253

WAS NOT A PARTISAN FIGHT

Mrs. Peattie Explains Wherein the Women Voters Were Misled.

Suggests That THree of the Gentle Sex Enter the Next Race by Petition.

Reasons Advanced Why a Woman Should figure on the Board of Education -- False Accusations.

The election is over, and the republicans have won. There's nothing disastrous in that. it is to be hoped that it will always be safe for any party of Americans to win. No one can possibly believe that more than half of the nation -- or less than half of it -- is in league against good government. The parties in America represent different points of view, but it is to be hoped that they do not represent different degrees of patriotism.

The women in this city have had a peculiar interest in the last election, owing to the fact that they had a candidate of their own. That candidate has been defeated, along with the rest of those who were upon the democratic and populist tickets. And I am so fearful that the women will therefore feel discouraged, and lose their interest in the office for which this candidate was nominated -- that, however much I may be accused of bad taste, I must publicly write a few words to reassure them.

In no one branch of civic work is woman so much needed as in that which supervises the Schools. It is [?] and appropriate that she should be there. Her duties will not be of the same sort as those which the men assume. The men may attend to the finances in a general way, and dole out the janitorships to their political henchmen. But the women can make it their business to become acquainted with the life of the school room; they can look after the comfort of the children, the welfare of the teachers, and the moral and intellectual instruction. The task will be large, but noble. And certainly patriotic women should not be debarred from performing a public service now and then. It is a service, to be sure, which must be performed without any reward. It lays the performer open to much criticism. Where a woman is concerned success on the school board does not mean the opening of wider opportunities. Nothing but disinterestedness can prompt her to assume such responsibilities. It will therefore be seen that for many reasons she will be a valuable acquisition.

The present defeat has been the result of the partisan feeling among the women. More than half of the women who voted cast their ballot for the republican ticket, preferring a republican rather than one of their own sex upon the board. This was probably unexpected to those who first conceived the idea of securing the nomination of a woman candidate. There was nothing partisan in the attitude of that candidate. Nor could she conceive what partisanship had to do with the duties which are to be performed upon the school board. A democrat or a republican ought to be able equally well to look after good morals, fine instruction good ventilation and thorough system. Opinions on the tariff do not affect ones interest in childhood, nor do differences concerning the ratio of silver and gold currency affect one's ability to judge of text books. But the women seem to have thought otherwise, and to have been indifferent to representation upon the school board, so far as representation lay in sex. And they have defeated their own candidate.