Every year makes it plainer that the community must imitate Tarquinius Superbus and the Queen of Hearts if it wishes to get rid of the woman suffrage movement. So long as every woman favors it whenever she gets her head above a certain point, so long those conspicuous heads must be recognized. You must either put them on the voting-list, or on the list ordered for immediate execution: there is no middle ground.
There are the women who write books, for instance. When authorship first came up among the women of America, they not only claimed nothing more than the mere privilege of having brains, but they almost apologized for that. Their early authors, as Mrs. Child and Mrs. Leslie, had a way of preparing a cookery-book apiece, as a propitiation to the tyrant man, before proceeding to what is called “the intellectual feast.” They held, with Miss Bremer, that you can get any thing you like from a man if you will only have something nice to pop into his mouth. Mrs. Sarah J. Hale, in her “Woman’s Record,” published twenty years ago, adopted a different form of submission. She seemed very anxious to prove that women had taken a prominent part in the world; but also to show, that, if they were only forgiven for this, they would never, never, never make themselves any more prominent. It is but within a few years that literary women have dared to go beyond literature, and ask for a vote besides.
But now, with what a terrible confidence they come to the demand for suffrage when they acquire voice enough to make themselves heard! Mrs. Stowe helps to free Uncle Tom in his cabin, and then strikes for the freedom of women in her own “Hearth and Home.” Mrs. Howe writes the “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” and keeps on writing more battle-hymns in behalf of her own sex. Miss Alcott not only delineates “Little Women,” but wishes to emancipate them. Miss Phelps desires to see the “Gates Ajar” for her sex, both in heaven and on earth. Mrs. Child, who risked her literary popularity in early life by her “Appeal for that Class of Americans called Africans,” was as ready to risk it again for that class of Americans called women.
Of course, there are social circles in America where all desire for leadership on the part of literary women would be repudiated; nay, where the fact that a woman had written a book would imply a loss of caste. When Karl von Beethoven signed himself “Gutsbesitzer,” or “land proprietor,” his brother Ludwig signed himself “Hirnbesitzer,” or “proprietor of a brain.” Posterity remembers only the great musical composer; yet, doubtless, to the society of that period, the stupid elder brother was by far the greater man. Such perversities cannot be helped; but I write for reasonable people. Among the women who dance the German, woman suffrage may be just now unpopular; but the women who translate German will in the long-run have most influence, and their verdict seems to tend the other way. It is said that the leading dancer among the young men of one of our cities was transformed into an equally prominent lawyer by a single suggestion from an elder sister, that it was “better to be a man of books than a man of toes.” It is likely that America will be more influenced at last by the women of heads than by the women of heels.
LXXXVII.
FOLLOW YOUR LEADERS.
“There go thirty thousand men,” shouted the Portuguese, as Wellington, with a few staff-officers, rode along the mountain-side. The action of the leaders’ minds, in any direction, has a value out of all proportion to their numbers. In a campaign, there is a council of officers,—Grant and Sherman and Sheridan perhaps. They are but a trifling minority, yet what they plan the whole army will do; and such is the faith in a real leader, that, were all the restraints of discipline for the moment relaxed, the rank and file would still follow his judgment. What a few general officers see to be the best to-day, the sergeants and corporals and private soldiers will usually see to be best to-morrow.
In peace, also, there is a silent leadership; only that in peace, as there is more time to spare, the leaders are expected to persuade the rank and file, instead of commanding them. Yet it comes to the same thing in the end. The movement begins with certain guides, and, if you wish to know the future, keep your eye on them. If you wish to know what is already decided, ask the majority; but, if you wish to find out what is likely to be done next, ask the leaders.
It is constantly said that the majority of women do not yet desire to vote, and it is true. But, to find out whether they are likely to wish for it, we must keep our eyes on the women who lead their sex. The representative women,—those who naturally stand for the rest, those most eminent for knowledge and self-devotion,—how do they view the thing? The rank and file do not yet demand the ballot, you say; but how is it with the general officers?
Now, it is a remarkable fact, about which those who have watched this movement for twenty years can hardly be mistaken, that almost any woman who reaches a certain point of intellectual or moral development will presently be found desiring the ballot for her sex. If this be so, it predicts the future. It is the judgment of Grant and Sherman and Sheridan as against that of the average private soldier of the Two Hundredth Infantry. Set aside, if you please, the specialists of this particular agitation,—those who were first known to the public through its advocacy. There is no just reason why they should be set aside, yet concede that for a moment. The fact remains that the ablest women in the land—those who were recognized as ablest in other spheres, before they took this particular duty upon them—are extremely apt to assume this cross when they reach a certain stage of development.
When Margaret Fuller first came forward into literature, she supposed that literature was all she wanted. It was not till she came to write upon woman’s position that she discovered what woman needed. Clara Barton, driving her ambulance or her supply-wagon at the battle’s edge, did not foresee, perhaps, that she should make that touching appeal, when the battle was over, imploring her own enfranchisement from the soldiers she had befriended. Lydia Maria Child, Julia Ward Howe, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Louisa Alcott, came to the claim for the ballot earlier than a million others, because they were the intellectual leaders of American womanhood. They saw farthest, because they were in the highest place. They were the recognized representatives of their sex before they gave in their adhesion to the new demand. Their judgment is as the judgment of the council of officers; while Flora McFlimsey’s opinion is as the opinion of John Smith, unassigned recruit. But, if the generals make arrangements for a battle, the chance is that John Smith will have to take a hand in it, or else run away.