Marble Hill Press

For The Press.

This and That.

The reference to Prof. Gray's scientific contributions to the "Chicago Times Herald," suggests the growing tendency of modern American journalism toward what may be termed "the department idea." The woman's department followed the children's department very close upon the heels, so that now the Sunday issues of nearly all our great papers have large space devoted to feminine affairs. Continuing in this line has come the religious department of the secular press, and the secular department of the religious press. Literary departments are, of course, essential, and the Chicago paper has set a pace for a scientific department which will undoubtedly be followed by other great journals. The idea develops charmingly in investigation. Assuredly the press is the great popular institution of education, having its students everywhere, among all classes of the people. Why should it not pay less heed to the collation of bare facts—many of them unfit to be publicly known, and others inexpedient to be told—and devote more of its space to the real, substantial education of those who can attend no other school?

"The harvest is great, and the laborers are few," but that fact should make the employment only more inviting.

If the legislature of the state of Iowa should respond to the importunities of the female suffrage advocates, and submit the question of equal suffrage to the people in the form of a constitutional amendment, the Hawkeye commonwealth will draw a large portion of the public attention during the political battle which will follow. Indeed, the advocates of the new innovation could have chosen no better arena upon which to settle their battle. Iowa will give them their best chance of success. It belongs to the new west and its progressive people have been found in a marked degree sympathetic with new political doctrines. If they fail there the suffragists will have probably less cause to attribute their defeat to prejudice than if they made the issue in another state. Joined with this, Iowa is an inviting field of conquest for them, because of its small per cent of illiteracy, and its splendid educational advancement. In view of the claims of the suffragists that the intelligence of the country was favorable to them, Iowa is peculiarly inviting. The percentage of illiteracy, taken from the census of 1880, was 3.6, the lowest of all the states save only Nebraska and Wyoming. It has more school teachers than any other state except New York. The statistics of the United States Bureau of Education gives it 28,121 teachers, under whose charge and instruction are 443,052 enrolled pupils. From these figures it will be seen that if the success of the doctrine of equal suffrage depends, as its advocates claim, upon the popular education and enlightenment, they have chosen well their battle ground. If they fail of success in Iowa they need not ask it in other states. It is to be hoped that the question will be submitted on its independent merits, untrammeled by collateral issues in order that the verdict may be unequivocal and unambiguous.