You ought to be out raising hell. This is the fighting age. Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
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Sunday October 16, 1904
From the Appeal to Reason: Colorado Woman Opposes Re-election of Roosevelt
From the latest edition of the Appeal:
Why Women Should Oppose the Election of Roosevelt.
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Editor Appeal to Reason: Opinions vary as to the righteousness of Roosevelt's political acts, but as to his attitude toward women there can be no diversity of thought. He has taken it upon himself to dictate concerning woman's most personal affairs, and to map out her life for her in ways that are not only un-American, but are 100 years behind the times.
The past forty years have witnessed woman's bitter struggle to obtain an education for herself and the right to labor. Roosevelt would abolish both. He has no use for the higher education for women, nor is he pleased to see them developing talents and earning their living in the outside world. An early marriage and many children is woman's destiny, and it is an abnormality for her to desire anything different. Though a college man, his daughters are not college-bred. In the light of modern methods their educational endowments must be considered most meager. Roosevelt's idea of woman's education coincides exactly with that of the German emperor-"children, cooking, church."
On the other hand, his sons are receiving every inducement to develop themselves to the utmost. A peculiarity of their training, and one which throws light on Roosevelt's estimate of women, is that, as soon as they are well past the kindergarten, they are removed from woman's atrocious influence in the public school, and sent to a boy's boarding school, under male teachers. Upon graduation they are to be sent to a man's college, where neither girl students nor women professors are tolerated. The pastor of the Dutch Reformed church, of which Roosevelt is a member, preaches openly in the pulpit the subserviency of woman to a husband's rule, and Roosevelt heartily endorses him. His ultimatum on race suicide is well known.
When a man betrays uncontrolled beastliness with the resulting birth of from fifteen to twenty infants and informs Roosevelt of the fact, the president immediately forwards him his photo with heartiest congratulations. Never once does he ask: "Were they wanted-planned for? Is their mother able to stand the strain of such frequent births? Are the children well born and properly cared for?" Finances, health and personal wishes are utterly disregarded by Roosevelt. The beauty of a loving, controlled motherhood is set aside and woman transformed into a prolific propagating animal, and he holds in "scorn and contempt" all who refuse to become such.
Child-birth means agony unspeakable, and the burden assumed at that time is a care and responsibility that can never be laid down while life lasts. Woman alone, being chiefly concerned, has the right to decide this. Roosevelt not only forces his decision upon her, but allows her to bring nothing to the momentous task but an untrained mind and unskilled hands.
American women, to whom motherhood means more than mere numbers, who are progressive in thought and ambitious for themselves, and anxious to secure educational advantages and industrial equipment for their daughters, will do well to ask themselves whether it is wise or right for them to support by their vote or influence a man who is so strongly opposed to all that intelligent, cultivated womanhood holds dear.
-Lula McClure Clark, Edith, Colo.
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This week's offering from Ryan Walker:
And thus we find, that having satisfied Roosevelt's ideal of American womanhood, and now doing all she can to prevent "race suicide," the working class mother may very well be forced by economic necessity to hand her child over to the capitalist master to feed into his factories and mills.
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During the March of the Mill Children, Mother Jones took on Roosevelt and his theory of "race suicide." On July 10, 1903 at Monument Park in Trenton, New Jersey, she spoke before a crowd of 5,000 and asserted:
Women have learned that their children are taken away from them and put to work when they should be in school. What is the use of bringing a lot of children into the world to make more money for plutocrats, while their little lives are being ground out in the mill and workshop?
Readers of
Hellraisers will
remember that Roosevelt could not bother himself to meet with Mother Jones and the striking children of the Pennsylvania textile mills. The children arrived at Oyster Bay after their long march from Philadelphia seeking an audience with their president to discuss the issue of child labor. Having lectured women on their failure to produce an adequate number of children, the President could not take the time to concern himself with the children who were thus produced according to his instructions.
The children returned to Philadelphia, their strike defeated. And they remain there now toiling away their childhood, the only childhood they will ever know. The President, meanwhile continues to lecture working class women on their duty to produce more and more children. More and more children to feed the factories and mills. More and more children to create the Great Prosperity-prosperity for some, yes, but not for them.
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SOURCE
Appeal to Reason
(Girard, Kansas)
-of Oct 15, 1904
http://www.newspapers.com/...
See also:
1). "Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Speaks before 5000 Supporters
in Trenton for Children's Crusade" byJayRaye
http://www.dailykos.com/...
2). "Mother Jones and the Children's Crusade" byJayRaye
http://www.dailykos.com/...
3). "Educating the President on 'Race Suicide'" by JayRaye
http://www.dailykos.com/...
IMAGES
Roosevelt/Fairbanks Campaign Poster, 1904
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Capitalism Educates Children & Text
http://www.newspapers.com/...
March of the Mill Children
http://laborleaders.wordpress.com/...
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Babies in the Mill-Dorsey Dixon
To their jobs those little ones was strictly forced to go.
Those babies had to be on time through rain and sleet and snow.
Many times when things went wrong their bosses often frowned.
Many times those little ones was kicked and shoved around.
-Dorsey Dixon
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