Tuesday, June 5, 2007

Farmer Radford on Woman Suffrage

1915

The home is the greatest contribution of women to the world, and the hearthstone is her throne. Our social structure is built around her, and social righteousness is in her charge.

Her beautiful life lights the skies of hope and her refinement is the charm of twentieth century civilization. Her graces and her power are the cumulative products of generations of queenly conquest, and her crown of exalted womanhood is jeweled with the wisdom of saintly mothers. She has been a great factor in the glory of our country, and her noble achievements should not be marred or her hallowed influence blighted by the coarser duties of citizenship.

American chivalry should never permit her to bear the burdens of defending and maintaining government, but should preserve her unsullied from the allied influences of politics, and protect her from the weighty responsibilities of the sordid affairs of life that will crush her ideals and lower her standards.

The motherhood of the farm is our inspiration, she is the guardian of our domestic welfare and a guide to a higher life, but directing the affairs of government is not within woman's sphere, and political gossip would cause her to neglect the home, forget to mend our clothes and burn the biscuits.

—New Oxford Item, New Oxford, Pennsylvania, Jan. 28, 1915.

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