Deadwood Free Press Vol 2 Issue 25

8/14/2019 Deadwood Free Press Vol 2 Issue 25

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Deadwood Free Press Vol. 2 Issue 25 October 30, 1878

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Vol. 2 Issue 25 O

ProPosal: No Vote for WomeNDensmith calls for voter reform

Town Councilman Daniel Densmithstarted the council meeting Thursday bycalling for better government by removingthe right of women to vote.

Im not entirely sure how they got this

right in the Black Hills, but people aroundthe world, with the exception of the sav-ages on the Pitcairn Islands, recognizewomen should spend their time in moreproper duties such as administering forthe home.

The fact, is every civilized state givesmen their due authority to vote, and leavesto women what is proper for them the careof their home and of their children andto express opinion. These other cities donot bedevil their communities by luringin front of women the vote. I do not knowhow this town gave women the right tovote, but its time we become competitivewith other communities. I would call forthis council to do one of two things. Either

wait until we have a fully seated councilwith Mr. Bluebird or Mr. Leonard or putin front of the voters of the entire town thequestion as a referendum, he stated.

The council ultimately voted not to makeany decision at all until their next meeting.Reaction to Mr. Densmiths comments wasnot positive from those present.

Dr. Morri responded by saying that ifthe measure was passed, she would departDeadwood and leave citizens without hos-pital care.

My entire staff is made of women. Idont think that Deadwood would like tobe without medical care. But if you wouldprefer that the citizens of Deadwood diefrom their injuries and infections... shesaid. And thats aside from the fact wedbe denying the fine heritage and history ofthis town. Our first Mayor/council presi-dent was a woman.

In that vein, a young girl, Miss ElizabethVita, commented, I am writing a paperfor school about the history of Deadwood.We have had three lady mayor kinds of

ladies peoples: Miss Dio, Miss Mah some-body and Miss Asto and, um, some menand it seems the ladies, they didnt do anymore bad than the men.

Men also piled on. Said former SheriffJF Kanto, Mr. Densmith, it is obvious tome that you are a single man. A marriedman would have more sense then to callhalf the population of the town imbeciles.I have the good fortune to be married to a

woman, who is not only a loving wife, buta fine business woman as well.If a womancan run a business, then how can you saythat she cannot have the sense to vote?

Miss Merryann Munster, councilmember, agreed with the idea of putting itup to a public vote. Mr. Densmith, I haveno problem in putting this i ssue before thevoters. I dont think women have anythingto fear on this issue, she stated.

There was only one loud supporter of theproposal besides Densmith, an unnamedman who was ejected at one point forspeaking out too much. Before his ejection,the man pointed at the pregent DoctorMorri and commented, Youre pregnantfor Godsakes, wouldnt you be happier athome cookin eggs and waitin on that little

one than getting her all confused tryingto figure out whats going on?Reaction after the meeting was more

mixed. An employee of the Bella Union,Miss Taj, when told that women had thevote in Deadwood, responded, We do?

Another employee there, Miss Isa-belle Endsleigh, also expressed surprise.Really? Ive never voted.

Densmith said he was not afraid to speakout besides the strong reaction.

Ive only had the courage to stand upand say what needed to be said. Womencannot stifle discussion by placing hertaboo upon anything seriously unflat-

tering being said about her in public,Densmith stated. there is a flaw in thisreasoning. Suffragists say woman is, byassumption, in mental endowments a rep-lica of man. She lives in a world which is,by tacit assumption, free from complica-tions of sex. I mean, thats nonsense. Lookaround you.

We face many tough decisions here inDeadwood to survive. Now it is by physicalforce alone and by prestige, which repre-sents physical force in the background, thatanyone with status protects themselves: afamily, a city, a state, a nation. Nothingcould in the end more certainly lead to warand revolt than the decline of the militaryspirit and loss of prestige which would inev-itably follow if man admitted woman into

political co-partnership. Women turn toemotion, not to force. The voting of womenwould be an unsettling element in the gov-ernment of the State, for by reason of ageneral lack of interest in public affairs,only very; seldom come to the poll. In fact,women only vote in numbers when somespecial appeal had come home to their veryconsiderable emotions, Densmith added.

Further, their condition is worsened,and we all know this, if the woman isunsatisfied sexually, and theres no sureway to know what state the woman is in,

Continued on page 2

Town Councilman Daniel Densmith says there are two good reasons why women should not vote, pointing out Miss Isabelle Endsleigh as a healthy example ofthose two reasons.

Miss Endsleigh said she was even unaware women had the vote and did not plan to vote. Miss Taj of theBella agreed.


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Editor and Publisher

Neil Streeter

Reporter

Addison Leigh

Contributing Writer

D. A. Kuhr

Typesetter

S. Morigi


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editorialA TerritorialUniversity forDeadwood

Letters to the Editor

As we look around at the grand viewsof the Black Hills, we are called by Godand Man both to develop institutions thatwill be every bit as grand as the works ofnature around them.

It is late to become the territorial capital,or house the territorial prison. This leavesto Deadwood the Natural Right to host theTerritorial University of Dakota.

Now, you may wonder where the schol-ars or students may come from. I considerthese the wrong questions. The real ques-tion is, can we get the state to reimburse

us for the cost of setting up the TerritorialUniversity?

Consider, if you will, how a professor,administrator or student may benefit oureconomy. They would stay in local rooms,buy local food and drink, partake in thecost of local entertainments and religiousinstitutions. There are many advantagesto having this form of money come intoDeadwood.

The first thing we must convince ourlocal territorial legislators to approve is$15,000 in expenditures for land immedi-ately above town hall and the church, aswell as in the adjacent riverway. There arethose who might look at the steep natureof this land and say, Surely no one could

build a university here. There exist nobuildings that could perch securely on sucha steep slope.

And there are those who would say,How could you possibly think of puttinga University in the bed of a river?

To those asking these questions, I very

Editor,I dun writ so good, so my pardner Zaca-

riah is writtn this fer me.I was athinkn it wulda be a good idea

ifn the saloons had some special holidaysoncen awhile.

Fer example, me an Zach come inta town

after a hard week in ta mines and we wasin the mood fer a good frolic. But thedamnable saloons is sellin their likker atprices whar a honest man caint git drunk.An as far as b eddin a woman, well...reckinme an Zach kin go ta China Alley an gitone, but dammitall, we should be able tahave a white woman oncet in a while.

So heres what me an Zach proposes...Oncet a week one a ta saloons gives outfree drinks. Meself, I rather have a freehoor, but Zach figgers Clay and Miss Salis-sa aint gonna give no white woman aroundfer free. Now ifn that don settle good withthe saloons, mebbe we miners kin go onover Lead and see ifn they will make sureus miners is proper takne care of.

Signed,Josiah and Zachariah

Editor,It is with heavy heart that I take quill in

hand and write this missive to your well-respected institution. It seems that civic

reasonably say, Kindly shut the hell up.Lets bill the state capitol and tell them

they must support our youth and not askfool questions.

Practicality should not stand in the wayof higher education. People are willing topay insane amounts of money for a Uni-versity education, and it would be wrongto stand in the way of their enthusiasm.America was not built on boredom. It wasbuilt on vision.

And the vision is pretty damn nice. Irefer you to the University of Washington,

which benefited from a grant from Con-gress of 46,000 acres. As you may recall,when the board of regents began sellingthat land to raise money, the books werenot kept well. By the time the regents werereplaced, there were only 3,400 acres leftand $5.85 in a bank account. Many thou-sands of acres were disposed of and no oneseems to be sure where the money went.Gov Flanders of Washington commentedthat the first governors of the board ofregents were part of a program that was acalamity and disgrace, and gross extrava-gance and incompetency, if not an outrightfraud.

I dont know about you, but I want apiece of that!

Meantime, at most we should have a fewdozen students, with teachers who need notbe paid much as they dont need all thatmuch education. The majority of studentsare likely to be young women, which cantbe bad either.

pride and responsibility is no longer a partof the lifeblood of the citizens of Dead-wood. Elections for Sheriff and TownCouncil members were just conducted, butfrom all the excitement that was engen-dered, you would have thought that it wasjust another day like any other.

I understand that the contestants ranunopposed (for which we should all beheartily ashamed of). Yes, your newspa-per did carry interviews of the contestants,but, where was the speeches, the kissingof babies and all the fanfare that shouldaccompany an election?

Yes, there has been some upheaval withinthe Town Council recently, and I am sureeveryone was scrambling to make surethe day-to-day business of the town waskept going, but, that does not excuse theCITIZENS of Deadwood from not step-ping forth. I include myself in this bit offingerpointing as I did not step forward torun either.

We should all remember that in the past

100 years our nation has fought several warsto enable we, The People, the opportunityand the right to be free. That freedomcomes with the responsibility to serve ournation and community where we can.

So, I would encourage and challenge theentire community of Deadwood to take anactive part in the Town Council meetingsand to run for office if you feel you havethe ability.

I will close with this. Our right to exer-cise our franchise was bought and paid forwith the blood of our brothers, fathers andgrandfathers. Let us pay them the respectdue them, by taking part in the civic life ofour nation and community.

George A. Houston

Deadwood

he further commented.There is ample evidence that bloodflow

to the female brain is restricted by certainchannels and the presence upon the femaleof certain noteworthy appendages thatmove the bloodflow toward the directionof the nurturing of her children, Densmithadded. Densmith said that if the vote isgranted to women, it should be granted towomen with smaller appendages. Densmithnoted that in looking around Deadwood,so many women have ample appendagesthat its just simpler to remove the voteentirely.

ProPosal: No Vote for WomeN, cont.Continued from page 1


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a guide to the WesterN horse, Part 2To continue our discussion of the horse in

the West, let us consider issues of appear-ance and type.

First of all, we should explain that some-

times there is a bit of difference of opinionas to whether a certain horse with a certainappearance belongs to a unique breed oris just some sort of horse that looks differ-ent from other beasts.

We wont try to sort that out, becausefrankly I dont have the time or patienceto bother with it. So Im just going to giveyou my take on things and if you disagree,then by gum, you can take it up with thehorse in question, being as I really dontcare all that much.

But still, I would like to at least give yousome kind of idea of what people are talk-ing about when they toss around certainterminology.

So lets talk about coloration. I will give

you the fancy nomenclature first, and ifregular cowhands use a different term, Illpoint that out.

SorrelThese display a red hue that can range

from copper-colored to a hearty brickred. The mane and tail might either bethe same color as the body, or in a lightertone that contrasts with the darker red thepredominates on the animal. It is commonfor the face and legs to have white mark-ings. The term sorrel is generally notused by working cowhands. Their termfor this coloration is red.

BayThese have a brown body with a black

mane and tail. More often than not, thelegs will be black as well. The shade ofbrown on the body can vary from a sortof mahogany color to a deep, dark brown.Bays sometimes have white markingson their faces and on one or more legs.Remember the song Camptown Racesand the line somebody bet on the bay?Thats what they were talking about: abrown horse with a black mane and tail(doo-dah, doo-dah).

ChestnutThese animals feature coats that are

varying shades of a solid brown color.Cowhands usually describe this colorationas another form of red. or sometimessimply as brown.

BlackSome folks will tell you that a true black

has no red or brown tint in it, but out West,if the darn thing looks black from a fewyards away or as it trots by, it is going to

get called a black. These sometimes havewhite markings on the legs and face.

GreyThe name pretty much says it all. A

grey is ... yes ... grey. Oddly enough,these horses are born a darker color andturn grey as they mature. This lighteningcontinues as they age, and in fact, somehorses that may seem white are actuallygreys that just got really old. Seriously.Im not making that up.

White

Horses that are born white (usually withblue or almost colorless eyes and ivory-hued hooves) are actually relatively rare.Some folks think whites dont do well inbright sun or harsh weather conditions andeasily develop eye problems. I cant tellyou for sure about that -- never ownedone myself.

Pinto / PaintThe term pinto and paint generally

refer to a horse that has splotches of colormixed with areas of white. The darkerparts of the coat may be any possible shadeof red, chestnut, brown, black, gray, orbay. The pinto pattern may vary fromalmost pure white with just a few oddpatches of color, to almost entirely darkcolored with just a couple white markingson the body.

Pinto is a term commonly used byfolks other than cowboys, who prefer tocall an animal with this coloration pat-tern a paint. Some people actually goto the trouble of having different specialterms to identify the different varieties ofpaint colorations, and for all the differentways that the white parts appear on thehorses body. These are, however, folkswho clearly have a hell of a lot more freetime on their hands than I do.

Roan

These are animals with a coat that isa dark color, but liberally sprinkled withwhite hairs, giving a salt-and-pepper orcinnamon-and-sugar appearance. Themane and tail may be either solid-coloredor streaked with white or grey. The vari-ety of ways the color mixture i s manifestedhas led some folks to come up with moreadditional titles for the variations.

For example if someone is talking abouta blue roan they are jabbering about ahorse whose primary coat color is someshade of grey, so the white hairs give it asort of bluish tone. Or if they talk abouta strawberry roan, they are referring toa roan whose main body color is red witha sprinkling of white hairs that gives thehorse an overall pinkish hue.

In all honesty, I have never heard a cow-hand standing around in a saloon talkingabout his good old strawberry roan (Isuspect mostly because the other guys

would feel compelled to beat him up if hedid).

BuckskinThese feature a light cream to tan color,

with sharply contrasting black mane, tailand legs. Sometimes the buckskin will alsohave a dark brown stripe running along itsback. Now and then, youll see one withsome white markings on the face, or per-haps a white foot, but the hooves are usu-ally black. Many folks regard buckskins

as particularly tough and hardy horses.Maybe so or maybe not, but they are forsure damn good looking.

DunThese have a body that is tan, light red,

or tan with a blackish cast to it, combinedwith a mane and tail that are colored eitherslightly darker than the rest of the coat, orperhaps a dirty brown-black. Duns alsohave a darker stripe along spine, and vaguestriping on the legs, which will be a darkershade than the bo dy. They may have a bitof white on the face or legs. Yeah, theyare kind of like horses who couldnt quitedecide what color they wanted to b e.

PalominoThese have a distinctive blond or rich

golden body color, with contrasting whiteor flaxen-hued mane and tail. The face

and legs often have white markings. Itsa great color scheme for hero-type fellows,but your working cowboy may find it a bittoo foofy.

So thats the basics as far as colors. Wecould also talk about spotted coloration,but that kind of leads us in to the realmof what might be considered a breed, andI am too tired r ight now to fool with thatnonsense. In fact, I just decided that wewill save the discussion of breeds for nexttime when we bring you part 3.

By D. A. Kuhr

a Texas paint pony by Frederic Remington


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deadWood obserVes all halloWs eVeThe Bella Union, Deadwood Orphanage, Deadwood Free Press and the

Town Council sponsored a grand Halloween Party and Dance Friday

night with apple-bobbing, fortune-telling, dancing, music and all sortsof fun. Miss Elizabeth Vita dressed up like Mayor Clay, and banged

her gavel on a picnic table festooned with treats. I can boss the whole

town around but I wont do anything to Rachel as long as she behaves,

the temporary mayor said of her friend. Meantime, Mayor Clay dressed

up by Mrs. Kuhr while young Deacon Dryke as a dashing, and dead,

Abraham Lincoln. Despite his fine dress, Mayor Clay didnt dance. First

fella that asks me to dance is gonna receive Dio-like treatment with a

knee to the groin.


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Acting Mayor Kungler swears in Doc Devon and Sheriff Devon. Alarge audience attended the meeting.

sceNes from arouNd toWN

Editor Neil Streeter investigates reports of a ghostly presence at theshuttered Phoenix Hotel, but says if its a ghost, he got flattened inwhatever killed him.

Children listen withrapt attention in schoolas the Rev. Baird tellsthem stories of early

Deadwood.

Lone Gypsy

Remains AfterCarnival HasLeft Town

Just up beyond the mountain pass, wherethe carnival folk once resided, a lone Gypsywoman has made her camp. A diviner ofthe tarot cards, a tantilizing belly dancer,a magnificent flamenco guitar player, andherbalist, Gypsy Banba Muircastle nowlives.

Some of our towns folk have found their

way up to her camp and met her for them-selves. Several - names withheld - have hadher read the cards for them, too, and foundher insights to be greatly helpful.

She keeps to herself and unfortunatelyrarely comes into town; but has on occas-sion, though she is quite shy and remainsdistant.

Some folks might have a bad opinionof Gypsies, thinking theyre thieves andliars, and maybe with some thats true,but so far, good folks of Deadwood havefound Gypsy Banba to be helpful and agentle soul.

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Deadwood Free Press Vol 2 Issue 25