University of Virginia Library

EXTRACT FROM ADDRESS OF MRS. W. WINSLOW
CRANNELL.

What Are the Reasons Given For Asking You to Help the Cause
of Woman Suffrage?

First: That women who pay taxes should have a ballot. In answer
we assert that the women who pay taxes do not want the ballot.

That taxes are not conditioned upon the right to vote. That
there is no discrimination against women in taxation. That taxation
is the price the citizens pay for the protection of their property,
their life, their liberty. That many men are taxed who have no
vote,—the wealthy minor, and the man who living in one town owns
property in another. That the woman who pays taxes will receive
no benefit from the ballot which will not be an hundred times
counteracted by the ballot of the women who do not pay taxes. That
what is needed for the benefit of the tax-paying women is not an
increased but a restricted ballot. That while there are in New York
State 144,000 women who pay taxes, there are at least 1,500,000 women
who do not pay taxes; and the granting of suffrage to these women
would more than duplicate the evils from which the tax-payer now
suffers.

Second: That when women have the ballot they will be employed
constantly and at higher wages. The answer is shown in the fact
that men vote and are yet unemployed. That no employer is going
to pay an increased wage because the employee has the franchise.
That while there are, as in the factories everywhere, long lists of
girls waiting to be employed at nominal figures, no employer is
going to raise the pay of his employees because they ask an hour
off to vote on election day.

Third: That the cause of temperance will be helped when women
vote. I admire the women who are working for temperance, and
wish them God speed, but feel perfectly sure that they are mistaken
if they expect to be helped by the granting of suffrage to all women
North, South, East and West. Statistics tell us that while the population
of the United States has increased but 20 per cent in the last
two decades, the dram drinking and drug taking women have increased
500 per cent. The Christian Advocate is my authority for
the statement that before the high license law in Philadelphia, Penn.,
out of 8,034 saloon licenses 3,696 were granted to women. In Boston,
Mass., last Spring, out of 1,100 liquor licenses 491 were applied for by
women. The same condition of things prevails nearly all over our
country. Would these women work for prohibition?

Let us look carefully at what is asked for: "Equal pay for equal
work." That sounds equitable and consequently reasonable. But if
the question of wages were to become a matter of legislation, would
you be willing to say to the already overburdened and unemployed
workman that you believe that his wages should be cut down to
those received by women? For it is a fact beyond dispute that the
wages paid is always a question of demand and supply; and women
have entered nearly every field of labor once a man's sole province;
and, by being willing and able to work for lower wages than men,
who have families to support, have crowded them out. Now if equal
wages for equal work means anything at all, it means that no man
shall be paid more for his work than the women are begging to
receive. For instance, if that law could be passed and enforced, the
merchant could say to his male employee that he could fill his shop
with girls at half the price he was paying him, and while he preferred
keeping the man at the higher rate, he must either discharge him
or lower his wages to that which women were asking to receive.
But the whole thing is a farce. You do not ask, in fact, I doubt if
any of you care, how much the workman is paid who makes your
clothes. I know that women do not; otherwise they would not
haggle over prices, and gloat over bargains. This is hard common

sense. It isn't poetic nor imaginative. It is more, it is truth, and
you are here to deal with truths and not with fallacies.

The facts for the suffragists to prove are that suffrage is necessary
for the protection of women, and that it would be beneficial to the
State. They have not and cannot prove either. Today in New York
State, and in many of the other States, a woman is protected better
by the laws that men have made, than by any she could make herself.
A husband cannot sell his real estate unless the wife joins in
the deed. He cannot deprive her by will of right of dower. The
wife can by deed or will dispose of her entire estate, real or personal,
whether the husband consents or not. A father cannot now
apprentice his child or make a valid appointment of a testamentary
guardian without the consent of the mother, if she be living. The
wife can carry on business on her own account, and is entitled to
all the profits and earnings in that business, and may contract as if
she were unmarried. Every profession is open to women, and every
occupation also. Then what do they want, what will they gain by
having the ballot? If men are not capable of managing the affairs
of the State and the Nation according to the highest and best ideas
of the race, that is of both men and women, will you permit me to
respectfully inquire what proper and adequate share of this world's
work you can perform? What is your natural place in the order
of society? Are you mere hewers of wood and drawers of water?
You cannot bear citizens; you cannot care for them in infancy and
rear them to manhood. If you cannot govern them with wisdom
and justice when they are given into your hands, what is your reason
for being? It strikes me that these women who want to retain
all the privileges of their sex, and secure besides all those that they
think a man has; who want to be men and yet remain women; have
much hardihood in coming to you and saying: "You do not know
how to make laws; how to govern the people; you are corrupt and
misrule the nation. Give us the suffrage that we may supplant you."
And they say this not for themselves alone, but for all the women
in this great nation, North, South, East and West, without regard
to education or morality! They are to purify politics!