ANTI-SUFFRAGE TEN GOOD REASONS GRACE DUFFIELD GOODWIN UC-NRLF ANTI-SUFFRAGE: TEN GOOD REASONS Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/antisuffragetengOOgoodrich Anti-Suffrage: Ten Good Reasons BY Grace Duffield Goodwin NEW YORK DUFFIELD AND COMPANY 1912 ,.;;f Copyright 1912. by DUFFIELD & COMPANY TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction • . . . 3 I The Ballot Not a Right • IS II Difference in Fundamental As- sumptions . . . .27 III Foreign Conditions no Basis for American Action . . ,37 IV Four Classes That Constitute a Menace .... 43 V The Ballot and Industry . 51 VI The Ballot and Vice . . 67 VII Property Rights: The Loss of Immunities and Privileges . 75 VIII Sex a Dominant Factor . 85 IX Sex Antagonism. . . .97 X Conditions in Suffrage States . 107 XI Analysis of one of the Suffrage Platforms .... 115 Conclusion . . . . 135 242428 * * The agitator must stand outside of organizations, with no bread to earn^ no candidate to elect, no party to save, no object but the truth— to tear a question open and riddle it with light ' ' — Wendell Philups. INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION. ^T^HE demand for any sweeping and -■" revolutionary change in existing conditions, whether political, indus- trial or religious, throws upon the sponsors of such a change the burden of proof. Present evils must be clearly demonstrated, and the proposed reme- dies must hold out a reasonable hope of permanent betterment. The ardent supporters of the present demand for universal adult suffrage (the exact meaning of ^ Votes for women") are under the necessity of proving to American women their present evil condition, and of proving, also, that universal adult suffrage is the panacea. The discussion in this book is con- cerned with answering the arguments 3 Anti-Sufifrage of suffragists who claim the full rights of citizenship for all women. To fair-minded critics many of the arguments for limited female suffrage are plausible, and in some cases sound, such as those which base their demand upon a limited suffrage for women with educational and property quali- fications. It must be remembered that twenty-six states in the Union have to- day some form of limited female suf- frage, which, however, is of so little interest to the women concerned that the voting right is very rarely used. It is estimated that less than 2 per cent, of the New England women who are entitled and urged to vote upon school matters, ever take advantage of their opportunity. Those who oppose the universal franchise for women submit to men and women interested in this subject, that such a Sane position as restricted 4 Introduction suffrage is not advocated by suffragists. In this day of frenzied democracy, limited suffrage is not popular with men, much less with women. Suffra- gists desire full female citizenship with all the rights of men. It is against these wholesale claims that the anti- suffragists level their objections. We who sincerely and seriously op- pose the program offered by the suf- . fragists, unite in asking them to prove the evil condition of American women as a whole, and to demonstrate the remedial effect of the ballot when / granted to women. We admit that in- dividuals and groups under existing conditions frequently endure injustice; women in the industrial world, as a group or class, suffer under heavy wrongs; individuals who own proper- ty and pay taxes with no voice in pub- lic matters suffer a form of injustice. Suffragists and anti-suffragists alike 5 Anti-Suffrage are eager to see these wrongs righted, but they differ seriously as to the means for this end. Nevertheless, we submit the proposition that American women, judged not by the individual, the group, or the class, but as a whole, are suffer- ing under no wrongs which need for their redress the violent overturning of the entire political machinery of the nation. In the following pages it is intended to present a brief outline of the objec- tions of a large and rapidly increasing number of women to an experiment fraught with so much of danger to the body politic, so much of danger to the possession of the many immunities and privileges granted to women in many of our states, so much of danger to women themselves. We have no desire to confuse the issue by comparing our position with that of women in other countries. Few 6 Introduction American women can speak with intel- ligence regarding matters so purely local. We desire to act as American conditions demand, and we refuse to be stampeded by the oratory of women from England or elsewhere, who prove, by daily misstatement, that they are not informed concerning American con- ditions or American laws. Many women of this country are accepting English statements of Amer- ican conditions, and declaring them- selves to be sufifragists without intelli- gently considering for themselves the political situation, the industrial and legal conditions now prevailing in their own country. The sufifragists ask for the ballot upon the ground that they are *^hu- man beings." Anything so obvious is outside the bounds of discussion, but anti-suflfragists constantly emphasize the equally undeniable fact of sex dif- 7 [Anti-Suffrage ferentiatton with its many limitations. What will do for a man ^^human be- ing" will not necessarily do for a wo- man ^^human being." There is no neuter gender in our thought. We hold that sex is a dominant factor in this question of duties and of abilities. The suffragists also offer the argu- ment that this is a ^^race-movement," a ^Vorld-movement," from which they should not be excluded. The anti-suf- fragists contend that it is absolutely necessary to ask, in this question, how any world-movement is going to work out practically, when it comes to a definite demonstration in the limited area of America, confronted with inex- orable American facts. Theories are much easier than demonstrations, and the suffragists, by their exalted senti- mentalism, are plainly and persistently disregarding the only things which concern us in laying out a political pro- 8 Introduction gram for our own country, and are evading the only imperative issue, which is ^^How will this program affect this country and the women who make half of its population?" This is not a world question or a race question; it is a question of pa- triotism. This is a note seldom or never sounded in this difference of opinion. Patriotism consists in finding out what is good for America by intel- ligent thought, and in doing what is good for America by devoted service. Only as patriotism is kept alight can all the nations of the world be served. The ^^man without a country" has never been a world-force. A large number of women are in- different and uninformed, and it is to aid in presenting a fair statement of the anti-suffrage position to such wo- men that this hand-book has been pre- pared. Confused thought and uncon- 9 [Anti-Suffrage sidered speech are the order of the day. It is highly desirable for us all to bring our brains into the discussion of the question, and to subject our emotions, our enthusiams, our sympathies to the control of our reasoning powers. A large part of the suffrage movement at ' present, in its fervor and fury, repre- sents the acme of hysterical feminine thoughtlessness and unrest. The re- mainder represents the impractical idealism of that class of men and wo- men whose ardor carries them lightly over the many difficulties which are insurmountable for those who will be called upon in the future to apply these roseate dreams to the common tasks of practical politics. ^^Idealists have always led the world — never the average man or wo- man," say the suffragists. Truly have they said; but even idealists must have followers, and idealists who can in- 10 Introduction spire the average follower with a lofty hope must have something worth while to present. Only a great cause can command a leader of vision and a discipleship of obedience. The cause of woman suffrage, though deeply in- teresting, is not supremely urgent, and is in no way comparable to the libera- ting struggles for religious and poli- tical freedom which the world has sometimes seen. In its application it is but a question of method, a discussion of ways and means — the best ways, the most effective means, of attaining un- defined and half-understood political ends in a huge and ill-balanced democ- racy struggling under the present bur- den of an already dangerously large electorate. II' THE BALLOT NOT A RIGHT THE BALLOT NOT A RIGHT. TN early days, long before the war, ^ the great question of slavery arous- ed the interest of some few far-sighted American men and women, and at an international abolition conference held in London, such men as William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips went as delegates. With them were ap- pointed several brilliant women, friends and counsellors of those men: Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stan- ton, and others. On reaching London, the women were refused official recog- nition, which so incensed Garrison that he arose and left the hall. On the re- turn of the party to this country, there was set on foot the Woman's Rights movement, which for awhile swept 15 Anti-Suffrage the land like wild-fire. The women rightly felt that they should have been allowed to vote upon this important issue. The agitation, therefore, had its origin among noble and brilliant people for great moral ends, and, in the passage of time, has gathered to it- self gradually a younger group of ad- herents, who have forced it far beyond its original purpose, who have failed to remark the growing complication of political problems, and who cannot be made to realize that today the great issues on which the original demand was based, have so changed that what was once a question of the best way to handle a moral issue has now become a question of the best way to handle party politics. At the present time this question of woman suffrage is not a question of one clear-cut moral issue, not a question of the theory of gov- ernment or the philosophy of gov- i6 The Ballot Not a Right ernment, but simply and solely a ques- tion of politics. Given the highly specialized profession of politics, the ^^great game," played as it is now in this country, will the entrance of wo- men into the field make it better or worse? By doubling the electorate, and therefore, according to the law of averages, coming out with condition^^ very little changed, can we hope to do anything more than make more diffi- cult an already difficult task? ^^Educating by means of the ballot" is an experiment to be tried slowly, and not by throwing into our elector- ate a mass of indifferent and inexperi-| enced voters. Those who steadily op- pose this experiment consider it far too difficult and dangerous to be thrust upon a nation which has so recently won its title to be considered a world- power. America is a vigorous young leader in the family of nations. It 17 Anti-Suffrage should not have its progress checked by rash ventures which have to do with the very foundations of its governmen- tal life. In considering this question fairly, we must understand that there is no such thing as a ^^natural right" to the si^ ballot. Natural rights are rights to ^1 life, property, etc. ; the ballot is a man- devised instrument for the peaceful expression of the popular will in gov- ernment. It is conferred as a serious responsibility upon men who have ful- filled certain well-known conditions. /TVomen are made exempt from the ex- ercise of political responsibility in ' view of the duties toward home and family which they are performing for the benefit of the state. The ballot is ^ not a right denied; it is a burden re- moved. The ^^mbecile and criminal" argument is nothing but cheap and superficial clap-trap. Great confusion i8 The Ballot Not a Right has existed on this point, but there is really no reason at all for anything but jf an acknowledgment of the facts. ! y^ J^ The ballot being a responsibility, if y^ j we demand it and receive it we must .J ^ J be prepared to accept all that it entails, 0^ T .) and the state must be prepared also to J^ ^ }K accept the difficulties and dangers! ^^ / which will arise from a sudden and ^ c^^ great enlargement of the voting body. ^j We have been told, even by such men as the late Senator Hoar, that if women receive the franchise they may vote or not, as they desire. This is not the original conception of the duty of a voter. Men are never so taught. Everywhere they are urged to vote, and the pulpits of the land make the casting of a ballot a patriotic and relig- ious duty. Ex-Governor Utter of Rhode Island (now Congressman), claims that one of the greatest dangers will be the enlargement of the indiffer- 19 Anti-Suffrage ent class, the busy, middle-class trades- man and housekeeper. Men of this type, he says, are already a great drag on elections, and have always to be brought to the polls by those interested in ^^getting out the vote." The ballot carries with it the duty of bearing arms in time of war, and of jury duty in times of peace. If women are granted the ballot the governmental system will have to be reconstructed to free us from these duties, or we shall have to attend to them while doing our own peculiar and non-transferable tasks. JVIr. William Allen's frivolous arguiiient, in his ^Woman's Part in Government," — to the effect that any woman can bear arms who can struggle with the crush at the Brooklyn bridge, is wide of the mark. Absence from home and children during prolonged jury service will not materially help the state. Women are everywhere to- 20 The Ballot Not a Right day suffering from exhaustion of vital force, due to the incessant demands of a life crowded with claims outside the home, either in social obligations, phil- anthropic or civic interests, or the tax- ing strain of industrial life. Between these two comes the large percentage of American women, far larger than any other class, who need all their strength for necessary household tasks. The watchful and intelligent observer fails to see the surplus of strength to be expended in a man's way for the good of the state, and he does see the good of the state seriously menaced at its source by the inroads upon feminine vitality which will be made when po- litical duties are added to those bound upon our shoulders first by nature, sec- ond by a highly developed civilization. This applies not so much to those wo- men who would be content merely to vote, as to that large class which 21 Anti-Suffrage would inevitably, in its natural desire for power and publicity, *^enter poli- tics.'' The suffragists remind us that the political burden is not heavy for the average man ; that he spends very little time and energy in governing his coun- try. In every community, however, from village to city, there are men who ^^handle the politics," and who give up their lives to it, degrading themselves as bosses and grafters, or wearing them- selves out as reformers. The same number of women would in all prob- ability do the same things, because every manhood class has either a corre- sponding or a potentially corresponding womanhood class, and this proportion of women is too large to be needlessly sacrificed. The "woman in politics" is not a menace of the future. She has appear- ed, and if she be a type, it is instructive 22 The Ballot Not a Right to look upon her and see to what more politics will lead. Women in politics are like men in politics — so testify Judge Lindsay and ex-Governor Hale, both of Colorado. They are good, bad and indifferent, with the added empha- sis of the tendency to the extreme inher- ent in all women, so that a woman corrupt in politics has been shown to be worse than a man; a woman to gain political ends has been known to offer what is euphemistically, but quite clear- ly described as the ^^new bribery", — an abyss of horror into which only the low- est will fall, but into which the lowest will fall, as they fell in the days of the Roman decadence. We cannot afford , to have any woman so besmirched. In considering this question it is well to observe all its aspects. The opponents of suffrage for women are deeply convinced that there are elements of danger for some women 23 Anti-Suffrage that all women should consider, and elements of danger for the state that should be matter of consideration for both men and women, before we com- mit this country, unique in history and in composition, to an experiment in which is undeniable danger both to government and to women. 24 DIFFERENCE IN FUNDAMEN- TAL ASSUMPTIONS II DIFFERENCE IN FUNDAMEN- TAL ASSUMPTIONS. nr^ HE demand that women be allow- -*• ed equal part with men in the tasks of government, is based upon two assumptions: First, that all women de- sire such a share of the political bur- den, or can be induced to desire it, and second, that all conditions will be greatly improved by granting suffrage to women. Were the premises correct, the conclusion would be obvious. Without a proper investigation of these assumptions, the conclusion that women must be enfranchised, and that speedily, is made the basis of a pro- paganda which is everywhere arousing the opposition of thoughtful men and women, who, after a study of the as- 27 Anti-Suffrage sumptions, are unwilling, and intel- lectually unable, to be drawn to any such conclusion. There are various estimates of the percentage of American women who favor suffrage for women. Mayor Gaynor of New York says *4ess than 2 per cent.," Dr. Meyer, the bibliogra- pher of the Library of Congress in Washington, thinks it is less than 4 per cent., which is the same percentage given by the women of Massachusetts in the referendum of 1895. Two years ago Miss Jessie Ashley, treasurer of the National Suffrage Association, stated in the Woman s Journal, that the National Association had 28,000 dues-paying members, and at present there are 80,000 in suffrage organiza- tions. In February, 191 2, Miss Ash- ley says that a ^^rough estimate" of the American women favoring suffrage is approximately 3,000,000. Figures 28 Fundamental Assumptions for the 1 910 census give very nearly 92,000,000 for the population of con- tinental America, and estimate about 46,000,000 as females. Miss Ashley's estimate and the census figures prob- ably include many under voting age, as suffrage has made remarkable strides in this country among very young wo- men. The only way to obtain figures as to the numbers of women interested in a certain cause is to find them by means of those women's clubs which have joined the National Federation, and to compute the attendance at meet- ings devoted to the cause. But such a claim, made by any organization, must necessarily be subjected to revision, as it cannot consider the large number of women unconnected with clubs, and the large number of clubs which never consent to unite with a central organi- zation. As for attendance, it is well to remember that all who go to a meeting 29 Anti-Suffrage will not necessarily feel bound to sup- port its object. Anti-suffragists ask that American women be considered as a unit, and so far as possible, the necessary reductions be allowed. It is evident, no matter what the basis of percentage computa- tion, that the suffragists constitute but a handful of the entire number, only 75,000 who are sufficiently interested in the cause to pay the fee of a dollar a year, so that they are called "con- scious suffragists", the implication be- ing that the rest of the 3,000,000 are unconscious suffragists. The women who do not desire suffrage are asking why so small a number should seek to thrust upon the majority of those op- posed or indifferent or completely ig- norant of the matter, something which they do not desire. So radical a politi- cal change should be the result of noth- 30 Fundamental Assumptions ing but a strong popular demand, which in this case is quite lacking. The existing demand, aggressively as it is presented, is, nevertheless, in America, a demand which has been artificially, stimulated by women from other countries. Such enthusiasm, such fervor, such excitement are contagious, and we were not properly quarantined by sound judgment; therefore we are suffering from a mild but irritating form of the international disorder. The second assumption, that all con- ditions in the state will be greatly bene- fited by the exercise of the voting pow- er by women, must be proved before it can be accepted. The fact that we have, as yet, no sufficient proof from the suffrage states is discussed in chap- ter 9. The anti-suffragists base their conclusion upon very different assump- tions: First, that the majority of wo- men are opposed or indifferent, and if 31 Anti-Suffrage swept in by misdirected enthusiasm, will be a menace rather than an aid. The things which people do not wish to do, or which they are compelled to do, are always badly done. Second, that the state will be harmed and not helped by doubling its present elector- ate, and adding to its present voting I force a large number of unintelligent or careless voters, and a small number of thinking and competent women. These women without the ballot are far more effective in dealing with mat- ters of the public good than if they were struggling to outvote an over- whelming number of those having no concern whatever beyond their imme- diate convenience or interest. In moral power the small minority might be equal to many thousands ; with the bal- lot each woman counts one, and no more. 32 Fundamental Assumptions These are the opposite grounds upon which women interested in this ques- tion are taking their respective posi- tions. They are fundamentally differ- ent. We who are actively opposed to suffrage are willing to state as briefly and clearly as possible our reasons for the position which we hold, and which we are forcing upon public attention today by our National Association Opposed to the Suffrage for Women, which, although of very recent origin, is growing with almost startling rapidity. 33 FOREIGN CONDITIONS NO BASIS FOR AMERICAN ACTION Ill FOREIGN CONDITIONS NO BASIS FOR AMERICAN ACTION. A POINT upon which women who ^ ^ consider this matter find them- selves easily confused, is that made by the sufifragists when they bid us note the ever-growing popularity of uni- versal suffrage in other lands. Aus- tralia, New Zealand, Scandinavia, Finland, are all thrown into the dis- cussion with a reckless disregard of one very obvious truth — a truth which makes all the rest of the argument of no avail, and that is the simple fact that this is America, and that America is like no other country on the face of the earth. It has problems and dangers and difficulties peculiarly its own, and 37 Anti-Suffrage a political step which might be quite desirable for Australia, where they beg for immigration, would be totally un- suited to a nation which receives from Europe hundreds of thousands of po- tential citizens every year, many of whom in five years are integral parts of our body politic. New Zealand has no population, running up into the mil- lions, enslaved and enfranchised in the same generation. A canton of Swit- zerland has a somewhat different prob- lem from that which faces Rhode Is- land, with its 64 per cent, either for- eign-born or the children of foreign- ers; or Georgia, with its black inhabi- tants outnumbering the whites in the ratio of nine to one. The problems of England are entirely her own, and she is struggling for the right to do her own deciding, while threatened on one hand with a widespread and danger- ous industrial disturbance, and har- 38 Foreign Conditions assed on the other by the insistent de- mands for the parliamentary suffrage on the part of stone-throwing, riotous, spectacular women, who incite one an- other to every frenzy of hysterical law- lessness. The women of England be- gan by asking for better property rights, and better divorce laws. Now they do not know just what their griev- ances are; all they know is that they want ^^Votes for Women." In America, many states have just property laws for women, many have such legislation pending, and in no state in America do women need to throw stones or fire pistols to secure fair treatment. The uniform divorce law, which would solve so many of our prob- lems and prevent so much wrong and injustice, is making but slow prog- ress, owing, among other causes, to the determined opposition of the very 39 Anti-Suffrage women who have most to gain from its general enactment. In no foreign country do conditions parallel our own. We have a large and unwieldy democracy, as yet scarce- ly beyond the experimental stage, a democracy whose success is not yet that assured and splendid vindication of our initial policy which it will un- doubtedly become if we give it time, and refuse to entangle it with further difficulties. Once for all, women who are opposed to the suffrage extension decline to be stampeded by the use of arguments which in no way apply to the political conditions in our own country. 40 FOUR CLASSES THAT CONSTITUTE A MENACE IV FOUR CLASSES THAT CONSTITUTE A MENACE. '1X7' E are a nation of unsolved prob- ^^ lems. Brains and time and pa- tience are going into their solution. Our negro and our alien problem are ours alone. No other nation shows a condition in which these two difficul- ties exist side by side, and press for solution at the same time. At present no one is bold enough to say that we are finding it easy to amalgamate the sorrowful legacy of our own greed and inhumanity, in the race of struggling children just *^up from slavery," con- fused and bewildered even yet by the sufferings of the past, the burden of the present, the blind ambitions of the fu- ture. Our American negroes are not yet 43 Anti-Suffrage woven into the fabric of our common life; their ignorance, their helpless- ness, has not yet ceased to be a political menace. In the Southern states, where white control is held only by the frankest bribery, where the negroes number five to one or ten to one, as the case may be, it is proposed to add, for further exploitation and bribery, all the negro women, who are more help- less and ignorant than the men. This is said with full realization of the num- bers of negro men and women who are far beyond the average of their people. One has but to see the race close at hand to recognize its sterling virtues and its dangerous weaknesses, virtues of sympathy, patience, cheerfulness, loyalty — weaknesses of moral fibre and of mental grasp. 2^^ We have the problem of the ivimi- grant, coming here by millions in the last decade, coming from different 44 Classes That Menace political conditions, new to republican- ism, new to responsibility, new to free- dom, which, in the exuberance of the second generation, he misreads ^4i- cense." He clings to his own, and he makes in all our cities a Ghetto, or a Little Italy, or such a settlement as that of 50,000 Bohemians in New York, set- tlements which are not American in any particular. He populates the streets of the New England mill towns, until in Rhode Island one may walk perhaps two or three blocks without hearing a word of English. In five years he is a citizen; in five years he is expected, with the pressure of a ter- rible toil upon him, to learn the lan- guage, the customs, the ideals of his fu- ture home, and to become a unit in its government. As a matter of fact, the majority toil incessantly, learn very little, are exploited by the boss of the ward, know little and care less about 45 Anti-Suffrage the government of their adopted coun- try. What we are doing to make him worthy of citizenship is but a drop in the bucket compared to his numbers and his need. We must put time and brains upon the problem of the foreign man as a voter. How will it help to add the foreign woman? All workers among these people recognize how much more backward is the foreign woman than the foreign man. Many of the women live years in this coun- try without even learning the language. This is not true of the younger genera- tion which tends to irreligion and law- lessness. The reaction does not set in until the third generation, as those well know who have lived and worked among them. The older and the younger foreign women, for very dif- ferent reasons, would add greatly to the danger of the naturalized foreign vote, and as we are constantly receiv- 46 -:; Classes That Menace ing them, and as the quality is steadily deteriorating, we shall have this to consider for many years to come. The suf3fragist proposes to double these two problems. We have, in common with all coun- ^ tries, the problem of the vicious wo- ^ man, numbered in our cities by the thousands. The suffragists tell us that they will not vote; that they will not register because they do not desire pub- licity. They are already registered in the lists kept by the police in many cities; they are not classed as criminal, only as potentially so; they would not shrink from registration, and the men who exploit them would see that they voted. To a woman of this class I said, not long ago, ^^Do you want to vote?" ^Tes," she replied. ^Why?" I asked. '^What would you do with the ballot?" *^God!" she breathed, raising tragic 47 a Anti-Suffrage arms above her head, "I'd sell it and take a vacation!" Another problem in all countries is that of the intelligent, conscienceless woman. She exists, and she is the com- panion of the intelligent, conscienceless man who plays politics "for what there is in it," here in America as per- haps nowhere else in the world to the same extent; — the man who makes the public shame of Philadelphia or Pitts- burgh, or Denver, or San Francisco or Adams County, Ohio, — the shame of every American city and town that owns the rule of the boss and the ring, that has political axes to grind and po- litical trades to make. Over against these four classes of un- desirable voters among women would be the comparatively small number of earnest, intelligent women capable of handling public affairs. They would be overwhelmed by numbers. • 48 THE BALLOT AND INDUSTRY y THE BALLOT AND INDUSTRY TX7HEN the suffragists carry the ^^ working-girl a handbill which reads ^^Demand Votes for Women and have your wages raised", they are rightly to be charged with dangerous misrepresentation. The idea which the workers receive, and which they have expressed when questioned, is that they themselves, could they vote at all, could vote themselves shorter hours and higher wages. No pains are taken by the suflfragist to explain to these girls the difficult and circuitous route which must be gone over ere the man for whom they vote can secure a voice in legislation which will react upon the markets of the world, and by increas- ing or diminishing demand, will raise 51 Anti-Suffrage or lower wages, provided that all the heads of one industry can be induced to see the wage matter in the same light at the same time. There are many ^4fs" between the ballot and a general raised-wage standard. A truism which the suffragists calmly disregard is that wages de- pend upon economic law; if there is no market for the goods, pro- duction must be curtailed, and wages will be lowered; if there is a market, there may be good wages and over- time work. If many wish the same kind of employment, and there is sharp labor competition, wages will fall; if few, wages will rise. If cotton is in- fested with boll-weevil and therefore high-priced, wages shrink, because the manufacturer cannot afford to lose at both ends of the scale. There are a thousand conditions governing the thousand and one manufacturing inter- im The Ballot and Industry ests, or any other employment interest, which make the wage question one which can never have a hard and fast decision. Massachusetts is making an experi- ment of great interest with the mini- mum wage, already a law in England passed by men only, because an investi- gation touching nearly 14,000 working women revealed that approximately half of those employed in candy facto- ries and laundries received less than five dollars a week. The grave danger is that the enforcement of such a law will act by pulling down the higher wage standard, reducing the pay of the efficient worker, while it raises the wage standard of others, many of whom are in the inefficient class. Proportionate wage-raising in any but large business- es, would probably be impossible. It may be that some will not live so well, in order that others may live better, and 53 Anti-Suffrage the burden, which it is desired to put on the shoulders of the employer, will probably be slipped off, as usually hap- pens, upon the shoulders of the work- ers themselves. This will be a shift; it is not certain that it will be a solu- tion. Should it happen that the wages of skilled workers, deservedly high, are lowered in order that the wages of the unskilled may be raised, where will be the justice to the high-grade worker? These edged tools have an uncomfort- able habit of cutting both ways. In the majority of cases the labor unions could protect their men, but it would be at the cost of the employer's entire independence. These labor unions, with all their mistakes, and the glar- ing faults of many of their leaders, have come, and come to stay. In wo- men's trades, however, with which both suffrage and anti-suffrage women are concerned, the unions find organiza- 54 The Ballot and Industry tion extremely difficult. Many of the workers can neither speak the lan- guage nor grasp the idea presented. Only one-fifth of our American wo- men are in ^^gainful occupations"; 32 per cent, of these are under twenty-one. 45 per cent, cease to be wage earners at twenty-five. They do not intend to make a life-work of their busi- ness, and therefore the element of impermanency enters. The girls ex- pect to marry and have homes. As they do this, an endless procession of the unskilled and uninterested passes be- fore the employer's eyes. He is con- stantly training new and ignorant work- ers. The men are permanent, and they are paid for their permanency and their increasing skill. This is true of New England textile mills, and offers a fair standard for a general statement. The question of equal pay for men and women, to be secured by the bal- 55 Anti-Suffrage lot, now enters. Men and women do not receive the "same pay for the same work," because every employer knows that they seldom do the same work. Women's work is prejudiced by this unskilled procession of impermanents. Witness the changes made by the abo- lition of women from the offices of five great railroad systems. Women teach- ers in New York have won their fight to secure the same pay as men, but the salaries allotted to men were reduced from $900 to $750, and the salaries of women raised from $600 to $750. The sufferers were men, many of whom had families to support. Men and women have been counted the coun- try over as so many units, so many women teachers against so many men teachers, wages so-and-so. As a matter of fact, by far the greater burden of responsibility rests upon the men, as they fill the larger number of import- 56 The Ballot and Indusf^M ant positions, leaving to women the lower grade work. When they are not doing the same work; why should they receive the same pay? When, as in Chicago, a woman is Superintendent of Schools, and does her work as well as a man, or better than he, she should be paid in proportion, and examination will show that she is. It is work that should count, its amount and quality, not its sex-stamp. In Utah, with the vote, teachers receive less than in New York without it.* In the New York shirt-waist strike in i909-'io, a noted suffragist told the strikers that the strike would have been unnecessary had they had the ballot. Miss Minnie Bronson, special agent at that time for the Bureau of Commerce and Labor of Washington, tells us ♦Discussion of teachers* wages in "The Wage Earning Woman and the State," 1912, by Minnie Bronson, twice special agent of the Federal Bureau of Labor. 57 Anti-Suffrage these facts : 40 per cent, of the strikers were men ; 60 per cent, of the remain- der were under twenty-one, and 25 per cent, of all the women of voting age had not been long enough in this coun- try to acquire a residence. How would the possession of the ballot have helped this situation? These women, under their grievous wrongs, do not need to be hustled into the voting Dody, where they will not know enough to help in- telligently. They need the protection of laws made by an electorate as free as possible from corrupt and ignorant voters, an electorate with sense enough to elect men who understand the work- ings of economic laws in relation to labor conditions, if we are to hold to the American tradition of ^Wepresenta- five government." This may be slow progress, and provoke the impatience of many, but it will be far surer prog- ress than to endeavor to get a hopeless- 58 The Ballot and Industry ly cumbersome electorate to strive for an unassimilated mass of new legisla- tion which refuses to take cognizance of other conditions which must neces- sarily enter, and change or modify con- ditions. The fact is, that the more progressive states in the Union, which as yet are states of manhood suffrage only, are rapidly enacting legislation for the protection of women and chil- dren. All of these laws are ^^man- made"; therefore, as some suffragists have said, they ^^would not live under them." Law, man or woman-made, is as impersonal as religion. Neither bears the imprint of sex, and if a law be good it matters not at all who made it. The aim is good law. I These increasingly good laws have been greatly aided by the influence of women appearing before legislatures and committees, v/ithout the ballot, to urge impersonal ends. Their motives 59 Anti-Sufifrage could not be impugned. The suffrage states are behind in the enactment of labor legislation affecting women and children, although Colorado now has good child-labor laws. Thirty-one states now limit the hours of labor. Colorado has an 8-hour law for women but no week-hour law, and no law prohibiting night work; there- fore it is of little real value.* Thir- ty-nine states compel seats, one suffrage state does not; sixteen states, all non- suffrage, prohibit night work. In two years, between iqoS-'io, 54 laws were enacted by legislatures of 32 states for women and children, and these were all non-suffrage states. Miss Bronson says ^^There are more and better laws for the protection of women wage-earners in the non-suffrage states than in states where women have the ballot. Posses- *"The Wage Earning Woman and the State" (1912), by Minnie Bronson. 60 The Ballot and Industry sing the ballot, the woman who works must stand on an equality with men, and ask no favors ; must accept the con- ditions imposed upon her by the law of supply and demand, and give as much toil as he, although no increase in physical vitality will respond to this demand." This is not equality of the sexes; it is ^^speeding up" the woman to the breaking point to make her reach man's physical level. Were he reduced to hers, the work of the World would be seriously handicapped. Women in industry must be taken care of, for the sake of the fu- ture of the nation. The way to ^take care of them is not to give them something which, while it makes them politically equal to men, puts them where they cannot ask for special privi- leges or special legislation, without owning their physical and industrial in- feriority. They are in no way inferior 6i Anti-Suffrage to men; they are simply different from men, and because of this difference, must work under better and more com- fortable conditions. When industrial favors are granted, they must be grant- ed to women ; when any one is saved in this cruel industrial conflict, it must be women. The children of the next gen- eration furnish the unanswerable rea- son. The world is only now awaking to the dangers of industrial life for wo- men and their children that shall be. It has not had time to grasp the situa- tion. The rapidity with which every great country is now working in this field, proves that it will be fairer to give men a chance to solve this prob- lem and to offer to women all the safety in their power, before the nerve of their endeavor is cut by the precipitate en- trance into the situation of many wo- men who will so complicate matters as to compel the men to turn from the 62 The Ballot and Industry solving of this difficulty to give all their time to the general re-adjustment which will be imperatively demanded. Voting will not help a woman to do as much work as a man, as hard work as a man, or to receive the same wages as a man. Employers, in all justice, ought to pay for results, and not because they are compelled by law to pay the same price for differing grades of work. The complex civilization that has forced women into industry is endeavoring to protect her in it, but the whole prob- lem is new, and individual wrongs are so apparent that unthinking women would rush the inevitably false situa- tion by saying, ^^Give us the vote; we will vote shorter hours; we will vote equal pay": in effect, we will by our votes give women a harder time than they are having now; we will repudi- ate privilege with one breath and de- mand it with the next, and by our 63 Anti-Suffrage equality we will stamp inequality in- effaceably upon the industrial world. ^That is where it should be stamped," say the anti-suffragists. In the very nature of the case the conditions of in- dustrial life bear hardest upon women. They are the potential mothers; they must have special privileges, and, wo repeat, they must be specially guarded or the men-and-women-to-be will be born mortgaged to disease, deformity and defeat. But what becomes of equality? It vanishes, with other false assumptions. 64 THE BALLOT AND VICE VI THE BALLOT AND VICE 'T^HE suffragists claim that the bal- ^ lot in the hands of women will cleanse our national life from the dread evils of intemperance and prostitution. If this were so, there would not be an anti-suffragist in America. The women who live by the social evil would thrust it out if they dared to face the simple question of star- vation. Just as the claim that votes will raise wages betrayed confused thinking in the matter of politics and industry, so this claim betrays confused thinking in the matter of poli- tics and ethics. Public sentiment, the result of an aroused public con- science, goes before the law and fol- lows after it. No law can be made or 67 Anti-Suffrage enforced without such sentiment. The terrible weaknesses of human nature stand in the way of prohibition, and abolition of the social evil. These dread things still exist in suf- frage states, and several of these have had from sixteen to forty-two years for experiment and proof. Our only sure knowledge of what can be done must be based upon what has been done, and if it cannot be done in small and sparsely settled communities, — and we must do women the justice to suppose that they are unable, and not indiffer- ent or unwilling, — how shall it be ac- complished in regions with close popu- lation and congested cities, where these evils are the strongest? The non-suffrage states are making a strong fight in many cases on both of these questions, and the church and the medical profession are being called to aid. Miss Jane Addams of Chicago, 68 The Ballot and Vice insisting that fear be used as a motive since higher appeals have failed, has offered the most sensible advice that has been given regarding the social evil. In effect, she proposes, for its solution, to take it out of the ethical realm, where it belongs, but where apparently it can never be fought out, and hand it over to the boards of health. This sensible advice will never be followed, because of the many people in this country who are too much concerned with theoretical good and evil and their ideal treatment, to be willing to take up a difficult prob- lem by the first available handle. The country is thoroughly awake to the evils of the white slave traffic, laws relating to it are being made and en- forced, and vice commissions every- where are laying bare the conditions which each city and state must solve according to its own light. The prob- 69 Anti-Suflfrage lem of the unwilling victim is differ- ent from the problem of the willing participant. We speak always, on many of these matters, as if federal action were a possibility. As a matter of fact, action on all these questions de- pends upon the states themselves. Let the suffrage states lead the way. Let them give us a practical demonstration of communities which have cleansed themselves by the votes of women. Let them prove their contention by abolish- ing in Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Wash- ington, Colorado, and California these terrifying evils. Let them begin their fight for purity by unmasking whatever impurity in the guise of religion still lingers in that long-suffering state where the viola- tion of the old principle of separate Church and State has so long been a dis- grace to our American ideals and tra- ditions^ let them continue it in those 70 The Ballot and Vic? other states where the Mormon Church holds the balance of political power. Let them free women under the slav- ery of priestly control, which is none the less to be feared because religious women yield to it willingly. For many years Mormonism has been branded as a direct menace to American institu- tions, to marriage and the family as Americans understand these things. Hundreds of thousands of women peti- tioned against the seating of Senator Reed Smoot. Mormonism was on trial, and the unsavory testimony is on record in Washington. In the face of these facts we ask, where is woman's power- ful political influence, secured to her by the ballot, apparent in the purifica- tion of those states in which she is the equal of man in affairs of state? 71' PROPERTY RIGHTS: THE LOSS OF IMMUNITIES AND PRIVILEGES. VII PROPERTY RIGHTS : THE LOSS OF IMMUNITIES AND PRIVILEGES 1X7 E are told that women need the ^^ ballot to secure their property rights; to protect their wages or their incomes; to enable them to share the guardianship of their children; to per- mit them to engage in gainful occupa- tions and conduct independent busi- nesses. We are told this chiefly by Eng- lish suffragists, who are so touchingly unaware of our laws that they conceive us to be living under intolerable tyr- anny. Because they suffer injustice they take it for granted that we do, also, and it is quite time for us to understand and to state those laws which make the majority of American women quite 75 Anti-Suffrage content with their lot in this respect. All American law is based upon what is known as the English Common Law, an inheritance from the time when rough justice kept partial pace with rough conditions; when it was considered a great step ahead to put a woman and all her belongings under the control of some one man, her hus- band or her nearest of kin, in order that she might not be freely despoiled or divested of her property at the will of some one whom she was physically un- able to resist. The Common Law came with our fathers to America, and grad- ually, with changing conditions, has been changed and enlarged until today very few of the old provisions remain in any of the states. Some states have made many changes, some few; but all are yielding gradually to the pressure of the times. The provisions which once protected a woman, and which 76 Property Rights were meant for her good^ and not for her harm, read today like the gravest injustice, and women who neither read nor think are grasping at the surface words, and failing to recognize the original meaning, and the rapidity with which the new demands are stamping themselves upon the legislation of to- day. The laws of Massachusetts are so favorable to women that one is tempted to drop a sympathetic tear for the op- pressions of the Massachusetts man. The volume called ^Woman under the Law of Massachusetts,'' by Henry Sprague, offers instructive reading. Upon these Massachusetts laws were framed many of the woman's-property- right laws of Ohio and of Maine, while New York and Pennsylvania as well as other states have many of the Massachusetts provisions. In many of the New England states Anti-Suffrage the old rights of ^^curtesy and dow- ""^^ er," still obtain, the dower right protecting a woman, the right of ^^cur- tesy" a man. It is a fallacious argu- ment for anti-suffragists to note that these rights do not obtain in suffrage states, for the reason that they have been replaced by other laws providing for the rights of both man and woman on an equal basis. All states are strug- gling to bring the laws relating to the property rights of women up to the standard of present-day conditions, but the impatience of the suffrage agitators will neither admit this nor give time for its rational accomplishment. A law is not made as quickly and easily as a loaf of bread or a baby's dress. In this matter the non-suffrage states are far in the lead because they do not compel women to a legal equality with men; many of them offer ^^mmunities and privileges" which assume frankly that 78 Property Rights the woman is the weaker, and needs her material afifairs looked after with care and generosity. She will, of course, be willing to surrender these many privi- leges and take her place as man's finan- cial equal in the eyes of the law, if she is given the ballot, but it will bear very heavily upon her for all that! Here are a few of the provisions of the Massachusetts law, in which wo- men are freed from certain ^^disabil- ' ities," poll-tax, military and jury duty, • etc., and are granted certain "immuni- ties and privileges." The volume previously referred to gives a complete list. A woman is not "legally of age at eighteen" as is always supposed, but at marriage, and a married woman of any age may sign a deed or make a will. She holds her property free, pro- vided she keeps it separate, 79 Anti-Suffrage Her clothing and her ornaments are secured to her from the demands of creditors. Life insurance money cannot be tak- en from her for debt. A woman may engage in business and make contracts apart from her hus- band; she may be a ^^sole trader" under the act of that name. Husband and wife cannot make valid gifts to each other in default of creditors, but a wife may receive up to $2,000 without liability, while her hus- band may not. Homestead rights are all in favor of women. A woman may hold her property as a single woman if her husband is in prison, or if she is separated from him for good cause. He may not do this. A woman is under no legal obliga- tion to provide for her family, no mat- ter how large her income ; her husband 80 Property Rights is bound to the support of the wife, their children, his step-children, if in any way he has ever treated them as a parent, no matter how little he may have. The wife may use her husband's credit to its limit for ^^necessities," and the court will take her unsupported word as to what constitutes a ^'neces- sity" for her. He has no such privi- lege. The law compels a husband to sup- "^ ply his wife with money to maintain a suit against him. If she engages in illegal business the law holds him responsible, and not her. If she commits a ^'minor crime" and he is anywhere about, he is the one to blame, and Mr. Sprague adds, ''recent statutes enlarging the rights and privi- leges of married women have not re- lieved the husband from his responsi- 8i Anti-Suffrage bility for his wife's criminal and illegal actions." Parents are equal guardians of chil- dren, and a woman's wages are en- tirely her own, free from taxation. In these cases men and women are not ^'equal before the law," as suffra- gists desire to become, but women are specially favored. We now note this interesting fact. The women who are asking for the ballot are the ones who are saying that these laws shall not be changed in any particular, but that backward states should enact similar legislation. The idea, translated into the vernacular, seems to be, ^Ve want to have our cake and eat it, too. We want a man's rights and a woman's privileges." 8a SEX A DOMINANT FACTOR VIII SEX A DOMINANT FACTOR npHE work of the world, slowly being differentiated through the centuries, has always shown, in its general division, this "rough justice" of which we have spoken. Only among. ^ prirnitive people did women do the y work which we now designate as "man's \\ work," or share with him such labors as belonged to his clime and age, a condition of things scarcely compar- able to a highly civilized people in a highly complex social system. But women are now asking to go back to the old standards; to fight if necessary; to render judgments ; to make laws, and they suggest that it is no more their business than it is that of a man to care for the children. They have made 85 [Anti-Suffrage long scientific excursions to cite in- stances of sole paternal responsibility for offspring in the lower orders of na- ture. And yet the fact remains that sex is the dominant factor in this prob- lem. Until the end of all things men and women are going to be fathers and mothers, and by declaring, with one of the suffrage leaders, that * Vif ehood and motherhood are incidental relations," the women who are carried away by this bit of insanity are hastening that ^^end of all things" to quite a noticeable degree. Colleges have occasionally declared marriage to be a lamentable end to a woman's "career," a sad fall- ing off from the *^higher life." Talk- ing will not change matters, nor argu- ment eradicate the fact that as long as the race has a mother, that mother will have to be a woman, and if a woman is not a mother she has failed, either vol- untarilv or involuntarily, to do the only 86 Sex a Dominant Factor thing for which, in the original scheme of creation, she was intended. Therefore, the assuming of political duties, as many women must assume them in the event of a granted fran- chise to all adults properly qualified, must be not substitutional, but addi- tional. We cannot wholly, nor even in large measure, evade our own duties and responsibilities, and to these we must add the burdens and duties of men. There is nothing of a woman's natural duty which a man can do as well as a woman, yet, with amusing arrogance, women claim that they will be able easily to do the work in which for centuries men have been specially trained, — to do this work as well as he, or better than he, and to do their own at the same time. Let us just state frankly a few things which every woman knows. During all the forceful period of a woman's 87 Anti-Suffrage life she labors under distinct disabili- ties on account of her sex; it trips her up at every turn; many women are in a constant state of rebellion because they absolutely must take ^some sort of care of themselves or be invalided out of the race. In the carrying out of political plans, in attending political conventions, in doing jury duty, a wo- man will be at the mercy of her nature. For one whole year, if a new life is to emerge, she is unfit to assume addition- al risk in the overstrain of her normally taxed nervous system. Maternity is an exhibition of a woman's nervous sys- tem taxed to a normal limit, and nor- mally entirely equal to the strain. But while pregnancy is not a pathological condition, it is the limit of nerve-tax. Presumably there are other children and a home. How much more ought a woman to do? And for every wo- man married or single, during the 88 Sex a Dominant Factor greater part of her life, there is the plain and unchangeable fact that she lives in a periodic nervous cycle, when the life-forces are normal, below nor- mal, and again normal, and that during the below-noi*mal period she is again very nearly at the nervous limit. Why pretend that these things are negli- gible? Every woman knows they are not, but she fears the derision of other women if she admits it. Where, then, is her surplus strength, where the ex- tra force to be expended in political excitements ? Every student of industrial condi- tions, every one who tries to wrestle with the new science of eugenics, recog- nizes that the danger to the working girl which transcends all other dan- gers, is the danger to her motherhood, and that the paramount danger to the state in her industrial life is the loss of so many potential mothers; for the 89 [Anti-Suffrage great wheels eat up the nerve-forces of a woman's life ; the standing, the tread- ing, are perilous Tocher feminine pow- ers. The state should save the work- ing women and the little children for purely selfish motives, if for no higher. It is ridiculous extravagance to let pri- vate greed exploit the head-waters of the stream of the nation. We con- serve Niagara, and throw away young American girlhood. As a nation we appear to have no sense of proportion. But to save one part of our woman- hood it is not necessary to sacrifice an- other. Earnest men and intelligent, non-partisan women who plead with- out the possibility of a suspected dis- honoring motive, are awake to the situ- ation, and will solve the difficulty if not handicapped by having the ballot thrust upon all women who, with it, cannot accomplish the purely moral 90 Sex a Dominant Factor and humanitarian results which can be secured without it. Francis Parkman recognizes and states another phase of the sex-danger: ^Without a radical change in human nature," he says, "of which the world has never given the faintest sign, wo- men cannot be equally emancipated [with men]. It is not a question of custom or habit or public opinion, but of an all-pervading force, always for- midable in the vast number of men in whom it is not controlled by higher forces." There is also a temperamental differ-"^ ence in men and women which makes an equal footing in political life all but impossible. Whatever she may have had in the past, whatever she may be going to have in the future, at the present moment she has great temper- amental disabilities. 9^ Anti-Suffrage The average woman has as much brains as the average man, and aver- age persons are going to do the greater paft of the voting, but the v/oman lacks endurance in things mental; her forti- tudes are physical and spiritual. She lacks nervous stability. The suffragists who dismay England are nerve-sick women. Woman is possessed of that peculiar trait which Havelock Ellis in his vol- ume entitled, ^^Man and Woman," calls ^^affectability." A wonmn!5_sympathies are q uickei ^more easily roused, more dominant than a man's; she is sensitive and emotion al m a w ay thTt differs from his way, and a's a^:w:oman's aff^ctabil- ity is her great ^nnrre cd-^RPr^m^th in her own place in thejmrrld^n it will be her greatest danger and_greatest source of weakness in golitkal life. Not all wo- men will enter political life; we have 92 Sex a Dominant Factor already recognized and stated that several times in this argument, but we propose to discuss the question from the standpoint of the many who are longing and intending to do this as speedily as they may. Dr. Reibmayr, the German biologist, claim5_that this life of_fee]jng_is the great source of world-strength.,as-k- emanatc s from wo- man, butjthaJL-it- can be -checked and killed. How, then, will this contribute to the good of the state? If, however, "wifehood and motherhood are inci- dental relations," and if "the highest good of the individual " is the only end and aim to be sought, as a suffrage au- thority tells us, the suffragists may carry their conclusions to the point of inaugurating government by feminine fiat, vj We w^ho oppose this thing consider the relationships of wife and mother 93 Anti-Suffrage as of supreme importance, and the hi ghest good of the -indiwjnal some- thi ng to be_a uhordinated to the highest goodLoLthfiJ^hole. 94 SEX ANTAGONISM. IX SEX ANTAGONISM. 'Tp HE two great points on which the -■" world differs are politics and reli- gion. As yet these have not entered the home, and men and women seldom quarel over religion, because the men are contented to leave decisions regard- ing religious affairs to their wives. The wives in return have been willing to leave politics to their husbands, and two fruitful grounds for difference have been avoided in domestic life. When women enter politics actively, as many will and must if woman suffrage is to make any impression upon politi- cal life, another source of discord will speedily appear. Mrs. Sarah Piatt Decker of Colorado, a strong and able suffrage leader, recommends a ^Wo- 97 Anti-Suffrage man's Party." Women are not to enter politics as impersonal units, voting the tickets of existing parties, but chaos is invited in the form of another party dis- tinguished by sex alone — Woman ver- sus Man. They seem to have over- looked the ^^human being" conten- tions. It is no more conceivable that all women, just because they are women, could be induced to think and vote alike, than that all men could, and if they could be so induced, they would be unworthy of power. It would argue them unthinking sheep. The common suffrage expressions of ^^tyrant man^" and ^^oppressed. woman," are calculated to arouse antagonism toward men in_ the breasts of women, who, unable to understand the causes of their individual or their group wrongs, would solve the question by making man responsible; man, — a vague and terrifying spectre, who is 98 Sex Antagonism conceived as being invariably inimical to v^oman; who makes laws to injure her, to exploit her, to deprive her of her rights. ^^Ma n-made laws^^ are aimed at the subjugatioiLiiL^vomen ; the existence_of__olji^f^^got4enr-statutes of the outwiimXommon Law of England in some of our more backward states, argues that they are kept there by men with malevolent intent. As a matter of fact, they remain because men have not yet been everywhere aroused to the ne- cessity for their change, and advance legislation, which changes or casts these aside, is proceeding with great rapidity. They remain through indif- ference and ignorance, scarcely through tyranny and malevolence. American women are better treated than any women under the sun, class for class, comparing our great country with others of the same rank, and it is idle to argue when the countries are 99 Anti-Suffrage not comparable. The women of New Zealand may be better treated than the women of the East Side of New York, but not better than American women as a whole. The slurs, the innuendoes, the savage denunciations which a few American women have seen fit to heap upon the heads of all American men, are cause for regret and shame to the majority who recognize that the Amer- ican man in his desire and effort to il\ protect the women of his country, is f ahead of any man in the world. All questions of social and industrial betterment are being eagerly discussed by men, and especial attention is being given to the condition of the American working woman and her child. They are comparatively recent factors in the industrial problem, and because mat- ters can not be adjusted in their many bearings in a very brief time, women, characteristically impulsive and im- lOO Sex Antagonism patient, are claiming that the Ameri- can man does not care, and that he will not help. A mere sense of justice and fair play should operate to restrain such silly and superficial judgments. If men are able, by the exercise of law- making power, to adjust all industrial difficulties, why did the Lawrence, Mass., strikers and employers come to Washington to present their grievances to Congress? The anti-suffragists desire to give men time to cope with these huge, new, interdependent problems; to endeavor to understand their difficulties; to state no hasty and unconsidered conclusions, to utter no rash judgments, and to see to it that justice is done in presenting these matters to large groups of women unable to investigate for themselves. ■ Let us take two typical questions which will show the difficulties in the way of hasty, good-natured, ^^blanket" legisla- lOI Anti-Suffrage tion. I. How can short working hours and steady employment be secured, with justice to the employer, in seasonal trades? 2. How far is it justifiable to forbid a certain amount of child labor in the face of facts presented by Dr. Karl Pearson of the Galton Laboratory j'pf National Eugenics in London, who gives statistics to prove that the restric- tive child labor laws in England have ■ always been followed by a diminishing birth-rate? We are well aware that the poor man everywhere considers his child an asset; here in America a man will speak of his big family, and add with pride that they ^*all have their working papers." If the child is not an asset it is a liability, and a very few such liabilities will suffice for a man earning six dollars a week in a Massachusetts woollen mill. Men who legislate must face the difficulties that arise between these two aspects of 102 Sex Antagonism the case. Shall we have child labor with its terrible and far-reaching con- sequences, or shall we further imperil a birth-rate already seriously menaced? Snap judgments on such complicated questions avail but little. The facts have a persistent way of getting under foot to be noticed. The anti-suffragists stand solidly opposed to child labor in any form, but they wish to be just to the present lawmakers and their dif- ficulties. ^Sex antagonism is an easy flame to fan; the feelings of men and wo- men toward each other are always made hotter by that deep incompre- hension which lies at the base of all dealings between the sexes. Sex leaps unexpectedly into all relations between men and women, intrudes itself into the conversation, the attitude of mind; proves the basic attraction and the fun- damental source of difference. It can 103 'Anti-Suffrage no more be disregarded than the oper- ation of any other natural law can be set aside. To ignore it is not to eradi- cate it. When sex enters, it is easy as the New York East Side children say, "to throw a hate," and to make bitter- ness and anger where harmony should exist. The entrance of woman into politics will not break up all homes by any means, but it will assuredly offer one more cause of sex antagonism. 104 CONDITIONS IN SUFFRAGE STATES X CONDITIONS IN SUFFRAGE STATES TlyTANY of the conditions existing in suffrage states have been touched upon in a previous chapter. A few points are here noted. The suffrage states are the experi- ment stations in which we are justified in looking for proof of the good accom- plished by the votes of women. These states are Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Wy- oming, Washington and California. In Colorado, women have voted for nineteen years; Utah, sixteen; Idaho, sixteen; Wyoming, forty-two. The other two have not had so much time, and so need not be counted. Night work for women is not pro- hibited in Colorado, Idaho, Utah, 107 -%: Anti-Suffrage Wyoming, and this fact renders inef- fective any 8-hour law such as has been passed in Colorado, which applies only to women in ^^standing occupations." An 8-hour law to be effective must be reinforced by two other laws, one regu- lating night work, and one specifying a legitimate week-hour limit. There is no time limit set to women's work in Idaho, Utah, Wyoming, unless such legislation has been enacted too late to be included in the last legislative index. Former Governor Hale of Denver says, *^women average about the same as men on all questions — a little better on questions involving morals." But "a little better," and ''about the same" are insufficient reasons for the greatly increased expense and the added cum- bersomeness of a doubled electorate. Dr. Helen L. Sumner, a suffragist, in her book entitled ''Equal Suffrage," io8 Suffrage States an investigation of conditions in Colo- rado in 1909, proves no more. Mrs. F. W. Goddard of Colorado, President of the Society of Colonial Dames, says : I have voted since 1893. I have been a dele- gate to the city and State conventions, and a member of the Republican State Committee from my county. I have been a deputy sheriff and a watcher at the polls. For twenty-three years I have been in the midst of the woman suffrage movement in Colorado. For years I believed in vv'oman suffrage and have worked day in and day out for it. I now see my mistake and would abolish it tomorrow if I could. p^'^No law has been put on the statute book of I Colorado for the benefit of women and children I that has been put there by the women. The I child labor law went through independently of \ the women's vote. The hours of working-wo- * men have not been shortened ; the wages of school-teachers have not been raised; the type of men that got into office has not improved a bit. Frankly, the experiment is a failure. It has I done Colorado no good. It has done woman no I good. The best thing for both would be if to- l^orrow the ballot for women could be abolished. Mrs. Francis W. Goddard, President of the Colonial Dames of Colorado. December, 1910. 109 Anti-Suffrage Judge Lindsay, a strong suffragist, says, ^Vomen are as much bound by political expediency as men." Dr. Helen Sumner says, ^^a woman rarely either nominates or seconds the nomina- tion of a man except in some cases where the man has shown himself un- usually favorable to women in politics." In Utah, Idaho and Wyoming, with Colorado not far behind, the Mormons hold the balance of political power, with women their most ardent propa- gandists and supporters, even to the point of defending polygamy, and in this case the grave menace is the en- tangling of a church with state affairs. This country has always stood for the principle known as the ^^separation of Church and State." The great addi- tional force of women voters in these states are with the political majority, who are not only un-American regard- no Suffrage States ing our governmental ideals, but anti- American. As for the question of child labor, we see that Wyoming and Utah prohibit the working of children in the mines only, although other equally sparsely settled non-suffrage states, without fac- tories and mills, have made child-labor laws to cover any condition which may arise in the future. In suffrage states no documentary proof of a child's age is required. The large increase_iDf~divafce is es- pecially noticeable in suffrage states, in- creasing in Colorado from 450 to 557 in ten years; in Wyoming, 70-143; Utah, 225-387; Idaho, 139-320. These conditions are not charged against the women of the states, but they exist, and women would undoubtedly rectify them if they were able. If the ballot does not make them able, what does it amount to? nil Anti-Suffrage The facts as to the social evil in Den- ver are vouched for by Mrs. Kate Wal- ler Barrett, national president of the Florence Crittenden Homes for Way- ward Girls. There is a home of this organization in nearly every large city in the land, and Mrs. Barrett says, ^*In all the seventy-eight Florence Critten- den Homes in the United States I never saw such a collection of girls of the bet- ter class as are in the Denver Home." Wages in Colorado have not been raised since women were given the vot- ing power. In fact, the most careful observer cannot find any betterment of conditions commensurate with the over- turning of political affairs, the in- creased electoral expense and the de- velopment of a corrupt class of women politicians. They must do better than this to demonstrate to the non-suffrage states a reason why votes should be given to women. II 12 ANALYSIS OF ONE OF THE SUFFRAGE PLATFORMS XI ANALYSIS OF ONE OF THE SUFFRAGE PLATFORMS T ET us now consider in detail the ■*^ platform as adopted by the Wo- man Suffrage Party at the New York City Convention, October 26, 191 1. It states : I. *The claim that American Gov- ernment is a government of the people, by the people, for the people, is a pre- tense and a delusion as long as one-half of the people are deprived of all voice in that government." Women were not deprived of a voice in the government ; they were made ex- empt from its responsibilities in view of other and equally important services rendered the state in bearing children and making homes. 1x5 Anti-Suffrage 2. *Tood, clothing and shelter are the fundamental necessities of the peo- ple, and they are, and always have been the primary concern of women in the home. We, therefore, denounce a po- litical system which robs the home of adequate representation and makes business and finance the chief concern of politics." As business and finance in the hands of the man who helps to make a home are absolutely necessary to its continu- ance, it might reasonably be supposed that when the man who brings in the money that pays for the food and cloth- ing and shelter, votes for those things which he thinks will enable him to earn or gain money, he ^^adequately repre- sents the home." 3. ^We protest against the iniquity of a political system which refuses to grant to the six million working wo- 116 A Suflfrage Platform men* engaged in industries outside the states of Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Washington and Idaho [California was not then included], a share in the making and enforcing of the laws which control every matter which is vital to their health and well-being." We have noted before that there are no laws regulating night work for wo- men in Colorado, Idaho, Utah, Wyo- ming. There is no time limit for wo- men's work in Idaho, Utah, Wyoming. Colorado has an 8-hour day, but no week-hour law, and the 8-hour law is for ^^standing occupations only," of which there are very few, while the hours of women engaged in seated oc- cupations are unrestricted. Colorado prohibits only coal mines in the min- ing industry to women. Seats for wo- men at work are not required in Idaho ♦Various estimates of women in industrial life are given, from one-seventh to one-fifth. 117 Anti-Suffrage nor in Wyoming; in Utah, stores only. Separate toilets are not required for men and women in Idaho, Utah, Wyo- ming, Colorado, California. New- York and Massachusetts lead in all legislation favorable to working wo- men — laws made by men to protect women. These suffrage states have had equal franchise for a sufficiently long time for working women to have received all needed care at the hands of their sister women. The occupa- tions are not many, the conditions not difficult. Why has not this care been given? 4. ^^Until the enfranchisement of women we call upon all women to op- pose the idea of a uniform divorce law, because at the present time such a law would be made by men only, and would necessarily discriminate against women. We declare that in all public conferences and commissions appointed 118 A Suffrage Platform to consider this subject women should have an equal voice with men." Rev. S. W. Dike, of Auburndale, Mass., who for many years has worked faithfully for the League for the Pro- tection of the Family, would be sur- prised to find that his wise and careful divorce recommendations must ^^neces- sarily discriminate against women." He has worked for years to protect the American home, for which all Amer- ica owes him a debt of gratitude. A National Divorce Commission, repre- senting all of the states, framed in 1901 a uniform divorce law, to be passed upon by the legislatures of the various states. Causes for divorce in this law are adultery, drunkenness (alcohol or drugs), if habitual, extreme cruelty, desertion for an unspecified period, non-support and conviction for felony. All the wrongs suffered by women can be classified under these heads, except 119 Anti-Suffrage such frivolous reasons for breaking up a home as uncongeniality, incompati- bility of temper, ^^mental cruelty," etc. At present every twelve marriages bring a divorce; people who are mar- ried in one state are unmarried in an- other and vice versa, owing to the lax and unequal divorce conditions in the different states. Suffragists were once urged by one of their number to ask for ^'divorce for any cause whatever," thereby making that important state unit, the family, a thing to be dashed to pieces at the behest of a woman's weari- ness, whim or unstable affection. This uniform divorce law, so ardently de- sired by those having the good of the nation at heart, has been accepted by several states, but has encountered op- position for various reasons, one of the most potent being the determined an- tagonism of women who evidently long 1 20 A Suffrage Platform ago decided to follow the principle laid down in this platform. 5. **We renew our condemnation of the suicidal policy of permitting child labor, and give our support to all hu- manitarian legislation looking toward the amelioration of race-destroying tendencies." When Dr. Bernbaum of Harvard asked Mrs. Florence Kelley, the presi- dent of the Consumer's League, and an ardent suffragist, ^Vhy the Colorado child labor laws were not even up to those of Nebraska," she replied, "Col- orado laws are better adapted to the needs of the working class in Colo- rado!" Dr. Bernbaum states that of the ten members of the Executive Com- mittee on Child Labor in Massachu- setts only two are suffragists. The best of child-labor laws were secured in Indiana by women without the vote, and in many states in the Middle West 121 Anti-Suffrage by the Federated Women's Clubs. Col- orado laws prohibit children working under fourteen. In New York the age is sixteen. The enforcement of these laws is a different matter from their enactment. Enforcement depends up- on the number of inspectors supplied. A law that does not provide for inspec- tors is everywhere valueless to protect children. New York and Massachu- setts are still ahead in point of legisla- tion. 6. "In face of the revelations of the white slave traffic, and the demonstrated connection between poverty and prosti- tution, we declare that the time has come for a complete program of social legislation, including a minimum wage, shorter hours, steady employment, bet- ter housing and extensive public recre- ation." The chapter on the "Ballot in Indus- try" must be cited to answer these curi- 122 A Suffrage Platform ously illogical demands. In that chapter we have spoken of the mini- mum wage, equal pay for equal work; the question of seasonal trades was spoken of elsewhere. It is New York under the leadership of Jacob Riis, that has led the way on the Tenement House problem; it is Brooklyn that has an investigation commission which has done away with thousands of dark rooms; it is Washington, D.C., a city having few problems despite its loo,- ooo negro population, that is strug- gling with the question of the alleys, and the alley tenements and shacks, alleys with but one outlet, where the infant mortality is double that on the streets. All these movements are led by men and aided by women. The Housing Committee of the Monday Evening Club, a society of the national capitol with no ballot power what- ever, bids fair to clean up the city 123 Anti-Suffrage and free it from disease-breeding houses. New York has recreation piers; all large and many small cities have parks and playgrounds, and the greater number of these play- grounds were secured by disinterested women without the ballot. The whole movement of the public conscience is toward better and more general recrea- tion conditions, and the regulating of improper forms of recreation, such as unsupervised dance halls and moving picture shows. Women are not the only ones who desire these things. There are still a few men in America who are awake to the needs of the laboring class. Men, tioo, recognize that the time has come for a "complete program of social legislation," and are everywhere endeavoring to advance it. Women, asking for these things as non- partisans, will secure a more ready hearing and a quicker response, than if 124 A Suffrage Platform they appear as voters to be suspected of interested motives. 7. ^^We view with alarm the reac- tionary educational movement which would restrict the education of women to domestic science, and ignore their right to a full and free intellectual life." With women's colleges dotting our country from coast to coast, it can scarcely be said that the right of women to ^^fuU and free intellectual life" is being ignored. Neither do the courses in domestic science given in colleges and schools restrict women in any sense whatever. They are intended to supplement the intellectual knowledge in a land which is declared to be "the land of the worst middle class cooking in the world." The public schools are endeavoring to help. It is a disgrace to American women that our children have to be taught cooking in a public 125 Anti-Sufifrage school because so many mothers can- not teach it. The ^^paper-bag home," filled three times a day with bakery trash, menaces every factory and mill town. Much of a factory worker's scanty wages is spent by women who cannot cook, and who waste their few cents on cheap food lacking in nourish- ment, supplied by the hundreds of low grade bakers in every industrial com- munity. The delicatessen store men- aces the middle class home, where twice the value is spent for ready cook- ed food; and the caterer is a great source of domestic extravagance among well-to-do housekeepers. Educational institutions are struggling to keep the science of cookery alive among Ameri- can women. We do not view this de- velopment ^Vith alarm"; we view it with relief. It is an endeavor to teach American young women the thing which their mothers are rapidly for- 126 A Suffrage Platform getting — the necessity and the im- portance of their own work. All that we view with alarm is the fact that cooking teachers are so scarce. 8. ^'Wq congratulate the teachers of New York on their successful struggle for the principle of equal pay for equal work, and urge the extension of the principle to the work of industrial wo- men." It is not equal pay for equal work that is asked, but equal pay for different work. See the earlier chapter before referred to. 9. 'We repeat our plea for the ap- pointment of women as judges and magistrates in the courts in order that the interests of women and children may be better safe-guarded." ' Judge Lindsay, the idol of the suffra- gists, is head of the Juvenile Court of Denver; there are juvenile courts pre- sided over by men in Boston, Washing- 127 Anti-Suffrage ton and other cities. Judge Lindsay claims 96 per cent, ^^cured," and those who have seen his work are the first to admit his claim. Others claim for their own work about 50 per cent, cured. It looks as if men were doing fairly well in safe-guarding the inter- ests of children. Women are not so noticeable for their fairness, their ju- dicial mind, their freedom from pre- judice and partisan bias as to make the general application of the demand at all desirable. 10. ^We express our deepest appre- ciation of what our English sisters have done for the woman's movement the world over, and urge our own wo- men to exhibit equal self-sacrifice and loyalty as occasion may arise." With 148 of our English sisters in jail for demolishing property at this writing, it is pertinent to enquire ^^how much lawlessness does it take to make 128 A Suffrage Platform a good law-maker?" The spectacular rioting, the window-breaking and stone-throwing, the much-sought im- molation in prison, the present threats of recourse to firearms, the personal as- saults upon public men, urged with greater violence while the coal strike was impending, are not examples for American women to emulate, and if they do adopt such ridiculous tactics, they should be dealt with exactly as men rioters are dealt with. A govern- ment which would allow itself to be coerced into the granting of any politi- cal boon because a few women were lawless, would make itself the laughing- stock of the world, and would not be safe for an hour from the frenzied and impossible demands of its own subjects. The world in general is not attracted nor impressed by such half-civilized conduct, nor is it disposed to trust weighty matters of state to frenzied and 129 Anti-Suflfrage hysterical women, unthinking, illogi- cal, carried along by an excited mob of lunatics. It represents a pathologi- cal rather than a penological condition. The enunciation of this plank in the platform will inevitably cause intelli- gent American women to repudiate it. II. ^^We call upon New York to fol- low the example of Wisconsin, Kansas and the other states where a referendum has been submitted to the people on the question of equal suffrage." When this was tried in Massachu- setts in 1895, the result gave 4 per cent, of the voters in favor of suffrage. Dr. Lyman Abbott and Col. Roosevelt, approaching this question from very different standpoints, advocate the referendum on this matter. The anti- suffrage women cordially welcome the idea, and wish it tried not only in New York, but in other states as well. Under these circumstances 130 A Suffrage Platform only in the most feeble and sparse- ly settled Western states, or in a state gone mad with socialistic teaching, would the suffragists find a ray of hope. 131 CONCLUSION CONCLUSION npHE anti-suffragists stand very strongly for the position that wo- men do not need the ballot to accom- plish their ends. If they are really in earnest they can secure whatever they are willing to work for in the way of beneficent or remedial legislation. In- telligent and interested women will have by far the larger share in this indi- rect government; all the objectionable classes will be eliminated, and the wo- men who are actuated by high motives will remain. Appearing before legisla- tures and committees, they will be known as non-partisan, known only as women with ^^no political axes to grind, no political trades to make," women whose animating purposes are above 135 Anti-Suffrage suspicion. As such they will be given careful attention, the attention which they have often received from political bodies of men. The men recognize a disinterested effort toward the good and wise thing, whereas if women appear before them holding as much power as they do, the question will arise, or may arise, ^Vhat is behind? How will it affect this or that party?", exactly as it arises among men. Patriotism for a woman does not be- gin at the ballot box. It begins when she takes pains to instruct her young son concerning the dignity and sacred- ness of the ballot. Our fathers used to believe in this, and our country grew great when this doctrine was impressed upon its young men. Of late years, this having been taken too much for grant- ed, we have seen a strange corruption of the electorate. In every community votes are bought and sold with little 136 Conclusion thought of shame, little realization of the baseness and treachery involved. Sometimes an effort is made to cover the bald infamy of it, as in a New Eng- land rural community, where a con- versation has been known to run some- thing like this: ^^Did you get $2 for voting for Mr. So-and-so?" ^^No, I didn't." ^^Then why did you vote for him?" '^Because I like him." **And why do you like him?" ^^Because he gave me two dollars." The lack of appreciation of simple honesty and honor goes back to home training, back to those women who by | training the voters will eventually hold " more power than if voting themselves. The best and highest patriotism con- sists in doing our own work of teaching. Women are the world's educators; men the world's exponents. We have 137 Anti-Suffrage educated amiss if we have raised up a generation of men who can be so little trusted that now we must sweep them aside and take the reins in our own hands. If we are given the franchise this country will present the spectacle of women possessed of ^^rights in excess of power," and a preponderance of wo- men voters would give, as Prof. A. V. Dicey of England points out, ^^sover- eignty without force," a governmental anomaly. He shows the basic relation between force and sovereignty, sover- eignty meaning dominant power, and force that physical possession without which sovereignty can never be effect- ive. AH law is based upon the supposi- tion that back of its edicts lies the force that can be summoned to make those edicts imperative, whether or no. In the very nature of the case, if women claim sovereignty they must call upon men 138 Conclusion for the force — a humiliating state of affairs. This is the absurd position at which we arrive if we follow the relent- less logic of the initial proposition, as offered by the suffrage party. The methods used by many of the suffragists to attain their end are of such a nature that plain common sense, educated or uneducated, refuses to sanction them. The militant methods require no comment. The pacific me- thods are also very objectionable, for no sensible person can be won to a cause whose devotees display such ig- norance of the laws and existing condi- tions as are shown in the street cam- paigns and speeches. The speakers usually remind their hearers with great force of Artemus Ward's friend, ^Vho knew so many things that were not so." When Mrs. Pankhurst, on a New York street corner, held out a list of deserted wives, secured from the office 139 Anti-Suffrage of the Associated Charities, and in- formed her audience that if women had the ballot such things could not be, she proved herself quite ignorant of the very stringent laws existing in New York for the punishment of men who abandon their families. The proper law, the best possible law has been en- acted. Enforcement of any law is a far different matter. The most recent method which has been used is the ^^philanthropy boy- cott," known as ^^the pledge of will and won't." ^^I hereby promise that I WILL give what I can and do my share of work to gain votes for women." *^I will NOT give either money or services to any other cause until the women of New York State have been enfranchised." In New York State one suffragist spent $36,890.00 between October, 1909, 140 Conclusion and March, 1910; another $37,750.00 in the same time. The fund in England was found to be a half million dollars, with $20,000.00 spent for the hire of halls alone. Charity reports in Eng- land and America, in this past year, have shown the loss of contributions and the loss of names of well known and hitherto generous women. This pledge is an English importa- tion, and exhibits no conscience or feel- ing for the many afflicted and helpless, now being aided by voluntary subscrip- tions to charity, who will be made to suffer by the curtailing of funds relied upon for their support, in order that they may be made pitiful factors in the fight In effect these suffragists say, "we will make the helpless suffer, and see if the sight of their suffering will compel you to let us have our own way." Such a spirit cannot commend itself, nor make these women worthy of the very 141 Anti-Suffrage thing they seek. It proves that their methods of warfare will be the same later as they are now, childishly law- less where militant, ignorant or cruel where pacific. The arguments all lead back along a circular trail. In this forest of ques- tions and statistics and opinions, we return to the point from which we start- ed out. We of the majority insist that universal adult suffrage will be a men- ace to American government and to American womanhood, and that it is lacking in the fundamental principle of patriotism. NOTE As the number given on page 53 (80,000) is the number connected with the National Association, and as there is no way of estimating those not so connected, other organizations are doubtless in- cluded in the 3,000,000 figure mentioned as inter- ested in suffrage for women. G. D. G. i ss RETURN TO the circulation desl< of any University of California Library or to tine NORTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY Blclg.400, Richmond Field Station University of California Richmond. CA 94804-4698 Kf ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS • 2-month loans may be renewed by calling (510)642-6753 • 1-year loans may be recharged by bringing books to NRLF • Renewals and recharges may be made 4 days prior to due date. 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