expectations are raised by the admission of new States that
are ruled by women. They may wish to divide--and conquer. One plan is,
instead of dual Chambers of opposite sexes, to mingle in both the Senate
and the House. And this is more likely to be the plan adopted, because
the revolution is not to be violent, and, indeed, cannot take place
without some readjustment of the home life. We have at present what
Charles Reade would have called only a right-handed civilization. To
speak metaphorically, men cannot use their left hands, or, to drop the
metaphor, before the government can be fully reorganized men must learn
to do women's work. It may be a fair inference from this movement that
women intend to abandon the sacred principle of Home Rule. This
abandonment is foreshadowed in a recent election in a small Western city,
where the female voters made a clean sweep, elected an entire city
council of women and most of the other officers, including the police
judge and the mayor. The latter lady, by one of those intrusions of
nature which reform is not yet able to control, became a mother and a
mayor the same week. Her husband had been city clerk, and held over; but
fortunately an arrangement was made with him to stay at home and take
care of the baby, unofficially, while the mayor attends to her public
duties. Thus the city clerk will gradually be initiated into the duties
of home rule, and when the mayor is elected to Congress he will be ready
to accompany her to Washington and keep house. The imagination likes to
dwell upon this, for the new order is capable of infinite extension. When
the State takes care of all the children in government nurseries, and the
mayor has taken her place in the United States Senate, her husband, if he
has become sufficiently reformed and feminized, may go to the House, and
the reunited family of two, clubbing their salaries, can live in great
comfort.
All this can be easily arranged, whether we are to have a dual government
of sexes or a mixed House and Senate. The real difficulty is about a
single Executive. Neither sex will be willing to yield to the other this
vast power. We might elect a man and wife President and Vice-President,
but the Vice-President, of whatever sex, could not well preside over the
Senate and in the White House at the same time. It is true that the
Constitution provides that the President and Vice-President shall not be
of the same State, but residence can be acquired
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