced assumption for the Vanderbilts, Stewarts and Astors of the world to say that they are equitably possessed of their vast wealth, since it is well known that it has cost thousands of years of labor to produce it, and consequently that it is unjustly held. It does not matter how a person becomes possessed of the results of the labor of others, except he give equitable value therefor, whether by shrewd management, by sharp practice or by the aid of legislation, it is fraudulently held, and when tried by a perfect system of justice does not belong to him. And the time is rapidly approaching in which the laboring people will understand this fact, and act accordingly.
If we regard this generation in the light of the teachings of Christ, the accumulated wealth of the world is simply held in trust for the people; since He taught that we are all brothers, not merely in name but in the essence of the term. It behooves those who have been intrusted with the people’s wealth to begin to show that they are desirous of properly administering their trust.
“What profiteth it a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul.” And what happiness can the favored few feel when they knew that they have enough, which, if equitably and equally distributed, would make everybody rich, and yet detract nothing from their own enjoyment. Our Christianity is a vast bundle of the most intense selfishness ; seeking wealth in every possible way, without any reference whatever to the good that can be done with it, and caring not a whit who suffers by its obtainment, and even enforcing its possession at the expense of food, shelter and raiment for suffering women and children.
It seems to us that we have yet to learn the first principles of the Christian religion, the whole spirit of which was to equality in all things, and especially in the things of this life. How much better off humanity would be to-day if a spirit of brotherly love existed among them. Religion has been too idealistic; too far removed from everyday life; made too great a rarity by Sunday worship; brought too little home to the intercourse of men, and considered as something quite too far separate from their material wants.
It is a difficult thing for a person to worship God and feel Him to be a kind and loving father and a just ruler, when he sees his neighbor rioting in what his own hands produced, while he yearns for the bread to satisfy his hunger. All things must be done in their legitimate order. Before we can expect to save the souls of men we must effect their material salvation. Christianity has too little to do with the material wants of the people. It must descend into and elevate them from necessity and want, and introduce a system of divine justice in material things, and then we may legitimately expect to understand and appreciate a higher order of justice and morals.
It is in the power of the holders of the wealth of this country to introduce and perfect a system of society which
shall utilize every element it contains. As a community we are fast approaching the condition that demands a true order of organization, which shall exemplify the fact that the human family is in reality one and indivisible, and that the interests of every member of it are best subserved when the best interests of all are maintained, and in which no single member can be left to suffer and the rest of the body be not affected by it.
Wealth should join hands with science, and set about this great work of organizing society upon a purely scientific basis. Every person who has wealth will be the happier and the better off for doing so. Where he now has earthly treasure he will gain that which “moth and rust do not corrupt,” and which should be the coveted wealth instead of that which can do no possible good when death shall call us to the land “where thieves do not break through nor steal.”
VICTORIA C. WOODHULL.
[Page 11]
THE BIBLE in schools is one of the controverted questions of the day. Protestants take the Bible in full, Catholics take the Bible in part–Jews, Atheists and Heretics and “sich” are of no account. The American Constitution ignores religion. Every man may worship as he pleases. Public schools are for the purpose of instruction in facts, not in opinions; even morals are not professedly the objects of public school instruction. In Long Island City there is an immense muss on the subject. Protestants, anxious to make political capital, insist on reading a book objectionable to Catholic citizens and tax-payers. The rule of “live and let live” seems to obviate the difficulty. But your zealot is not easily satisfied unless he be atop of the heap.
[Page 16]
WOMAN LABOR.
The belief of a certain class of men is, that in claiming equal rights the fair sex are merely dissatisfied with the duties or comforts–as the case may be–of their lot; and that in seeking the quality of payment for tasks carefully and faithfully performed they are but courting the excitement attendant on masculine employment and out-of-door life.
That the duties of father and mother both devolve on nine out of every ten women, not only in New York, but in the Christian world, is a fact that they cannot but perceive, but are unwilling to admit. If a man finds it impossible to keep a family of five in food and shoe leather on $8 or $10 per week, how in the name of common sense is a woman to do it? Yet thousands are compelled to keep the souls and bodies together of their little flock of starvelings on these amounts; and the very man who complains most bitterly of the expenses of his family and the smallness of his pay is usually the loudest in denouncing the claim to equal rights….
REGINA
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