The Arena. Volume 4, No. 21, August, 1891

6

The heroic founder of the Bavarian monarchy, Otho of Writtelsbach, was betrayed shamefully by his friend, the Emperor Philip, of Suabia, and slew him for his treachery. This is one of the oldest dramas on the German stage.

7

The celebrated victory of the Great Elector, that made Prussia into a kingdom.

8

I would recommend every student of history to read attentively the extraordinary article of M. Paleologue in the Revue des Deux Mondes entitled “La Reine Louise de Prusse Comment se Fait une Legende.” It is a poetic but true suite to Professor Lévy Brühl’s magnificent study.

9

The first part of this admirable essay appeared in July Arena.

10

Mr. John P. Meany, editor of Poor’s Manual of Railroads, in the New York Sun of January 12, 1891.

11

Coal on the line named is worth about $1.50 per ton at the mines, while inferior coal is worth $3.75 per ton at the mines in Victoria.

12

This article is a reply to “The Tyranny of All the People,” by the Rev. Francis Bellamy, in July Arena.

13

The Report of the California Bureau of Labor, 1887-8, Commissioner John J. Tobin, should be included, but came after the above had gone to press.

14

Report State Superintendent of Education. Report 1888, p. 12.

15

Report State Superintendent of Education. Report 1889, p. 13.

16

The hundreds of earnest organizers in the great reform movements of to-day; the sincere and profoundly religious women who preach the Christian gospel every Sunday; the leaders in the great temperance organizations who are also leaders in various Orthodox churches, have, in spite of their prejudices and the old-time faith which is often more a legacy from the past than the result of a many-sided investigation, yielded to the demands of their age, the crying needs of the hour, and in defiance of the dogmatic injunctions of Paul, have entered the vineyard of practical reform, while still maintaining the anomalous position of defending the verbal inspiration of the New Testament. This singularly illogical position, however, is always met with in a transition period, when a larger and more purposeful life is struggling with time-hallowed traditions and the memories and teachings made almost sacred by the childlike acceptation, of loved parents, and teachers who have vanished down the vale.

17

It has been variously estimated by careful statisticians that we have from 2,500,000 to 3,000,000 girls and women in the United States who are making their own livings. The Commissioner of Labor, in his report for 1885, estimated that in New York City alone, there are over 200,000 employed in various wage-earning vocations. Mr. Carroll D. Wright’s fourth annual report in the U. S. Bureau of Labor gives the results of statistics gathered from twenty-two cities of women engaged in manual labor, not including the great army engaged in professional and semi-professional vocations, as something near 300,000, but the glaring discrepancy in the figures as they relate to the Empire City, shown by Helen Campbell, discredits the report. Certain it is that in the cities mentioned if one begins at the scrub women and passes through the various occupations, such as boarding-house keepers, millinery, dressmaking, cash girls, clerks, sales-women, stenographers, type-writers, book-keepers, teachers, factory girls, and slaves of the clothing trade, as well as the artists, musicians, actresses, public speakers, physicians, lawyers, and the many other professions or vocations filled by women, that the number would be swelled to the millions. The last census returns for New York City reveal the fact that there are twenty-seven thousand married men in New York who are supported by their wives, who are mainly dressmakers, milliners, boarding-house keepers, artists, teachers, musicians, and actresses. Here we have an army of shiftless, dependent men, more than a quarter of one hundred thousand strong, having each a vote to cast or perchance to sell to the highest bidder, while the real bread-winners, the actual wealth-producers, in this case have no voice in the legislative halls.

18

At times woman has shown a spirit of intolerance born of the intensity of her conviction which has led many thoughtful men and women to seriously question whether the right of suffrage might not prove a curse rather than a blessing, ending in repressive legislation and religious persecutions. I do not, however, fear these evils. The intensity of convictions is a compliment to her heart; and her innate love of justice and fair-play, would, I think, in a reasonably short time, expand the intellectual vision which prejudice and ancient thought has long obscured. Let the outcome, however, be it what it may, we have no right to argue on lines of policy, when a question of right or justice is involved. It is simple justice for every woman to exercise the right of franchise who desires to so enjoy it, and this should be sufficient to settle the question in the minds of those who believe in according to others what is demanded for themselves.