University of Virginia Library

Don't Understand Business.

Women have a vote in every other corporation in which they are
shareholders. George William Curtis said: "A woman may vote
as a stockholder upon a railroad from one end of the country to the
other; but, if he sells her stock and buys a house with the money,
she has no voice in the laying out of the road before her door, which
her house is taxed to keep and pay for."

Moreover, it is not true that a man's experience in his own business
teaches him how to carry on the business of a city. Some years
ago, a fashionable caterer was elected to the Massachusetts Legislature,
and was appointed a member of the committee on filling
up the South Boston flats. Another member said to him scornfully,
"What do you know about filling up flats, anyway?" The caterer answered
quietly, "That has been my business for twenty years." The
answer was good, as a joke; but, as a matter of fact, what had his
experience of planning dinners taught him about the way to turn
tide-mud into solid ground? What does the butcher learn from his
business about the best way to pave a street, or the baker about
the best way to build a sewer, or the candle-stick maker about the
best way to lay out a park, or to choose school teachers or policemen,
or to run a city hospital? Does a minister learn from his
profession how to keep the streets clean, or a lawyer how to conduct
a public school, or a doctor how to put out a fire? A man's business,
at best, gives him special knowledge only in regard to one or two
departments of city affairs. Women's business, as mothers and
housekeepers, also gives them special knowledge in regard to some
important departments of public work, those relating to children,
schools, playgrounds, the protection of the weak and young, morals,
the care of the poor, etc. For what lies outside the scope of their
own experience, men and women alike must rely upon experts. All
they need, as voters, is sense enough and conscience enough to elect
honest and capable persons to have charge of these things.