The Saturday Review was established by Mr. Harding in October, 1880, with Mrs. Garrison associate editor. Upon the death of Mr. Harding, May 8, 1881, Mr. Charles Dennis became chief editor, Mrs. Garrison[1] remaining on the staff as his assistant.
The Times was founded in June, 1881. From the first it devoted a column to notes on women's work. From September of that year there appeared in each Saturday issue a department devoted to the interests of women, particularly to woman suffrage, under the editorial management of May Wright Sewall. This department reäppeared in the weekly and was thus widely circulated among country readers. The Times is under the management of Colonel W. R. Holloway. Although from the first fair in its discussions of all reform questions, it did not avow itself to be an advocate of woman suffrage until the week after the public entertainment of the Equal Suffrage Society, 1881, when there appeared an editorial nearly one column in length, setting forth its views upon the whole subject. This editorial contained the following paragraph:
As the question is likely to become a prominent theme of discussion during the next few years, the Times will now say that it is decidedly and unequivocally in favor of woman suffrage. We believe that women have the same right to vote that men have, that it is impolitic and unjust to deprive them of the right, and that its free and full bestowal would conserve the welfare of society and the good of government.
In the daily Evening News, Mr. J. H. Holliday, with his editorial aids, has set himself to stem the tide of progress which he evidently thinks will, unless a manful endeavor on his part shall prevent it, bear all things down to ruin. The character of his efforts may be inferred from the following extracts which appeared in January and December of 1881:
We wish our legislators would go home and ponder this thing. Read the Bible and understand the scheme of creation. Read the New Testament, and appreciate the creation of the Christian home, and the headship of things. Reflect upon what rests the future of this government we have reared, and ask what would become of it if the Christian homes in which it is founded were broken up; then reflect upon what would become of the Christian homes if men and women were to attend to the same duties in life. To get a realistic notion, let every man who has a wife ask himself how he would relish being told by her, "I have an engagement with John Smith to-night to see about fixing up a slate to get Mrs. Jones nominated for sheriff," and being left to go his own way while she goes with Smith. If that wouldn't make hell in the household in one act we don't know what would, yet this is merely one little trivial episode of what this anti-christian woman suffrage scheme means.
To what straits must the advocates of suffrage for women be driven when they needs must seek to show that the ballot is not degrading. What becomes of all our fine talk of the ballot as an educator if they who seek to secure it for women must advocate as a reason why it should not be withheld that it is not degrading! But what better can one expect from those who, when it is suggested that there are duties attaching to the ballot as well as rights, solemnly say that the few moments necessary to deposit a ballot will not interfere with women's duties of sweeping and dusting and baby-tending. When one hears talk of this sort, there is indeed a grave doubt as to whether the ballot really is an educator after all.
The first of the above citations is from what might be called an article of instruction addressed to the legislature then in session, and considering
- ↑ Mrs. Garrison left Indianapolis for New York in May of 1882. Success followed her to the metropolis and she now has, 1885, the entire editorial management of the literary department of the American Press Association, and her work goes into more than fifty of the best weekly papers in the country.
