FOR WOMAN’S ENFRANCHISEMENT.
But beyond all other questions, Mrs. Bloomer’s thoughts, hopes and labors were given to Woman’s Enfranchisement. In that cause she was a pioneer. She studied, considered and dwelt upon it in all its various bearings. She believed most sincerely that the Temperance principle of which she was an ardent advocate could never fully triumph until Woman’s voice could be fully and decisively heard in its settlement. This was her position in all her writings and addresses on that subject, and these were continued and frequent so long as her strength lasted. Moreover, she fully believed that the unjust legal enactments coming down from a semi-barbarous age, together with the harsh teachings of legal writers, would have to be completely changed in letter and spirit before woman could occupy the high place for which she was designed by her Creator and become in very deed and truth a helpmeet for man. And finally she insisted that the precious right of suffrage, the high privilege of casting a ballot along with man, should be accorded to woman as her inalienable birthright, and that she should exercise that right as a solemn duty devolving upon her as a responsible human being and as a citizen of a free republic. These were unpopular doctrines when she first commenced to espouse and uphold them in her paper, more than fifty years before her decease; but she never failed to maintain them, in all suitable ways and at all proper times, throughout her subsequent career.
Her house in Council Bluffs was always the welcome resort of those who were engaged in proclaiming these doctrines and urging them upon the favorable consideration of the people of the great West. From time to time, especially in the earlier days, nearly all these prominent advocates were her guests. Among them may be named Miss Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Mary A. Livermore, Anna Dickinson, Mrs. M. H. Cutler, Frederick Douglass, Phœbe Cozzens, and many others. And frequently when these advocates of her favorite reform visited her she arranged for public meetings for them in church or hall, so that through Mrs. Bloomer’s instrumentality her neighbors and friends were afforded opportunity of listening to some of the most noted lecturers of the day; and it is here no more than strict justice to record that she was, in all her work of promoting temperance and woman’s enfranchisement, aided and sustained by the cordial assistance and support of her husband. No note or word of discord ever arose between them on these subjects (and, indeed, very few on any other); they passed their long lives happily trying to alleviate the sufferings and right the wrongs of their fellow-travelers through the journey of life.
Mrs. Bloomer’s pen was also very busy and she frequently wrote for the newspapers in her own city and in other parts of the country. Whenever an attack was made, either upon her personally or upon her favorite ideas, it was sure to call forth from her a vigorous reply. She did not confine herself to temperance and woman’s rights; but wrote freely and often upon other kindred subjects, also. It would extend this work far beyond its prescribed limits, to republish even a small part of the productions of her pen; but some articles will be given further on. Just here we cannot omit to give one of her replies to the objection that woman should not vote because she could not fight: