WOMANS RIGHTS IN NEW YORK.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9154, 8 September 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

WOMANS RIGHTS IN NEW YORK.

New York, July 26. —Belva Lockwood, one of the candidates for the Presidency of the United States, delivered what is considered her opening address to electors in Everett Hall, Brooklyn, to-night. Mrs. Beckwith, president of the Brooklyn branch of the Woman's Rights Association, was in the chair.

Mrs. Belva Lockwood was introduced as the next President of the United States, and was received with applause. She wore eye-glasses, was dressed in black, sported a gold watchguard, and had a beautiful bouquet on the desk in front of her. She is of middle age and decidely good-looking. She spoke as one having her words by heart, as was evident from the inflection of her voice. Political and historical subjects were the matter of her discourse and her gestures were quiet but studied, and she is a perfect mistress of elocution. She touched upon Greek and Roman history, plunging into the middle ages, and came down to our own time with a rush.

" When machinery had taken the work out of woman's hands," she asked, and even babies were rocked by machinery, what then was left for woman to do ? Women are now beginning to ask if they are persons, as understood by the constitution, and, if so, why they should be taxed without representation. These questions are discussed by them throughout the land. The new civilisation is at hand wherein brain and intellect shall rule the nation instead of brute force. There is ample space in these United States of America for its 60,000,000 of inhabitants, without seizing lots in great cities. There is a farm for everyone who requires it, and there is a surplus to place them where they wish to go and settle and become a bulwark instead of a threat to the State."

Mrs. Lockwood spoke of four Republican aspirants for the Presidency at Chicago recently who were millionaires and railroad magnates, with their clienteles like Roman patricians of old. It was a sad travesty on free institutions, and the trouble was that matters were not likely to improve. She criticised the selfish motives of both the Labour and Prohibition parties, who, afraid of female suffrage, which alone will enable them to achieve equality and temperance, lay their grievances before State conventions and deal with great questions in a pitiful way. " The Republican party in power freed the negro, but absolutely loses sight of the American woman," said Mrs. Lockwood. " The Democratic party still clings to its old chivalric ideas and recognises her as the dolt and drudge, but she must look to the young men of the colleges and the rising generation, who are moro intellectual and liberal than their fathers. They will eventually vote for female suffrage and equality of the sexes.''