It will be a great victory for mankind when women can veto the curse of mankind. The mother impulse is stronger with women than any, and when she can protect her offspring, she will make a greater effort to do so than now. She will not then do as many now do, make her body a manikin to hang the fashions of the day on. She will not then display her form to attract the vulgar gaze of the world. She will not place the corpses of cats or birds on her head. She will not wear mops at the bottom of her dress to sweep up the filth of the earth. She will not wear shoes that injure her as the heathen do. She will not put her body in the vice of a corset, displacing the organs of her body, unfitting her to be a mother, causing more than half the surgical operations in the hospitals. She will then discuss character more than fashion. She will be ashamed of her silly, giggling and meaningless conversation. God said, "a man shall not wear that which pertains to a woman neither shall a woman put on a mans garment for all that do such things are an abomination unto God" women will then see the vulgarity and immodesty and sin in dressing in male attire or in any other form of indecent exposure of her person.
Young men often say to me: 'Mrs. Nation, if I go to see young ladies I can learn nothing from them. They are not interested in the subjects that are improving to young men. They read only trash." Also they say: "I cannot afford to marry. I cannot support a woman. Their wants are so many.' Dress is a remnant of barbarism. The Indians delight in different colors, the plumage of birds, the skins of animals, even rattle-snakes. We retrograde to their level when we attract the vulgar gaze to such vanities.
God said: "I will make man a HELPMATE," a partner, a helper, not a hinderer to success in any way. What kind of mothers will this class of women make? It is said that a mother does more to mold the mind and heart of the child before it is born than can be done by any one from its birth up to twelve years. God sent an angel to the mother of Samson; told her "not to drink wine or strong drink" before the child was born. Why? God wishes here to teach that mothers can injure their children or entail on them vices before they are born.
Women will triumph in this battle. The devil knows it and has put forth every effort to forestall this great reform. Look at the shop windows, loaded with every style and fashion to attract the eyes of the passing woman. Things that will be but a burden to her, will cause her to use the earnings of her husband and the patrimony of her children and destroy her mother influence and bring upon her just censure of her husband.
This is not the rule but the exception, for women, if they are not false, spend more for the advancement of their families than themselves. There never will be a club or other organization of women that will ever make any regulation that will in any way injure the welfare of their offspring.
And the interests of men are safe in the keeping of good women.
Woman is also a power for evil. Solomon, the wisest, was not wise enough to keep out of the toils of bad women; and Samson, the strongest, was not strong enough to break away from the bad influence.
Oh! the degradation among women from intoxicating drinks! These degrade women and she degrades men. "Rise up ye women who are at ease in Zion!" The drinking places in the cities, especially in New York, by every device get women in their dens that they may entice men.
Suffrage is not to give woman greater opportunities to be bad but to strengthen their powers to resist evil and help men to do the same. To cause her to think more of the inmates of her home than her raiment.
Woman's greatest sins and vices are those of vanity of appearance and dress to attract or please their male companions. The prostitutes do the same thing. Women should be taught to avoid the arts of such.
When I see a woman arrayed as I do these women in these homes of sin I think, "There is sympathy."
