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in reason; but lies shrouded in usage, prejudice,
and caste. Woman also feels that it is man’ s work,
and merely because he has always done it, and
she shrinks from it. When she asks for it, she
will receive it. When she comes forward to vote,
the ballot-box will be open, the vote ready, and
the way broad, clean, and flower-strewn. She will
get it without a party.
And so of the labor question. This, too, though
long agitated, full of merit and strength, and ap
pealing to the needs of a vast majority, and the
sympathy of all, has as yet assumed no shape,
has taken no form, that makes it available as an
organizing force. Although broad and palpable,
it has not yet revealed its working power. When
it does, it probably will find no set of men hardy
enough to oppose it.
The practical and apparently expedient thing
of limiting a day’s work to eight hours has no
vitality or force, as a working political element.
The thing to do is to reach below, and readjust
values, so that labor shall appreciate; while every
thing else remains, a thing hardly within the juris
diction of common politics; or, what is deeper and
more radical still, things mnst be so changed that
a man will work for himself, and not for another.