Part 18 (1/2)
THE ROB ROY THEORY
”The Saturday Review,” in an article which denounces all equality in e, admits frankly the practical obstacles in the way of the process of voting ”Possibly the presence of women as voters would tend still further to promote order than has been done by the ballot” It plants itself wholly on one objection, which goes far deeper, thus:--
”If men choose to say that woive in Physical force, the ultiovernment, must be on the side of the men; and those who have the key of the position will not consent perreat pleasure when an opponent of justice is willing to fall back thus frankly upon the Rob Roy theory:--
”The good old rule Sufficeth him, the simple plan That they should take who have the power, And they should keep who can”
It is easy, I think, to show that the theory is utterly false, and that the basis of civilized society is not physical force, but, on the contrary, brains
In the city where the ”Saturday Review” is published, there are three regilish army, and are believed by their officers to be the finest troops in the world They have deteriorated in size since the Criiht; and I a the contrast between these nificent men and the comparatively puny officers who cohest social rank in England, the governing classes; and if it were the whole object of this ive a visible proof of the utter absurdity of the ”Saturday Review's”
theory, it could not be better done There is no country in Europe, I suppose, where the hereditary aristocracy is physically equal to that of England, or where the intellectual class has so good a physique But set either the House of Lords or the ”Saturday Review” contributors upon a hand-to-hand fight against an equal nuers,” and the patricians would have about as irls in a boat-race with Yale or Harvard Take the land alone, and it is hardly toothe basis of political power in any class, is apt to be found in inverse ratio to it In case of revolution, the strength of the governing class in any country is not in its physical, but in its mental power Rank and anize and co, brought to bear by somebody
In our country, without class distinctions, the same truth can be easily shown Physical power lies mainly in the hands of the masses: wherever a class or profession possesses more than its numerical share of power, it has usually less than its proportion of physical vigor This is easily shown fro our civil war In the volu the medical statistics of the Provost Marshal General's Bureau, we have the tabulated reports of about 600,000 persons subject to draft, and of about 500,000 recruits, substitutes, and draftedthe precise physical condition of more than a million men
It appears that, out of the whole number examined, rather more than 257 in each 1000 were found unfit for enerally the physical power a these men is in inverse ratio to the social and political prominence of the class they represent Out of 1000 unskilled laborers, for instance, only 348 are physically disqualified; a iron-workers, 189 On the other hand, a journalists, 740; aht of adh not one in twenty of their own number is fit for military duty, if he volunteered Of the editors who denounce woe, only about one in four could hiress, the majority could not be defenders of their country, but could only be defended If ere to distribute political poith reference to the ”physical basis” which the ”Saturday Review” talks about, it would be a wholly new distribution, and would put things more hopelessly upside down than did the worst phase of the French Commune If, then, a political theory so utterly breaks dohen applied toit in order to apply it to wooverned more and more unequivocally by brains; and whether those brains are deposited in a strong body or a weak one becomes a matter of less and less ie of barbaris head has controlled the long ar of recorded time
And it must be remembered that even these statistics very imperfectly represent the case They do not apply to the whole male sex, but actually to the picked portion only, to thethe very old and the very young Were these included, the proportion unfit for reater
Moreover, it takes no account of courage or cowardice, patriotism or zeal
How much all these considerations tell upon the actual proportion , for instance, out of some twelve thousand inhabitants and about three thousand voters, there are only some three hundred who actually served in the civil war,--a number too small to exert a perceptible influence on any local election When we see the co power into the hands of those who have actually done h to exclude woed physical basis operates as an exclusion of all non-coive a monopoly to the actual combatants
THE VOTES OF NON-COMBATANTS
The tendency of modern society is not to concentrate power in the hands of the few, but to give a greater and greater share to the many Read Froissart's Chronicles, and Scott's novels of chivalry, and you will see how thoroughly the difference between patrician and plebeian was then a difference of physical strength The knight, being better nourished and better trained, was apt to be the bodily superior of the peasant, to begin with; and this strength was reinforced by armor, weapons, horse, castle, and all the resources of feudal warfare With this greater strength went naturally the assureater political power To the heroes of ”Ivanhoe,” or ”The Fair Maid of Perth,” it would have seemed as absurd that yeoovernislature that wohts, any number of unarmed men were but so many women As Sir Philip Sidney said, ”The wolf asketh not howcivilization have tended steadily in one direction
”He giveth power to the weak, and to theth” Every step in the extension of political rights has consisted in opening thes to nobles, frohers to yeoh to low, fro out of one sure principle,--that legislation is , and that for this purpose the weakare already protected by their strength: it is the ho need all the vantage-ground that votes and legislatures can give theer without laws than with them
”Take care of yourselves in Sutherland,” was the anxious hlander: ”the law has come as far as Tain” It was the peaceful citizen who needed the guaranty of law against brute force
But can laws be executed without brute force? Not without a certain arows less and less Just in proportion as the masses are enfranchised, statutes execute the bayonets ”In a republic,” said De Tocqueville, ”if laws are not always respectable, they are always respected” If every step in freedoht about a more peaceable state of society, why should that process stop at this precise point? Besides, there is no possibility in nature of a political division in which all the men shall be on one side and all the women on the other The mutual influence of the sexes forbids it The very persons who hint at such a fear refute the that ”women will always be sufficiently represented by men,” or that ”every woman will vote as her husband thinks, and it will merely double the nulish-speaking nations: a few ainst it; and if those few have both the law and the women on their side, there will be no trouble
The truth is that in this age _cedant arae:_ it is the civilian who rules on the throne or behind it, and who ents Yonder police and formidable: he protects the women and overawes the boys But away in some corner of the City Hill there is some quiet man, out of uniform, perhaps a consumptive or a dyspeptic or a cripple, who can overawe the burliest policeman by his authority as city er police; and its official head is that plain man at the White House, who enerals in command,--who can by the stroke of the pen convert the most powerful man of the army into the most powerless Take away the occupant of the position, and put in a woman, and will she become impotent because her name is Elizabeth or Maria Theresa? It is brains that overn the world; and whether those brains be on the throne, or at the ballot-box, they will soon make the owner's sex a subordinate affair If wo in the affections, so much the better ”Win the hearts of your subjects,” said Lord Burleigh to Queen Elizabeth, ”and you will have their hands and purses”
War is the last appeal, and happily in these days the rarest appeal, of statesmanshi+p In the multifarious other duties that make up statesmanshi+p we cannot spare the brains, the self-devotion, and the enthusiasm of woman
One of the most important treaties of otiated, after previous attearet, aunt of Charles V, and Louisa, mother of Francis I
Voltaire said that Christina of Sweden was the only sovereign of her tiainst Mazarin and Richelieu
Frederick the Great said that the Seven Years' War aged against three women,--Elizabeth of Russia, Maria Theresa, and M impotent in the statesmanshi+p of women when they are adood when they are obliged to obtain by wheedling and flattery a sway that should be recognized, responsible, and limited