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Friday, July 19, 2019

Foolishness of Suffragettes and Why Woman Shouldn't Want the Vote, July 18, 1919

From the Brevard News, Friday, July 18, 1919

Bohancus on the Job Again

Editor, Brevard News:

Poor old Bohancus, He has been smote “hip and thigh” back and front until he looks like an old rooster that has gone off and gotten his head pecked and his tail feathers all pulled out. As might be said, he has been hen pecked.

The “woman with a club” A.E.R. and a “Visitor” has picked my article to pieces and I will say in the language of Festus, “Thou art beside thyself. Much learning doth make thee mad.” I feel my inability to answer an article that would do credit to Susan B. Anthony or Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, and I shiver to think of the consequences that are to come hereafter.

The woman with the club says, “Now I would ask Bohancus, (such a penful, that name)”. I want to first assure her that I have a legal right to that name, if I want it, as I know of no one who is the possessor of it, and the name is not copyrighted.

I certainly do admit that the way any good woman’s husband or son votes is of vital interest to her and her children and country and the majority of women are as interested as men. But give them the ballot and men lose respect for them, and a majority of the men do not have much respect for a suffragette anyway, if you will remember the way they have been treated in Washington, London and elsewhere. Their own mannikins (way it was spelled) must not respect them very much, or they wouldn’t let them lie in jail and go on hunger strikes or be beat up by burly policemen, and have the hose turned on them. If I were the proud possessor of a suffergette (way it was spelled in paper, perhaps intentionally misspelled?) for a wife and she were treated that way, I sure would get my gun and go gunning after the fellow who mistreated her.

The cooking question, pot hooks and pans, the preparation of food and raising children, along with corner influences was not named in my article, and therefore is out of place in the reply of the woman with the club. I know nothing about raising children, but I have wielded a frying pan some little.
She asked the question: “Why would not men respect women who vote?” I will answer, for the same reason that a rooster flogs an old hen for crowing. I don’t know about the drunken galoots being oppressed to equal suffrage to the man. I have not consulted any of them about it. I will make it stronger than I did before. You will have some drunken women there also. For as long as water rises on the mountain sides and runs down into the valleys below, that long we will have to contend with blind tiger liquor. That is one thing that can’t be voted out.

And I will admit that the women of the slums have been driven out of our North Carolina Cities to the third rate hotels for new habitations.

I have not gone to the trouble to take a straw vote on Equal Suffrage but I do know that some of the strongest women of the State and Nation are against it.

This last shot I have at the woman with the club is to displace men who don’t do their duty in office. I would like to see the man who could hold office longer than one term who has not done his duty.

Now comes little “A.E.R.” with her smiling countenance and words of cheer to the down trodden creatures, and with the cries of the oppressed sounding in her ears as the “voices of many waters.” As to her seven questions.

1st, As to “Why Bohancus?” That is out of place, irrevelent and doesn’t concern the question of Equal Suffrage.

2nd, Yes drunken galoots are brought to the polls and voted, and when women get the vote, drunken wenches will be brought up and voted like little women.

3rd, The volume where you will find that Sampson’s several locks were woven in the web is in the Book of Judges, and you will find it by dusting off your family Bible and looking for it. And you will also find that the woman Delilah was sore on him and he told her to have his several locks shaved off, and then they were severed.

4th, Thru woman’s influence, good men and bad men want to do something, for the same reason that the boy wants to do something to make himself look big in the eyes of some girl.

5th, No, the style of dress doesn’t make any difference in the physical effort of the hands in placing into a box any slip of paper or ballot. And some men would be better suited with their mannikin’s breeches on than wearing the old style out of place dress they have to wear for the sake of conventionality.

6th, The poodle dog does not have any “logical connection with women voting.” But in times pass I have seen poodle dogs associated with the higher class of women, women who want to vote and don’t have anything much to do but keep the town straight and lead a poodle dog away from temptations. Therefore I connect them with wearing breeches, voting, etc. I will join you in your prayer to the Lord “the power to protect your child.”

7th, The officers of Transylvania County have mostly all been reelected to office. They have undoubtedly done their duty or fooled a lot of people. But that is not for one to say. The people are the judges.

As to brother Morgan, I will not pass him by because of his being a she man, I am glad to see that he upholds the right and will try to make this world better than it was when he came into it, and found it such a deplorable place. I can’t refrain from quoting a little piece of Burns, for his own and my benefit.

“I wad some power a gifty gie us
That we could see ourselves as ithers see u.
Twa fra many a blunder free us
And foolish notions.”

With my kindest regards and malice towards none. I am the only and original Bohancus.

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