 | University of Virginia record October 1, 1914 |  |
MATERIAL ON THE AFFIRMATIVE.
WOMAN AND THE COMMONWEALTH: OR A QUESTION
OF EXPEDIENCY.
By George Pellew.
Extract from a pamphlet published by Houghton, Mifflin and Company.
Do a Woman's Physical Qualities Disqualify Her for Voting?
It is said that women ought not to vote because they are unable
to fight, to enforce laws, or to endure the fatigue and burden of voting
and of learning how to vote.
The first argument is answered by the fact that the tie between
voting and fighting ceased so soon as nations became civilized and
hired or raised armies to do their fighting for them; since that time,
indeed, it may be said that the only connection between bullets and
ballots has been the alliteration. As a general rule, in civilized
countries, the soldiers in the field are, practically, disqualified for
voting, and the local government of their country is, in time of war,
of necessity intrusted to those who are left at home as disabled or
as not needed for active service. In time of peace, on the other
hand, the soldier has, as a rule, no political privileges superior to
those of any other citizen, however much crippled or decrepit.
The argument is readily reduced to an absurdity, for it would, if
logically carried out, disfranchise the great mass of the most intellectual
and the best educated men in the community, since, according
to the statistics of the medical department during the civil war,
over ninety-five per cent of lawyers were found to be unfit for military
service.
A suggestion, often made, that if all the women were to vote one
way, and all the men another, the women, if they should pass a law,
would be unable to enforce it, and so would bring the law itself into
contempt, is an ingenious effort of imagination, but of no weight as
a practical argument. When it is remembered how great are the divergencies
of opinion among men, and that unanimity is no less rare
among women; how seldom a question involves only one consideration;
and how inextricably intermingled, although not identical always,
are the interest of men and women, it becomes obvious that
case, however, such an improbable, if not impossible thing, should
happen, the government and the law would yet survive. The American
people is a law-abiding people. When a law has once been enacted,
or an officer lawfully elected, those who opposed the bill enforce
the law, those who reviled the candidate obey the officer. Unless
a majority of the voters of today are at heart law-breakers, a
law will never be disregarded simply because it was passed to be
enacted by the votes of persons inferior in physical strength to their
opponents.
The third argument is no less fallacious. Women, it is said, suffer
from ill-health more frequently than men, they are also more nervous,
and more subject to general debility. Married women are often for
long periods disabled, and not infrequently break down, in consequence
of the natural consequences of maternity and special household
cares that in any condition of society are inevitable. Such being
the case, says Mr. Francis Parkman, woman suffrage would be a
cruelty.
It is, perhaps, unnecessary to suggest that the argument would
logically lead to establishing a health qualification for voters generally,
and that such a qualification would be ridiculous. Necessity
and self-preservation are laws sufficiently imperative to control conduct
without being counter-signed by the governor and the council.
A woman too sick to vote will not vote for the same reason that a
man too sick to vote does not vote. Some women may go to church
when they ought to stay at home, and may injure themselves or neglect
their children by so doing, but it is not desirable, therefore, that
the law should allow men only to go to church. From the point of
view of health, no rational distinction can be made between going to
church to pray and going to the ballot box to vote, except that the
churches are open every Sunday and the polls but once a year, and
that a woman can go to church two or three times on one day, but
is forbidden by law to vote more than once.
The objection is not only absurd, but has the additional misfortune
of being probably the reverse of the truth. The exercise of the suffrage
would presumably tend to improve, rather than to impair, the
health of the average women. There is nothing dangerous to health
in reading political articles in the daily papers, in discussing political
questions with relations or friends, or in walking the distance of a
few hundred yards and depositing a piece of paper in a box. Many
women now do all these things without any suffering in consequence.
On the contrary, the reasonable exercise of any faculty, and of all
the faculties, of mind and body, is positively beneficial to man or
woman. "Nervous energy run to waste" is the secret of so much of
the lassitude and sickness prevalent among American women. "For
my own part," says Sir Spencer Wells, one of the greatest living physicians,
"I think women capable of a great deal more than they have
been accustomed to in times past. If overwork sometimes leads to
disease, it is morally more wholesome to work into it than to lounge
into it, and if some medical practitioners have observed cases where
mental overstrain has led to disease, I cannot deny that I also have
at long intervals seen some such cases. But for every such example
I feel sure that I have seen at least twenty where evils equally to
be deplored are caused in young women by want of mental occupation,
by deficient exercise, too luxurious living, and too much amusement."
This is true of the unmarried and the young, but it is no less
true of the married and the middle-aged. Nervous diseases of every
thoughts and duties. A brisk conversation about politics is stimulating
and healthy in itself, but is especially valuable in distracting
the attention from the petty, harassing details of daily life. There
is no more certain cure for nervousness and its baleful attendants,
hypochondria and dyspepsia, than the excitement of interests broader
and more impersonal than the interests of the kitchen and the nursery,
than the brooking over one's own or one's husband's emotions,
ill temper, or wrong-doing. To enable women to be efficiently interested
in as many things as possible, is to give them a tonic better
than any medicine; to compel them to be interested in a few things
only, is to poison the whole atmosphere of their intellectual life.
Finally it must be observed that weakness, at least physical weakness,
so far from being a disqualification for voting, in a civilized
community is the greatest possible qualification for voting, since representative
governments have become established mainly for the protection
of the weak.
Do a Woman's Mental Qualities Disqualify Her for Voting?
That women's minds differ from men's minds is a theory it would
be difficult to establish. Whenever women have had the same opportunity
and inducement as men for study and investigation, in astronomy,
medicine, political economy, history, journalism, fiction,
ethics, they have shown no special inferiority to men. Queens and
princesses, when called to govern, have been no less successful than
the kings and princes of their family. Even in this Commonwealth
women on the school boards, in public societies, or in government offices,
as students of the condition of the poor, conductors of philanthropic
enterprises, or managers of a business or a fortune, after suitable
training for such work, have not generally been found deficient
in enterprise or sagacity.
It is not usually from the lips of the wisest men that sneers at
women's intelligence are apt to fall, but from the lips of boys unacquainted
with the world, or of men whose lack of wisdom has
been a fruitful source of amusement or profit to women or wiser men.
It is true that women are generally supposed to be impatient of argument,
to make a personal application of impersonal principles, and
to judge by a narrow standard of preference, prejudice, or morality;
but women, like men, adapt their conversation to their hearers, and,
while they are personal, or conventional with men, they are often
logical enough with other women, and the element of truth that remains
in the criticism may be accounted for by the influence of the
arbitrary restrictions which the opponents of woman suffrage would
perpetuate. If a man were proscribed by custom from the free exercise
of his faculties, if his duties were limited to managing a household,
engaging and discharging servants, ordering meals, and bearing
and tending children, he would infallibly become tightly bound
by narrow and conventional prejudices, and if he were able to gain
any practical ends, only by appeals to the emotions rather than to
the intelligence of women, and usually a single woman and that his
wife, he would be unable to argue long impersonally and soon lose
what freedom of thought and speech he once possessed. The intellectual
peculiarities of women may be caused by the narrowness of
the sphere within which their interests are habitually restricted; it is
then unscientific to suppose them to be inherent in the sex.
This conclusion is confirmed by the facts that similar peculiarities
are characteristic of races and classes living in servile or menial conditions,
that they are perceptible even in men anywhere of limited
characteristic of women who have had varied business or professional
experience, who have been educated without reference to marriage,
or who have been married to liberal-minded men. The typical New
England school-teacher is neither illogical nor absurdly sentimental,
and over eighty per cent of New England school teachers are women.
The average married woman, even, in questions that she has studied,
is not illogical; she is usually ingeniously economical, prudent in selecting
servants, far-seeing in advice to her husband. With such
qualities, women could not fail to exercise the suffrage in the main
with intelligence.
Again, mental operations of the same kind are involved in all actions
that require thought. Economy at home predisposes to public
economy: practical common sense is as necessary in politics as in
housekeeping, insight into character is as useful in choosing public
as domestic servants. In Massachusetts, indeed, the intellectual inferiority
of women to men cannot be seriously suggested or consistently
maintained. The welfare of this Commonwealth is truly admitted
to be based on the excellence of its public school system,
and women who are held to be sufficiently intelligent to vote for
members of school committees cannot be said to lack the intelligence
requisite to vote wisely for the mayor of a city or for the selectmen
of a town.
Instead of women being intellectually inferior to men, it would,
probably, be more nearly true in this Commonwealth that the
women are as a rule intellectually superior to the men of the same
class in society. Such, at least, is the reason commonly assigned for
the often noticed disinclination to marriage among the most carefully
educated women; and among our laboring, farming, manufacturing
and mercantile population it is the women rather than
the men who have the time and the inclination to attend lectures
and concerts, to read, study, and discuss questions not purely personal
and sordid, in a word, who strive the most zealously to maintain
and broaden their intellectual life. So much is admitted even
by many of the most vigorous opponents of woman suffrage. "The
ballot," says the President of Oberlin College, "cannot be denied to
woman on the ground that she has not the intelligence and discernment
to use it well. Many women unquestionably have such intelligence,
and there is scarcely room for doubt that women as a body
would vote as wisely as men."
If women are not disqualified for voting by the nature of their
intelligence, it is no objection to giving them the suffrage that
at the present time but few of them have studied political questions.
So long as women are unable to vote they cannot be expected
to inform themselves carefully about matters of politics, for
the same reason that a person who cannot be a shoemaker is not expected
to study the process of making shoes. It is a proof of common
sense, rather than an indication of folly, to confine one's efforts
to subjects in which one can do practical work. Few women
studied law before they were granted admission to the bar, now many
women have written law books; few women studied medicine before
they were allowed to practice it, now excellent essays on medical
subjects are written by women. If women have brains like those of
men, they will inform themselves about political questions as rapidly
and as correctly as men, so soon as those questions are presented to
them. Such questions, indeed, as usually arise in municipal elections
possess no special complexity, and after a few hours' talk, and by a
little attention, can be solved by any normally constituted person.
Finally, it may be said that the objection to women's intelligence
has been answered with far more completeness than was in any way
necessary. "What is wanted in politics is the suffrage of the great
mass of society, rather than that of exceptional genius, which can
always make its influence felt, that this great mass may be able, by
means of the suffrage, to make known its sufferings and its wants."
From this point of view, a voter need not be qualified by considerable
intelligence, but only by intelligence sufficient to understand her individual
wants and requirements and the probable effect of her vote,
if successful, upon herself and her neighbors. In the case of city
or town elections, very ordinary intelligence is sufficient for this purpose.
Whether taxes should be increased or lessened, whether the
sale of intoxicating liquors should be licensed or not, whether the
roads have been neglected, whether the poor-house is managed economically,
whether a new park is desirable, whether the conduct of
local officers has been efficient or the reverse, whether the candidates
are honest or dishonest, energetic or idle, able or incompetent,—
these are questions that need seriously confuse only persons unusually
unobservant or thickheaded, and that women in general far
exceed this minimum of intelligence can surely be denied by no one
who is qualified by the same standard.
OBJECTIONS ANSWERED.
By Alice Stone Blackwell.
Pamphlet published by National American Woman Suffrage Association.
Why Should Women Vote?
The reasons why women should vote are the same as the reasons
why men should vote—the same as the reasons for having a republic
rather than a monarchy. It is fair and right that the people who
must obey the laws should have a choice in choosing the law-makers,
and that those who must pay the taxes should have a voice as to
the amount of the tax, and the way in which the money shall be
spent.
Roughly stated, the fundamental principle of a republic is this:
In deciding what is to be done, we take everybody's opinion, and
then go according to the wish of the majority. As we cannot suit
everybody, we do what will suit the greatest number. That seems
to be, on the whole, the fairest way. A vote is simply a written expression
of opinion.
In thus taking a vote to get at the wish of the majority, certain
classes of persons are passed over, whose opinions for one reason
or another are thought not to be worth counting. In most of our
states, these classes are children, aliens, idiots, lunatics, criminals
and women. There are good and obvious reasons for making all
these exceptions but the last. Of course no account ought to be
taken of the opinions of children, insane persons, or criminals. Is
there any equally good reason why no account should be taken of
the opinions of women? Let us consider the reasons commonly
given, and see if they are sound.
Are Women Represented?
This so-called representation bears no proportion to numbers.
sisters, and half a dozen unmarried daughters. His vote
represents himself and all these women, and it counts one; while
the vote of his bachelor neighbor next door, without a female relative
in the world, counts for just as much. Since the object of
taking a vote is to get at the wish of the majority it is clear that
the only fair and accurate way is for each grown person to have
one vote, and cast it to represent himself or herself.
Men and Women Different.
American men are the best in the world, and if it were possible
for any men to represent women, through kindness and good will
to them, American men would do it. But man is by nature too different
from a woman to be able to represent her. The two creatures
are unlike. Whatever his good will, he cannot fully put himself
in a woman's place, and look at things exactly, from her point
of view. To say this is no more a reflection upon his mental or
moral ability than it would be a reflection upon his musical ability
to say that he cannot sing both soprano and bass. Unless men and
women should ever become just alike (which would be regrettable
and monotonous), women must either go unrepresented or represent
themselves.
Women Not Represented in the Laws.
Another proof that women's opinions are not now fully represented
is the lack in many states of humane and protective legislation, and
the poor enforcement of such legislation where it exists; the inadequate
appropriations for schools; the permission of child labor in
factories; and in general the imperfect legal safe-guarding of the
moral, educational and humanitarian interests that women have most
at heart. In many of our states, the property laws are more or less
unequal as between men and women. A hundred years ago, before
the equal rights movement began, they were almost incredibly unequal.
Yet our grandfathers loved their wives and daughters as
much as men do today.
Is "Influence" Enough?
Yes, but the indirect method is needlessly long and hard. If
women were forbidden to use the direct route by rail across the continent
and complained of the injustice, it would be no answer to tell
them that it is possible to get from New York to San Francisco by
going around Cape Horn.
Mother and Child.
The slowness with which some of the worst inequalities in the
laws are corrected shows the unsatisfactoriness of the indirect way.
In most states, a married mother has literally no legal rights over
her own children, so long as she and her husband live together.
Here is a case which actually happened, and which might happen
today, in 31 out of the 48 states of the Union:
A Chinaman had married a respectable Irishwoman. When their
first baby was three days old, the husband gave it to his brother
to be taken to China and brought up there. The mother, through
the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, appealed to
the courts. But the Judge promptly decided that the husband was
within his rights. He was the sole legal owner of the baby he had
the sole legal right to say what should be done with it. For more
trying to secure legislation making the father and mother joint guardians
of their children by law, as they are by nature; but thus far
the equal guardianship law has been obtained in only 16 states and
the District of Columbia. Massachusetts got it in 1902, after 55 years
of effort by Massachusetts women. In Colorado, after women were
given the right to vote, the very next Legislature passed an equal
guardianship law.
Massachusetts, the State Federation of Women's Clubs, the Woman's
Relief Corps, the State W. C. T. U., the Children's Friend Society
and 65 other associations united in asking for the bill. The
only society of women that has ever ranged itself definitely on the
wrong side of this question is the "Massachusetts Association Opposed
to the Further Extension of Suffrage to Women." It circulated
for years, under its official imprint, a leaflet in defense of the
old law which gave the husband the sole control of the children.
In Massachusetts, in 1902, the laws of inheritance between husband
and wife were made equal; but it had taken more than half a century
of work to secure this self-evidently just measure. The experience
in many other states has been similar. The roundabout way is almost
always long and slow.
The Ignorant Vote.
Statistics published by the National Bureau of Education show that
the high schools of every state in the Union are graduating more
girls than boys—some of them twice or three times as many. Because
of the growing tendency to take boys out of school early in
order to put them into business, girls are getting more schooling
than boys. Equal suffrage would increase the proportion of voters
who have received more than a merely elementary education.
The Foreign Vote.
Less than one-third of the immigrants coming to this country are
women. According to the census of 1910, there are in the United
States nearly three times as many native-born women (38,674,693)
as all the foreign-born men and foreign-born women put together
(13,343,583).
The foreign vote is objectionable only so far as it is an ignorant
vote. Intelligent foreigners, both men and women, are often very
valuable citizens. On the other hand, the ignorant foreign immigrants
who come here are fully imbued, both men and women, with
all the Old World ideas as to the inferiority and subjection of women.
It is not until they have become pretty thoroughly Americanized that
they can tolerate the idea of women's voting. The husbands are
not willing that their wives should vote, and the wives ridicule the
suggestion. Experience shows that until they have become Americanized,
the foreign women will not vote. And, after they have become
Americanized, why should they not vote, as well as any one
else?
The Criminal Vote.
The vicious and criminal class is comparatively small among
women.
In the prisons of the United States as a whole, including those for
all kinds of offenses, women constitute only five and one-half per
cent of the prisoners, and the proportion is growing smaller.
Equal suffrage would increase the moral and law-abiding vote very
This is a matter not of conjecture but of statistics.
The Bad Women's Vote.
In America the bad women are so few, compared with the good
ones, that their votes could have little influence. Mrs. Helen Gilbert
Ecob, wife of a prominent clergyman who was for some years a
pastor in Denver, writes:
"The bad women represent, in any city of the United States, but
an infinitesimal proportion of its population, and the vote of that
class in Denver is confined practically to three precincts out of 120."
Mrs. Sarah Platt Decker, of Denver, ex-president of the General
Federation of Women's Clubs, and also for some years president of
the Colorado State Board of Charities and Correction, writes:
"Does not the vote of the disreputable class of women overbalance
the better element? No; the women of the half-world are not
willing to vote. They are constantly changing their residence and
their names. They do not wish to give any data concerning themselves,
their age, name or number and street; they prefer to remain
unidentified."
Ex-Gov. Warren, of Wyoming, sums it all up when he says, in
a letter to Horace G. Wadlin, of Massachusetts:
"Our women nearly all vote; and since, in Wyoming as elsewhere,
the majority of women are good and not bad, the result is good
and not evil."
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.
Division of Labor.
The growth of civilization increases the division of labor as between
individuals, but lessens it as between the sexes. One woman
no longer spins and weaves, and manufactures the clothing for the
men of her family, at the same time carrying on all the housework
and in addition making butter, cheese and candles, as our great-grandmothers
did. This work is now sub-divided among a number of specialists.
On the other hand, in the old times women were excluded
from almost all the occupations of men. Housework and sewing
were practically the only ways open to them to earn a living. Today,
oue of more than 300 trades and professions followed by men,
women are found in all but three or four.
But this objection about the sub-division of labor is really irrelevant,
voting is not labor, in the sense of a trade or profession. The
tendency of civilization has been to a greater and greater specilization
of labor, but not to a closer and closer restriction of the suffrage. On
the contrary, that has been steadily extended. The best results are
found not where public affairs are left in the hands of a small class
of "professional politicians," but where the largest proportion of
the people take a keen interest and an active part in their own government.
Would Lose Their Influence.
What gives a woman influence? Beauty, goodness, tact, talent,
pleasant manners, money, social position, etc. A woman who has any
of these means of influence now would still have them if she had
a vote, and she would have this other potent means of influence besides.
There is a story of a prisoner who had been shut up for
many years in a dungeon, getting sunlight only through a chink in
the wall. He grew much attached to that chink. At last his friends
came and offered to tear down the wall. His mind had become
weakened and he begged them not to do it. If they destroyed the
wall, he said, they would also destroy the chink through which he
got all his sunlight, and he would be left in total darkness. If he
had had his wits, he would have seen that he would have all
the sunlight he had before, and a great deal more besides. A woman
after enfranchisement would have all the personal influence she has
now, and political influence in addition. One thing is certain: Every
vicious interest in this country, to which women are hostile, would
rather continue to contend with women's "indirect influence" than
to try to cope with women's vote.
Jane Addams and other prominent Chicago women testify to the
marked increase of respect that came to the women of Illinois with
the granting of the ballot.
Dr. Margaret Long of Denver, daughter of the former Secretary
of the Navy, writes: "It seems to me impossible that anyone can live
in Colorado long enough to get into touch with the life here, and
not realize that women count for more in all the affairs of this state
than they do where they have not the power the suffrage gives.
More attention is paid to their wishes, and much greater weight given
to their opinions and judgments."
Mrs. Sarah Platt Decker, of Denver, writes: "Under equal suffrage
there is a much more chivalrous devotion and respect on the
part of men, who look upon their sisters not as playthings or as
property, but as equals and fellow-citizens."
Mrs. K. A. Sheppard, president of the New Zealand Council of
Women says: "Since women have become electors, their views have
by the opinions of women to a far greater degree than
formerly. A young New Zealander in his teens no longer regards his
mother as belonging to a sex that may be kept within a prescribed
sphere, but as a human being, clothed with the dignity of all those
rights and powers which he hopes to enjoy within a few years. That
the lads and young men of a democracy should have their whole conception
of the rights of humanity broadened and measured by truer
standards is in itself an incalculable benefit."
Mrs. A. Watson Lister, secretary of the Woman's National Council
of Australia, says: "One striking result of equal suffrage is that
members of Parliament now consult us as to their bills, when these
bear upon the interests of women. The author of the new divorce
bill asked all the women's organizations to come together and hear
him read it, and to make criticisms and suggestions. I do not remember
any such thing happening before, in all my years in Australia.
When a naturalization bill was pending, one clause of which
deprived Australian women of citizenship if they married aliens, a
few women went privately to the Prime Minister and protested, and
that clause was altered immediately. After we had worked for years
with members of Parliament for various reforms, without avail, because
we had not votes, you cannot imagine the difference it makes."
—(Woman's Journal, Feb. 13, 1904.)
Would Make Women Partisans.
Women continue to be non-partisan after they have the ballot, and
it gives them more power to secure the good things which the
women of all parties want.
Prof. Henry E. Kelly, formerly of the Iowa State University,
now practicing law in Denver, says in an open letter to
State Senator A. H. Gale, of Iowa that he went to Colorado opposed
to equal suffrage, but has been controverted by what he has seen of
it. Prof. Kelly adds:
"Experience clearly shows that women's interest cannot be aroused
in mere partisan strife. Their interests center around questions affecting
education, public cleanliness, public morality, civic beauty,
charities and correction, public health, public libraries—and such subjects
as more intimately affect home life, and conduce to the prosperity
of the family. Men lose sight of these important considerations in
the scramble of partisan warfare for office, but women will not see
them obscured by anything."
Ellis Meredith of Denver writes:
"There has never been a party measure espoused by women in the
Colorado Legislature. The women of all parties want the same
things, and have worked for them together, in perfect harmony. They
wanted a pure-food law, and secured one from the last Legislature,
in line with the national legislation. They wanted civil service reform,
and have obtained that, so far as the officers of the State institutions
are concerned. During the last Legislature, an attempt
was made to take the control of the State Bureau of Child and Animal
Protection away from the Colorado Humane Society, and to
create a political board. Every federated woman's club in the State
besieged its senators and representatives to vote against the bill, and
the vice chairmen of the state central committees of the two chief
political parties (both of them women) went together to different
members of the Legislature to enter their protest. Men understood
that in legislative matters, when they oppose the women, they are
of the State."—(Woman's Journal, Aug. 31, 1907.)
Opposition of Women.
"The organized opposition among women to suffrage is very small
compared with the organized movement of women in its favor. Out
of our 48 states only 17 have anti-suffrage organizations of any kind.
There are Suffrage Associations in 46.
In New York at the time of the last constitutional convvention,
the suffragists secured more than 300,000 signatures to their petitions;
the anti-suffragists, only 15,000. In Chicago, 104 organizations, with
an aggregate membership of more than 10,000 women, petitioned for
a woman suffrage clause in the city charter, while only one small organization
of women petitioned against it. In Maine, in Iowa, in
short, in every state where petitions for suffrage and remonstrances
against it have been sent to the Legislature, the petitioners have always
outnumbered the remonstrants, and have generally outnumbered
them 50 or 100 to one. On the only occasion when the government
took an official referendum among women on the subject
(in Massachusetts, 1895), the women's vote was in favor of suffrage
more than 25 to one. Less than one-sixth of one per cent of the
women in the State voted against it.
Julia Ward Howe said: "Most women are as yet indifferent on the
suffrage question; but, of those who take any lively interest in it either
way, the great majority are in favor. This has been demonstrated
wherever the matter has been brought to a test." (Woman's
Journal, Aug. 1, 1908.)
Every constitutional amendment that has ever been carried in New
York or Massachusetts would have been set down as defeated if all
the men too indifferent to vote upon it either way had been counted
as opposed. In New York, a successful amendment seldom gets
more than 25 per cent of the popular vote. The remaining 75 per
cent are "either indifferent or opposed," but, if less than 25 per cent
are actually opposed, the amendment is carried.
In Massachusetts the Anti-Suffrage Association has been collecting
signatures of women against suffrage since 1895, and in 18 years
it has not succeeded in getting the names of 4 per cent of the women
of the State. In the country, at large, despite urgent and widely published
appeals from the Antid, not one per cent of the women have
ever expresed any objection to suffrage. Why should the less than
one per cent who protest claim to carry any more weight than the 99
per cent who either want the ballot or do not object to it?
Already Overburdened.
Mrs. Alice Freeman Palmer wrote: "How much time must she
spend on her political duties? If she belongs to the well-to-do class,
and hires others to do her work, she has time for whatever interests
her most—only let these interests be noble! If she does her own
housework, she can take ten minutes to stop on her way to market
and vote once or twice a year. She can find half an hour a day for
the newspapers and other means of information. She can talk with
family and friends about what she reads. She does this now; she
will then do it more intelligently, and will give and receive more from
what she says and hears. If she does this reading and talking, she
will be better informed than the majority of voters are now.
"The duties of motherhood and the making of a home are the most
sacred work of women, and the dearest to them, of every class. If
can do—and what, failed in, undermines society and government—
no one can question which a woman must choose. But it cannot be
shown that there are any large number of women in this country who
have not the necessary time to vote intelligently, and it can be argued
that study of the vital questions of our government would make them
better comrades to their husbands and friends, better guides to their
sons, and more interesting and valuable members of society. Women
of every class have more leisure than men, are less tied to hours of
routine; they have had more years of school training than men. All
this makes simple the combination of public and higher duties."
Women and Office-Holding.
When we say that women would be eligible to hold office, what do
we mean? Simply that if a majority in any place would rather have
a woman to hold a certain position than any one else, and if she is
willing to serve, they shall be allowed to elect her. Women are serving
as officials already; some of the women most prominent in opposing
equal suffrage have been holders of public office. The late president
of the "Massachusetts Association Opposed to the Further Extension
of Suffrage to Women" (Mrs. J. Elliott Cabot) was for years
a member of the school board of Brookline, and also Overseer of the
Poor. Yet that Association, in its published documents, objects to
equal suffrage on the ground that "suffrage involves the holding of
office, and office-holding is incompatible with the duties of most
women." Suffrage does not involve office-holding by the majority
of women, but only by a few; and there are always some women of
character and ability who could give the necessary time. Women
as a class have more leisure than men.
In the enfranchised states there has been no rush of women into
office, and the offices that women do hold are mainly educational and
charitable.
Ballots and Bullets.
If no men were allowed to vote except those who were able and
willing to do military and police duty, women might consistently be
debarred for that reason. But so long as the old, the infirm, the halt,
the lame and the blind are freely admitted to the ballot box, some
better reason must be found for excluding women than the fact that
they do not fight. All men over 45 are exempt from military service,
yet they vote. Col. T. W. Higginson says: "It appears by the record
of the United States Military Statistics that out of the men examined
for military duty during the civil war, of journalists 740 in every
1,000 were found unfit; of preachers, 974; of physicians, 680, of lawyers,
544.
"Grave divines are horrified at the thought of admitting women to
vote when they cannot fight, though not one in twenty of their own
number is fit for military duty, if he volunteered. Of the editors who
denounce woman suffrage, only about one in four could himself carry
a musket; while, of the lawyers who fill Congress, the majority
could not be defenders of their country, but could only be defended."
Again, it must be remembered that some woman risks her life whenever
a soldier is born into the world. Later she does picket duty
over his cradle, and for years she is his quartermaster, and gathers
his rations. And when that boy grows to a man, shall he say to his
mother, "If you want to vote, you must first go and kill somebody?
It is a coward's argument!" Mrs. Z. G. Wallace of Indiana, from
Hur," said: "If women do not fight, they give to the state all its
soldiers." This ought in all fairness to be taken as an offset for the
military service that women do not render. As Lady Henry Somerset
says, "She who bears soldiers does not need to bear arms."
Can Laws Be Enforced?
But thousands of male non-combatants are already admitted to the
ballot box, and there is no certainty at any election that the majority
of voters represent a majority of possible fighters. No trouble of
this kind has resulted from equal suffrage in practice. The laws are
as well enforced in the enfranchised states as in adjoining states
where women have no vote.
Where women have school suffrage their votes occasionally turn
the scale, but there is never any attempt to install the defeated candidates
by force. Where women have the full ballot, they have often
defeated bad candidates for higher offices, but no riotous uprising has
ever followed. This particular objection is a libel on American manhood.
Will It Increase Divorce?
Full suffrage was granted to the women of Wyoming in 1869. During
the twenty years from 1870 to 1890, divorce in the United States
at large increased about three times as fast as the population. In the
group of Western States, omitting Wyoming, it increased nearly four
times as fast as the population. In Wyoming it increased only about
half as fast as the population. "An ounce of experiment is worth a
ton of theory."
Rev. Francis Miner Moody, Secretary of the California Commission
working to secure a uniform divorce law throughout the United
States, published in the Woman Voter of February, 1913, an article
showing by actual statistics that every state which has had equal
suffrage for a considerable number of years has declined markedly in
its divorce rate as compared with the rest of the country. He points
out that in Colorado the drop was so great as to be "astonishing."
Just before Colorado granted equal suffrage, in 1891 and 1892, its
average number of divorces per year was 937. For the three years
immediately following the bestowal of equal suffrage—1894, 1895, and
1896—the average number of divorces per year was only 517.
A father sometimes turns his son out of doors for voting the wrong
ticket, but among American men this is rare. Where such a case
does arise, it is to be met by educating the domestic despot, not by
disfranchising all the members of the family but one. A couple who
are sensible and good-tempered will not quarrel if they are once in
a while unable to think alike about politics. A couple who are not
sensible and good-tempered are sure to quarrel anyway—if not about
politics, then about something else.
The Question of Chivalry.
Justice would be worth more to women than chivalry, if they could
not have both. A working girl put the case in a nutshell when she
said: "I would gladly stand for twenty minutes in the street car going
home, if by doing so I could get the same pay that a man would
have had for doing my day's work." But women do not have to
stand in the street cars half as often in Denver as in Boston or in
New York. Justice and chivalry are not in the least incompatible.
Women have more freedom and equality in America than in Europe,
yet American men are the most chivalrous in the world.
Known by Its Enemies.
Those who thrive upon the corruption of politics do not think so.
The ignorant, vicious and criminal vote is always cast solidly against
equal rights for women.
Too Emotional.
Mrs. E. T. Brown, at a meeting of the Georgia State Federation of
Women's Clubs, read a paper in which she said:
"You tell us that women are not fitted for dealing with the problems
of government, being too visionary and too much controlled by
sentiment.
"Now it is very true of women that they are largely controlled by
sentiment, and, as a matter of fact, men are largely controlled by
sentiment also, in spite of their protesting blushes. Was it logic
that swept like a wave over this country and sent our army to protect
the Cubans when their suffering grew too intense to be endured
even in the hearing? Is it shrewd business calculation that sends
thousands of dollars out of this country to feed a starving people
during the ever-recurring famines in unhappy India? Was it hard
common sense that sent thousands of American soldiers into what
looked like a death-trap of China in the almost baseless hope of rescuing
a few hundred American citizens? Do not men like Washington,
Lincoln, Jefferson and Lee live in the hearts of American men,
not alone for what they did, but still more for what they dreamed
of? The man who is not controlled by sentiment betrays his friends,
sells his vote, is a traitor to his country, or wrecks himself, body
and soul, with immoralities; for nothing but sentiment prevents any
of these things. The sense of honor is pure sentiment. The sentiment
of loyalty is the only thing that makes truth and honesty desirable,
or a vote a non-salable commodity.
"Government would be a poor affair without sentiment, and is not
likely to be damaged by a slightly increased supply."
What Is the Unit?
The childless widower, the unmarried boy of 21, and the confirmed
old bachelor of 90 have votes; the widow with minor children has
none. Under our laws the political unit is not the family, but the
male individual. The unequal number of grown persons in different
families would make it impossible to treat the family as the political
unit.
Women's Small School Vote.
The size of men's vote is just in proportion to the size of the election.
At presidential elections it is very large, at state elections
much smaller, at a municipal election smaller still, and at school
elections, wherever these are held separately, only a fraction of the
men turn out to vote. The smallness of the woman's school vote
is regrettable, but it is only a new proof of the truth of Mrs. Poyser's
immortal saying: "I am not denying that women are foolish;
God Almighty made them to match the men!"
In Kansas women were given school suffrage in 1861. Their vote
was small. In 1887 they were given full municipal suffrage. Their
vote at once became much larger, and has increased at successive
elections. In 1912, they were given the full ballot, and their vote
increased much more.
In Colorado women were given school suffrage in 1876. Their
vote was small. In 1893 they were given the full ballot, and on January
unanimous vote of both Houses, that "during this time (the preceding
five years) women have exercised the privilege as generally
as men."
In the states of Oregon and Washington, women had the school
ballot for many years, and their vote was small. Now that they
have gained full suffrage it has become large.
The women's school vote has completely disproved the fear that
the bad women would be the first to rush to the polls. In answer to
the prediction that the best women will not vote, Col. Higginson
says: "In Massachusetts, under school suffrage, the complaint has
been that only the best women vote."
Will Women Vote?
In Wyoming women have had full suffrage since 1869. The
Wyoming Secretary of State, in a letter to Miss Alice Stone Blackwell,
of Boston, says that 90 per cent of them vote. (Woman's
Journal, May 6, 1905.)
The Colorado Secretary of State, in a letter to Mrs. Charles Park,
of Boston, says that 80 per cent of Colorado women register, and
about 72 per cent vote. (Woman's Journal, Aug. 20, 1908.)
The Chief Justice of Idaho and all the Justices of the State Supreme
Court have signed a published statement that "the large vote
cast by the women establishes the fact that they take a lively interest."
(Woman's Journal, Aug. 20, 1908.)
In Australia, in the first elections after the women were enfranchised,
which took place in 1903, 359,315 women voted; in 1906,
431,033; and in 1910, 601,946.
When woman suffrage was granted in New Zealand in 1893, the
estimated number of women in the country was 139,915. Of these,
109,461 registered to vote; and the number of women voting has increased
at each triennial Parliamentary election since. In 1893, 90,290
women voted; in 1896, 108,783; in 1899, 119,550; in 1902, 138,565; in
1905, 175,046; in 1908, 190,114. (New Zealand Year Book.) Mrs. K.
A. Shepard, president of the New Zealand Council of Women, writes
that in the elections of 1911, 221,858 women voted.
The majority of the women had never asked for suffrage in any
of these places.
A Growing Cause.
In Colorado, when woman suffrage was submitted the first time,
it was defeated; the second time, it was carried by a majority of
6,387. In 1901, after the women had been voting for eight years, the
matter was virtually resubmitted to the people and passed by a
majority of 17,000.
In Kansas, the first time it was submitted it got only 9,100 votes;
the second time it got 95,302; the third time it got 175,376, and carried.
In the State of Washington, the first time, the majority against it
was 19,386; the second time it was only 9,882, and it was finally carried
in 1910 by a majority of 22,623.
In California, in 1895, the vote stood 110,355, for and 137,099 against
—an adverse majority of 26,744. In 1911, the amendment carried
by a majority of 3,587.
In 1912, three states of the Union gave suffrage to women, a larger
number than ever did so in one year before. In 1913, Illinois and
Alaska have followed suit, and in addition nine State Legislatures
the question to the voters—almost three times as many as ever did
so in a single year before.
The Test of Experiment.
Women in this country now have the full ballot in Wyoming,
Colorado, Idaho, Utah, Washington, California, Kansas, Oregon, Arizona
and in the territory of Alaska, while in Illinois they can vote
for all municipal officers and Presidential electors. Abroad, they
have full Parliamentary suffrage in New Zealand, Australia, Finland,
Iceland, and Norway; while in the Isle of Man and in Bosnia, women
property owners can vote for members of the local Parliament. They
have municipal suffrage throughout England, Scotland, Ireland,
Wales, nine of the provinces of Canada, Sweden and Denmark, and
even in Burma and some parts of India. In some of these countries
they have had it for generations.
In all these places put together, the opponents thus far have not
found a dozen respectable men who assert over their own names
and addresses that it has had any bad results.
This is the more remarkable in view of the fact that active antisuffrage
associations in New York and Massachusetts have been
for years diligently gathering all the adverse testimony they could
find.
On the other hand, scores of the most highly esteemed men and
women in the equal suffrage states testify that the results are good.
In Wyoming, women have had the full ballot for nearly half a century.
For the last 25 years, the advocates of equal suffrage have
had a standing challenge, inviting its opponents to find, in all Wyoming,
two respectable men who will assert over their own names and
addresses that it has had any bad results whatever. The opponents
have thus far failed to respond.
Doubling the Vote.
If letting women sing in church merely doubled the volume of
sound, it would still be a good thing, because it would double the
number of persons who had the lung exercise and the inspiration of
joining in a good hymn and it would make the chorus stronger. If
equal suffrage merely doubled the number of voters, it would still
do good, because to take an interest in public affairs would give
women mental stimulus and greater breadth of view; and it would
also bring to bear on public problems the minds of an increased number
of intelligent and patriotic citizens. But the great advantage of
women in music is that they add the soprano and alto to the tenor
and bass. If women were exactly like men, equal suffrage would
merely double the vote. But women are different from men; and
women's voices in the state, like women's voices in the choir, would
be the introduction of a new element. This is recognized even by
opponents, when they express the fear that equal suffrage would
lead to "sentimental legislation."
Men are superior to women along certain lines, and women superior
to men along certain others. The points of weakness in American
politics at present are precisely the points where women are
strong. There is no lack in our politics of business ability, executive
ability, executive talent, or "smartness" of any kind. There
is a dangerous lack of conscience and humanity. The business interests,
which appeal more especially to men, are well and shrewdly
looked after; the moral and humanitarian interests, which appeal
more especially to women, are apt to be neglected.
Not a Natural Right.
It is hard to define just what a "natural right" is. Dr. James
Freeman Clarke said: "If all women were forbidden to use the
sidewalk, and they complained of the injustice, it would be no answer
to tell them that it was not natural or inherent right, but one
given by society, and which society might therefore control as it saw
fit. A great many rights are given by society, of which, however, it
would be manifestly unjust to deprive either sex."
Too Many Voters.
This only means that we have too many voters of the wrong kind.
If to increase the number of voters were an evil in itself, every
woman who becomes the mother of half a dozen sons would have
done harm to her country. But if all six grew up to be good voters
she has conferred a benefit on her country. So she has if five of
them become good voters, and only one a bad voter. Woman suffrage
would bring in at least five good voters to one bad one.
It is often said that we have too many immigrants. We mean too
many immigrants of an undesirable kind. We all rejoice when we
hear of a large influx from Finland or some other country whose
people are considered especially desirable immigrants. We want
them to offset those of less virtuous and lawabiding races. The
Governor of one of the enfranchised states writes of woman suffrage:
"The effect of this increase in the vote is the same as if a
large and eminently respectable class of citizens had immigrated
here."
Would Unsex Women.
The difference between men and women are natural; they are not
the result of disfranchisement. The fact that all men have equal
rights before the law does not wipe out natural differences of character
and temperament between man and man. Why should it wipe
out the natural differences between men and women? The women
of England, Scotland, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, the Scandinavian
countries and our own equal suffrage states are not perceptible
in looks or manners from women elsewhere, although they have
been voting for years.
Women Do Not Want It.
Every improvement in the condition of women thus far has been
secured not by a general demand from the majority of women, but
by the arguments, entreaties and "continual coming" of a persistent
few. In each case the advocates of progress have had to contend
not merely with the conservatism of men, but with the indifference
of women, and often with active opposition from some of them.
When a man in Saco, Me., first employed a saleswoman, the men
boycotted his store, and the women remonstrated with him on the
sin of placing a young woman in a position of such "publicity."
When Lucy Stone began to try to secure for married women the right
to their own property, women asked with scorn, "Do you think I
would give myself where I would not give my property?" When
Elizabeth Blackwell began to study medicine, the women at her
boarding house refused to speak to her, and women passing her on
the street held their skirts aside. It is a matter of history with what
ridicule and opposition Mary Lyon's first efforts for the education
of women were received, not only by the mass of men, but by the
mass of women as well.
In eastern countries, where women are shut up in zenanas and
forbidden to walk the streets unveiled, the women themselves are
often the strongest upholders of these traditional restrictions, which
they have been taught to think add to their dignity. The Chinese
lady is proud of her small feet as any American anti-suffragist is of
her political disabilities. Pundita Ramabai tells us that the idea of
education for girls is so unpopular with the majority of Hindoo
women that when a progressive Hindoo proposes to educate his little
daughter, it is not uncommon for the women of his family to
threaten to drown themselves.
All this merely shows that human nature is conservative, and that
it is fully as conservative in women as in men. The persons who
take a strong interest in any reform are generally few, whether
among men or women, and they are habitually regarded with disfavor,
even by those whom the proposed reform is to benefit.
Many changes for the better have been made during the last half
century in the laws, written and unwritten, relating to women. Everybody
approves of these now, because they have become accomplished
facts. But not one of them would have been made to this day, if it
had been necessary to wait till the majority of women asked for it.
The change now under discussion is to be judged on its merits. In
the light of history, the indifference of most women and the opposition
of a few must be taken as a matter of course. It has no more
rational significance now than it has had in regard to each previous
step of women's progress.
| University of Virginia record October 1, 1914 | |