[*NAWSA GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE Bennett, Sarah C.*] A REPLY To Some Things That Mr. Chester T. Crowell of San Antonia, Texas, said in an article published in the Independent of New York City on January 12, 1914, and entitled, - "An Indictment of Women and a Defense of Men." BY MRS. JAMES BENNETT OF RICHMOND, KY. Mr. Cromwell said: "A man is a more valuable unit of society than a woman." But I think that it is impossible for the man to be a more valuable unit of society than the woman. Because society is composed of persons who cannot come into existence without causing danger and suffering to the woman. And whose lives have been preserved by her labor and care of them, day and night, during their infancy. For the average father refuses to endure the fatigue and confinement that it is necessary some person should endure in order to preserve the life of an infant, and when his wife dies he gets some other woman to take care of the child for him. Mr. Crowell said: "If a score card could be drawn by which the efficiency of wives in the activities in their special sphere could be fairly measured it would be shown that their average efficiency is below what men would tolerate in their machinery or employees. It is fortunate for women that they are not dependent upon their efficiency as housewives and mothers alone in order to hold their jobs." But I do not think that we can arrive at a correct estimate of the relative value of the man and the woman to society, by comparing the efficiency of the average man at a machine in a shop, with the efficiency of the average women as a housewife and mother in the home. Because this man is only required to be one thing, while this woman is required to be a housewife, a mother, a cook, a washerwoman, a seamstress and a laborer at some thing that will bring in money to help support the family. And no jack at many trades ever is preeminently efficiency at any. Mr. Crowell implied that women were more prone to tell lies than men when he said: "It is a widely known fact that their truthfulness under oath is seriously doubted in the courts of every land." But if women are more prone to tell lies than men, I do not think that it is because of their sex. I think it is because wives are denied the same protection of laws as husbands in person and property. Throughout all the past ages of the world the men of every land have held its women in a condition of slavery, by making and enforcing laws which withheld from wives a legal control over their children, deprived them of their property and excluded them from offices of power. And slaves are more prone to tell lies than free persons be they men or women. For slaves are incited to tell lies by the hope that by doing it, they may escape the suffering that the law empowers their masters to inflict upon them whenever they choose. Mr. Crowell said: "I am tired of hearing my sex abused and misrepresented. I feel that the feminist movement is running amuck."........ "I am proud of the fact that men have of their own free will, and under no compulsion except that of their sense of fairness and love, ceased to make of women a chattel to be bought and sold." But men never ceased to make and enforce laws which held women in a condition of slavery, in these United States or in any other land, until some God-fearing and God-loving women rebuked them for their injustice, as Christ commanded women to do, when He said in Luke 17:3 - "Take heed to yourselves; if thy brother trespass against thee rebuke him, and if he repent forgive him." And I think every woman ought to obey this commandment, as well as the one that Christ has given her through the Bible where it says in I Peter 5:5 - "Wives be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may with out the word be won by the conversation of the wives." For in John 15:14, Christ has said :- "Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you." And in connection with some others, I think that the above passage of scripture teach that Christ has commanded women and men to deal with the injustices that are inflicted upon them by other persons, just as Christ delt with those which men inflicted upon him. And Christ submitted to the injustices that men inflicted upon him without any material resistance, and awakened them to a clear perception of their wickedness by rebuking them for their injustice to him by crying unto God from the cross to which men had nailed him :- "Father forgive them for they know not what they do." The Kentucky Regis T. H. Pickels - PUBLISHER RICHMOND, KY., FEB 27, 1914 Cash Subscription, - $1.00 YOUR TOWN IS WHAT YOU MAKE IT. What makes a town? People and business. You are one of the people. What you buy helps make the business. The more you buy the better the business; the more business the better the town. You want the town to grow and improve, don't you? Then you should help it to grow by increasing its business as much as you can. Every time you send elsewhere for goods you give your town a blow. Enough of these blows will ultimately kill the town. The mail order houses do nothing for your town excpet try to kill it. Are you helping them? You are if you send your money to them for goods that you could buy at home. If you are more interested in the growth of Chicago or New York than you are in the prosperity of our own town, your own neighbors, then continue to send to mail order houses for goods. If you want your own town to thrive. Spend your money where you make it. THE MELANCHOLY PAGE. There is a melancholy page in the latest report made public by the Census Bureau in Washington. In cold figures is verified the oft-repeated charge that the present-day industry with its terrific pressure is slicing off years from the life of the average worker. It is the strain of the city's life and industry that breaks man down. Forty, according to the census report, is, if not the age of death, at least the age of Oslerization in the big cities. At that age the city worker is at the end of his prime. Throw him out of a job at forty and he will seldom come back, as the saying is. The period commonly referred to as the prime of life, in cities like Chicago, Boston, or New York, has been moved ten years nearer to the cradle. The striking manner in which industrial cities cut down men's lives is shown by a study of the comparative number of deaths at various ages in industrial cities and in rural communities. In Chicago, for example, the number of those who die between the ages of thirty-five and fifty-four is sixty-one per one thousand persons. It is higher in New York and Boston. In Indiana, on the other hand, the number of deaths per one thousand people of the same ages is but thirty- nine. The figures are approximately the same for all big cities and for all rural communities. The lesson is plain; if you want a "green old age" don't look for it in big cities, but in the small country town where the pace is not so fast. men and women who did the cas before them, who tried to disch their own duties and spent litt their time and energy clamoring their "rights." Children were and reared in the good old fashi way- praised when doing well, sp ed when doing ill, treated as no beings and never mollycodled. parent never expected the teach take care of the whole moral spiritual development of the child to teach it the normal things w belong to the home. Now we are told that parents a set of fools and utterly unfit ev have children, let alone rear t Children must be bred and reare the manner of fancy live-stock schools are to usurp the place of h What bosh! We need more com sense and fewer faddists. PERFORMANCES. A compilation of what has b accomplished since Mr. Wilson ass ed office on March 4, 1913, was n and issued by the Democratic Natl committee. Under the heading " formances," these thirty-one item achievement are stated: "For the first time in a gener the enactment of a tariff law in w no special interest or lobby had hand. The enactment of a currency reform act which meets the enthusiastic approval of citizens of all classes. The elimination of the lobby from the halls of congress and the seat government. The perfect and operation of the two amendments to the constitution since 1870, namely, the imposition an income tax, and providing for election of senators by the people. The peace program of Secret Bryan for the sole purpose of dev ing political conflicts of their infla mable character By his action in appearing at capitol and addressing congress person, ending government by sec conferences and private arrangemen The action of the president in bring- ing together representative of cap and labor, resulting in the prompt passage of the employees' arbitrat act. The president's constitution of pea policy, resulting in voluntary breaki of interlocking directorates. The action of the secretary of t treasury, in depositing $50,000,000 crop moving funds in the West a South. The president's forcing on the atte tion of the country the necessity for system of farm credits. The granting of modified self-gover ment to the Filipinos. The divorcement of the governme from affiliations with the New Yo financial interests that were parties the six-power loan to China. The elimination of the Telepho trust's record of the Western Unio Telegraph Company. The policy of 'diplomatic postpon ment,' which has prevented precipia action in disputes with Great Britain Japan and Mexico. Richmond Ky Jan. 24th, 1914 Dear "Women Journal" I enclose you a copy of a letter that I have just mailed to every member of the Kentucky Legislature. I hope you will like it enough to be willing to publish it in the journal. very truly yours Sarah Clay Bennett RICHMOND KENTUCKY, January 23, 1914 My Dear Sir:-- In 1891 the white men of Kentucky adopted a new constitution for this State which conferred a right to vote at its public elections upon white and colored men, and withheld it from white and colored women. By doing this, the white men of Kentucky delivered their wives into what according to Benjamin Franklin is a condition of slavery go colored men. For in some of his published works Franklin wrote. - They who have neither voice nor vote in the electing of representatives do not enjoy liberty, but are absolutely enslaved to them who have votes, and to their representatives. For to be enslaved is to be ruled by governors whom others have set over us, and to be subject to laws that have been made by representatives of others, without having had representatives of our own to give consent in our behalf. In view of these facts, I write to you as I shall to every other member of our Kentucky Legislature, and ask you gentlemen to pass a resolution submitting to the voters of this State an amendment to the Constitution of Kentucky which will confer upon white and colored women the same right to vote at public elections in this State, that white and colored men now possess. The men of Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Washington, California, Oregan, Kansas and Arizona have already adopted Constitutions for their States which confer upon white and colored women the same right to vote at public elections, that they confer upon white and colored men. And, I think that the men of Kentucky have just as keen a sense of honor as the men of these States. The man ought to act like God. In Isaiah 54:5 the Bible says --"Thy Maker is thine husband." So the church of God is his wife. And the man ought to act toward his wife just as the Bible teaches us that God acted toward his church. He ought to allow his wife to reign with him on earth because the Bible teaches that God intends to allow his church to "reign" with him in heaven. In 1 John 3:16 the Bible says -- "Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us." Our Creator manifested himself in the flesh to die upon a cross in order to lift his church up to a seat by his side upon an everlasting throne, that she might reign with him in heaven. And the Bible tells us in Luke 2:14 that when he did this an host of angels rent the skies with the glad acclaim -- "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men." But the white man of these United States has so aped the Majesty of heaven that he makes these angels mute. For he has elevated men of every race and color to seats by his side upon our big American throne in order that they may reign with him on earth, and left his wife standing a supplicant at their feet. Hoping that you will grant my request, I am, my dear Sir, Most Sincerely Yours, Transcribed and reviewed by contributors participating in the By The People project at crowd.loc.gov.