LIBRARY OF THE University of California. Class Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.drg/details/articlesselectedOOphelrich DEBATERS' HANDBOOK SERIES WOMAN SUFFRAGE DEBATERS' HANDBOOK SERIES Direct Primaries Commission Plan of Municipal Govern- ment Capital Punishment Initiative and Referendum Election of United States Senators Income Tax Central Bank of the United States Woman Suffrage Enlargement of the United States Navy (3d ed. rev. and enl.) Other volumes in preparation Each volumef one dollar net Debaters^ Handbook Series SELECTED ARTICLES ON WOMAN SUFFRAGE COMPILED BY EDITH M. PHELPS MINNEAPOLIS THE H. W. WILSON COMPANY 1910 EXPLANATORY NOTE Although Woman Suffrage has been discussed for many years, interest in the subject has by no means diminished. It is in response to a very Hvely demand for material and especially for a Debaters' Handbook on the subject that the present vol- ume has been compiled. This book is similar to the other vol- umes of the -series, and contains a bibliography and reprints of the best available material both in favor of and opposed to the extension of the suffrage. For the sake of convenience, the reprints have been grouped under three main headings : General Discussion, Affirmative, and Negative Discussion. Owing to the vast amount of literature on this subject, a complete bibliography would be an impossibil- ity and has not been attempted. It is believed, however, that this bibliography will be found adequate for the needs of the average reader or debater. While a much larger number of references were examined than appear here, only those have been selected that would be valuable and at the same time easily accessible to the average library or individual. 210090 CONTENTS Bibliography General References i Affirmative References 5 Negative References 11 General Discussion Raine, William MacLeod. Woman Suffrage in Colorado.. Chautaiiquan 17 Greene, Mary A. Results of the Woman Suffrage Move- ment Forum 23 Steunenberg, Frank. Woman Suffrage in Idaho Harper's Bazar 35 Foxcroft, Frank. Check to Woman Suffrage in the United States Nineteenth Century 39 Anthony, Susan B. Woman's Half-Century of Evolution. . North American Review 43 Henry, Alice. Australian Woman and the Ballot North American Review 51 Good Women a Majority North American Review 59 Harper, Ida Husted. Woman Suffrage throughout the World North American Review 61 Lewis, Lawrence. How Woman's Suffrage Works in Colorado Outlook 'j^ Sweden Gives Women Parliamentary Franchise. . .Outlook 90 Kennaday, Paul. Where the Women Vote Outlook 90 Vote of Massachusetts on Municipal Suffrage for Women at the State Election, November 5, 1895 loi Harper, Ida Husted. Present Status of Woman Suffrage. . World To-Day 102 Harper, Ida Husted. Electing Women to Parliament World To-Day no What Woman Suffrage Does World's Work 115 viii CONTENTS Affirmative Discussion Hughes, James L. Last Protest against Woman's Enfran- chisement Arena 1 19 Lee, Margaret Noble. Bishop Doane and Woman Suffrage Arena 134 Chapman, Charles H. Right of Woman to the Ballot. .Arena 144 Parsons, Frank. Shall Our Mothers, Wives and Sisters Be Our Equals or Our Subjects ? Arena 155 / Hoar, George F. Right and Expediency of Woman Suf- frage Century 160 /Russell, Bertrand. Liberalism and Woman's Suffrage Contemporary Review 162 Positive Arguments for Woman Suffrage. .Harper's Weekly 168 Addams, Jane. Why Women Should Vote Ladies' Home Journal 173 />Ramsey, Annie R. Woman Suffrage in America Lippincott's 183 Gibbon, John. Why Women Should Have the Ballot North American Review 188 Sutherland, Rosamond Lee. Appeal of Politics to Women North American Review 195 Kelly, Florence. Child Labor and Woman Suffrage.... Outlook 196 Addams, Jane. Women Who Know That They Need the Ballot i Public 197 . Addams, Jane. Working Woman and the Ballot Woman's Home Companion 198 Negative Discussion Frothingham, O. B. Real Case of the Remonstrants against Woman Suffrage : Arena 205 I Clark, Charles Worcester. Woman Suffrage Pro and Con Atlantic Monthly 209 Stimson, Henry A. Is Woman's Suffrage an Enlightened and Justifiable Policy for the State?. . .Bibliotheca Sacra 213 f Buckley, J. M. Wrongs and Perils of Woman Suffrage Century 220 Sedgwick, Mrs. Mary K. Scientific Aspects of the Woman Suffrage Question Gunton's Magazine 243 CONTENTS ix Leonard, Priscilla. Working- Woman and Anti-Suffrage. .. . Harper's Bazar 246 V Ward, Mary Augusta. Why I Do Not Believe in Woman Suffrage Ladies' Home Journal 251 Ward, Mary Augusta. Women's Anti-Suffrage Movement Nineteenth Century 256 ]^ Doane, William Croswell. Why Women Do Not Want the Ballot North American Review 26s Jones, Mrs. Gilbert E. Impediments to Woman Suffrage.. North American Review 272 Dicey, Albert Venn. Woman Suffrage. .Quarterly Review 281 SELECTED ARTICLES ON WOMAN SUFFRAGE BIBLIOGRAPHY A star (*) preceding a reference indicates that the entire article or a part of it has been reprinted in this volume. General References Books, Pamphlets and Documents Bayles, G. J. Woman and the Law. Bliss, William D. P., ed. New Encyclopedia of Social Reform. 1908. pp. 1295-1303. Bryce, James. American Commonwealth. 3d ed. Vol. II. Chap. XCIII. Commonwealth Publishing Co., New York, 1908. Congressional Record. 18: 987-1002. Ja. 25, '87. Woman Suffrage. Lecky, William Edward Hartpole. Democracy and Liberty. Vol. II. pp. 504-59. Longmans, Green & Co., New York, 1896. New American Supplement to the Encyclopedia Britannica. Vol. V. p. 3181. New International Encyclopedia. Woman's Suffrage. New York Constitutional Convention. Debates on Woman Suf- frage. 1894. Ostrogorski, M. The Rights of Women. Reeves, William Pember. State Experiments in Australia and New Zealand. Chap. III. E. P. Dutton & Co., New York, 1903. 2 SELECTED ARTICLES Ringwalt, Ralph Curtis. Briefs on Public Questions, pp. 8-16. Longmans, Green, and Co., New York, 1908. Contains a bibliogaphy and brief for both affirmative and negative. Stanton, Mrs. Elizabeth Cady. Eighty Years and More. T. Fisher Unvi^in, London, 1898. Stanton, Mrs. Elizabeth Cady, and Others. History of Woman Suffrage. 4 Vols. National American Woman SutYrage, War- ren, Ohio, 1904. Sumner, Helen L. Equal Suffrage : The Results of an Investiga- tion in Colorado Made for the Collegiate Equal Suffrage League of New York State. Harper & Brothers, New York, 1909. This is 'an impartial survey of the results of woman suffrage in Colorado, and will be helpful to both affirmative and nega- tive sides. United States. 47th Congress, ist Session. Senate Report 686. Reports on Woman Suffrage. United States. 48th Congress, ist Session. Senate Report 399. Report of the Committee on Woman Suffrage. United States. 48th Congress, ist Session. House Report 1330. Extending the Right of Suffrage to Women. United States. 52d Congress, 2d Session. Senate Report 1143. Report of the Select Committee on Woman Suffrage. *Vote of Massachusetts on Municipal Suffrage for Women at the State Election, November 5, 1895. Wisconsin Blue Book, 1907. pp. iioo-i. Wisconsin University. Womsrn Suffrage. Bulletin. Serial No. 214; General Series, No. 22. A bibliography is given on pages 3-4. Magazine Articles American Magazine. 70: 60-73. My. *io. The American Woman: After the War. Ida M. Tarbell. Annals of the American Academy. 35: sup. 1-37. May, T910. Significance of the Woman Suffrage Movement. Contains seven papers, four in favor of woman suffrage and three against. Arena. 41 : ^ 14-24. Jl. '09. Suffrage Question in the Far West. Elsie Wallace Moore. WOMAN SUFFRAGE 3 • Contains a map showing the progress of woman suffrage in the various states of the United States. Atlantic Monthly. 102: 343-6. S. '08. English Working- Woman and the Franchise. Edith Abbott. Canadian Magazine. 19: 81-2. My. *02. Woman Suffrage in Col- orado. Chautauquan. 13 : ^2-"^. Ap. '91. A Symposium — Woman's Suf- frage. Consists of four papers — two for the affirmative by Lucy Stone and Frances E. Willard, and two for the negative by Rose Terry Cooke and Josephine Henderson. *Chautauquan. 34: 482-4. F. '02. Woman Suffrage in Colorado. William Macleod Raine. Chautauquan. ^tl • 334-5- Jl- '03- Woman Suffrage Defeated. Chautauquan. 58 : 166-83. Ap. '10. Social Idealism and Suffrage for Woman. George Willis Cooke. Collier's Weekly. 43 : 26-7. Ap. 3, '09. Woman's Battle for the Ballot in Chicago. Caroline M. Hill. Collier's Weekly. 43: 14-5. Ap. 17; 14-5. My. i; 2Z. My. 8, '09. Woman Who Votes. Sarah Comstock. Delineator. 74: 204. S. *09. Being a Woman Legislator. Alma V. Lafferty. Delineator. 74: 299. O. '09. Recollections of a Woman Cam-. paigner. Minnie J. Reynolds. *Forum. 17: 413-24. Je. '94. Results of the Woman-Suffrage Movement. Mary A. Greene. Forum. 43 : 264-6. Mr. '10. Woman Suffrage as It Looks To- Day. Mrs. Oliver H. P. Belmont. *Harper's Bazar. ZT)'- 220-1. My. 26, '00. Woman Suffrage in Idaho. Frank Steunenberg. Harper's Bazar. See monthly numbers from January, 1909 to date for articles by Ida Husted Harper and others. Harper's Weekly. 44: 949-50. O. 6, *oo. Female Suffrage in the United States. J. D. Whelpley. A good summary of the present status of woman suffrage in the United States. Harper's Weekly. 48: 121-2. Ja. 23, '04. Women Voters in Aus- tralia. Harper's Weekly. 51 : 975-6. Jl. 6, '07. Improved Prospects of Woman Suffrage. 4 SELECTED ARTICLES Harper's Weekly. 52: 20-1. Ap. 25, '08. Votes for Women: An Object Lesson. Bertha Damaris Knobe. Harper's Weekly. 52: 8-9. D. 26, '08. Woman Boss of Denver. Alfred Damon Runyon. Harper's Weekly. 53 : 5. My. i, '09. Pope on Equal Suffrage. Harper's Weekly. 53 : 10. Je. 12, '09. Norway's Leader of Women. Hanna Astrup Larsen. Harper's Weekly. 53 : 28. Ag. 21, '09. How Woman Suffrage Came to Wyoming. Estelline Bennett. Independent. 56: 1309-11. Je. 9, '04. Women's Suffrage in Aus- tralia. Lady Holder. Independent. 61 : 198-9. Jl. 26, *o6. Object Lesson. Alice Stone Blackwell. Independent. 63: 615-7. S. 12, '07. Women in the Finnish Par- liament. Baroness Gripenberg. Independent. 65 : 192-5. Jl. 23, '08. International Woman Suffrage Congress. Ida Husted Harper. Independent. 66: 1056-70. My. 20, '09. Woman Suffrage: An Ex- perience Meeting. Independent. 67 : 418-20. Ag. 19, '09. Woman Suffrage in South Africa. Irene M. Ashby-Macfadyen. Lippincott's. 85 : 123-5. Ja. '10. Leaven of Woman Suffrage *Round the World. George Allan England. ♦Nineteenth Century. 56: 833-41. N. '04. Check to Woman Suf- frage in the United States. Frank Foxcroft. This article may be obtained in pamphlet form from the Secretary of the Massachusetts Association opposed to further extension of suffrage to women, Brookline, Mass. ♦North American Review. 175: 800-10. D. '02. Woman's Half- Century of Evolution. Susan B. Anthony. ♦North American Review. 183 : 1272-9. D. 21, '06. Australian Woman and the Ballot. Alice Henry. ♦North American Review. 183: 1333-5. D. 21, '06. Good Women a Majority. ♦North American Review. 186: 55-71. S. '07. Woman Suffrage throughout the World. Ida Husted Harper. Reprinted in condensed form in the Review of Reviews. 36. 481-2. October, 1907. North American Review. 189: 502-12. Ap. '09. Status of Woman Suffrage in the United States. Ida Husted Harper. WOMAN SUFFRAGE 5 Reprinted in condensed form in the Review of Reviews. 39: 626-7. May, 1909. Outlook. 65 : 430-1. Je. 23, '00. Woman Suffrage in the West. *Outlook. 82: 167-78. Ja. 2."], '06. How Woman's Suffrage Works in Colorado. Lawrence Lewis. Outlook. 83 : 675-6. Jl. 21, '06. Woman Suffrage. Florence Kelly. Outlook. 87: 35-9. S. 7, '07. Woman Suffrage in Finland. G. H. Blakeslee. ^Outlook. 91 : 573. Mr. 13, '09. Sweden Gives Women Parli^i- mentary Franchise. *Outlook. 95: 117-22. My. 2T, '10. Where the Women Vote. P. Kennaday. Review of Reviews. 35 : 499-500. Ap. '07. Finland's Women to the Front. Westminster Review. 169 : 29-40. Ja. '08. Justice between the Sex- es. Elizabeth C. Wolstenholme Elmy. Westminster Review. 170: 629-42. D. '08. Woman and the State. F. W. Hatton Reed. *World To-Day. 11: 1264-8. D. '06. Present Status of Woman Suffrage. Ida Husted Harper. *World To-Day. 13: 1008-12. O. '07. Electing Women to Par- liament. Ida Flusted Harper. World To-Day. 15: 1066-71. O. '08. Suffragists and Suffragettes. Winnifred Harper Cooley. ^World's Work. 17: 11419-20. Ap. '09. What Woman Suffrage Does. The conclusions of Judge Lindsey concerning woman suffrage in Colorado. Affirmative References Books, Pamphlets and Documents Blackwell, Alice Stone. Objections answered. 34p. pa. National American Woman Suffrage Association, 505 Fifth Av., New York City. Congressional Record. 16: 1322-5. F. 6, '85. Woman Suffrage. Thomas W. Palmer. Congressional Record. 18: 34-8. D. 8, '86. Joint Resolution Pro- posing an Amendment to the Constitution of the United 6 SELECTED ARTICLES States Extending the Right of Suffrage to Women. Speech Delivered by Henry W. Blair. Curtis, George William, Orations and Addresses, edited by Charles Eliot Norton. Vol. I, pp. 181-213. The Right of Suf- frage. Harper & Brothers, New York, 1894. An .address given before the constitutional convention of the state of New York, at Albany, in 1867, following the pro- posal of an amendment in favor of woman suffrage. Dilke, Mrs. Ashton. Woman's Suffrage. Fawcett, Henry & Millicent Garrett. Essays and Lectures en So- cial and Political Subjects, pp. 230-91. Macmillan & Co., Lon- don, 1872. Higginson, Thomas Wentworth. Common Sense about Women, pp. 303-403. Lee & Shepard, Boston, 1882. Jacobi, Mary Putnam. Common Sense Applied to Woman Suf- frage. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1894. Mathew, Arnold Harris. Woman Suft'rage. T. C. & E. C. Jack, London, 1907. Mill, John Stuart. Considerations on Representative Govern- ment. Chap. VHL Henry Holt & Co., New York, 1882. Mill, John Stuart. The Subjection of Women. Longmans, Green & Co., London, 1869. Parsons, Frank. Story of New Zealand. Chap. VHL C. F. Taylor, Philadelphia, 1904. United States. 47th Congress, ist Session. Senate Miscellaneous Document 74. Arguments of the Woman-Suffrage Dele- gates before the Committee on the Judiciary of the United States Senate, January 23, 1880. United States. 49th Congress, ist Session. Senate Report 70. Report of Select Committee on Woman Suffrage. United States. 50th Congress, 2d Session. Senate Report 2543. Report of the Committee on Woman Suffrage. United States. 51st Congress, ist Session. Senate Report 1576. Report of the Committee on Woman Suffrage. United States. 51st Congress, ist Session. House Report 2254. Woman Suffrage. United States. 53d Congress, 2d Session. Senate Miscellaneous Document 121. Hearing before the Committee on Woman Suffrage, February 21, 1894. WOMAN SUFFRAGE 7 United States. 54th Congress, ist Session. Senate Document 157. Report of Hearing before the Committee on Woman Suf- frage, January 28, 1896. Reports and pamphlets may be obtained from the secretary of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, 505 Fifth Av., New York City; also from the secretary of the New York State Suffrage Association. Magazine Articles American Magazine. 67: 288-90. Ja. '09. Problem of the Intel- lectual Woman. C. M. H. Compares the status of woman with that of the negro. American Magazine. 68: 292-301. Jl. '09. Votes for Women. Wil- liam Isaac Thomas. *Arena. 10: 201-13. Jl. '94. Last Protest against Woman's En- franchisement. James L. Hughes. A reply to Profes'sor Goldwin Smith's essay on "Woman Suffrage." *Arena. 15 : 642-53. Mr. '96. Bishop Doane and Woman Suffrage. Margaret Noble Lee. *Arena. 16: 570-80. S. '96. Right of Woman to the Ballot* Charles H. Chapman. Arena. 16: 748-51. O. '96. Dual Suffrage. Mrs. Edward Quincy Norton. *Arena. 40: 92-4. Jl. '08. Shall our Mothers, Wives, and Sisters be our Equals or our Subjects? Frank Parsons. Atlantic Monthly. 102: 196-202. Ag. '08. What It Means to Be , an Enfranchised Woman. Ellis Meredith. An account of woman suffrage in Colorado. Canadian Magazine. 33: 17-21. My. '09. Why I am a Suffragette. Arthur Hawkes. Answers the following objections: 1. Women are not fitted for the suffrage. 2. It will weaken the home. 3. It will destroy womanliness. *Century. 48: 605-13. Ag. '94. Right and Expediency of Woman Suffrage. George F. Hoar, ■Contemporary Review. 83 : 653-60. My. '03. Justice for the Gan- der — Justice for the Goose. Frances Power Cobbe. ^Contemporary Review. 94: 11-6. Jl. '08. Liberalism and Wom- an's Suffrage. Bertrand Russell. 8 SELECTED ARTICLES Era. 10 : 409-16. O. '02. Equal Suffrage in Colorado. Helen Marsh Wixson. Everybody's Magazine. 21 : 72S-3S. D. '09. Why ? Elizabeth Rob- ins. Fortnightly Review. 89: 634-44. Ap. '08. Ideals of a Woman's Party. Agnes Grove. Fortnightly Review. 90: 258-71. Ag. '08. Sex-Disability and Adult Suffrage. Teresa Billington-Greig. Fortnightly Review. 90: 445-57. S. '08. Constitutional Basis of Women's Suffrage. C. C. Stopes. Harper's Bazar. 41 : 196. F. '07. Good Women a Majority. Reprinted in full from the North American Review. 183: 1333- 5. December, 21, 1906. Harper's Bazar. 42: 1 183-6. D. '08. Woman Suffrage in Eng- land. Sydney Brooks. Harper's Bazar. 43: 1215. D. '09. Votes for Women. Ida Husted Harper. Harper's Bazar. 44: 178. Mr. '10. Woman-Suffrage Movement. Ida Husted Harper. Harper's Weekly. 47: 933. Je. 6, '03. Political Women. Mary Garrett Hay. ♦Harper's Weekly. 50: 1702-3. D. i, '06. Positive Arguments for Woman Suffrage. Harper's Weekly. 52: 6. Ap. 11, '08. Stock Argument against Woman Suffrage. Harper's Weekly. 53: 15-6. Mr. 13, '09. Campaigning for Equal Franchise. William Hemmingway. Harper's Weekly. 53: 6. Jl. 31, '09. Influence not Government. H. S. Howard. Independent. 67 : 261-2. Jl. 29, '09. Counter Influence to Woman Suffrage. An answer to Miss Chittenden's article in the Independent. 67: 246-9. July 29, 1909. Independent. 68 : 902-4. Ap. 28, '10. President and the Suffragists. Ida Husted Harper. *Ladies' Home Journal. 27: 21-2. Ja. '10. Why Women Should Vote. Jane Addams. *Lippincott's. 82: 101-4. Jl. '08. Woman Suffrage in America. An- nie R. Ramsey. WOMAN SUFFRAGE 9 Reprinted in condensed form in the Review of Reviews. 38: 94-5. July, 1908. Nineteenth Century. 56 : 105-12. Jl. '04. Political Woman in Australia. Vida Goldstein. Nineteenth Century. 61 : 472-6. Mr. '07. Women and Politics : A. Reply. Eva Gore-Booth. Reprinted in full in Living Age. 253: 131-4. April 20, 1907. Nineteenth Century. 63 : 819-24. My. '08. Protection of Women. Jessie Payne Margoliouth. Nineteenth Century. 64 : 495-506. S. '08. Women and the Suffrage. Eva Gore-Booth. Reprinted in full in Living Age. 259: 131-40. October, 17, 1908. North American Review. 143 : 371-81. O. '86. Woman Suffrage. Mary A. Livermore. ♦North American Review. 163 : 91-7. Jl. '96. Why Women Should Have the Ballot. John Gibbon. North American Review. 178: 362-74. Mr. '04. Would Woman Suffrage Benefit the State and Woman Herself? Ida Husted Harper. An answer to "Woman's Assumption of Sex Superiority." A. N. Meyer. North American Review. 178: 103-9. January, 1904. North American Review. 179:30-41. Jl. '04. Why Women Can- not Vote in the United States. Ida Husted Harper. North American Review. 183 : 484-98. S. 21, '06. Suffrage — a Right. Ida HuvSted Harper. North American Review. 183 : 689-90. O. 5, '06. Necessity of Woman Suffrage. Reprinted in full in Harper's Bazar. 41: 34-5. January, 1907. North American Review. 183: 830-1. O. 19, '06. Woman's In- herent Right to Vote. Reprinted in full in Harper's Bazar. 41: 300-1. March, 1907. North American Review. 183 : 1203-6. D. 7, '06. Woman Suffrage in Colorado. Reprinted in full in Harper's Bazar. 41: 193-4. February, 1907. North American Review. 188 : 650-8. N. '08. Woman Movement in England. Charles F. Aked. North American Review. 100:664-74. N. '09. Woman's Right to Govern Herself. Alva E. Belmont. 10 SELECTED ARTICLES *North American Review. 191 : 75-86. Ja. '10. Appeal of Politics to Woman. Rosamond Lee Sutherland. North American Review. 191 : 527-36. Ap. '10. Woman and Dem- ocracy. Borden Parker Bowne. North American Review. 191 : 701-20. My. '10. Inherent Right. G. Harvey. Outlook. 75 : 997-1000. D. 26, '03. Women in Colorado under the Suffrage. Mary G. Slocum. *Outlook. 82:622. Mr. 17, '06. Child Labor and Woman Suffrage. Florence Kelly. Outlook. 85 : 1002. Ap. 27, '07. Plea for Unconscious Slaves. R. V. Phelan. Outlook. 90: 774-5. D. 5, '08. Woman Suffrage. I. A. W. Outlook. 91 : 780-4. Ap. 3, '09. Case for Woman Suffrage. Julia Ward Howe. Overland, n.s. 51 : 513-4. Je. '08. Woman Suffrage Movement, Kate Ames. Public. 11:77. Ap. 24, '08. Demand of Women for Woman Suf- frage. *Public. 11:205-6. My. 29, '08. Women Who Know that They Need the Ballot. Jane Addams. Reprinted from the Woman's Journal. March 28, '08. Public. 12 : 393. Ap. 23, '09. Heart of the Suffrage Question. Daniel Kiefer. Review of Reviews. 2)7 • 484-6. Ap. '08. Campaign of the English Suffragettes. Westminster Review. 162:255-61. S. '04. Are Women Ready for the Franchise? Sarah E. Saville. Westminster Review. 163:266-71. Mr. '05. How the Vote Has Affected Womanhood in Colorado. Westminster Review. 168 : 622-4. D. '07. Women and Sweated Industries. I. D. Pearce. Westminster Review. 169 : 292-8. Mr. '08. Suffragists Again ! Gladys Jones. Westminster Review. 169:444-51. Ap. '08. An Awakening Wom- anhood. I. D. Pearce. Westminster Review. 169:523-31. My. '08. Historic Franchise. Trevor Fletcher. WOMAN SUFFRAGE ii Westminster Review. 170:43-53. Jl. '08. Woman Movement in New Zealand. Edith Searle Grossmann. Westminster Review. 170:525-30. N. '08. Militant Tactics and Woman's Suffrage. Mona Caird. Westminster Review. 171 : 383-95- Ap. '09. Women's Industries. Frances Swiney. Her argument is that the economic position of woman will be benefited by the suffrage. Westminster Review. 171 : 396-9- Ap. '09. Plainer Truths about Woman Suffrage. F. W. Hatton Reed. Westminster Review. 171:491-9. My. '09. Our Modern Bunyans. James A. Aldis. Westminster Review. 172:186-90. Ag. '09. Heredity: A Plea for Woman's Suffrage. Annabel Clark Gale. Westminster Review. 172:263-6. S. '09. Girl and the Vote. H. G. TurnbuU. *Woman's Home Companion, p. 20. Ap. '08. Working Woman and the Ballot. Jane Addams. World To-Day. 12: 418-21. Ap. '07. Housekeepers' Need of the Ballot. Molly Warren. Negative References Books, PampJilets and Documents Buckley, James Monroe. Wrong and Peril of Woman Suffrage. The Fleming FI. Revell Co., New York, 1909. Bushnell, Horace. Women's Suffrage; the Reform against Na- ture. Congressional Record. 18 : 980-3. Ja. 25, 'Sj. Woman Suffrage. Joseph E. Brown. Congressional Record. 18 : 986-7. Ja. 25, '87. Woman Suffrage. George G. Vest. Hart, A. L. Women's Suffrage and the National Danger. Johnson, Helen Kendrick. Woman and the Republic. D. Apple- ton & Co., New York, 1897. Johnson, Rossiter. Blank-Cartridge Ballot. 8p. pa. New York State Association Opposed to the Extension of the Suffrage to Women. May be obtained of the Secretary, Mrs. George Phillips, Room 819, Engineering Societies Building, 29 West 39th St., New York City. 12 SELECTED ARTICLES McCracken, Elizabeth. Why Women Do Not Want the Ballot. McCracken, Elizabeth. Women of America. Chap. IV. Macmillan & Co., New York, 1904. Parkman, Francis. Some of the Reasons against Woman Suf- frage. i6p. pa. Issued by the Massachusetts Man Suffrage As- sociation, 7a Park St., Boston. Smith, Goldwin. Essays on Questions of the Day. pp. 197-238. Macmillan & Co., New York, 1894. United States. 526. Congress, 26. Session. Senate Miscellaneous . Document 28. Memorial of Caroline F. Corbin for American Women Remonstrants to the Extension of Suffrage to Wom- en, Praying for a Hearing before Congress. Printed with this memorial is a letter from the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M. P., remonstrating against female suf- frage. United States. 54th Congress, ist Session. Senate Report 787. Minority Report of the Committee on Woman Suffrage. Why Women Do Not Want to Vote. 6p. pa. Anti-Suffrage As- sociation of the Third Judicial District, State of New York, Albany, N. Y. Reports and pamphlets may be obtained from Mrs. George Phillips, Secretary of the New York Association Opposed to the Extension of Suffrage to Women, Room 819, Engineering Socie- ties Building, 29 West 39th St., New York City. Also from the secretaries of the Illinois Association Opposed to the Extension of Suffrage to Women, 597 Dearborn Av., Chicago, 111., and the Massachusetts Anti-Suffrage Association, P. O. Box 134, Brook- line, Mass. Magazine Articles ♦Arena. 2 : 175-81. Je. '00. Real Case of the Remonstrants against Woman Suffrage. O. B. Frothingham. * Atlantic Monthly. 65 : 31 0-20. Mr. '90. Woman Suffrage Pro and Con. Charles Worcester Clark. Atlantic Monthly. 92 : 289-96. S. '03. Why Women Do Not Wish the Suffrage. Lyman Abbott. Atlantic Monthly. 96 : 750-9. D. '05. Woman Suffrage in the Tenements. Elizabeth McCracken. Atlantic Monthly. 105:297-301. Mr. *io. Change in the Fem- inine Ideal. Margaret Deland. "•^Bibliotheca Sacra. 67:335-46. Ap. '10. Is Woman's Suffrage an Enlightened and Justifiable Policy for the State? Henry A. Stimson. WOMAN SUFFRAGE 13 ♦Century. 48:613-23. Ag. '94. Wrongs and Perils of Woman Suf- frage. James Monroe Buckley. Edinburgh Review. 208: 246-63. Jl. '08. Women and the Fran- chise. Reprinted in full in Living Age. 258: 451-63. August 22, 1908. Educational Review. 2f> • 398-404. N. '08. Some Suffragist Argu- ments. Mary Augusta Ward. (Mrs. Humphry Ward.) Forum. 43 : 495-504. My. '10. Facts about Suffrage and Anti- Suffrage. Mrs. Gilbert E. Jones. *Gunton's Magazine. 20:333-44. Ap. '01. Scientific Aspects of the Woman Suffrage Question. Mrs. Mary K. Sedgwick. Harper's Bazar. 43 : 525-6. My. '09. Ideal of Equality for Men and Women. Priscilla Leonard. *Harper's Bazar. 43 : 1 169-70. N. '09. Working- Woman and Anti- Suffrage. Priscilla Leonard. Independent. 67 : 246-9. Jl. 29, '09. Counter Influence to Woman Suffrage. Alice Hill Chittenden. Ladies' Home Journal. 22 : 7-8. O. '05. Would Woman Suffrage Be Unwise? Grover Cleveland. His arguments are: 1. Woman's sphere is the home; 2. The majority of women are not in favor of the suffrage; 3. The re- sults where tried are not favorable. *Ladies' Home Journal. 25: 15. N. '08. Why I Do not Believe in Woman Suffrage. Mary Augusta Ward. (Mrs. Humphry Ward.) Lippincott's. 83:586-92. My. '09. Shall Women Vote? Ouida. Reprinted in condensed form in the Review of Reviews. 39: 624-5. May, 1909. Living Age. 225 : 774-8o. Je. 23, '00. Growing Bureaucracy and . Parliamentary Decline. Alice Stopford Green. Living Age. 260 : 323-9. F. 6, '09. Suffrage and Anti-Suffrage. M. E. Simkins. The burden of the suffrage would come on the working-wom- an who is unequal to the task. Living Age. 261 : 240-3. Ap. 24, '09. "Seems so" — the Suffragettes. Stephen Reynolds. His main argument is that working-men and women do not desire the suffrage. Living Age. 262 : 462-7. Ag. 21, '09. Modern Surrender of Wom- en. Gilbert Keith Chesterton. 14 SELECTED ARTICLES Nineteenth Century. 6i : 22'/-2,6. F. '07. Women and Politics. Caroline E. Stephen. Reprinted in full in Living Age. 252: 579-86. March 9, 1907. Nineteenth Century. 61 : 595-601. Ap. '07. Women and Politics : Two Rejoinders. Reprinted in full in Living Age. 253: 271-6. May 4, 1907. Nineteenth Century. 63 : 381-5. Mr. '08. Woman's Plea against Woman Suffrage. Edith M. Massie. Reprinted in full in Living Age. 2^7: 84-8. April 11, 1908. Nineteenth Century. 64:64-73. Jl. '08. Women and the Suffrage. A. M. Lovat. ♦Nineteenth Century. 64 : 343-52. Ag. '08. Women's Anti-Suffrage Movement. Mary Augusta Ward. (Mrs. Humphry Ward.) Reprinted in full in Living Age. 259: 3-11. October 3, 1908. Nineteenth Century. 64:1018-24, D. '08. Representation of Wom- en : A Consultative Chamber of Women. Caroline E. Stephen. Nineteenth Century. 64 : 1025-9. D. '08. Representation of Wom- en. Edward Alfred Goulding. Nineteenth Century. 66: 1051-7. D. '09. Then and Now. Ethel B. Harrison. *North American Review. 161 : 257-67. S. '95. Why Women Do Not Want the Ballot. William Croswell Doane. North American Review. 163 : 537-48. N. '96. Later Aspects of Woman Suffrage. William Croswell Doane. North American Review. 178: 103-9. Ja. '04. Woman's Assump- tion of Sex Superiority. Annie Nathan Meyer. Her argument is that women have not shown the character necessary for success in political life. *North American Review. 190:158-69. Ag. '09. Impediments to Woman Suffrage. Mrs. Gilbert E. Jones. North American Review. 191 : 549-58. Ap. '10. Woman's Re- lation to Government. Mrs. Williams Forse Scott. Outlook. 64:573-4. Mr. 10, '00. Concerning Woman's Suffrage. Outlook. 68:353-5. Je. 8, '01. Rights of Man. Lyman Abbott. Outlook. 75 : 737-44. N. 28, '03. Woman's Suffrage in Colorado. Elizabeth McCracken. Outlook. 90 : 848-9. D. 19, '08. Theodore Roosevelt and Elihu Root on Woman's Suffrage. WOMAN SUFFRAGE 15 Outlook. 91 : 784-8. Ap. 3, '09. Assault on Womanhood. Lyman Abbott. Outlook. 91 : 836-40. Ap. 10, '09. Profession of Motherhood. Ly- man Abbott. Outlook. 93 : 868-74. D. 18, '09, Melancholia and the Silent Wom- an. Edvvina Stanton Babcock. ♦Quarterly Review. 210 : 276-304. Ja. '09. Woman Suffrage. Al- bert Venn Dicey. Reprinted in full in Living Age. 261: 67-84. April 10, 1909. World To-Day. 15:1061-6. O. ^08. Should Women Vote? Vir- ginia B. Le Roy. GENERAL DISCUSSION Chautauquan. 34: 482-4. February, 1902. Woman Suffrage in Colorado. William MacLeod Raine. Equal suffrage in Colorado cannot fairly be judged by facts accomplished; still less by the immoderate claims that have been made for it. It has not regenerated society nor abolished political corruption. It has not even prevented bloodshed at the polls and made the election of bad men impossible. The time-serving politician and the ward-heeler have not become ineligible for public preferment, nor has there been in any way a tremendous influence for good brought to bear upon the electorate. As a short cut to the millennium woman suffrage may be counted out as a failure, for even upon moral questions the line of political cleavage in the woman vote is as decided as among men. In point of fact the ship of state appears to sail on in much the same way as before. To the surprise of most people the extension of the suffrage proved an incident rather than an epoch. But the advocates of equal suffrage have a right to de- mand a patient and more than fitful trial. It may be just- ly claimed that if men have not been able to weed out the evils of our political life in thousands of years women should not be expected to do so in a decade. Moral values are not easily estimated, and centuries rather than years are the measure of an advance in the social life. When Colorado was admitted as a state there was a provision in the constitution giving power to the general assembly to extend the suffrage to women, such action to take effect only when approved by a majority of voters at i8 SELECTED ARTICLES a general election. There was at that time considerable agitation of the question, and at the general election the vote was more than two to one against the equal suffragists. From that time until the legislature met in 1893 there had been practically no discussion of an extension of the suffrage, but in the populistic wave which was then sweeping through the west, one of the features of the radical program was equal suffrage on the broad general ground of justice. The bill passed the legislature practically by default, for the reason that the lawmakers desired to shift the respon- sibility to the people. Politicians were afraid to vote against an extension lest their vote might later prove a boomerang. At the general election various things tended to help the measure besides its own specific merits. Many were indif- ferent, and did not vote at all; others voted for it out of gallantry. Political conditions were much unsettled, and many regarded it simply as a part of the propaganda which was to bring the millennium. The conditions which made Waite governor of Colorado were largely responsible for the extension of the suffrage to women. At the next general election the wave of populism was already beginning to recede. Governor Waite was a candi- date for re-election and the cry of his opponents was, "Let us redeem the state." The election was hotly contested, and there was a very full registration. At that time forty- seven per cent of the entire registered vote of the state was cast by women. During that campaign and subsequently thereto, many women of high character, social standing, and intelligence took an active part in politics. Generally speak- ing, however, then as now, the women adopted without much investigation the political principles advocated by their hus- bands or fathers. Practical politics did not interest them. Attendance at primaries and caucuses was an onerous bur- den they did not attempt to shoulder. In this respect they were scarcely more negligent than the male voter. Politicians have nothing to say today in public regarding woman suffrage. They consider it as an accomplished and immutable fact, not to be openly and frankly discussed for WOMAN SUFFRAGE - 19 fear of alienating votes. In private they are usually op- posed to* it, because it makes the vote more cumbersome, the purchasable element larger, and the cost of an election greater. It is the testimony of political bosses that the woman vote is more of an uncertain quantity than that of the men, that it is more largely controlled by the emotions, and that it cannot be depended upon so surely along party lines. They are agreed, too, that the vote of women in con- ventions is more easily manipulated than the vote of men, and that this is due not so much to inexperience as to fem- inine vanity; that generally speaking the women are more anxious to determine the right, and less able to do so, not so much by reason of inexperience as on account of an in- herent fundamental difficulty of sex. The actual party work- ers are not generally the best classes of women in the community. Like the men, they are in politics for what they can get out of it. This was, of course, to be expected, and simply parallels the experience of our political con- ditions everywhere. Women of a certain type are in pol- itics, just as men of the same type, for their own personal advancement. At least the women can claim with truth that the ward-heelers among the men number many more than those of the women. It is a significant fact that in the state penitentiary at Canon City are five hundred men and only three women. Newspapers also may be considered as special pleaders for woman suffrage, since they scarcely dare to oppose it for fear of loss of patronage. The majority of the men of the state, view with cynical distrust equal suffrage, and I believe that the majority of the women are indifferent. Yet in spite of this, woman suffrage has resulted in a quicken- ing of the civic conscience among women, and in distinct progress toward higher civic life, judging from an impar- tial examination of the ground. On the whole, the private character of office-seekers has been of a higher type than before, owing to the close scrutiny of the Civic Federation and other women's organizations, which have induced con- ventions to hesitate in nominating a man of pronounced 20 SELECTED ARTICLES immortality or unworthiness. The emphatic rebuke given at the last election to a very brilliant but profligate politician should make clear to party managers the inexpediency of such nominations. Political enfranchisement of women, and the growth of women's clubs in the past few years, appear to have re- acted upon each other in stimulating interest among a con- siderable proportion of that sex. There has certainly been a broadening of responsibility in affairs of the body politic. In 1893 women were not prepared for suffrage and had to rely largely upon the advice of their male relatives; but at the last election women's partisan clubs might have been found all over the state, in some cases organized before those of the men. Recently at a Prohibition convention held in the city of Denver to choose candidates for the spring city election, a slate composed entirely of women was nom- inated because no men could be found to accept the places. Unfortunately no statistics are available for a compari- son of the relative number of men and women voting since the adoption of equal suffrage, but a census taken at the last election shows that in Arapahoe county (practically Denver) forty-two per cent, of the w^omen voted, and in other counties, with the exception of the rural mountain districts, from forty to forty-five per cent. Colorado has been among the foremost states of the union in reform legislation during the past eight years. Laws have been enacted in regard to the property and ma- ternal rights of women that were much needed. A few years ago a woman could not prevent her husband from mortgag- ing the roof over her head. Through the efforts of women legislators all community property now requires in transfer the signatures of both husband and wife. Organizations of women have had bills introduced for new primary and elec- tion laws, as well as one in the interests of civil service reform. A bill for raising the legal age of consent for girls to eighteen years, was championed by women and success- fully carried through. The newly aroused interest of women in civic aifairs has WOMAN SUFFRAGE 21 manifested itself in other ways, in the greater cleanliness of streets, in the city park improvements, and especially in the care, ventilation, and artistic decoration of school buildings. The women members of the various state boards have done good work in furthering the interests of their charges. This has been notably true in those boards relating to the care of the criminal and pauper classes, manifesting itself in the more efficient management of the female wards of the state and in the improved conditions of the state institutions generall}'. The Industrial Home for Girls is a shining ex- ample of this. It would seem not only the part of justice, but also of wisdom, to give women a fair representation on the governing boards of those institutions in which they have naturally 'a special interest, such as charitable and re- formatory institutions for girls, women, and boys, public schools, and co-educational state universities. The develop- ment of the girl both in early life, and later during the four impressionable college years, can hardly be secured along the best lines by placing the direction of their lives entirely in the hands of men, who are confessedly not able to meet the needs of their own growing girls without the aid of a woman. There are no doubt qualifications inher- ent in her sex which give to woman a clearer insight into certain questions than a man can have. The fear that women would flood the public offices, or would take in any way an undue part in public life, has not been realized in Colorado. Since the political enfranchise- ment of women there have usually been three members of that sex in the Colorado legislature, but at the present time, owing to a mistake of the nominating conventions, there is but one. The only office on the state ticket conceded to a woman is that of superintendent of public instruction. The career of Mrs. Helen L. Grenfell is itself an argument in favor of the admission of women to public life. From childhood she has always been much interested in political questions and those relating to an advance in civic life. Having been several times elected school superintendent of her own county, she came to the office of state superin- 22 SELECTED ARTICLES tendent with a tact, a knowledge, and an enthusiasm for work that has accomplished notable results. Mrs. Grenfell is strong, earnest, competent, yet womanly and inspiring. She has not made her office wait upon politics, and the re- sult has amply justified her. During the recent campaign she was endorsed for a second term by nearly a.U the lead- ing educators of the state, and at the election justified her nomination from a party point of view by running five thou- sand votes ahead of her ticket. Mrs. Grenfell asks no spe- cial recognition on account of her sex, though she has al- ways met with courteous treatment. She stands on her merits alone, as all women who are successful in public af- fairs must do, and on account of her reasonable and imper- sonal point of view has the faculty of working in harmony with the men associated with her. It would be hard to find a man better fitted for the position than is Mrs. Grenfell. There may perhaps be some justification for the charge that certain women neglect their homes for politics. The professional ward politician is at present not in the highest grade of civilization, and it would appear to make no differ- ence whether that politician is a man or a woman. As to whether her political activities are the cause of her delin- quencies, one might submit that politics being eliminated the same woman would neglect her domestic duties for the club, society, or church work, or to shop or gossip, accord- ing to her nature and her opportunities. To sum up, although now a part of the state constitution and not likely soon to be reconsidered, woman suffrage is still in the tentative stage. Isolated results both good and evil can readily be found as evidence of its success or fail- ure, by one who has a theory to formulate. The trouble is that such phenomena do not cover the whole ground. It is probably true that the ballot and its attendant circumstan- ces have increased the unhealthy restlessness of some wom- en, and have left profoundly unmoved many others; but between these two extremes there are indubitably a large class who have been awakened to a greater practical interest in the problems confronting the social body, and who are beginning to tmderstand more of the patriotism which does not talk, but acts. WOMAN SUFFRAGE 2^ Hitherto, at least, the predictions of extremists have been confuted, for the ballot in the hands of woman has neither unsexed her, nor regenerated the world. Forum. 17: 413-24. June, 1894. Results of the Woman Suffrage Movement. Mary A. Greene. The present moment marks the beginning of a new period in the history of the agitation for woman suffrage, the period of unconstitutional legislation. It is therefore interesting to review the three preceding periods, and to ascertain just what has been settled and determined by the supreme law of the land. These three periods, each overlapping the other in point of time, are: i. The period of the, extension of full suffrage to the women of certain of the territories, beginning with Wyoming in 1869. 2. The period of attempts to vote, under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States. 3. The period of attempts to amend the state and national constitutions, and of the extension of school suffrage to women. A fourth period, as mentioned above, is that of unconstitutional suffrage laws. First, however, it is interesting to note the experience of New Jersey in the last century. Women were legal voters in New Jersey from 1776 to 1807. The Constitution of New Jersey, adopted July 2, 1776, contained the provision (Art. IV) that — — "all inhabitants of this* colony, of full age, who are worth £50 proclamation money clear estate in the same, and have resided within the county in which they claim a vote for twelve months immediately preceding the election, shall be entitled to vote for representatives in council and assembly, and also for all other pub- lic ofticers that shall be elected by the people of the county at large." Under this provision, women and free colored men of property exercised the electoral franchise for thirty years. The acts of the New Jersey legislature of 1790 clearly recognize the women voters : "No pers-on shall be entitled to vote in any other town-house or precinct than that in which he or she doth actually reside at the time of election."' But in ^807 the legislature passed an act defining the qualifica- tions of electors, excluding women and free colored men by the 24 SELECTED ARTICLES use of the words "white male citizens." This was a partisan piece of _legislation,irn3~crearly in violation of the constituticnal guarantee. It was enacted by a Democratic legislature, as a political measure, to disfranchise Federalists, as the women very generally voted the Federal ticket. Charges were, however, made, that male voters had "repeated," by disguising themselves as women and negroes, and on the strength of these the act was passed. It was clearly unconstitutio,nal, and would have been so declafed'l)y the courts, but it does not appear that its validity was ever contested. By the adoption in 1844 of a new constitution restricting the ballot to "white male citizens," thV women of New Jersey were disfranchised, this time lawfully, by the supreme law of the state. Women voted in New Jersey in the presidential election of 1804, when Thomas Jefferson was re-elected for a second term. Previously to that election the presidential electors were chosen in New Jersey by the legislature. In 1892 the women of the new state of W3'oming participated in a presidential election which resulted in the choice of Grover Cleveland, who was the first president since Jefferson to be elected by the aid of women's votes. The recognition of woman's right to the ballot in New Jersey was due to the influence of a preacher of the Society of Friends, a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1776. It is an isolated instance in our country, although the common law of England had always recognized the right of a woman property-owner to vote. The right, however, was not generally exercised. Its modern recognition by the passage of statute laws and the adoption of constitutional amendments dates, in most part, from the agitation of advocates of woman suffrage, which first found formal expression in the woman's-rights con- vention at Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1850. The first endur- ing result of this agitation was the adoption by Kansas, in 1861, of school suffrage for women ; but many years elapsed before school-suffrage laws were adopted in other states, and so the school suffrage period is chronologically subsequent to other periods in the legal history of the movement. Our first period, clearly marked in the annals of the courts, is that of the extension of full suffrage to the women of some WOMAN SUFFRAGE 25 of 4he_territories ; namely, Wyoming, Utah, and Washington. A territory, unUke a state, has no constitution, but it derives its frame of government and power to make laws from an act of Congress. This Organic Act for the regulation of the territorial governments provides that, at the first election in any territory, male citizens of the age of twenty-one years shall vote, but — — "at all subsequent elections . . . the qualifications of voters and for holding office shall be such as may be prescribed by the legislative as-sembly of each territory," — — subject, nevertheless, to certain specified restrictions, of which the first, and the only one having a bearing on woman's vote, is as follows : "The right of suffrage and of holding office shall be exer- cised only by citizens of the United States above the age of twen- ty-one, or persons above that age who have declared their in- tention to become such citizens." Under this Organic Act, the first legislative assembly of Wy^- ming, iii_ 1869, gave to women the right to vote and to hold office upon the same terms as men. An effort to repeal this statute, in 1781, failed, and from 1869 to the present time the women of Wyoming have had full political rights equally with men, rights now secured by Article VI of the state constitution ratified November 5, 1889. In 18/O the territory of Utah, by legislation, also extended to its women citizens the electoral franchise ; but in j[882, by an act of Congress, polygamists of both sexes were disfranchised, and in 1887 all Utah women were disfranchised by the Anti- Polygamy Act, commonly called the Edmunds Bill. ' It is s.ettled by the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States that the territorial legislatures have power, by force of the Organic Act, to confer the elective franchise upon female as well as male citizens. . This is recognized in the cases en- titled Murphy v. Ramsey, 114 U. S. 15, decided in 1885, which were appeals from the boards of commissioners of elections in Utah. Certain men and women had had their votes challenged on the ground that they were living in polygamy. The Supreme Court of the United States found that two of the women were not living in polygamy, and that consequently their votes had been illegally rejected. In 1890 the same court again construed the suffrage clause of the Organic Act in Davis v. Season, 133 26 SELECTED ARTICLES U. S. sss, known as the Idaho Test-Oath case, and expressly stated that — — "these limi tations [of age, citizens-hip, and residence] are the only ones placed upon "tTie' authority of territorial legislatures against granting the right of suffrage or of holding office. They have the power, therefore, to prescribe any reasonable qualifica- tions of voters and for holding office, not inconsistent with the above limitations." This case decided that polygamlsts may lawfully be excluded from the franchise, while the former case (Murphy v. Ramsey) recognizes the right of Congress to disfranchise polygamists. In 1883 the territorial legislature of Washington passed an act entitled "An act to amend section 3050, chapter 238, of the Code of Washington," but its real purpose and actual effect was to extend full suffrage to women. In 1877, in the case of Harlan V. Territory, 3 Wash. 131, a doubt was thrown by the Supreme Court of the territory upon the validity of the law, as defective in its title ; for by act of Congress each law passed in any territory must "embrace but one object, which shall be expressed in its title.'* From this opinion of a majority of the court Chief Justice Greene totally dissented, but in 1888 a new chief justice was elected to take his place, and the decision in Harlan's case was re-affirmed in two more cases. These were all cases of criminal prosecutions against keepers of gambling and other disreputable resorts, and conviction was secured by a jury com- posed in part of women. The prisoners appealed, on the ground that married women, living with their husbands, were not eligible to serve as jurors. Immediately after the decisions of the court in 1888, the legislature re-enacted the woman-suffrage law, entitling it "An act prescribing the qualifications of electors in the territory of Washington/' but added a proviso that women shall not serve as jurors. This act was approved by the governor January 18, 1888. But the hostile court in August of the same year rendered a decision in the election case of Bloomer v. Todd, 3 Wash. 599, to the effect that the law of January 18, 1888, is in conflict with the Organic Act of Congress for the estab- lishing of governments in the territories, which, in the opinion of the territorial court of Washington, restricts the suffrage to male citizens only. Of course this decision is in direct conflict with the opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States, WOMAN SUFFRAGE 27 which is the highest authorit}^ in the land, and would have been reversed had the case of Bloomer v. Todd been brought before that court. But at that time the controversy assumed a new aspect by the application of Washington for admission as a State. Separate articles to the constitution were framed, ex- tending full political rights to women, to be voted upon apart from the body of the constitution. In 1889 the constitution was ratified, but the separate articles were rejected. Hence the only permanent result of this agitation has been the enfranchisement of the women of Wyoming. The second period was inaugurated by the adoption of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States. These were intended to protect the negroes of the South by guaranteeing the privileges and immunities of citizens, and forbidding the abridgement of rights, especially those of suffrage. The advocates of woman suffrage, however, thought that these amendments might have opened a door to the polls for women, and that it would be worth while to try to vote, to see. if their view of the case would be sustained by the courts. Consequently in various sections of the country attempts were made by women to compel the registrars of elections to register them as legal voters, and, upon refusal, the cases were appealed to the courts, the plaintiffs invoking the aid of the constitutional amendments above cited. This began in 1871 or 1872. The most famous case- is that of United States v. Anthony, 11 Blatchf. C. Ct. 200, decided in 1873. Miss Anthony was indicted and found guilty of a criminal offence against the United States for knowingly voting for congressmen in New York without having a lawful right to vote, which offence was punishable, under act of Congress, by a heavy fine or imprisonment. Women in Pennsylvania, California, Missouri, and the District of Columbia sued the election officers for refusal to accept their votes or to allow them to register. The uniform decision in each court was that the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendment had in no way changed or abridged the right of each state to restrict the suffrage to males, but that they applied only to the freedmen of color and to existing rights and privileges. This' phase of the controversy was finally disposed of by 28 SELECTED ARTICLES Mrs. Minor's appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States from the decision of the Missouri court against her claim to be registered as a voter. The opinion of the Supreme Court is in ac- cordance with the decisions of the state courts cited above, and has established the fact that the Constitution of the United States, in its present form, neither grants nor forbids the elective franchise to women, but leaves each state free to admit or exclude them as it sees fit ; that, although women are citizens in the sense of being members of the nation,- they are not, therefore, of necessity voters, for the right of suffrage is not co-extensive with citizenship, as is shown by the fact that in the early history of the country most of the states limited the suffrage to those citizens who possessed a certain amount of landed property; nor was it co-extensive with citizenship at the time of the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment. That amendment does not con- fer additional privileges or immunities of citizenship, but simply guarantees the protection of the citizen in the privileges he al- ready possessed. By this decision, therefore, it is settled that the separate states of the Union alone possess the power to admit or exclude women to political rights, and that the national government has no power either to admit or exclude the women of the states, unless the states see fit to surrender their power to the United States. This, of course, the states can at any time do, in the way in which they may surrender other powers ; namely, by an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the states. Such an amend- ment has frequently been presented to Congress and has once been favorably reported by a Congressional committee, but no further action has as yet been taken. Meanwhile each state retains its right to admit or exclude its women citizens by virtue of the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution : "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Con- stitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people." This judicial ultimatum of the supreme authority of the na- tion caused the espousers of woman's political freedom to turn to the state governments for help, and led to the constitutional- amendment and school-suffrage period. Attempts to amend the WOMAN SUFFRAGE 29 state constitutions came naturally in order. No such attempt has as yet been successful. In Michigan in 1874, in Ohio in 1875, in Nebraska in 1881, in Oregon in 1882, and in Rhode Island in 1887, such proposed amendments were rejected by the voters. The rejection of the separate articles in favor of woman suffrage at the time the state constitution of Washington was adopted in 1889 has already been mentioned. Two of the newer states, Colorado and South Dakota, placed in their constitutions an article requiring the legislature at its first session to pass an act extending full suffrage to women, such act to have the force of a law only upon ratification by the voters at the next election immediately following the passage of the act, and in case of its rejection, the legislature is authorized to pass such an act at any subsequent session, to take effect upon ratification by the voters as provided in the first instance. In Colorado in 1877, and in South Dakota in 1890, the voters re- jected the woman-suffrage bill, but in November, 1893, i" the state of Colorado, full suffrage was duly extended to women by act of the legislature and subsequent ratification. In Kansas, in 1887, by an act of the legislature without a constitutional amendment, women were empowered to vote at all municipal elections and to hold all municipal offices. In most of our states the original constitution did not attempt to regulate matters relating to the public schools. Consequently the legislatures of such states could constitutionally pass acts extending the ballot on such matters to women. Nineteen states and territories have passed such laws, of unquestioned validity. These are Kentucky, in 1845; Kansas, 1861 ; Michigan, 1875; Colorado, 1876; Minnesota, 1877; New Hampshire and Oregon, 1878; Massachusetts, 1879; Vermont, 1880; Nebraska, 1883: Washington, 1886; North and South Dakota, Idaho, Arizona, Montana, and New Jersey, 1887 ; Connecticut, 1893 ; and New York, in respect to the original New York law of 1880. In Kansas, Colorado, Minnesota, Washington, North and South Dakota, Idaho, and Montana the right- is guaranteed in the con- stitution itself. The Wisconsin law of 1885 was doubted, not as to its con- stitutionality, but because of its defective provision for the cast- ing of women's ballots. This defect was cured, in part at least, by the Australian ballot law of 1891. 30 SELECTED ARTICLES The new state of Montana has a constitutional provision (Art. IX, sec. 12) extending to women taxpayers the right to vote equally with men taxpayers "upon all questions submitted to the vote of the taxpayers of the state or any political division there- of." . It will be observed that while the school-suffrage laws of Kentucky (limited originally to widows,, having children of school age) and of Kansas are of early date, the great bulk of this legislation is subsequent to 1874, when Chief Justice Waite's opinion in Minor v. Happersett indicated the true line of effort. There are several instances of statutes, ordinances, and mu- nicipal charters which allow some form of suffrage to women, within a limited territory, not covering an entire state. Such are : the statute extending school suffrage to the women of the city of Wilmington, Delaware; that allowing the women taxpayers of Cooperstown, N. Y., to vote on local improvements ; the occa- sional special laws submitting a vote on local improvements to the taxpayers of a city or town, irrespective of sex ; and the pro- vision of law in Arkansas and Missouri allowing women to sign petitions for or against the granting of liquor licenses. All these, however, are limited either to special occasions or specified locali- ties, and in themselves are merely straws on the current indicat- ing the direction in which it is setting. We come now to the present phase of the controversy, the period of unconstitutional suffrage laws. In Illinois the law of 1891 conferring school suffrage upon women has been declared by the Supreme Court of that state to be in part unconstitutional ; the New York law of 1892 allowing women to vote for school commissioners is held by the Court of Appeals to be unconstitu- tional ; the municipal-suffrage law of Michigan of 1893 has met the same fate ; and the governor of California in 1893 vetoed the school-suffrage bill on the ground of its unconstitutionality. Warned by these faux pas in other states, the Massachusetts legislature adopts as its motto Festina lente, and pauses to ask the Supreme Judicial Court whether it would be constitutional to pass a municipal-suffrage bill which is conditioned upon a ratification by the voters at the polls to become a law. In view of the passage of so many unconstitutional laws we may almost believe that the schoolboy gave a" correct definition WOAIAX SUFFRAGE 31 when he said, '^The Constitution is the part of the book at the end which nobody reads." The governor of California read his constitution, however, and read it aright. That voluminous document, regarded by Professor Bryce as a type of the newer constitutions which narrow the competence of the legislature and restrict its power to legislate, is copied in full in his ''American Commonwealth." Article IX of that instrument, entitled Educa- tion, provides for the election of a superintendent of public in- struction and of county superintendents of schools, and prescribes the qualifications of electors for such offices. The school-suf- frage bill, enabling women to vote at any school election and to hold any school office, was clearly in excess of the powers of the legislature, and the governor very properly vetoed it. The difficulty with the New York and Illinois statutes was that the school-suffrage act authorized women to vote for school commissioner (In New York) or county superintendent of schools (in Illinois), officers who are specifically named and provided for in the constitution of each state, and in consequence they can only be voted for by electors possessing the qualifica- tions enumerated in the constitution ; that is, by "male" electors. To confer upon women the right to vote for these officers the constitution must be amended. In Michigan, the municipal suffrage law was held uncon- stitutional on the ground that the constitution of Michigan gives the legislature no power to change the qualifications of electors as prescribed by the constitution, "for all elections." The court distinguishes between school elections and municipal elections. The former, with all matters relating to the public schools, are by the constitution of Michigan given entirely into the power of the legislature for regulation, which the'refore has power to extend to women the right to vote at school elections. But to enable women to vote at other elections, a constitutional amendment is necessary. It will be observed that the older constitutions of our states do not. as a rule, deal with the school system, while the con- stitutions of our new states and the newer constitutions of older states do include the schools in their specific provisions. Indeed, these newer constitutions contain a mass of ordinary law on mat- ters which formerly were left to the legislatures, such as, for 32 SELECTED ARTICLES instance, education, the property rights of married women, cor- poration and railroad law, state and municipal indebtedness, and the mode of choosing minor officials. But the older constitu- tions — as, for instance, that of Massachusetts, adopted in 1780 and still in force — give to the legislatures the widest possible power of law-making, limited only by a few express provisions in the body of the constitutions. Consequently, in Massachu- setts, the legislature has the power to extend municipal suffrage to women, and a statute conditioned for its validity upon a ratification by the people at the polls would be unconstitutional. This is the ancient theory of the relation of the legislature to the people, as shown in the colonial charters. But the tendency of our times is to regard the legislature as a mere — ' — "body of agents, exercising delegated and restricted powers, and obliged to recur to the sovereign people (by asking for a consti- tutional amendment) when it seeks to extend these powers' in any particular direction." Such being the case, it is indispensable that the advocates and framers of a bill for the extension of the suffrage, or indeed for many other kinds of legislation, should be perfectly informed as to the legal construction and effect of the relation of the legislature to the constitution in the state where the bill is to be debated. It will become more and more difficult for legislatures to enact a law extending the suffrage to women ; for, as a rule, it will be found that, the later the date of a state constitution, the smaller the probability that the legislature has power to do this. Consequently the only sure way to extend the electoral fran- chise to women will be by the adoption of an amendment to the Constitution, or by securing a specific provision when a new constitution is framed ; in other words, by recourse to the ex- pression of the sovereign will of the people as embodied in the supreme law, the Constitution. It is perhaps unnecessary to add that the adoption of a con- stitutional amendment, accomplished as it is by popular vote at a general election, is the surest proof that the community as a whole desires its women citizens to vote. Public sentiment will therefore enforce the law, and two chief objections to the political enfranchisement of women will be removed, — first, that the male citizens of the community do not want w^omen to vote, and secondly, that the women citizens of the community do not WOMAN SUFFRAGE 33 want to vote and will not do so when the privilege is extended to them. The legal results of the agitation for woman suffrage mark the successive stages of the popular demand. Until the era of school-suffrage legislation, the question excited little interest among the people at large, and scarcely more among women in general than among men. Indeed, the effect upon the popular mind of the determined attempts to cast a ballot by certain women already mentioned in this article was unfavorable to the popular advancement of the cause, the attempts being looked upon by the general public as an exhibition of determined defiance of existing laws, rather that what they really in most instances were ; that is, a necessary preliminary step to bring a test case before the courts, to obtain a legal decision for or against the actual existence of woman's right to the ballot. The proposal to extend suffrage to women on school matters was so conservative and so evidently one within the limits of "woman's sphere," even in the view of those who would bound the sphere by the smallest circumference, that it won general approval and little difficulty was experienced in passing through many state legislatures bills thus extending the suffrage. The year 1887 shows the highwater mark of popular interest in this phase of the question, no less than five states and territories having passed school-suffrage laws. But the failure of the attempts, during this same period, to extend full suffrage to women by constitutional amendment, shows that popular interest was not aroused sufficiently to create a demand for the reform by the voters at the polls. It is true that only the men of the community were able to vote upon the question, but nevertheless it seems to be true that when a majority of the w^omen of a community desire and demand the ballot, it will be given them by the votes of the men. This was the case in Colorado, where, as stated above, at the general election of 1893, the male electors of the state, by a handsome majority, voted in favor of the law extending full suffrage to women. The women of Colorado, by their action at the spring elections of 1894, have proved that they intend to make full nse of the power extended to them. While it seems to be true that women have not very gen- 34 SELECTED ARTICLES erally availed themselves of the right to vote upon school matters, nevertheless the extension of this right has served to arouse the interest of many previously indifferent ; and the stand taken by that vast organization, the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, in favor of aggressive action for the granting of the electoral franchise to women, has within the last ten or a dozen years immensely augmented the ranks of the woman-suffrage agitators. Within a very few years the women of the southern states have awakened to an active interest in the question ; but the move- ment is too recent, and too much opposed to existing southern views of woman's sphere, to have much political weight as yet, although permanent results have been secured in Kentucky by a recent law extending the property rights of married women, thus placing that state in line with most of the other states of the Union in this respect. In our older states, the woman-suffrage movement has not hitherto enUsted the interest or sympathies of women who are prominent in fashionable society, a few individuals excepted. ''Society" en masse has looked askance at the whole matter. But now, in New York, political equaHty has become fashionable, and ladies of wealth and position are enthusiastically working to obtain a recognition of woman's right to the ballot in the new constitution to be framed for the state by a convention now in session. Women are also eligible to membership in this con- vention, by a law passed in 1893. Another class of women who are interesting themselves in the cause of women's enfranchise- ment are the students and professors in some of our colleges. Wellesley, for instance, by an overwhelming majority, has re- cently put itself on record as in favor of the movement. In brief, the sentiment is now so strong, and the supporters of the cause are so numerous, that politicians begin to recognize it as a factor not to be ignored. Every year petitions and bills pour in upon our state legislatures for the extension of some form of suffrage to women, and in many legislatures the matter has reached a stage requiring the appointment of a committee on woman suffrage as one of the regular standing committees. Al- though in many states the woman-suffrage bill annually passes the lower branch of the legislature only to be killed in the upper, the majority of opponents decreases, and the favorable minority increases, year by year. WOMAN SUFFRAGE 35 The political parties that have openly espoused woman's claim are chiefly those with socialistic platforms, such as the Greenback and Populist parties. The Prohibition party has always been steadily in favor of the movement, but the two great national parties, the Republicans and the Democrats, have been shy of the matter. The national Republican platform of 1876 contained the following plank: "The honest demands of women for additional rights, privileges, and immunities, should be treated with respectful consideration;" but since that time silence has been maintained. State parties have from time to time lent their aid for or against state legislation in the various forms of the controversy, but it has not yet become a national issue. It is impossible to predict the probable result of the pending campaign in any given state. Still more impossible is it to pre- dict, because one state extends full suffrage to women, that any other state is ready to do so. Public sentiment varies greatly in the various sections of the country. We have absolutely no means of judging of the sentiments of all the women of the country on the subject, because they have no means of giving a formal expression to their convictions in a way to carry equal weight with the votes of the men at the polls. Their views are indirectly reflected in the opinions and votes of the men, and this simply brings us back to the point that Wyoming and Colorado are the only states where full suffrage for women is an accomplished fact, and there alone has there been sufficient momentum to carry to full fruition the efforts of the agitators. Harper's Bazar. 33: 220-1. May 26, 1900. Woman Suffrage in Idaho. Frank Steunenberg. I have been asked to give some practical observations on the system in Idaho by which women vote and hold ofiice, and I comply willingly, feeling that it may serve to overcome to some extent misapprehensions which have arisen as to the re- sults of woman's participation in public affairs. In doing this there is no purpose to discuss the theory or justice of woman suffrage, but to present the practical aspect of the subject be- cause of actual experience with the system in Idaho. 36 SELECTED ARTICLES The state of Idaho adopted woman suffrage in 1896, by means of a constitutional amendment, first passed in the Legis- lature in 1895, and then submitted to the people (male electors) for final determination. The origin of the movement in the Legislature was spontaneous, and was not, so far as I am aware, the result of any particular or prolonged outside propa- ganda by persons eager to spread the doctrine a,nd practice of suffrage for women. In a community of liberal and progressive ideas the time seemed ripe for giving to women an equal share with men in the conduct of public affairs ; without special effort, and with practically no opposition, the Legislature adopted the Joint Resolution submitting the question to the people. Once this had been done, the women throughout the state were stimulated to exertion; systematic organization was perfected in the state and counties, and an active campaign inaugurated. Attention was first directed to the various party conventions, and one after another the Democratic, Republican, Populist, Silver-Republican, and Prohibitioii party conventions endorsed the suffrage amend- ment. With all parties united and endorsing, there was no organized opposition, and the opponents of the measure con- fined their activities to voting against it. The vote occuri;ed in November, 1896, at the same time that presidential electors were chosen, and the result was overwhelmingly favorable to the suffrage amendment. About 30,000 votes were polled at that election, the amendment vote being somewhat below that on other issues ; the ratio of votes on the amendment was approxi- mately two to one in its favor. This placed in our constitution and in our statute-books a suffrage law of the most absolute and sweeping character. It placed both sexes on an exact equality, not only so far as voting is concerned, but also in holding office. There is no limitation of the suffrage to school and certain other public functions in which women are specially concerned, as is the case in some states, but the right to vote is universal, for municipal and county officers, state officers, senators and representatives in Congress, state legislators, and for presidential electors. The same equal privilege is open to hold office under the state, county, or municipality government. The first general election to come after the adoption of the WOMAN SUFFRAGE yj amendment was held in 1898, and at that time one woman, Miss Permeal French, was elected on the Democratic ticket to. the office of State Snperintendent of Public Instruction, and three women, a Democrat, a Populist, and a Republican, were elected to the Legislature. Miss French is a woman of superior ability and intelligence, and it is conceded by all that she is the best officer in that capacity the state has ever had. The place she occupies is o,ne of unusual importance with us, as the state superintendent of instruction prepares the course of study for all the schools of the state, administers the liberal and ad- vanced system by which every school in the state has the same course of study and the same text-books, furnished free by the state, directs the general execution of the compulsory school law, under which every child of school age — between five and eighteen years — must attend school at least six months in every year ; and, in addition to these educational duties, has general charge of the education of the deaf, dumb, and blind children. To carry on these various branches of public work. Miss French has an office at the state capitol, with a. staff of assistants, and the business is performed in the most systematic and satisfactory manner. Of the three women in the Legislature it may also be said that they made most acceptable public officers, serving with ability and success. In every case the women were regularly nominated at con- ventions of the several parties to which they belonged. A num- ber of others were nominated and elected to county offices. In some cases the women placed in nomination were defeated at the polls, showing that they took the same chances of success or failure as the men. The fact that a candidate was a woman made ,no difference for or against her, the support being given with regard to the fitness of candidates rather than on any sentimental or emotional grounds. In theory it had been asserted that the gallantry of men would lead them to vote for women candidates, just as they would yield to women the seats of a •crowded car, but in practice it was found that there was no such ■departure from the usual healthy rivalry between candidates. The only vital questions at the polls were those of merit and party. Our experience has been similarly satisfactory in the orderly 38 SELECTED ARTICLES conduct at polling-booths, and the entire absence of those un- •seemly scenes and incidents which it had been feared might at- tend the presence of women at the voting-places. The women not only go to the polls to deposit their ballots, but they are there to electioneer, just as are men; they work in behalf of candidates they consider best fitted for the public service, run carriages to bring in the voters, men and women, exactly like citizens older in" suffrage rights. AH this, however, is carried on in a most orderly and proper manner, and excites no more comment in the case of the women than it does in that of the men. We are fortunate in having the Australian ballot law, and this, together with a law closing all saloons on election day, insures an orderly procedure, without crowding about the booths, and with very little drunkenness. The suggestion may be made that this activity of women in public affairs has operated to draw them away from their homes and from the usual domestic avocations, a suggestion that our experience amply disproves. In Idaho women are to-day the same loving wives, kind mothers, and capable home-man- agers that they have always been. Nor has there been the least belittling of the sex in the eyes of the men, nor any falling off in that tenderness and respect which men universally accord to women. There is not the slightest interruption of family ties. Husband and wife may vote the same way, or the hus- band may vote one way and the wife another. Whether they vote together or oppositely excites no interest and no animosity,, although naturally families have the same party affiliations. As the system has not operated to take women from their homes,, so too it has not tended to make them in any way masculine. Concerning the extent to which women in Idaho exercise the rights given them by the law, it has been found to be very gen- eral. In 1898, with women voting, the total vote was about 40,000, and of this fully forty per cent, was cast by women. There is every reason to believe this percentage will increase,, until, in my judgment, the percentage of women voting will be as large as that of men. As to the character of the vote, it does not appear to come from any particular classes or places ; the cities and the country districts alike give their quota of WOMAN SUFFRAGE 39 women votes, although the tendency of women in the cities towards voting is rather greater than that of the country places. In a general sense, there can be no doubt that the participa- tion of women in our public affairs has had a most elevating in- fluence. All parties see the necessity of nominating the best in- dividuals of their parties. The natural aim of women is towards the best' good of the community and to secure the highest social conditions. Instead of seeking extremes of reform, as had been predicted, they are interested in stable and conservative administration, for the benefit of the homes and the children, and they avoid radical and excessive reforms. In short, the objections which, in theory, have been urged against woman's participation in public affairs have been overcome by the actual application of the system in Idaho, and with this has come to us that elevating and ennobling influence which woman always exerts upon the affairs in which she has a part. Nineteenth Century. 56: 833-41. November, 1904. Check to Woman Suffrage in the United States. Frank Foxcroft. The suffrage movement seems to have come to a standstill. The agitation, indeed, has not ceased nor even perceptibly di- minished. There are local and state organizations and a na- tional federation which lay annual siege to the legislatures, and to constitutional conventions, when they assemble. But so far as practical results go these organizations are accomplishing nothing. No gains are being made, and none for some years have been made in legislation favorable to woman suffrage. Utah came in as a suffrage state in 1896, under conditions which have been described. In the same year Idaho adopted a suf- frage constitutional amendment by a narrow margin, which though it represented a majority of the votes cast on the proposi- tion, was less than half the total vote at the election at which the amendment was submitted. Since that year not one im- portant gain has been made for the cause. In 1898 Delaware gave the school ballot to taxpaying woman, and in two other states a minor form of suffrage on taxpaying propositions has been conceded, but that is all. In five states suffrage constitu- 40 SELECTED ARTICLES tional amendments have been defeated at the polls : in Cali- fornia in 1896, in South Dakota and Washington in 1898, in Oregon in 1900, and in New Hampshire in 1903. In 1903 the legislatures of thirteen states rejected woman suffrage bills of one type or another. The explanation of this check to the woman-suffrage move- ment in the United States is not far to seek. The movement has been brought to a halt by the discovery that the American women who ask for the ballot constitute only a small minority of their sex. Americans have a certain chivalry which prompts them to go to the very verge of peril, or beyond it, in giving to women, politically, "What they think women want. Until a comparatively recent date the advocates of woman suffrage professed to speak for the sex, and legislators have assumed that they did so. But it is no longer possible to make that claim unchallenged. Coincident with the decline in the suffrage move- ment, as measured by legislation, and undoubtedly largely the cause of it, is the d'evelopment and formal organization among the women themselves of a sentiment actively opposed to the grant of the ballot to their sex. The increasing hostility of women to the suffrage has been manifested mainly in two ways : (1) By the organization of associations of women for the purpose of directly antagonizing suffrage measures in the legislatures of their own and other states. The Massachusetts Association Opposed to the Further Extension of Suffrage to Women, which now, according to the statement of its president, Mrs. C. E. Guild, at a legislative hearing in Boston, the 27th of January, 1904, numbers 10,691 women, and has branches in 222 cities, towns and villages in the state, was fully organized in 1895. In New York an association of similar name and pur- pose was organized in the same year. The Illinois association was formed in 1897. I" ^^ch of these states volunteer com- mittees had been at work for some years in opposition to suf- frage measures, but the first formal organization was in 1895. Similar associations or committees exist, or have been called into activity as emergencies arose, in Maine, Rhode Island, Iowa, Oregon, Washington, and other states. They print and dis- tribute appeals, arguments, and remonstrances against suffrage measures, and through their officers, or otherwise, appear per- WOMAN SUFFRAGE 41 sonally before legislative committees to urge adverse action on suffrage bills. The report of the Massachusetts association for igo3 shows an expenditure of nearly three thousand dollars and a distribution of 32,000 leaflets and pamphlets. The literature published by these associations would make an interesting collection if it were brought together. The argu- ments of these remonstrative women are numerous but con- sistent. They urge that, while merely to deposit a singe vote is a momentary act, the consequence of thousands and millions of votes so deposited by women will be to weaken the force of family life, to bring church matters into politics, to lessen chivalry and tenderness be- tween men and women, and to bring politics into each question of philanthropic, social or educational organization which should be decided solely on its own merits and not for any effect it may have on party zeal. They point to many laws improving the status of women, and show that these substantial gains have been accomplished wdthout aid from the suffragists and in states in which women do not vote. They urge that the functions and duties of the two sexes are well and clearly defined — to the strong physique of man, the labors and duties of the outside world; to the finer and more spiritual nature of w^oman, the labors and duties of the home and society; and that if ever the day arrives when women cannot in the long run de- pend upon men, to be the support and protection of their weaker physical nature, and when men cannot depend upon women for the tender offices' and ministrations which belong sacredly and indefeasibly to the home, it Mill be high time for the race to take account of itself and square its course anew. They insist that it is not the tyranny but the chivalry of men that we American women have to fear. The men of America want to give us every- thing we really need, and the danger is that they will mistake a minority for a majority. They argue that women are already bearing their full share of the burdens of society, and that it is unjust to impose upon them duties for which they are not fitted by experience or train- ing. It is" hard for experienced men to follow intelligently the con- duct of a great municipality, to understand the departments of official work, the subdivisions of labor, the financial problems, and then to decide who has honestly performed these great duties. It is a ixior argument to say that women would do as" well as many men: they must do better to have their votes of any ad- 42 SELECTED ARTICLES vantage to the city; for addition to the number of voters is no gain, but, on the contrary, an added trouble and expense. It is surely a better quality of voters rather than an increased number of them that our country needs. (2) The other manifestation of the indifference or active hostihty of the great majority of American women to the im- position of the ballot was made in connection with the so-called "Referendum" in Massachusetts in 1895. This expression has been so influential not only in that state, but in others, where it has been rightly interpreted as representative of the attitude of women in general, that it cannot be overlooked in any con- sideration of the present status of the suffrage movement in the United States. It will be perceived that the situation presented to the American legislator to-day, when he is asked to extend the suffrage to women, is very different from what it was a decade ago. Then the claim for suffrage was put forward in a general way for "the woman," and legislators who did not give it re- spectful consideratio,n were charged with lack of chivalry and generosity. When hearings were given upon proposed suf- frage measures, ordinarily only the petitioners appeared, and legislative committees were justified in concluding that they expressed the desire of practically all women. But now legisla- tive hearings upon this question resolve themselves into a kind of joint debate between women who want the ballot and women who do not want it; and the women who appear to remonstrate against the extension of suffrage to their sex are not only as in- telligent, as sincere, and as earnest as those who seek the bal- lot, but they are able to point to evidence, the nature of which has been already indicated, to justify their claim to speak for an overwhelmingly, though hitherto silent, majority of their sex. To comply good-humoredly with what was supposed to be the desire of all or nearly all women was one thing; to vote to force the ballot upon 96 per cent, of women who are either in- dift'erent or earnestly opposed to the proposal at the clamor of 4 per cent, who want it is quite another matter. Americans have great respect for majorities, and majorities count in this matter as in others. There are two considerations, either or both of which might warrant the extension of suffrage to women. One WOMAN SUFFRAGE 43 •is the conviction that the condition of women would be thereby improved ; the other is the belief that the state would be bene- fitted by woman's exercise of the suffrage. But these demon- strations of woman's hostility to the ballot strike at both these considerations. It is hard for legislators to believe that if the ballot were likely to be a benefit to women, less than 4 per cent, of them would ask for it. It is equally hard for them to believe that the ballot, imposed upon a body of voters so reluctant to accept or use it, could be an instrument for the improvement of politics or the regeneration of society. It seems, therefore, not rash to conclude that the check to the woman-suffrage move- ment in the United States, following closely, as it has, upon the organized opposition of women to it, represents not a co- incidence merely, but cause and effect. In this case post hoc is propter hoc. North American Review. 175: 800-10. December, 1902. Woman's Half -Century of Evolution. Susan B. Anthony. The status of woman in the United States fifty years ago, the progressive steps by which it has been improved^ present conditions, future probabilities — in fact, a resume of the great movement in which Elizabeth Cady Stanton has been the cen- tral figure through two generations — this is the subject assigned me to consider in -the brief space of one magazine article! The title I claim for Mrs. Stanton is that of leader of women. ■ Women do not enjoy one privilege to-day beyond those pos- sessed by their foremothers, which was not demanded by her before the present generation was born. Her published speeches will verify this statement. In the light of the present, it seems natural that she should have made those first demands for women ; but at the time it was done the act was far more revolu- tionary than was the Declaration of Independence by the colonial leaders. There had been other rebellions against the rule of kings and nobles ; men from time immemorial had been ac- customed to protest against injustice; but for women to take II such action was without a precedent and the most daring innova- tion in all history. Men of old could emphasize their demands 44 SELECTED ARTICLES by the sword, and in the present century they have been able to do so by the ballot. While they might, indeed, put their Hves in peril, they were always supported by a certain amount of sympathy from the public. Women could neither fight nor vote ; they were not sustained even by those of their own sex; and, while they incurred no physical risk, they imperilled their repu- tation and subjected themselves to mental and spiritual cruci- fixion. Therefore I hold that the calling of that first Woman's Rights Convention in i8z|8 by Mrs. Stanto,n, Lucretia Mott and two or three other brave Quaker women, was one of the most courageous acts on record. It must be remembered that at this time a woman's conven- tion never had been heard of, with the exception of the few which had been called,, early in the anti-slavery movement, by the women who had been driven out of the men's meetings and had formed their own society; but even these v/ere almost wholly managed by men. A few individual women had publicly advocated equality of rights — the number could be more than counted on one's fingers — but a convention for this purpose and an organized demand had been till then undreamed of. The vigor and scope of the declaration of sentiments which was pre- sented and adopted at this memorable meeting, held at Mrs. Stanton's home, in Seneca Falls, New York, are in nowise di- minished by comparison with the declaration of the forefathers proclaimed exactly seventy-two years before. It began, indeed, with the preamble of the Declaration of Independence, substi- tuting "women" for "men" and- "colonies" ; and it continued : "The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world: "He has never permitted her to exercise her inalienable right to the elective franchise. "He has compelled her to submit to laws in the formation of which she has no voice. "He has witheld from her rights which are given to the most ignorant and degraded men — both natives and foreigners. "Having deprived her of this first right of a citizen, the elec- tive franchise, thereby leaving her without representation in the iialls of legislation, he has oppressed her on a'l side« "He has made her, if married, in the eye of the law, civilly dead. "He has taken from her all right in property, even to the wages she earns. "He has made her morally an irresponsible being, as she can commit many crimes with impunity, provided they be done in the WOMAN SUFFRAGE 45 presence of her hus'band. In the covenant of marriage, she is compelled to promise obedience to her husband, he becoming, to all intents and purposes, her master — the law giving him power to deprive her of her liberty and to administer chastisement. "He has so framed the laws of divorce, as to what shall be the proper causes, and to whom' the guardianship of the children ^hall be given, as to be wholly regardless of the happiness of woman — the law, in all cases', going upon a false supposition of the supremacy of man, and giving all power into his hands. "After depriving her of all rights as a married woman, if single and the owner of property, he has taxed her to support a government which recognizes her only when her property can be made profitable to it. "He has monopolized nearly all the profitable employments, and from those she is permitted to follow, she receives but a scanty remiineration. "He has closed against her all the avenues to wealth and distinction which he considers most honorable to himself. In theology, medicine, and law she is not known. "He has- denied her the facilities for obtaining a thorough education — all colleges being closed against her. "He allows her in church, as well as state, but a subordinate position, claiming Apostolic authority for her exclusion from' the ministry, and, with s'ome exceptions, from any public participa- tion in the affairs of the church. "rie has created a false public sentiment by giving to the world a different code of morals for men and women, by which ■moral delinquencies which exclude women from society are not only tolerated but deemed of little account in man. "He has usurped the prerogative of Jehovah himself, claim- ing it as his" right to assign for her a sphere of action, when that belongs to her conscience and to her God. "He has endeavored, in every way that he could to destroy her confidence in her own powers, to lessen her self-respect and to make her willing to lead a dependent and abject life. "Now, in view of this entire disfranchisement of one-half the people of this country, their social and religious degradation — in view of the unjust laws above mentioned, and because women do feel themselves aggrieved, oppressd and fraudulently deprived of their mos-t sacred rights, we insist that they have immediate admission to all the rights and privileges which belong to them as citizens of the United States. "In entering upon the great work before us we anticipate no small amount of misconception, misrepresentation and ridicule; but we s-hall use every instrumentality within our power to effect our object. We shall 'employ agents, circulate tracts, petition the state and national legislatures, and endeavor to enlist the pulpit and the press in our behalf. Wie hope this convention will be followed by a series of conventions', embracing every part of the country." "Firmly relying upon the final triumph of the Right and the True, we do this day affix our signatures to this declaration," To emphasize these most radical sentiments the following resolutions also were adopted : "The great precept of nature is conceded to be, 'that man shall pursue his own true and substantial happiness.' Blackstone, in his Commentaries, remarks, that this law of Nature being coeval with mankind and dictated by God himself, is of course superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the globe, in all countries, and at all times: no human laws are of any validity if contrary to this, and such of them as are valid derive all their force and all their validity and all their author- ity, mediately and immediatelj^ from this original; therefore, 46 SELECTED ARTICLES "Resolved, That such laws as conflict, in any way, with the true and substantial happiness of woman, are contrary to the great precept of nature and of no validity; for this is 'superior in obligation to any other.' "Resolved, That all laws which prevent woman from occupy- ing such a station in society as her conscience shall dictate, or w^hich place her in a position inferior to that of man, are con- trary to the great precept of nature and therefore of no force or authority. "Resolved, That woman is man's equal — was intended to be so by the Creator — and the highest good of the race demands that she should be recognized as such. "Resolved, That the women of this country ought to be en- lightened in regard to the laws under which they live, that they may no longer publish their degradation by declaring themselves satisfied with their present position, nor their ignorance by as- serting that they have all the rights they want. "Resolved, That inasmuch as man, while claiming for himself intellectual superiority, does accord to woman moral sxiperiority, it is pre-eminently his duty to encourage her to speak and teach, as she has an opportunity, in all religious assemblies. "Resolved, That the same amount of virtue, delicacy and re- finement of behavior that is required of woman in the social state should also be required of man, and the same transgressions should be visited with equal severity on both man and woman. "Resolved, That the objection of indelicacy and impropriety, which is so often brought against woman when she addresses a public audience, comes with a very ill-grace from those whg encourage by their attendance her appearance on the stage, in the concert or in feats' of the circus. "Resolved, That woman has too long rested satisfied in the circumscribed limits which corrupt customs and a perverted ap- plication of the Scriptures have marked out for her, and that it is time she should move in the enlarged sphere which her great Creator has assigned her. "Resolved, That it is the duty of the women of this country to secure to themselves their sacred right to the elective fran- chis'e. "Resolved, That the equality of human rights results nec- essarily from the fact of the identity of the race in capabilities and responsibilities. "Resolved, therefore. That, being invested by the Creator with the same capabilities' and the same consciousness of responsibility for their exercise, it is demonstrably the right and duty of woman, equally with man, to promote every righteous cause by every righteous means; and especially in regard to the great subjects of morals and religion, it is self-evidently her right to participate with her brother in teaching them, both in private and in public, by writing and by speaking, by any instrumentalities proper to be used and in any assemblies proper to be held; and this being a self-evident truth, growing out of the divinely implanted prin- cinles of human nature, any custom or authority advers'e to it, whether modern or wearing the hoary sanction of antiquity, is to be regarded as a self-evident falsehood and at war with the in- terests of mankind." In all the conventions which have been held during the past fifty-four years, the impassioned addresses made, the reso- lutions presented, the hearings before legislative bodies, there has been nothing to add to these declarations made by a w^cman 'only thirty-three years old, born and bred in the midst of the WOMAN SUFFRAGE 47 most rigid social, civil and religious conservatism. They il- lustrate vividly the conditions which existed in that day, when the simplest rudiments of education were deemed sufficient for women; when only a half-dozen unremunerative employments were open to them and any work outside the home placed 3. stigma on the worker; when a woman's right to speak in public was more bitterly contested than her right to the suffrage is t(>day. The storm of ridicule and denunciation which broke over the heads of the women who took part in this convention never has been exceeded in the coarsest and most vituperative political campaign ever conducted. The attacks were led by the pulpit, whose influence fifty years ago was far greater than at present and whose power over women was supreme. The press of the country did not suffer itself to be outdone ; but, taking its cue from the metropolitan papers of New York, contributed its full quota of caricature and misrepresentation. At the beginning of 1848, the English Common Law was in force practically everywhere in the United States. Its treatment of women was a blot on civilization only equalled in blackness by the slavery of the negro. The latter, technically at least, has now disappeared. The former dies slowly, because it cannot be eradicated by fire and sword. Lord Coke called this Common Law *'the perfection of reason." Under its provisions the posi- tion of the wife was thus stated by Blackstone : "The very being or existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage, or at least is incorporated and consolidated into that of the husband, under whose wing, protection and covert she per- forms everything. She is, therefore, called in our Law-French a femme-coverf, is said to be covert -har on, or under the protection and influence of her husband, her baron or lord. "The husband also, by the old law, might give his wife mod- erate correction. For, as he is to answer for her misbehavior, the law thought it reasonable to intrust him with this* power of re- straining her by domestic chastisement in the same moderation that a man is allowed to correct his apprentices or children. But this power of correction was* confined within reasonable bounds, and the husband was prohibited from using any violence to his wife, except as lawfully and reasonably belongs to a husband for the sake of governing and disciplining his- wife. The Civil Law gave the husband the same or a larger authority over his wife, allowing him for some misdemeanors to beat his wife severely with whips and cudgels'; for others only to administer moderate chastisement." Other provisions of this law vv^ere as follows : "By marriage, the husband and wife are one person in law; that is, the legal existence of the woman is merged in that of 48 SELECTED ARTICLES her husband. He is her baron or lord, bound to supply her with s*helter, food, clothing-, and medicine, and is entitled to her earn- ings and the use and custody of her person, which he may seize wherever he maj' find it." "The husband, being bound to provide for his wife the nec- essaries of life, and being responsible for her morals and the good order of the household, may choose and govern the domicile, select her associates, separate her from her relatives*, restrain her religious and personal freedom, compel her to cohabit with him, correct her faults by mild means, and, if necessary, chas-tise her with moderation, as though she was his apprepitice or child. This is in respect to the terms of the marriage contract and the in- firmity of the sex." It does not seem necessary to add further particulars as to the condition of women in the middle of the century just closed and at the time Elizabeth Cady Stanton began the almost super- human task of setting" them free from the bondage of centuries. The first cleft in the infamy of the Common Law was made almost simultaneously by the legislatures of New York, and Pennsylvania, in the spring of 1848, by special statutes giving a married woman the right to hold property. This was the first glimmer of freedom from legal slavery which ever had ap- peared to women ; and it is not surprising that it scarcely pene- trated the darkness in which they had been enveloped for un- told ages, or that they rejected with scorn those who came to deliver them. To follow in detail the steps by which women have reached their present position of comparative social, educational, finan- cial and legal independence, would be to write a chapter for each of the fifty years which have intervened since the first few brave souls dared lift up their voices in a cry for liberty. The organized movement for the emancipation of women began in earnest soon after the close of the Civil War. Every one of the past thirty-five years has witnessed the breaking of a link in the chain. The going forth of hundreds of thousands of men from the farm, the work-shop, the factory, the store — from every field of employment — to swell the ranks of the army, made it absolutely necessary for women to step into their places in order that the countless wheels of the world's work should not stop. The vacancies left by those wdio never re- turned, and the rapidly-growing tendency to remove domestic products from the home to the factory, practically settled the question of w^oman's entering the wage-earning occupations. The period immediately after the war was marked by the WOMAN SUFFRAGE 49 speedy increase and enlargement of state universities and the admission of women. Their example was followed by many^ of the other colleges and universities of the country, and in 1890 by the founding of the two great endowed institutions, Stanford a,nd Chicago, with the admission of women to every department. Although the latter has just made the egregious blunder of modifying its original plan, this action represents only the in- dividual scheme of one man and not a reactionary tendency. The question of the higher education of woman may be regarded as decided in her favor. The right of women to organize for public work is now uni- versally recognized and approved. They have at present in the United States over ' one hundred national organizations, with thousands of -local clubs and societies comprising millions of members, and their influence over the general conditions of the various communities is beyond computation. The right of women to speak in public is not only everywhere conceded but, given a man and a woman with equal abilities, the average audi- ence would prefer to hear the latter. The legal features of the revolution have been quite as marked as its other phases. An examination, doubtless, would show that in not one state does the Common Law now prevail in its entirety. In many of them it has been largely obliterated by special statutes. There has been no retrogressive legislation with respect to the status of women before the law. In the, majority of the states, a married woman may now own and control property, carry on business and possess her earnings, make a will and a contract, bring suit in her own name, act as administrator and testify in the courts. In one-fifth of the states, she has equal guardianship with the father over the minor children. Where formerly there was but one clause for divorce, the wife may now obtain a divorce in almost every state for habitual drunkenness, cruelty, failure to provide and desertion on the part of the husband ; and he can no longer, as of old even though the guilty party, retain sole possession of the children and the property. The general tendency of legisla- tion for women is progressive, and there is not a doubt that this will continue to be the case. I do not wish to be understood for a moment, however, as 50 SELECTED ARTICLES maintaining that woman stands on a perfect equality with man in any of the above-mentioned departments — in the industries, education, organization, public speaking or the laws. She simply has made immense gains in all, and her standing has been com- pletely revolutionized since Mrs. Stanton announced the begin- ning of a new Reformation. Woman never will have equaHty of rights anywhere, she never will hold those she now has by "an absolute tenure, until she possesses the fundamental right of self-representation. This fact is so obvious as to need no argument. Had this right been conceded at the start, the others would have speedily followed ; and the leaders among women, instead of spending the last half-century in a constant struggle to obtain their civil and political rights, might have contributed their splendid services to the general upbuild- ing and strengthening of the government. The effort for this most important of rights has had to contend not only, like the rest, with the obstinate prejudices and customs of the ages, but also with the still more stubborn condition of its hard and fast intrenchment in constitutional law. It is not merely a board of trustees or a body of legislators who must be con- verted to the justice of extending this right to women, but also the great masses of men, including the ignorant, the foreign- born, the small-minded and the vicious. A majority of the men in every state must give their consent at the ballot box for women to come into possession of this paramount right. Such has not been the case with any other step in the progress of women. It is not necessary to consider the minor reasons why the en- franchisement of women has been so long deferred; but. in spite of the almost insuperable obstacles, there has been considerable progress in this direction. In some states, the legislatures them- selves can confer a fragmentary suffrage without the ratification of the voters. This has been done in about half of them, Kansas granting the municipal franchise, Louisiana, Montana, and New York, a taxpayers' franchise, and twenty-two states a vote on matters connected with the public schools. Within the last twelve years, four states have conferred the full suffrage on women — Wyoming and Utah by placing it in the constitutions under which they entered statehood ; Colorado and Idaho through WOMAN SUFFRAGE 51 a submission of the question to the voters. There is a strong basis for believing that within a few years several other states will take similar action. The effect upon women themselves of these enlarged oppor- tunities in every direction has been a development which is almost a regeneration. The capability they have shown in the realm of higher education, their achievements in the business world, their capacity for organization, their executive power, have been a revelation. To set women back into the limited sphere of fifty years ago would be to arrest the progress of the whole race. Their evolution has been accompanied by a corresponding de- velopment in the moral nature of man, his ideas of temperance and chastity, his sense of justice, his relations to society. In no department of the world's activities are the higher qualities .so painfully lacking as in politics, and this is the only one from Avhich women are wholly excluded. Is it not perfectly logical to assume that their influence would be as beneficial here as it has been everywhere else? Does not logic also justify the opinion that, as they have been admitted into every other channel, the political gateways must inevitably be opened? North American Review. 183: 1272-9. December 26, 1906. Australian Woman and the Ballot. Alice Henry. W^hile suffragists and anti-suffragists are mostly compelled by the nature of the case to argue from either the logic or the sentiment of the position, and are continually driven to anticipate possible results, it may be of interest to the public in the United States to review the history of the movement in Australia, the country where the reform has been effected on by far the com- pletest scale ever attempted or ever accomplished. A sketch of the Australian constitution, an analysis of the causes that there led up to woman's enfranchisement and an account of the meth- ods successfully adopted there will show the points of resem- blance and of difference between the movement in the United States and in Australia. Up to the close of the nineteenth century, the seven colonies in the Australasian group were not only entirely independent of 52 SELECTED ARTICLES one another politically, but there was comparatively little co- operation between organized bodies and parties having similar aims in these different provinces. Even though railroad and steamship and telegraph were ever bringing the colonies nearer together, distance, combined with the fact of distinct govern- ments, seemed to make united action upon the .part of any one set of people when scattered all over the continent at once difficult and futile. In common, therefore, with all other forms of polit- ical action, the propaganda for woman suffrage and the opposi- tion thereto were carried on quite separately in the several colo- nies. The experience of Victoria, however, as the colony in which the agitation was first started, may be taken as typical of what happened in all the others. The first legislative move was made in 1873, when the Hon. George Higinbotham, afterwards Chief Justice of the colony, introduced as an amendment to an elec- toral bill a clause which, if passed, would have conferred the franchise upon women upon the same terms as those on which it was then held by men. The amendment was, of course, re- jected, and subsequent attempts of the same nature met with no better success. It was- not till 1884 that agitation outside of the legislature was seriously attempted. In that year, the re- doubtable Mrs. Dugdale, backed by Mrs. Lowe — who in earlier days had done pioneering of a rougher sort, having been the first white woman to settle in the far west of Queensland, — Mr. Higinbotham himself and others formed the first Australian wom- an-suffrage society. Slowly, as it seemed to them, biit very speedily indeed as it may appear in the retrospect, public opin- ion was being educated ; and, by the early nineties, a number of circumstances combined to give the movement a forward impulse. The first of these was the return to Victoria of Miss Annette Bear (afterwards Mrs. Bear-Crawford), who, during many years spent in England, had been associated with such women as Mrs. Fawcett, Mrs. Percy Bunting, Mrs. Sheldon Amos and other veteran workers in the cause. She brought with her plans for combining the efforts of scattered societies into a United Council. Al3out this time, also, the Labor party came into existence and soon began to make itself felt in politics. Few of its leaders at first realized what a menace to themselves - WOMAN SUFFRAGE 53 and their interests was the unrepresented woman in industry. With the closer organization of the Victorian Labor party, that negative position was abandoned, the subject of woman suffrage was raised out of theoretical fogs and supported consistently by the party. Repeatedly was a woman-suffrage bill passed by the Lower House, and as invariably was it rejected by the Up- per House, a curious fossilized product, composed of landowners, nominally elected on a high property qualification, but as a matter of fact rarely elected at all, so seldom had its members to risk their seats by any process so disagreeable as an election. Meanwhile, in the other colonies, matters were not standing still. The New Zealand suffragists had gained their object in 1893. The 1st of January, 1895, saw the South-Australian women dowered with the vote. Western-Australian women fol- lowed suit in 1899, the change there being, for political reasons, supported by the Conservatives. Now entered a curiously complicating factor. On the first day of the new century, the five continental colonies and Tas- mania united into the Australian Commonwealth, New Zealand, on account largely of the fifteen hundred miles of rough sea which separated her from the others, standing apart. This meant a severing of all Australian legislation into two parts — national and state. National matters — including, for instance, tariffs, cur- rency, mails, defence — were taken over by the newly constituted federal houses. State affairs were confined to such local inter- ests as education, the care of children, crime, sanitation and agri- culture. Under the new control, the women of South and West- ern Australia, because they had previously enjoyed the privilege of a state vote, automatically acquired the federal vote. The women of the other colonies (hereafter to be styled states), be- cause they had had no voice in the management of state affairs, and for no other reason, were denied the privilege in relation to the larger national affairs. The federal Parliament did not long leave matters in that unsatisfactory position. In its very first session, the Australian Parliament grafted on to the act provid- ing for its own future election a clause equalizing the political rights of men and women throughout the Commonwealth, giving to all adult women the right to vote for members of both federal houses. The ease with which this victory was won was due 54 SELECTED ARTICLES partly to the educative campaign that had for thirty years been carried on in all the states separately and in all the state houses from among the members of which the first federal members were mostly drawn, and partly to the extremely broad and demo- cratic basis of the federal constitution and the direct methods of election and representation prescribed. As it appears to me, the main point in which Australia differs politically from the United States lies here, in the more direct, and therefore more effective, mode of giving expression to the popular will. This step on the part of the federal government facilitated the task of those who were struggling for state enfranchisement in New South Wales, Queensland and Tasmania. Even conscien- tious opponents recognized that to give to women a voice in na- tional matters and to prevent them from sharing in the control of matters regarding which their knowledge was presumably both sounder and wider and their interest far more keen, would be a trifle inconsistent, not to say ludicrous. So, between 1902 and 1905, the state vote was conferred upon women in all these states. And now, alone among her sisters, it is the Victorian woman who, though she can express her views upon some obscure ques- tion of currency or patent rights, has no power to say whether or not Melbourne shall have a juvenile court. In all probability, Australian women would not have had the ballot to-day if they had not concentrated all their forces upon the effort to secure it. It is sometimes difficult for a good wom- an to stop her ears when so many moral and industrial evils are crying for remedy, and to confine herself to urging so apparently remote and academic a remedy as the vote. But the argument there — and it has proved a sound one in this instance — was that the vote alone, when once secured, could bring about quickly, and with no waste of energy, reforms that otherwise must lag slow- footed behind legislation far less urgent and important. Con- sequently, because the women workers asked for this one thing and would be satisfied with nothing but this one thing, neither the energy of the women nor the interest cf legislators and the public was dissipated and scattered. Of all the plans tried in the campaign— petitioning, news- paper correspondence, public meetings and the persistent ques- tioning in writing of candidates and legislators — the last seems WOMAN SUFFRAGE 55 to have been the only one that was worth the labor bestowed upon it. P'or years, every candidate for every office was questioned as to his views on this one subject. His answer, or the fact of his . not answering, was filed ; a careful record was kept, of his sub- sequent speeches and votes, and he was called upon, politely but firmly, to explain any inconsistency between promise and per- formance. If those Australian women who asked for the suffrage pos- sessed one advantage over their American sisters in the com- parative directness of electoral representation, they had another in the simplicity of the constitution, both state and federal. Even the Victorian women have had only two legislative bodies to con- vert, and no additional outside body of voters. No governor would veto a bill granting the franchise to women when passed by an absolute majority of both houses, nor has the Royal assent to a bill ever been denied under similar circumstances. Again, it told in their favor that the movement was never a fashionable one, the men and women who supported and labored for it having been, with few exceptions, of the working classes, so that the question was presented to the average working-class elector unhampered by any misleading or suspicion-breeding disguise. The use of the future tense, so freely resorted to in discussions on woman and the use she will make of the ballot as a reason why she should or should not have it, is in practice discounted. "Hope thou not much, and fear not thou at all" is a sentiment that may well be impressed both upon those who expect impos- sibilities and upon those who dread imaginary evils. Ardent Radicals and cautious Conservatives among us have alike learned that results, either as seen in legislation or as traceable in changes in the mental outlook of women themselves, are wholesomely gradual. It is well that it should be so, that women should but slowly assume their full political responsibilities. As regards educative effects, those have been most strikingly seen among conservative women. These have organized and taken part in movements for legislative reform, sometimes on party lines, more often on non-party lines, to an extent unknown before. There are also many proofs that there is a good deal of family discussion of public questions, of an unquestionably educative tendency, now that the women of the family are no longer ciphers, 56 SELECTED ARTICLES but openly acknowledged citizens. But, while the family which has added a new stock of subjects to the interest of breakfast- table conversation is so common as to attract no notice, the fam- ily disintegrated by political differences has not yet been un- earthed, even by the most obstinate legislative councillor. I have been present at many political meetings, and at several elections in more than one state, and 1 have exercised my own vote. I have never, upon one single occasion, had reason to wish myself or other women away. The meetings have im- proved in tone and in earnestness ; and women have, with Tennyson's ideal wife, gained in breadth of view. The polling- booths are as respectable as the vestibule of a railroad depot or a theatre, and the process of voting is as simple as that of buying a ticket. The ordinary house-wife votes during the slack hours when she would be out marketing, very likely, any- way, the baby — who was to be, so we were told, so hopelessly neglected when his mother took to politics — often accompanying Iier in his go-cart. The argument that women will not vote is completely dis- proved by Australian experience. They not only vote, but they vote in continually increasing numbers as time goes on, and they become educated up to a sense of their political responsibilities and all that these imply. Not all the states discriminate in their returns between men and women voters, but those that do shov; something like the following: In South AustraHa, at the la^t general election, 59 per cent, of the men on the rolls voted, and 42 per cent, of the women ; in Western Australia, 49 per cent, of the men and 47 per cent, of the women voted ; at the last federal election, 56 per cent, of the men voted, and 40 per cent, of the women. None of the Australian states has yet reached the ex- traordinary record of New Zealand, where, in 1902, nearly 75 per cent, of the women electors recorded their votes, as against 76 per cent, of their brothers. It is unnecessary to add that the conservative woman votes. Her husband or father and their newspaper take good care that the duty of doing so is well impressed upon her, even though abstractly they may all three disapprove of woman in politics, and have striven to avert her appearing in that arena as long as they possibly could. WOMAN SUFFRAGE 57 In the legislative world, the trend of the laws whose passage has been brought about, or hastened, by the direct political action of women is very clear. These constitute, largely, measures to remove disabilities from women and improve the condition of children, particularly homeless or neglected children. It is prob- ably true that very few measures can be named which cannot sooner or later be obtained in other countries by the old, slow, indirect methods; but it is quite certain that there is no other country which can point to such a series of reforms brought about in such a short time, with so little friction and with such a minimum expenditure of energy — energy thus left free to take up newer problems and fresh educational work. Among the measures that can be traced to woman suffrage within the last ten years are prematernity acts, acts raising the age of con- sent, family maintenance acts, and many acts improving chil- dren's conditio,ns by extending juvenile courts, limiting hours of work, providing better inspection, forbidding sale to children of drink, drugs and doubtful literature. A word as to some of the above. While no English-speaking country goes to the French extreme of forbidding inquiry as to the paternity of an illegitimate child, most of them make the position as hard as possible for the mother by doing nothing for her in anticipation of the coming child's birth. A summons for maintenance of the child does not lie till after birth — that is, till after. the time of worst trial, with its often awful collateral temptations to suicide and infanticide. Although, with a mockery of regard for the baby-life, the law indicts a girl-mother for con- cealment of birth, should she not make preparations for the ex- pected event, it places in her hand no instrument through which she can obtain the means to so provide for the little one's com- ing. By these Australian acts, the father may be sued before the child is born, both for maintenance for the child and for the mother's expenses at the time. It is .not that so many cases are brought forward, but the mere existence of a legal enactment makes it much easier for any friend of the girl's to obtain prop- er consideration for her from the man ; and the influence of the law, too, is felt even more widely in its educative effect itpon the sense of justice and the ethical standards of the commun- ity as a whole. 58 SELECTED ARTICLES Li Western Australia, again, where the women had pleaded for years for the raising of the age of consent, no improve- ment was possible till after the suffrage was granted to them, when the opinions of legislators on the subject of the protection of young girls underwent a remarkable and most sudden change. In South Australia, where the women have been longest en- franchised, the care of neglected children is better understood, and the oversight of such children (under a state department) better controlled, than elsewhere. It was the hrst country in the world to have a legally constituted juvenile court. The New South Wales and Tasmania courts were among the first results of enfranchising women ; while in Victoria (where alone the women do not possess the state franchise) a measure for es- tablishing juvenile courts is still, after years of agitation, in the stage of a much-debated and very defective bill. Any alteration in the relative industrial and economic status of men and women will be necessarily a slow process ; but, in this connection, a noteworthy incident was the recent action of a federal senator in introducing an amendment to the Public Service Act to equalize the rates of pay for men and women in the federal service. The significance of this fact is not that such a proposal was made, but that it emanated from such a quarter — not from an eager suffragist, but from an average poli- tician, who was thus giving the best possible proof that he was doing one of the things for which he had been sent into the house, attending to the interests of all his constituents, acknowl- edging in unconscious fashion that, as he in part owed his elec- tion to women, it was his duty to see that his electors were treated with even-handed justice. The principle has been al- ready affirmed, and it only remains to be applied in practice. That the welfare of the general community is subserved by the cooperation of women electors is seen by the adoption of some more general measures, such as laws dealing with the drink traffic, the gambling evil, and the sale of drugs (the im- portation of opium, for instance, except as specially prepared for medical purposes, being by federal enactment entirely for- bidden, throughout the Commonwealth). On all these points, the experience of Australia during the last ten years has been the same as that of New Zealand for thirteen years. The power WOMAN SUFFRAGE 59 of the best men in the community has been reinforced, and the hands of conscientious legislators strengthened by the addition-' of the woman's vote. North American Review. 183: 1333-5. December 21, 1906. Good Women a Majority. "All women must be enfranchised or none, and the prospect is not alluring." — llie New York Times. Are there more bad women than good women in the United States? We may safely assume that such is not the conten- tion of this distinguished journal. The "unalluring prospect," more explicitly stated, would be found to rest upon the familiar assumption that bad women will vote and good women will not vote, and that, therefore, the net effect rnust be injurious. There lies before us a report of the results of an inquiry into this phase of the subject in the four suffrage States. Direct questions were addressed to the judges of the Supreme Courts and presidents of universities and colleges, and the summaries presented here- with rest upon the answers received : Kansas. — "Although women do not have full suffrage in Kan- sas, they have voted in municipal elections s-ince 1887 and in school elections ever since Kansas has been a state. So their forty -five years* of experience is valuable. The votes of immoral women have not appreciably influenced elections in that state. Abandoned women do not care to vote, or register, or come in contact with good women at the polls. Consequently, they rarely register if left alone. "There have been men, however, who attemipted to make use of their ballots. In the efHrly years of municipal woman suffrage in Kans'as a candidate in a place of 8,000 population fancied that he could make his election sure by the support of the immoral women of the city, and he did secure it. He promised them pro- tection and certain immunities, and won them to his support. As soon as the respectable women of the city heard of it, they organized to defeat him, and it was not at all hard to do. That class of women have cut no figure in Kansas elections since that experience. "In Leavenworth, a candidate for mayor once had the hardi- hood to flaunt immoral women in a process'ion of carriages going to the polls, expecting thus to disgust decent women with the ex- ercise, and so induce them to remain away from the polls. But these only came out the more and taught candidates that the votes of immoral women would drive support from thos-e who sought success at the hands of the degraded class of women voters. Can- didates are now extremely anxious to keep that sort of support out of sight, but it cannot be done because these women must register, and close watch is kept on the registration. It is very soon known if immoral women are preparing to vote in any con- siderable numbers." 6o SELECTED ARTICLES Utah. — "In the larger centres of population in Utah immoral women have been made use of by the saloon element to try to influence the elections, but without any appreciable effect." Idaho. — "A good many immoral women vote, probably a ma- jority, and their votes are cast for that which is evil if an op- portunity be afforded; but the system under which they are en- abled to vote has such a Deneficial influence upon politics that the effect of their ballots is lost. Immoral men and immoral women both vote, and the votes of both are bad. But the votes of moral women raise the average of character represented by the ballots cast. There are so many more good women than good men that the system is highly advantageous, notwithstanding the fact that immoral women cast ballots for bad candidates. A far greater proportion of good women than of good men can be relied upon to vote for the right on questions involving moral principles. In the flood of good ballots which this gives, the bad ones are submerged." Wyoming. — "The Wyoming Secretary of State, in a letter, says that ninety per cent, of the w^omen of Wyoming vote, and ex- Governor Warren, of Wyoming, adds: 'Our women nearly all vote; and since, in Wyoming as elsewhere, the majority of women are good and not bad, the results are good and not evil.' " Several years ago a statement was published that the women of Colorado voted in large numbers, and that their vote was "noticeably more conscientious than that of men." It was signed by the Governor, Governor-elect, the two ex-Governors of Colorado, by the Chief Justice and all the judges of the Su- preme Court, the Denver District Court, and the Court of Ap- peals; by the president of the State University, the president of the Colorado College, the State Superintendent of Public In- struction, the Attorney-General, and all the Colorado senators and representatives in Congress, the Mayor of Denver, and a large number of prominent citizens, including eminent clergy- men of different denominations. The results of the past two years we summarized in the last number of this Review. There remains to be added the testimony of Judge Lindsay of the fa- mous Juvenile Court, who says : "Woman suffrage in Colorado for over ten years has more than demonstrated its justice. No one would dare to propose its repeal; and, if left to the men of the state, any proposition to revoke the right bestowed upon women would be overwhelmingly defeated. "Many good laws have been obtained in Colorado which would not have^ been secured but for the power and influence of women. "At some of the elections in Denver frauds have been com- mitted. Ninety-nine per cent, of these frauds were committed by men. without any connivance or assistance, direct or indirect, from women; but because one per cent, were committed by wom- en, there are ignorant or carless'-minded people in other states who actually argue that this is the reason for denying women the right to vote. If it were a just reason for denying suffrage to women, it would be ten times greater reason for denying it to men. WOMAN SUFFRAGE 6i "People have no right to judge woman suffrage in Colorado by the election frauds in a few precincts, unless it would be to show why suffrage should be denied to men and restricted to. women. As a matter of fact, the only blow for decency that counted in the last of a series of bad elections in Denver, was delivered by women voters'; and the very inrportant good that came out of an otherwise questionable election was the result of woman suffrage. The evil results of that election were in spite of woman suffrage; not because of it, but because of male stif- frage; for had there been no men who voted at that election, and if the matter had been left entirely to women, not a cor- ruptionist would have been elected." Such we believe to be the facts. The reasons why prostitutes dislike to go to the polls in the broad light of day are sufficiently obvious ; the last remaining pang of shame springs from contact with or proximity to chastity; it is, therefore, avoided at the polls as everywhere else. We ,now regard the carelessly repeated rumor of "failure of woman suffrage in Colorado" as refuted with sufficient authority to leave no room for doubt in any fair mind. North American Review. i86: 55-71. September, 1907. Woman Suffrage throughout the World. Ida Husted Harper. The two most important events marking this question as a world movement were the meetings of the International Council of Women in Berlin in 1904 and the International Woman Suf- frage Alliance in Copenhagen in I906. The former, with dele- gates from twenty countries, instructed by their respective councils, adopted a resolution that "this International Council advocates that strenuous eft'orts be made to enable women to obtain the power of voting in all countries where a representative government exists." As this Council comprises seven or eight millions of the leading women in the various countries, its action certainly is an answ^er to the oft-repeated statement that women do not want to vote. At the International Alliance in Copen- hagen twelve countries reported as organized and working vigor- ously for the suffrage, and an international paper was estab- lished. Two countries have since been added, and in almost every one where the status of women has reached any degree of modern civiHzation, they are beginning to demand a voice in their own government. The women of New Zealan d have possessed the municipal suf- 62 SELECTED ARTICLES frage since 1886. In 1893, the Parliament conferred upon them the full franchise on exactly the same terms as required of men. There is scarcely a dissenting voice in the distinguished testimony as to the good effect of this on the women themselves and on the politics of the country. At a number of national elections a larger percentage of women than of men have voted. This situation is duplicated in AjiSttilha. The women in its six states have had municipal suffrage for twenty-five or thirty years. South Australia gave them the full state franchise in 1895, and West Australia in 1899. The six states united in one Commonwealth in 1901, and one of the first acts of the new government was to give all women the full federal- suffrage and the right— te.,»^it_Jn the Jiatlonal Parliament. New South Wales then conferred the state suffrage in 1902, Tasmania in 1903, Queensland in 1905. In Victoria this vote, is still with- held, having been vetoed fourteen times by the upper house of the state parliament after it had been passed by the lower house, but indications now are that it will go through during the present session. At some elections not only a larger per- centage, but ac]Jially_a_J^ger_nujabfX--Q f wome rLJthan_ of men hav e vot ed. Last year in Tasmania women outnumbered the men at every polling-station. It is also everywhere apparent that they have roused the men to a new sense of their political duty. Turning to Europe, there is the curious anomaly that in its two so-called republics the cause of woman suffrage is more back- ward than in almost any of the other countries. In Switzer- land every man over twenty may vote. A National Woman Suffrage Association has lately been organized which is support- ed by many public men. Its president and secretary are mem- bers of Parliament and university professors fill other offices. In France, all men twenty-one years old have the franchise. The National Council of Women, composed of 55 associations with about 70,000 members, has recently joined forces with the National Suffrage Union, thus assuring strong and systematic effort for the enffanchisement of women. In 1906, a Commit- tee for the Defence of the Rights of Women was formed in the Chamber of Deputies, to secure the social, civil and political rights of women. A delegation of 150 from the National Wom- an Suffrage Union were received by this committee and permit- ted to make their plea for a suffrage bill from the rostrum of WOMAN SUFFRAGE 63 the Chamber of Deputies. Its Chairman, M. Jean Jaures, assured them that one would be presented. The Socialist Congress at Limoges instructed the Socialist members to introduce such a bill. The eminent Baron d'Estournelles de Constant, French dele- gate to the Peace Congress in the United States, is a strong advocate of woman suffrage, as are many other noted men. The Catholics, who have always stood inflexibly against giving politi- cal rights to women, are now saying that, if women had pos- sessed a vote, they would not have shown the indifference to the interests of the Church that men have, and Parliament would not have been able to bring about the separation of church and state. The women have held themselves aloof from the suffrage socie- ties, but last summer the secretary of the French Women's Cath- olic League wrote a letter to the International Suffrage Alliance in Copenhagen expressing deep sympathy with the cause — a most signiticant incident. Some of them have sent a petition to the Pope, through Marie Maugeret, editor of "Feminisnie Chretien," and he has promised an answer. The Socialists, on the other hand, claim that the enfranchisement of the working-women would greatly strengthen their ranks, so it is improbable that this may become a live issue in France in the near future. In Belgium, practically every male citizen over twenty-five is a voter, but a plural system gives two or three votes to uni- versity graduates and to property-holders. A few years ago, there was a great uprising of the working-classes under the rallying-cry, "One man, one vote." Some progressive women un- dertook to have them demand "One person, one vote" ; but, although this is a fundamental principle of Socialism, they re- fused absolutely. As the aristocracy is principally Catholic, its men considered the feasibility of enfranchising women in order to maintain its poHtical power, and even went so far as to send an agent to the United States to examine the effects of woman suffrage here, but as the working-men have made no further ■demonstrations the matter has been allowed to rest. Miss Mar- tina Kramers, editor of the international woman-suffrage organ, was invited by the University of Brussels to give a course of lectures last winter on the franchise for women. The Congress of Socialist Women has unanimously instructed the Socialist 64 • SELECTED ARTICLES members of Parliament as to the introduction of a woman-suf- frage bill. In The Netherlands, all men over twenty-five who own any property whatever or pay rent may vote. The movement to obtain suffrage for women is well organized and advanced. The National Council is composed of 30 associations and about that many thousand members, with a section for politics and the franchise. The National Woman Suffrage Association, over twelve years old, is an influential body including women of all classes, creeds and politics. Its president is Dr. Aletta H. Ja- cobs, the first woman physician in Holland, whose husband was a member of Parliament for many years until his death. There has long been a favorable minority sentiment in Par- liament, but the ministry was hostile. The Liberal element final- ly gained the ascendency and formed a coalition of forces whose first act was to create a commission for revising the constitu- tion and broadening the suffrage for men. The Woman Suffrage Association at once appointed a committee to draft a memorial, asking for an article providing that women should be admitted to the franchise on the same terms as men. The Prime Minister promised serious consideration and asked for testimony from places where women voted. The Commission has now published its recommendation that the word "male" be struck out before all paragraphs relating to election to office, six out of seven favoring this article. This would make women eligible to all government positions, even to a seat in Parliament. The Min- istry reserves to itself the privilege of making all changes in regard to electoral rights. The press is favorable to extending these to women, the Liberal and Social Democratic parties have woman suffrage in their platforms, and it is considered almost a certainty that the government will put a clause for this purpose in the constitution. The movement for w^oman suffrage in Derjmark was greatly accelerated by the convention of the International Suffrage Al- liance in Copenhagen last August. The excellent arrangements made by the Danish women, the parliamentary conduct of the meeting by the president of the Alliance, Mrs. Chapman Catt, of the United States, the addresses of the delegates from twelve countries, gave much dignity and prestige to the cause. The papers were unanimous in their praise and declared that it was WOMAN SUFFRAGE . 65 manifest injustice to withhold longer the ballot from women. Danish women are very well organized. The National Council comprises 18 national societies. The old and important Danish Women's Association, formed in 1870, has 35 branches through- out the country, and its aim is to work for the suffrage. The National Suffrage Association proper has 16 auxiliary branches. All men thirty years old may vote for the Lower House of Parliament. The Upper House is partly appointed by the King and partly elected by the large taxpayers. Only taxpayers have the municipal franchise. Women have no suffrage, and in this respect Denmark is far behind the other Scandinavian countries, behind even its own colony of Iceland. In recent years, the Lower House has been composed almost entirely of Liberals and Socialists ; the Upper House remains strongly Conservative. The latter is willing to give the municipal franchise to taxpaying widows and spinsters, but the Lower House demands it for all women. Several times it has passed such a bill, but always with a "rider" attached demanding some concessions for men, and this has caused the Upper House to reject it. The general opin- ion is, how^ever, that a liberal municipal franchise will soon be granted to women. The Parliam.ent of Iceland in 1882 gave to widows and spin- sters who were householders or maintained a family or them- selves, the right to vote for parish and town councils and district boards and vestries. In 1902 they were made eligible to election to all the offices for which they could vote. The government has just announced that it wnll present a bill for their full suffrage. Germany was stirred from centre to circumference by the In- ternational Council of Women which met in Berlin in 1904. The recognition extended by the Emperor and members of his Cabinet and by the Municipality gave it such great prestige that all progressive movements among German women received a strong impetus. They have great genius for organizing, but are prevented by law in most of the states from forming any asso- ciations of a political nature, which includes those asking for the franchise. The German National Council of Women is com- posed of nearly 200 societies with about 100,000 members, and yet they feared even to adopt a resolution in favor of woman suffrage lest the government should dissolve the organization ; 66 SELECTED ARTICLES but they finally ventured to do this. Women were prohibited in Prussia and many of the other states from attending political meetings ; but last year, after their repeated protests, the Reichs- tag abrogated the law, stipulating, however, that they must sit apart from the men. The Reichstag is elected by universal male suffrage, but the Bun'desrath, or Upper House, is appointed. In the three ''free cities," and in some of the states which permit it, women have now organized suffrage associations and are endeavoring to re- suscitate the ancient laws which in various states allow munic- ipal suffrage to women property-holders, and the question has gone to the Supreme Court. Women lawyers have discovered that the fundamental law of Prussia declares the right of both sexes to be equal unless exceptions are expressly declared. In the statutes relating to the state and municipal suffrage, only "persons" are referred to and ,no exceptions are made ; thus, apparently, hundreds of thousands of women are entitled to vote. A League of Evangelical Women and a League of Cath- olic Women are now demanding the suffrage, while the Social Democratic Women, supposed to be several million in number, are making it a part of their programme. The first vote on woman suffrage in a German Parliament took place in Bavaria in December, 1905, when the constitution was revised to give universal suffrage to men, and the women petitioned to be included. Their petition was supported by all the Socialists, half of the Liberals and one-fourth of the Clerical party, but the remaining three-fourths of the last-named party were sufficient to defeat it. This precipitated a vigorous discus- sion in Catholic circles, and their leading paper in South Ger- many has declared within a few months that the laws of the church do not forbid the enfranchisement of women, and that social and economic development makes it desirable. At the last annual meeting of the Socialists the women demanded definite action, and, after a ringing speech by August Bebel, they adopted a resolution to make this henceforth a part of their political struggle. The Liberal party, after a heated debate, refused, at the dictation of their leaders, to indorse a resolution even for municipal suffrage. There is no immediate prospect of women's enfranchisement in Germany, but the demand for it among the women themselves is growing stronger every year. WOMAN SUFFRAGE 67 The obstacles in the way of the women of Austria seem almost insuperable. It is composed of seventeen provinces, besides Hungary; the people speak at least eight languages, and concert- ed action for any reform is all but impossible. A law was enacted in 1852 granting to men the right to form political or- ganizations, but specifically forbidding this to women. There are many educated, capable and progressive women in Austria, and when, in 1902, they wanted to form a national council, they could only get the requisite permission from the government by showing that it was in no sense of a political nature. It is composed of 36 societies representing over 13,000 women. When last year they saw a measure about to be enacted to grant uni- versal suffrage to men and to exclude all women, they felt that some action was imperative. They could form independent committees on woman suffrage, which was done, and they have held mass conventions and sent petitions to Parliament. They invited Mrs. Chapman Catt to come to Austria at the close of the International Suffrage Convention in Copenhagen, and she went in September, accompanied by Dr. Jacobs, president of The Netherlands Association. They addressed large meetings at Prague in Bohemia, at Brunn, capital of Moravia, and at Vienna. Here every inch of standing-room was occupied in the great hall by people of all classes, many members of Par- liament being present. The addresses were followed by a dis- cussion of two hours, no one speaking in direct opposition. The visitors were astonished at the strength of the movement throughout the provinces. The question of granting the franchise to women was several times debated in the Lower House. The Minister of the Interior stated that the strong demonstrations in favor of it had been made a subject of earnest consideration by the government, but he doubted if it were wise to make a trial of it at the moment of so important a political evolution. A few of the radical members favored it, but Dr. Victor Adler, leader of the Socialists, de- clared that, while his party stood for the equal political rights of women, he thought the reform entirely impracticable at that time. The bill finally adopted gave the franchise to all men. The first election has now taken place under the new law and has resulted in a tremendous Socialist victory which insures a 68 SELECTED ARTICLES commanding vote in the next Parliament. The Committee of Socialist Women, with the approval of Dr. Adler, have proposed that, at the coming International Congress in Stuttgart, woman suffrage be made a distinct issue in its programme, and it is thought this will be done. Now that universal suffrage for men has been obtained in Austria, there is a probability that they wid make an effort for the enfranchisement of women. A petition for woman suffrage signed by 24,000 Czecks, men and women, sent to the Parliament of Bohemia, has been referred to the next session, which is to reform the electoral law. The one proposed gives taxpaying women a somewhat extended fran- chise, but excludes all women from the municipal suffrage which it confers on all men. The women will insist upon having this also. Hungary has a National Council of Women composed of about 70 associations, and, soon after the Berlin meeting of 1904, a few who had been in attendance there formed a suffrage society which has done an amazing amount of work. The ques- tion of woman suffrage had been agitated among men since they began the struggle for their own electoral rights in 1903, and the Hungarian idol, Francis Kossuth, had declared that the In- dependent party was morally bound to support it. In a short time, however, the political situation became one of indescribable chaos, and the women finally learned that not one of the. "re- form" parties would take up their cause when it came to the test. Lately, the Society of Women Clerks, Bookkeepers, Stenog- raphers, etc., numbering 1,500, has petitioned Parliament, de- manding in the name of taxpaying women the right to vote. A great demonstration in Budapest was attended by women of all ranks and vocations. Women took a prominent part at the last election, many of the candidates publicly advocated woman suf- frage, and of the nine elected from Budapest five have an- nounced themselves in favor of it. By urgent invitation Mrs. Chapman Catt and Dr. Jacobs extended their speaking tour to Budapest, where they held three largely attended and enthusias- tic meetings. One was under the auspices of the Free Masons. The electoral laws will probably be revised soon, and there is a vigorous movement for universal suffrage for men. The women are preparing to press their claims for inclusion in whatever measure may be adopted. WOMAN SUFFRAGE 69 In Italy, with some educational and property qualifications, all men over twenty-one may vote for the Lower House of Par- liament. The National Council of Women, composed of over 60 federated societies, in 1904 voted almost unanimously in favor of both the municipal and parliamentary franchise. In 1905, the Woman Suffrage Association of Rome organized committees ~ in all parts of Italy and began systematic, aggressive work. Various newspapers have come to their support and a number of distinguished statesmen, jurists and university professors have become outspoken advocates of the movement. The question was carried to Parliament and discussed b}' the Chamber of Deputies February 25th, the galleries being crowded with wom- en. The discussion was dignified and spirited, both Conserva- tive and Radical members speaking in its favor, and finally it was referred to the Minister of the Interior, the most favorable disposition which the regulations allowed. It is the intention of men and women to carry on an active campaign. Russia had no national suffrage for men until the Duma was created in 1905. In local government of the villages, women, married and single, have certain voting rights and sometimes hold office, as many own property and carry on business. When the war with Japan brought on the vast revolution and men began to strive for political rights, progressive women at once threw themselves into the confiict and made their demand to be in- cluded in the proposed universal suffrage. In Moscow, they or- ganized a Union for Women's Rights which affiliated at once with the Union of Men's Associations, and later all were merged into the great body known as the Union of Unions, which counts its members by the hundred thousands. They have found the desire for a voice in their government strong among all classes of women, but especially among the peasants. Nothing could be more touching than the petition sent to the Duma by the peasant women of the three villages of Tver, begging that they should have the same rights as the men. "Till now," they said, "even though we were beaten sometimes, still we decided various matters together. . . . Have pity on us in the name of God ! We had formerly the same rulers as our husbands ; now our husbands are going to write the laws for us." Alexis Aladyin, leader of the peasant party in the first Duma, 70 SELECTED ARTICLES who has lately been hi the United States, declares that the press despatches saying the peasant members were opposed to woman suffrage were wholly untrue. He says there was not one oppos- ing vote or voice among them. With the exception of that of the extreme Conservatives, woman suffrage has been placed in the platform of all the political parties, Constitutional Demo- crats, Labor, Social Revolutionists, People's Socialists, etc., and women are members of their central committees. Many of the leaders of the Octoberist or Conservative party favor it. The Zemstvos and Municipalities in all parts of Russia have indorsed it, and some of them permitted women to vote for the body which elected members of the Duma. The proposed constitu- tion for self-government in Poland gives women the vote for Zemstvo members. A meeting of 4,000 university professors and students voted unanimously for woman suffrage; the National Medical Congress of 1,200 Russian physicians did the same, and there was scarcely a dissenting voice in the national associa- tions of the various professions and trades which make up the great League of Leagues. If the second Duma had been al- lowed to finish its session, there was a most encouraging pros- pect that it would enact a law enfranchising women. An occurrence in Armenia has great significance as showing the unmistakable tendency toward equal rights for women. There the ancient Oriental Church, occupying a position about halt- way between the Greek and the High Episcopal Churches, is almost supreme in government. Last year, the Catholicos, its- venerable head, issued a proclamation giving the church a con- stitution and committing the management of its affairs hence- forth to a general assembly of delegates, to be elected by all the members over twenty-one years old. At once the question was asked whether this included women, whereupon he issued a second edict declaring that not only might women vote for these delegates, but they might also be elected themselves. The most influential Armenian paper in Russia, the ''Workman,'* published at Tiflis, in a column editorial expressed joy over this act and a hope that it would lead to woman's political lib- erty. The great victory for woman suffrage in 1906 was won in ^in- land, when women were enfranchised on exactly the same terms WOMAN SUFFRAGE 71 as men and made eligible to all offices, including seats in Parlia- ment. This gives the vote at once to about 300,000 women Preceding and during the revolution, in the attempt to throw oft the Russian yoke, the women shared with the men the work, the hardships and the dangers ; and, when the triumph came, there was not a thought on the part of men of excluding women from any portion of the rewards, the most important of which was the suffrage. But they themselves had long been preparing the ground. The Finnish Women's Association to work for equal rights was founded in 1884 by Baroness Alexandra Gripen- berg and never ceased its efforts. In 1892 the Woman's Alli- ance Union was organized, more democratic and aggressive in its character. In November, 1904, when the revolutionary spirit was surging, this Union called the first public meeting for woman suff'rage ever held in Finland; it was attended by more than a thousand women and hundreds more could not gain a'dmission. Forty-seven addresses of sympathy signed by hundreds of wom- en came from all parts of the country. A resolution was adopted declaring for universal suffrage, and another, addressed to the Diet, or Parliament, demanding the full franchise and eligibility to office for women. After the vast national strike in the au- tumn of 1905, while a body of leading men were drawing up a Declaration of Rights to be presented to the Tsar, Dr. (Miss) Tekla Hulsin, a member of the National Bureau of Statistics, made an eloquent plea in behalf of the women, and they were included in its demand for universal suffrage. When the docu- ment was laid before the Tsar, he sent for Senator Mechelin, leader of the Diet, to confer with him, as to the advisability of taking so radical a step as enfranchising women. The Senator warmly advocated this, declaring that the nation demanded it. The Tsar signed it in November, giving his consent to the pro- posed reforms. Immediately the women set to work, lecturing, organizing, getting up petitions, and finally held another huge mass-meeting in Helsingfors, demanding that the Diet carry out this measure. All of the political parties put it in their platforms. On May 28th, 1906, the Diet with only one dissenting vote passed the bill giving the suffrage to all men and women twenty-four years old. This was signed by the Tsar on July 20th. The first election has recently been held, the women showing ^2 SELECTED ARTICLES as keen an interest as the men, and in many places voting in a larger proportion. They were on the executive committees of all parties and were placed on all tickets as candidates for Par- liament. Nineteen were successful — the first women in all time to be elected to a national representative body. In Norway, since 1897, all men over twenty-five years old have enjoyed the right to exercise the Parliamentary suffrage. The women had been making an. organized effort for the fran- chise since 1885, supported by large petitions. When in 1901 \t was proposed to abolish all property qualifications and give every man the municipal vote, the women protested vigorously against any further enlargement which did not include them. The government finally abolished all property requirements for men, and admitted all women to the municipal franchise who pay taxes on property to the value of $75 in the country and $110 in cities. It also made them eligible to serve on common councils. At the first election, in some towns 90 per cent, of the women voted ; 98 were elected as members of councils and 160 as substitutes, and they continue to serve on councils. In 1905, although the women were barred from an official vote on the separation from Sweden, they took an informal ballot and presented to Parliament nearly 300,000 names in favor of separation. (The men's vote was about 368,000.) This un- doubtedly had a favorable influence; for, when they presented their petition this year for the full suffrage, and asked if Nor- wegian men would prove less magnanimous than Finnish, their question was made a government measure. The Storthing could not quite be persuaded to give them universal suffrage, although a change of fourteen votes would have done so, but the Parlia- mentary franchise was granted to all who pay taxes on an in- come of $84 in the country and $113 in cities. Wives can vote on the husband's income, and even domestic servants will have an income large enough to entitle them to vote. About 350,000 are enfranchised by the new law, and they will soon have enough influence in Parliament to repeal the property qualification. The question of woman suffrage in Sweden is well advanced. Since 1862, widows and single women have had the municipal franchise on the same terms as men, and in 1904 this right was extended to married women who pay taxes on their own proper- WOMAN SUFFRAGE yz. ty. Women vote on matters connected with the state (Luther- an) church. The only franchise withheld is that for members of Parliament. Sweden has had an ancient and unjust system of voting, which disfranchised a very large proportion of the men, but a bill has just been passed giving full suffrage to all men twenty-four years old. Since 1900, the women have been well organized and have made a vigorous campaign. They have nearly one hundred ac- tive suffrage societies, and last October the King received about fifty delegates from these. He expressed deep sympathy with their movement, but said he feared the inclusion of women in the pending bill for enlarging male suffrage would endanger its chances, and he was very desirous that it should succeed. They then collected 114,121 signatures of Swedish women in all parts of the country to a petition asking for the franchise on the same terms as applied to men, and presented it to Parliament.. The government intimated to them very strongly that in the near future it would promote their claim, and a bill was passed making them eligible to all municipal offices, and removing all tax qualifications for municipal suffrage. The Social Democrat-^ ic party have put into their platform votes and eligibility to of- fice for women. It is evident that the way is at last clear for their full suffrage, but the strongest incentive towards it is the action just taken by Norway. The women share equally with the men the rivalry between the two nations. They will bitterly resent the fact 'of Norwegian women's possessing a voice in gov- ernment which is denied to them, and it is likely this feeling will be shared by Swedish men. There is every probability that Sweden will enfranchise women in the very near future. Every part of the British Empire has some form of woman suffrage. In the Isle of Man, w^idows and spinsters, since i88t,. have voted for all officials, including members of the House of Keys, or Parliament. In the recent organization of the Gov- ernment of South Africa, there was considerable effort to se- cure representation for women, the new Premier, General Botha, strongly urging it. The Parliament of Great Britain would not allow it because of the great advantage it would give to the Boers, as there are comparatively few English women in South Africa. The only concession made was to give the miuiicipal franchise to the w^omen of Natal. 74 SELECTED ARTICLES In all of the nine provinces of Canada, widows and spinsters have had for years either school or municipal suffrage or both, and in the Northwest Provinces all women have both on the same terms as men. The agitation for the full franchise has had able supporters, but has not been very strong or well organized until in recent years. Last year various suffrage advocates formed a deputation to wait upon the new Premier and ask his influence for a Parliamentary Franchise bill. They were sup- ported by the Speaker of the House, the Mayor of Toronto, the chancellor of the university and other prominent men. The Premier assured them that they were asking only for what was their right, but that their position had been assigned by the Infinite and it was not for a statesman to try to change that plan. The National Council of Women, the strongest organization in Canada, has just created a standing committee on political equal- ity, which will cooperate with the Suffrage Association. If Great Britain should give the full franchise to women, its Canadian colony could not consistently refuse it, especially with those of Australia and New Zealand in full possession of this right. The storm centre of woman suffrage at the present moment is in Great Britain. When in 1869 the municipal ballot was secured to women by act of Parliament, and later the district and county vote was added, it was supposed the parliamentary franchise would soon follow, but the efforts of forty years have proved unavailing. The suffrage for men has been gradually en- larged, until now only a very small property qualification, or the payment of about one dollar a week rent, is required. Even these requirem.ents the Independent Labor Party proposes to abolish in its Adult Suffrage Bill to enfranchise all men. For a quarter of a century, a strong, well-organized National Suffrage Union has worked in a thorough and systematic man- ner for the Parliamentary franchise. Its president is Mrs. Faw^ cett, wife of the former Postmaster-General, and the president of the central or London branch is Lady Frances Balfour, sister- in-law of the ex-Premier. They have held great mass-meetings, gathered immense petitions and labored persistently in an earnest but dignified way. Before the last general election in 1906, the Union took a poll of the candidates, and 420, a majority, were returned pledged to vote for woman suffrage. Early in the WOMAN SUFFRAGE 75 session, nearly 200 members of Parliament, and many organiza- tions of women, petitioned Premier Campbell-Bannerman to re- ceive a deputation to urge action by the present Liberal Gov- ernment. He received a delegation of about 300, composed of all classes, while hundreds marched up and down outside. They presented a memorial representing about 400,000 women. Meanwhile, the Independent Labor party had become a power- ful factor, and under the lead of Keir Hardie it stood for the enfranchisement of women. The Women's Social and Political Union was formed in Manchester, as an auxiliary of this party, to further the interests of its candidates. Its founders were ardent advocates of the suffrage and kept this question to the front. The great trades unions among women, who for years had been sending to Parliament huge petitions for the franchise, gave allegiance to this new body. By 1905 it placed woman suffrage before all other questions, moved its headquarters to London and invited women of all political affiliations to join in the movement. This invitation was accepted and the militant campaign was mapped out, which it is hardly an exaggeration to say has startled the civilized world. While at first all Great Britain was dreadfully shocked, public sentiment has now in a large degree veered around in favor of these aggressive meth- ods. The spectacle of nearly 200 women thrown into prison for demanding their political rights has appealed to the British love of fair play. Petitions signed by 73,384 women textile workers, and by 133 trade and labor unions representing more than 100,000 women wage-earners, have been sent to Parliament ask- ing that they may have a vote to protect their interests. They have stirred the old suffrage society to more vigorous action and, a short time ago, under its auspices, all classes of women, to the number of several thousand, factory workers, university graduates, clubwomen, members of the nobility, marched through the principal streets of London and held a mass-meeting in Exeter Hall. Now they are circulating a petition for the fran- chise headed by those prominent in all lines of activity, which has been signed by tens of thousands of women who are work- ing for support or for the public welfare. On March 8th, the Suffrage Bill came up in the House. With so large a majority pledged in its favor, the only hope of defeat- 76 SELECTED ARTICLES ing it was through the old tactics of talking it to death. The Speaker refused to entertain a motion for closure, and it was thus prevented from coming to a vote. Premier Campbell-Ban- nerman favored the bill. The Scottish Liberal Association, at its last convention, voted unanimously for enfranchising women. There is a strong committee in Parliament for advancing this cause composed of seventy Liberals, its chairman being Sir Charles McLaren, nephew of John and Jacob Bright, and its secretary, the Hon. Geoffrey Howard, son of the Countess of Carlisle, so long president of the great Women's National Lib- eral Federation, and herself an advocate of woman suffrage. Nothing can be done by the Liberals, however, while the Speaker and most of the Cabinet are hostile. The Independent Labor party has two grievances against the Women's Social and Political Union which has been making so valiant a fight — first, for declaring itself an independent organi- zation, inviting women of all political opinions to its ranks and claiming the right to oppose candidates of any party, even the Labor, if they do not favor the franchise for women ; second, for refusing to merge its demands in the Adult Suffrage Bill and insisting on a separate woman suffrage bill. However, at its *April conference, the delegates declared for "the immediate extension of the franchise to women." This is the uncertain situation in Great Britain at the present time. Meanwhile, the National Suffrage Society is putting forth heroic efforts, and the "suffragettes" are holding from twenty to thirty meetings a week throughout the country. There is so large a public sentiment in favor of giving the franchise to women, and its advocates are so numerous, able and determined, that the general opinion is it will be granted within a few years, unless some great Parliamentary changes take place. In Japan, there is an extensive agitation for more rights among the women of the upper classes. In India, the cultured Parsee women are insisting on the local suffrage possessed by men. Even in Persia, the educated women of Iran are asking a vote for members of the newly established Representative As- sembly. In all the evolution and revolution which are taking place in various parts of the world at the opening of the twen- WOMAN SUFFRAGE 77 tieth century, there is no more significant feature than this al- most universal movement on the part of women for a voice, a vote and a share in the government under v^hich they live. To present adequately the status of the question of woman suffrage in the United States would require a separate article. The conditions for securing it are harder and more complicated here than in any other country, for in all others it is only neces- sary to win over a majority of the members of the Parliament. In the United States there are forty-five Parliaments to be reck- oned with, and that is only the beginning; for, when a majority of their members have been enlisted, they can only submit the question to the electors. It encounters then such a conglomerate mass of voters as exists nowhere else on the face of the earth, and it is doubtful if under similar conditions women could get the franchise in any country on the globe. Principally for this reason they have not succeeded here, though they have worked longer and harder than those of any other nation — almost than of all others combined. Nevertheless, four states have fully en- franchised women, there is unquestionably a large favorable in- crease of public sentiment among both men and women, and it wxuld be quite possible to demonstrate that there are substantial grounds for encouragement and expectation of an ultimate gen- eral victory. It does not, however, tend to stimulate an Ameri- can woman's national pride to reflect that this may be the last of civilized countries to grant to women a voice in their own government. And let this fact he remembered — it is the only one where women have been left to fight this battle alone, with no moral, financial or political support from men. Outlook. 82: 167-78. January 27, 1906. How Woman's Suffrage Works in Colorado. Lawrence Lewis. Illustrations of the practical workings of woman suffrage have for some reason been sought in Colorado by both advo- cates and opponents, although women have voted upon equal terms with men in three other of the United States — in Wy- oming since 1869, in Utah since 1895, and in Idaho since 1896. 78 SELECTED ARTICLES In New Zealand universal adult suffrage has prevailed since 1893. Yet most people regard woman's suffrage in Colorado as the type. Let it be clear at the outset that the presence of ''the ladies, once our superiors, now our equals," has had no especial effect upon the kind of order and decorum maintained at polling- places ever since the introduction of the secret or Australian ballot. Men possibly swear a little less, but they wear their hats and use tobacco as freely in all forms about the polls as ever before. In the best residence precincts in cities, and in most country precincts, the order is perfect. In some country precincts controlled by corporations (especially mining cor- porations), as well as i.n the lower wards and in precincts "on the border" in cities, thugs and election officials frequently clash ; special constables, deputy sheriffs and even sheriffs, as well as policemen, often indulge in profanity, blackguardism, and intimidation. Ballot-boxes are stuffed and stolen. At the general election in November, 1904, for example, the presence of women as voters, and as members of election boards did not prevent a Republican "woman worker" from being "thrown out" of a polling-place in Denver, literally "by the neck," and shoved up against a fence; it did not deter a County Com- missioner in Pueblo — who has since been convicted of padding a precinct registration list with fictitious names — from intro- ducing whiskey at the polls in one of the corporation pre- cincts, and getting the election officers, watchers, and workers drunk, so that repeaters could be "run in" and returns tampered with ; it did not prevent fights, acts of intimidation, and the arrest of workers and voters of both sexes, of the opposite political faith, by partisan police and sheriff's officers in various parts of the State ; it did .not prevent gross insults being offered, in a few cases, to women, nor avert murders at polling-places — a Democratic election judge in the Cripple Creek district being a victim. Although perhaps not as numerous, there are, never- theless, in both parties, women as well as men repeaters and "election crooks." Challengers and watchers are as keen in seeking and as eager in taking advantage of technicalities to bring into question the right to vote of a woman of the opposite WOMAN SUFFRAGE 79 political faith as of any man. In deciding such cases the elec- tion judges consider partisanship and the law — not sex. Analysis of a few of the many more important phases beneath these superficials may conveniently be made as an- swers to questions Coloradoans are often asked : *'What and how many women vote?" *'How do they vote?" 'What change in the character and conduct of public officials has been wrought \)y woman's suffrage?" "What are the general results?" Despite the efforts of both parties for their own selfish purposes to keep up the interests of women in political affairs, the ratio of female voters to male voters seems to be decreas- ing. This is the unanimous opinion expressed to me by those officers in charge of the registration in the several counties whom I have seen. The increase between 1892 and 1894 in the number of electors who voted for Governor was 87,227. Now, the interest at elections in "Presidential years" like 1892 has always been greater in Colorado than at the intervening biennial elections for Governor and state officers only, like that in 1894. Moreover, it is generally conceded that the population of this state actually decreased during 1894, owing to "hard times" and the sharp decline in demonetized silver. Consequently we may fairly assume that at least all of this increase of 87,227 repre- sented the newly enfranchised women, who, on this assumption, composed 48 19-100 per cent, of the voters in 1894. Figuring in the same way, the women in Pueblo, a representative county, made up 46 4-100 per cent, of the total number of voters for Governor in 1894. These estimates correspond roughly with the but sHghtly different statement of William Macleod Raine, who says, in an article in the "Chautauquan," without giving authorities, that 47 per cent, of the entire registered vote of the state in 1894 was cast by women. The census of 1900 shows that women of twenty years and over composed at that time but 42 53-100 per cent, of the total population of the state of twenty years of age and older. It would seem, accordingly, that when the suffrage was a novelty the proportion of women voters was slightly larger than the proportion of women in the total population of Colorado. Unfortunately for purposes of comparison, no official sepa- rate record has been kept of the number of women and of •8o SELECTED ARTICLES the number of men who respectively have registered and voted. Names of both sexes are entered indiscriminately in the books. In order, so far as possible, however, to determine "what and how many women vote," I have checked over the official ''regis- ters of electors" and the "poll-books" in fourteen precincts of Pueblo County, which includes Pueblo, the second largest city in Colorado, with a present population, including suburbs, of 50,000. I chose Pueblo County because in Denver, neither in November, 1904, nor for twenty years, has there been ail elec- tion that decent citizens of either party would unhesitatingly assert was "anywhere near on the square." None of the other cities is thoroughly representative. The polyglot population of Pueblo County, however, and the great variety of industries in which her inhabitants engage, make it possible to select precincts that are representative of almost every class, national- ity and occupation within the state. It is .noteworthy that in a number of precincts the per- centage of those registered who voted is higher among the women than among the men. This is due to the fact that women are to be found at their places of residence for a greater portion of the day, and consequently those women who are registered are, throughout the twelve hours the polls are open frequently reminded of their duties by men and women precinct workers. In the best-managed municipal precincts every woman of both parties who has registered is reported as either "voted," "absent from city,*' or otherwise "accounted for" to the pre- cinct leaders of the respective parties by six o'clock, an hour before the polls close. It is, of course, impossible' to do this so systematically with the men who are away from home at work. It will be seen that the lowest percentage of women among electors registered, as well as of women in the total who voted, is to be found among those whose male relatives are artisans, small tradesmen, unskilled and skilled workmen of American citizen parentage, and who correspond to the best class of miners in our State. These women, as a class, take but little interest in the ballot, and many of them say they "do .not consider it womanly to vote." It is also significant to. see how large a proportion of the WOMAN SUFFRAGE 8i registered Slav and Italian women vote — they whose husbands and brothers are the unskilled laborers at the great steel works, precious metal smelters, and other large manufacturing plants, and who generally correspond to the inferior or foreign class of Colorado's miners. It should not be overlooked also that the percentages, both for registration and voting, of these foreign women are higher than those for the wives and sisters of the skilled American mechanics and small tradesmen. It is evident that the percentage of total registered electors who are women, and the percentage of the total number of actual voters who are women, do not for these recent elections ap- proach either Mr. Raine's assertion or my own estimate for 1894, except in the best residence precincts. Too much credit cannot be given a majority of our very best women for the manner in which they have assumed their responsibiHties of the ballot. Indeed, one of the strongest arguments of the suffragists is based upon the fact that in the very best residential parts of our cities the number of women voters more nearly approxi- mates the number of men than anywhere else. But the next highest percentage of female voters polled is to be found in the precincts of brothels and female "rooming-houses." In no precinct does the number of women, registered electors or actual voters, exceed that of the men. The average of all is, however, far below the percentage for the whole State for 1894. Men fail to vote at primaries and at elections because in the press of their occupations they "don't find time;" because they have neglected to register; because they have failed to inform themselves about candidates or issues; because they don't care. Women are affected by all these causes even more strongly. For other reasons, furthermore, that do not influence men, women do not do their duty : Because "they are glad to say they let their men folks attend to politics for their families ;" because "their husbands don't want them to vote;" because of timidity and "not liking to go down into a horrid crowd of strange people and have their names called out in a public place." When but little over twenty-one years old, and especially when unmarried, some women do not vote because they prefer not to admit their age. In passing, it is worthy of remark that a gallant legislature, 82 SELECTED ARTICLES in refraining the law regarding registration to conform to condi- tions of woman's suffrage, made the provision that a man should be required to give under oath his exact age, but that a woman shall be required only to swear "she is over twenty-one years old." In speaking of those women who do not vote, we should not overlook the sundry classes of good women who do vote — the "new women" who glory in "the redemption of the sex" and the assertion of their "higher place — in a wider and nobler sphere than the kitchen or household ;" the women politicians who, though not vicious, are "in politics for what there is in it in jobs and money;" the women, many of them newcomers to the state, who vote because they enjoy the slight excitement and novelty of casting their ballots ; the women who "vote merely to oblige their husbands ;" the women who "propose to assert their independence by voting just because their husbands don't want them to vote." Many examples of all these classes I have personally known, and also the greatest class of all, the good women, thank Heaven ! — those who vote because they know it is their duty — and to many of them an unpleasant and unsought duty — because they feel that they must help to over- come the votes of the vicious and depraved of their sex. But we have many bad women as well as good women, and experience and our figures show that, next to the best residence precincts, those containing the brothels and female "rooming- houses" poll the greatest proportion of women voters. Indeed, the hideous accompaniment of woman's suffrage has been the introduction into primaries of both parties, into registrations and elections in cities like Denver, Pueblo, Cripple Creek, Trinidad, and Leadville, of this far from small class of females from the "red light districts," who are more absolutely under the power of those who are supposed to be the guardians of the law than are the men of the same grade of immorality — the tramps, the saloon bums, the confidence men, the petty thieves, the keep- ers of low saloons, the gamblers, the pimps, the procurers. Owing to popular attention and indignation, warnings of newspapers, and the action of the courts, in neither of the elections that figure in our table did the police and county officers in Pueblo exercise as much coercion on these fallen women as has been WOMAN SUFFRAGE 83 the rule in elections in previous years in Pueblo and as is always done in Denver. Hence the percentage of women regis- tered who voted is not as high as usual. Considerable coercion was used, however, in Pueblo in November, 1904. Even in April, 1905, despite the exposure by a grand jury of methods •employed in the November and in former elections, some co- ercion was employed to compel women of the brothel precinct to vote once, although, apparently, there was no repeating last spring. Indeed, the figures for the spring election show up conditions in the "red light district" more nearly accurately than do those for the fall election, when this precinct included a considerable number of respectable alien workmen and their wives. It is safe to say that under ordinary conditions and under ordinary police administrations ninety per cent, of the fallen women in our cities are compelled to register and to vote at least once for the candidates favored by the police or sheriff's officers. But in ordinary times these women are also compelled to ^'repeat." In Pueblo, in November, 1904, as before stated, the vigilance of the decent men of both parties, as special officers of the district courts armed with warrants for the arrest of persons who might attempt to vote under fictitious names, pre- vented a majority, but not all, of these thousand fraudulent names from being voted as usual by "repeaters" under direc- tion of the police and sheriff's officers, who in turn were under orders from "the gang." A former "city detective" or "fine collector" in Pueblo has been tried, convicted, and sentenced to a term of years in the penitentiary for compelling an unfortunate woman to repeat her registration. He is under further in- dictments for compelling the same woman to forge fictitious names by the hundreds to district registration sheets, all of which names were to be voted on election day by other fallen women, from whom the fellow collected "fines." Another former "city detective" is under indictment for actually com- pelling unfortunate women to repeat in the November, 1904, election, voting under some of the fictitious names forged by the first woman. Other presumably more respectable citizens, among them the present postmaster of Pueblo, the former county clerk and several of his deputies, are under indictment 84 SELECTED ARTICLES on equally strong evidence for being the brains and purse for this, which is but typical of former conspiracies by which elec- tions were "carried" to perpetuate the control of the "gang." Our foreign-born women electors equally ignorant and il- literate with our foreign-born men, who as voters are so often held up for execration, should not be overlooked in our ex- amination of "what and how many women vote." One of the anomalies of this woman's suffrage state is that an adult foreign- born woman is naturalized and becomes a duly qualified elector simply by the naturalization of her husband. An adult female alien applying for original naturalization is of but rare occur- rence in Colorado. It can be readily seen that with this ar- rangement the naturalization of a single male alien often creates immediately two foreign-born voters. The full significance may thus be realized of the fact, as reported by the grand jury in Pueblo, composed of leading citizens, six Democrats, and six Republicans, that "nearly 1,300 foreigners received their naturalization papers during September and October, 1904, from the County Court (of Pueblo County) — within sixty days more naturalization papers to foreigners than had been formerly issued during the entire history of the county (covering over forty years). ... In many instances they were issued to aliens who had never applied for their first papers. . . . These aliens, largely under the control of padrones or bosses, for a consideration from the political leaders, were rounded up and taken into court and demanded their naturalization papers, having all or part of their expenses paid by whichever political party could control the padrone." It is impossible to say just how many foreign-born female voters were created by the naturalization, in many cases through fraud, of these 1,300 male aliens mostly of the lowest and most ignorant class of Italian laborers. Certainly it ran far up into the hundreds. So much in answer to the question, "What and how many women vote." How they vote is a different matter. Vicious women vote as the dominant "boss," aided by the police, or as the police acting on their own account, compel them to vote. Foreign-born women — the Slavs and Italians, Greeks and Russians — like the foreign-born men, vote for the most part WOMAN SUFFRAGE 85 in the manner the superintendent of the railroad, mining, or manufacturing corporation, or his foreman or their agents, or the subsidized priest or padrone, tell them they must vote. These commands are sometimes reinforced by money, or by threats of bodily violence or spiritual damnation, or more often by threats of the kinsmen of the women losing their jobs. Women of this class as well as men are told to ask election officers for assistance — indeed, most of them need it — in pre- paring their ballots, on the ground that they do not understand the process of voting or that they are unable to read or write English. In this way the intended secrecy of the Australian ballot is violated. The ''new women" vote for those who favor their pet theories. Other women vote in various ways. Indeed, ridiculous but true stories could be told of how some really conscientious ladies vote. A few days after the election of November, 1904, for example, I was talking with a young married woman of more than average intelligence, who was living in one of the smaller cities of Colorado, and who declared "she never voted a straight ticket, because she always voted for the men." I applauded, and asked if she would mind telling me how she voted and why. "Not at all," she replied earnestly. "I didn't know much about Roosevelt or Parker, but in his pictures Parker is much more handsome than Roosevelt, so I voted for the Democratic electors. I don't like Governor Peabody's wife, so I voted for Alva Adams. The Republican candidate for County Clerk wants to marry a friend of mine and could right away if elected, so I voted for him. The Republican running for Assessor got my vote because he is a dear old man and needed a nice easy position. The Republican candidate for State Treas- urer was a Swede and I don't like Swedes, so I voted for the Democrat. One of the candidates for County Commissioner on the Democratic ticket, they say, used to run a saloon, so I voted for the Republican. I voted against the Republican can- didate for Sheriff because his wife got a divorce from him. I took my husband's advice regarding the other candidates, be- cause I didn't know anything about them myself." I mildly asked if she knew of the special qualifications of any of these 86 SELECTED ARTICLES men to perform the duties of the several offices for which they were candidates. She replied that she had not troubled about that, because the reasons she had stated were sufficient for her. Of course this is an extreme case, but I have come to believe that the things which determined this really charming woman in her choice of candidates were of the kind that appeal strongly to many thousands of the women who vote in Colorado. In rare instances wives vote differently from their husbands, but I have noted that in such cases politics is a source of more or less friction in the family. It follows naturally, however, from women's usual place in society, that they are not thrown into daily contact with men, and consequently do not have the same opportunities of learning at first hand of the character and capacity of candidates as do their brothers, fathers, hus- bands, and sons, who in comparatively small cities like those of Colorado (Denver's population in 1900 was but 133,859) are apt to know personally or by reputation the candidates in 'their daily work or business. P^or the proportion of women candidates for office in Colorado is very small. I believe it is not an exaggera- tion to say that, realizing these facts, more than half our women voters depend upon the judgment of the male members of their families in deciding how to vote. Now, what change has been wrought by woman's suffrage in the character and conduct of our public officials? Women themselves form such a small proportion of the aspirants for any elective offices except those in connection w4th the school that they are almost negligible factors. Ever since the extension of the franchise the State Superintendent of Public Instruction has been a woman. This is the office of greatest importance ever held in Colorado by our new voters. Be it said further to the credit of the successiv-e incumbents of this responsible position that theirs has been about the only one of Colorado's administrative departments, from chief executive down, the conduct of which in the past decade has always been above even suspicion of rank favoritism, fraud, or graft. Since 1894 the office of County Superintendent of Schools has been held continuously in a number of counties by women. Their service, generally speaking, has been so eminently correct and^ satisfactory that after each election the proportion of women WOMAN SUFFRAGE -. Sy has increased until at present they hold this office in thirty-four of the fifty-nine counties. Women have also been elected to other county and city offices, but such cases have been rare and are growing rarer. A considerable number of deserving and competent women have clerkships and other appointive positions in various departments of the state and local government — possibly a slightly larger number than in men-suffrage states. Although citizens in every other sense, Colorado women, by custom, are not required to sit on juries nor pay the poll tax. Nor are they liable to service in the militia nor to call by the sheriff to act on a posse comitatus. As in cities elsewhere, those in Colorado have police matrons, but, with the exception of one special officer in Pueblo, no women policemen. There are a few women lawyers, but no women judges, although there is one woman justice of the peace in Kiowa, a cattle-ranch county. No woman has been elected to the State Senate. The number in the lower house of the Legislature shows a steady dcline. In the session of 1895 there were three women members of the House of Representatives; in 1897, three; in 1899, .three; in 1901, one; in 1903, one; in 1905, none. It is a subject of common remark also that there has been in the last few years a steady falling off in the number of women at primary caucuses and as voters at partisan primaries in the respectable precincts, as well as a corresponding, and of course consequent, decrease in the number of women delegates to local and state conventions of the parties. A very noteworthy change wrought by woman's suffrage has been the raising of the requirement as to moral character, judged solely by their private lives, of men elected, especially to offices in our cities. But no corresponding change for the better h-as been brought about in the public conduct of our officials. Before 1893 we had in Colorado some men who served the people well in their purely official capacities whose private lives were unsavory. We formerly had the elsewhere usual city average of saloon-keepers, some of whom were honest as municipal officials. Since the extension of the franchise to women political parties have learned the inadvisability of nom- inating for public offices, drunkards, notorious libertines, gam- blers, retail liquor dealers, and men who engage in similar 88 < SELECTED ARTICLES discredited occupations, because the women almost always vote them down. This change has been pointed to by advocates of woman's suffrage as a great reform. Unfortunately, the char- acter and honesty of our public servants, judged solely by their public services and by their official conduct, has not in general been improved. Since 1893 we have had as m.any men, possibly more, who as officers are incompetent, grossly partial, unscrupu- lous, and even positively dishonest, although as private citizens they do not sell liquor or engage in riotous living. It should be needless to say that saloon-keepers are often honest, that ranch- men, real estate and investment brokers are sometimes dishonest, and that the substitution in office of a rogue who has been deal- ing in land for one .who has been dealing in liquor is not a real improvement. Now, what are the general results? We have seen that the presence of women as voters has not improved the order and decorum at polling-places. In ad- dition to the specific crimes already mentioned, it will be neces- sary, in or-der to remind us how impure Colorado's elections have ^een, only to refer to the surprising amount of election knavery committed in all parts of the State by both parties in November, 1904, and exposed last winter in the contest over the Governor- ship, and to the facts that about thirty men in Denver, mostly Democrats, were sent to jail and fined, and that a grand jury in Pueblo returned 257 indictments, mostly against Republicans, all for election frauds. Those of us who have lived in Colorado and have had the opportunity to become acquainted, not merely with the noisy radicals, but with our really representative women voters, are not ready to accept as accurate assertions that, as a class, they have by voting "dealt a blow at their womanhood," nor to approve sweeping indictments against their character and mo- tives. We have also seen that extension of the suffrage to women has, in the long run, merely tended to double the number of possible, not of actual, voters. Among the very highest classes, judged by standards of property, intelligence, and morality, and among the very lowest, we have added seventy-five to eighty-five per cent, to the number who formerly exercised the franchise. WOMAN SUFFRAGE 89 But among the great middle classes, in these respects, a very much larger proportion of the women than of the men do not vote. It would, indeed, appear that the average character of the actual voting body has either remained unchanged ^or has been slightly lowered as regards actual political intelligence and discrimination. Although rascals of notoriously intemperate or licentious personal habits and rascals engaging in certain discredited forms of business are no longer so largely elected to public offices, it must be confessed that in too many cases under woman's suf- frage the incumbents are rascals still. We have practically all the forms of graft and misgovernment found elsewhere. Wom- an's suffrage seems to have been neither a preventive, ain al- leviator, nor a cure for any of our political ills. Furthermore, in Colorado's larger cities, and especially in Denver, lewd women have been granted by the police a degree of license not accorded them, so far as I can learn, in any other part of America. Is it unfair to assume that this is part of the price paid by bosses and police in our cities for the extreme activity of these women in primaries and elections? It would, however, be as absurd to assume that all the debauchery of 'Our public service in many fieMs is due to women*voters as to assert that they have im- proved our local and state government. Indeed, it would seem that the woman's suffragists in gen- eral tacitly admit that there have been no practical reforms or other important or positive results in Colorado, because they who urged the adoption of their experiment for reasons of justice and expediency now in the great majority of cases praise its operation on grounds of justice only. Voting, they say, is one of woman's natural rights, from the exercise of which tyrannical man long prevented her. They ask, "Would you in justice refuse the intelligent and refined women of your family the franchise you give so freely to illiterates and miserable, often criminal, foreigners and negroes?" They assume that one approves of allowing the men of all these classes to vote without restriction, and they forget that these illiterates, foreigners, and negroes have women in their families. That all the women even of Colorado do not regard voting as among their ".natural rights" is shown by the flat and oftentimes indignant refusal 90 SELECTED ARTICLES by many to vote at all, and by the manner in which such a large proportion of the others look upon voting as an unpleasant, irk- some and unsought duty. Outlook. 91: 573. March 13, igog. Sweden Gives Women Parliamentary Franchise. Sweden has joined Finland in extending the ballot to women; by a majority in both Houses of the Swedish Diet all persons who have attained a certain age and who meet other conditions are, without distinction to sex, entitled to exercise the Parlia- mentary franchise. A well-informed contributor to The Out- look, after the extension of the suffrage to women in Finland, pointed out the special conditions in that country and the work done by women in its public life as explaining the extension of the suffrage. This action on the part of Sweden is undoubtedly the most important yet taken in connection with the woman's suffrage movement. Finland is a Russian province ; but Sweden is an independent country in which the people are notable for inteUigence and for gentleness of manners they are also, or were until lately, a conservative people. Americans will be inter- ested in knowing why this peaceful revolution has been brought about in such a slow-moving country as Sweden, and why a departure from the ancient tradition and policy of the country has been effected with so little preliminary blowing of trumpets; possibly because there has been no suffragette movement among the Swedes. This action of Sweden is in line with that of Norway, where about three-fifths of the women of the country vote for members of Parliament, and a recommendation has been made by the Royal Counsel to extend the suffrage so as to include all women. Outlook. g5: 117-22. May 21, igio. Where the Women Vote. Paul Kennaday. "How does it feel to be an enfranchised woman?" I asked a New Zealand woman one day shortly after my arrival in her daring little land of successful big experiments. "And how WOMAN SUFFRAGE 91 does it feel to be an enfranchised man?" was the wise and complete answer to my rather silly joke. And thereafter, traveling slowly but safely up and down her thousand-mile narrow strip of island country on state railways, eating state-reared oysters and state-certified mutton, butter, and cheese, toasting my feet over state-mined coal, served by waiters earning a state-fixed wage, buying in state-inspected shops, visiting large state "bursted. up" estates, escaping the wiles of state life insurance company agents, and tempted to prolong my stay in "God's Own Country" until qualified for a state's old age pension — during these months not once w^as en- countered a reference to votes for women on trains, stage- coaches, or boats, from the pulpit, in clubs, trades halls, or in the press. The subject is simply one no more discussed in New Zealand, except an inquisitive traveler comes along from "the states" or from "home" — as England still is in name even to the men and w^omen born and brought up in New Zealand. It is far from old England and far from current English ways, indeed, this new country of New Zealand. No prisons and hunger strikes here, no leagues of militant suffragettes, nor pickets before the gates of Parliament. New Zealand men gave the vote to women almost without the asking, sixteen years ago. And when they did this, typically enough of their temper, they placed the adult native Maori women on the same footing as the Maori men in respect of the franchise. So that the four Maori members of Parliament are now returned by the votes of all the adults, male and female of their tribes. As far back as 1878 the Liberal, or Progressive party, as it was called, then for the first time in office, brought forward a bill to extend the right to vote for members of the House of Representatives to women rate-payers, who already had the franchise in municipal elections. At that time members were, in general, unwilling to grant what had been then seriously con- sidered by but few in the colony except a small group of en- thusiastic advocates. Nine years later, however, a coalition gov- ernment then in power advanced the question to the point of moving in Parliament a bill extending the suffrage to women. But again the opponents of the reform were the stronger, and 92 SELECTED ARTICLES the bill went no further than a secoqcl reading and an adverse consideration in committee. Then for some years little more attention was paid to the matter. Hard times were testing the colonists, and feeling was running high on the all-important subject of land holdings and land taxation. What has gone down in New Zealand history as the Great Maritime Strike for a brief space brought the shipping of the islands to a standstill in 1890 and solidified the growing radical discontent of the wage-earners. Intense and bitter resentment pervaded the minds of the workingmen as a result of the complete defeat of the dockers and seamen at the hands of a united class of employers. In the turmoil of party and class strife of those years men gave little consideration to the rights of women. Nor were the women much inclined to push their own claims. But widespread discontent with the old order of things brought in the Progressive party with a good working majority in 1891, and, all unsuspected and unheralded, woman's emanci- pation was at hand. The lower house, having now in it a strong labor element, suddenly adopted the Electoral Bill be- fore them, with an amendment giving to all adult women the right to vote. But the still Conservative upper house held out. The Woman's Christian Temperance Union then took a hand in support of the bill, and then a real struggle was on, with the Prohibitionists and Liberals for a time banded against the Conservative opposition. At this point dissensions between the Liberals and Prohibitionists broke out, and many of the Opposi- tion favored the passage of the bill, thinking thus to add to the difficulties of the government forces by increasing the enmity of the liquor trade toward them. At last by a majority of two, the bill was passed, and so, in the fall of 1893, almost without effort, certainly without stones and pickets and arrests, the right to vote was given to New Zealand women by New Zealand men. Prophecy ran riot at the time over the effect enfranchisement would have upon women, upon men, and upon the legislation of the colony. One side set forth that the franchise would trans- form unreasonable woman into a reasoning voter, casting her ballot with a heavy sense of awful responsibility, that at once the whole tone of politics would be refined, and that men as well WOMAN SUFFRAGE 93 as women would have no other thought than the public good. Others predicted a race of mannish women, homes abandoned, children neglected, politicians returned to* office who best had appealed to feminine foibles. Woman's place was in the home and with her children, they said, and the field of politics should be left free to the men — just as the men are saying in England and in America to-day. A good deal of wild talk was indulged in on both sides, but events seem to have refuted all the prophets. With the single exception of the license question, it is more than doubtful whether in New Zealand any tangible results, good or evil, can be attributed to the political enfranchisement of women. The game of politics seems to be played in the same old way as before, there as everywhere else. Neither Parliamentary de- bates nor the debaters have been raised above the very ordinary level of pre-femi.nine voting. In fact, more than one survivor of the early Parliaments recalls now sadly those good old days when "Hansard" bristled with Latin and Greek quotations, and when speeches prepared with great pains were delivered with studied care. But the wisdom of the ancients and the literary finish of a past generation have now given way before repre- sentatives of the wider constituencies of these times, labor leaders, merchants, and lawyers, whose only lapse from plain English is when they drop into that barbarous admixture of Cockney and Yankee the traveler recognizes as "Australian." On all hands it has been admitted, however, that it has been the payment of members, and not the votes of women that has brought the speeches in Parliament down from their former Olympian heights to the level of present common understanding. For this reform it was that made it financially possible for poorer and less cultured men to oppose and supplant the rich rum-holders and university graduates who formerly held sway in the councils of New Zealand. Nor does it appear that the polling and electioneering in the times when men only voted were any different in tone from the orderly, sober family affair they are now. Women go to the polls alone, or with their husbands, fathers, or brothers, and vote without annoyance or intimidation according as their con- sciences dictate or their whims decide, quite as do their men- 94' SELECTED ARTICLES folk. But elections in New Zealand never were marked by drunkenness and disgraceful scenes such as sometimes occur in large American cities. The whole spirit and nature of New Zealand is against that sort of thing. There are no big cities there, for one thing, with their slums and lodging-house re- peaters ; nor are there rich interests seeking to debauch the electorate with bribes. Wellington, the capital, has but 58,000 inhabitants, and Christchurch, Dunedin, and Auckland are the only other municipalities of over 30,000. Then there are but five other cities of over 6,000 and less than 10,000 inhabitants each, and nine just passing the five thousand mark. The re- mainder of the scant million New Zealanders, men, women, and children, European and native Maori, live in small towns or hamlets, or are scattered on farms and sheep-runs over the North and South Islands, which form the two principal di- visions of the colony, lately turned Dominion. It is a homogen- eous and literate population, and, except in the four principal cities, almost wholly engaged in agriculture and pastoral pur- suits. While party feeling may at times run high with them, there is no opportunity for gangs and floaters, intimidation, and stuffed ballot-boxes. So the women had not much to reform on this score. When it comes to the "Socialistic" legislation that has made New Zealand famous, one is on debatable ground with the ad- vocates of votes for women. Certainly women have votes in New Zealand, and certainly since they have had votes much progressive legislation has been passed in New Zealand. Ergo, votes for women. But by the same easy post hoc propter hoc method we may attribute to the enfranchisement of women the fall in the birth rate in New Zealand from 40.78 per 1,000 of the population in 1880 to 27.30 in 1907; or, again, that whereas at the time when women gained the ballot there was an excess of 1,786 spinsters over bachelors in the colony, the census of 1906 shows the bachelors to outnumber the spinsters by 9,633. As a matter of fact, the general birth rate and the size of families has declined in New Zealand as it has in other parts of the civilized world, and from a diversity of causes in which it would be impossible to assign any specified part to the fact that New Zealand women now have an interest in affairs of WOMAN SUFFRAGE 95 state added to their former cares as mothers. If the point is pressed that the increased comforts, complexities, and wider cares of these later days are but poor compensation for the failure of women to bear the numerous progeny their mothers and grandmothers considered enjoined upon them, the New Zea- land mother of to-day may fairly retort that what children she does have she at least preserves. Seventy-three infants only under one year of age now die out of every 1,000 born in New. . Zealand, as compared with 326 per thousand in Chile, 268 in Russia, 196 in Prussia, 223 in Austria, 149 in France, 147 in England and Wales, and 149 in the United States. Although there is plausibility in this contention that women by their votes have either hastened or materially affected the legislation for the common good in New Zealand, facts and the general consensus of opinion in New Zealand fail to estab- lish this claim as well founded. The Liberal or Progressive party that gave the vote to women in 1893 was well committed to reform measures all along the line when, under the leadership of Balance, it came into power in 1891 in the wake gf the Great Maritime Strike and the land and labor disputes over which the colony was then divided. After the death of Balance in 1893, *'Dick" Seddon, "King Dick," succeeded to his former chief's position, and for thirteen years absolutely dominated New Zealand and its policy. His was the master mind holding obstreperous factions to- gether, forcing through by sheer strength of will and body measures he believed to be for the benefit of the community at large. By his alluring personality as well as by his knowledge and genuine appreciation of the working class, of which he was himself a member, he held a place in the affections and the con- fidence of New Zealanders which no one before or since has approached. He gathered about him men of some ability, took what was of value in their suggestions, adapted them to his need, and received from a grateful public about all the credit. He knew how to insure the passage of land reforms and labor legislation by the promise of road improvements and bridges, and could carry out threats to withhold patronage and public moneys from districts returning opposition members. If he was something of a demagogue and not much of a democrat, at least 96 SELECTED ARTICLES he genuinely wanted to be a kind friend to the people he perhaps debauched. He was sincere in his desire so to improve the conditions of life for the small farmers and workingmen that New Zealand might in truth be what with his splendid optimism he first christened it — God's Own Country. Big and burly, with the strength of ten, he outlasted and outwitted his opponents. Had he lived in America, Seddon probably would have been our most notable, and withal our most- honest boss. In New Zea- land he worked himself up from miner and publican to Premier, and held that office until his death in harness in 1906. It was the Seddon government which brought forth or mate- rially amended very many of the more advanced legislative en- actments now on the statute-books of New Zealand. And perhaps woman's innate conservatism, that Seddon used to talk about, was a check to him. in some of his state experiments. Or, as he himself preferred to interpret it, perhaps it has been woman's conservatism that has prevented changes of policies, and that has continued in power from 1891 to to-day the Pro- gressive party, which first gave to her the vote. But, on the whole, the opinion of New Zealand men and women themselves is that women since they have had the fran- chise have had a clear and direct influence on very few political measures aside from the single one of temperance reform. In that they have taken a decided stand, and, with their Woman^s Christian Temperance Union propaganda and their votes, they have succeeded in creating a well-marked and slowly growing public sentiment in favor of further restriction on the issuance of licenses to public-houses. To such an extent is this so that on the three questions submitted for local option at the triennial state elections — continuance of existing licenses, reduction, and no license — the total votes recorded in favor of no license have, of late, been greater than the numbers recorded for either of the other two, though attaining in but a few districts the three- fifths of all the votes cast which are necessary to affect the number of licenses issued. Graduated taxes on income and on improved real estate values, the "bursting up" of large estates for the benefit of small tenants, advances to settlers, compulsory arbitration, with its adjunct of state-fixed wages, shops' regulation, old age pen- WOMAN SUFFRAGE 97 sions, and industrial accident insurance ; state railways, posts, telephones, and post-office savings banks, state life and fire in- surance — in the enactment of none of these measures can the inflifence of women's votes be found. And though it is not susceptible of proof that the votes of women have not helped to preserve this liberal legislation or to amend it so as to en- large its scope and usefulness, an acquaintance with the trend of opinion among New Zealand rt^en, be they employers or em- ployees, factory workers or pastoralists, leaves the decided im- pression that state aid and regulation is regarded by the male voter of New Zealand as a proper and, indeed, essential func- tion of government. With or without the votes of women, Seddon and his suc- cessor, Sir Joseph Ward, still would have been kept in office by men who had faith in them and whose desires these astute politicians understood and catered to. It cannot be said that the franchise has wrought any no- ticeable metamorphosis in the minds or manners of New Zea- land women, or of their enfranchised sisters in Australia. Like their less fortunate English and American cousins, these women still find their chief occupation and interest in looking after their husbands and children and in the petty details of housekeeping. They do not hold public office even in New Zealand, and but a small number of them are in the professions or business. Only eighteen per cent, of them are breadwinners. Still the men to an overwhelming proportion go out into the world of work and ideas and the women stay behind to the work that is never done, to the keeping of the house and to the sphere in which it has pleased men to place them. Spite of her equality with man as a voter, the woman of Australia and New Zealand is still economically dependent upon man, and with the maintenance she receives from father, husband, or brother she but naturally takes at the same time most of the ideas she has of politics and parties. But in a new and thinly populated country where there are no people of great wealth and very few of no means, women of the "leisure class" are as rare as those unfortunates whom the maladjustments and iniquities of older systems of society force upon the streets. Class distinctions have not become 98 SELECTED ARTICLES marked, and, vote or no vote, a certain independence of char- acter is developed, and a practical ability to help herself is ob- servable in the New Zealand woman as it is across the sea in those parts of Australia where she has but. very recently been • poHtically enfranchised. She has piore nearly the pioneer spirit which has distinguished our own American women than the sex- conscious feeling of the English suffragette. The fears that women would be dominated by priestly in- fluences have proved entirely groundless in New Zealand. There is absolutely no evidence that such is the fact. In New South Wales and Queensland a certain division along sectional lines was noticed, but nothing which was evidence of interfer- ence by the church. Roman Catholics in certain districts of Sydney, for instance, will return no candidates but Roman Catho- lics, and state aid for parochial schools is a part of their plat- form, but they are none the less independent voters and free of undue influence from their spiritual advisers. Political managers were merely wise enough to work along the line of least re- sistance and to put before working class electorates, largely com- posed of Roman Catholics, candidates of the same church and class. To be sure, the Roman Catholic church was wise enough also not to lose its followers by opposing their political views. The Cardinal in Sydney took pains to assure the faithful that the famous encyclical of the late Pope against Socialism was directed against such "Anarchists" as his Holiness was familiar with in Europe, and had no bearing upon the socialistic ten- dencies of the labor movement in Australasia. And the Protestant churches, whose membership in Australia outnumbers the Ro- manists by more than three to one and in New Zealand by almost six to one, to a less degree than the Catholics, even, showed any interest in the questions about which the voters were most con- cerned. That she does not carefully study measures and weigh men's motives, that she does not always cast her ballot with delibera- tion, freed of prejudice and uninfluenced by her family, the New Zealand woman must plead guilty to, if men without guilt in these respects choose to cast stones at her for this. But that she refrains from using the ballot in New Zealand, now that she has it, the records fully disprove. WOMAN SUFFRAGE S^P In 1893, the first j^ear when women voted at a general election, 78 per cent, of the adult female population registered as electors, and of these over 85 per cent, voted. By 1905 the proportion of registered electors had gradually increased to 212,876 women, or to nearly 94 per cent, of the adult women of the Dominion. Of these 175,046, or 82 per cent., voted. These figures for the men are almost identical — 96^ per cent, registered, and of these 84 per cent, voted. Australian election returns, both federal and state, give re- sults much less creditable to women as voters, but the men do not in this respect set the women a very praiseworthy example. In Commonwealth elections Australian voters, male and fe- male, show a marked apathy, the men, however, retaining about the same advantage over the women in percentage of votes cast to enrollments as in state elections. Figures from the federal elections of December 16, 1903, and December 12, 1906, are here tabulated, those for the House of Representatives being omitted, as they vary but slightly from the results here shown of the voting for Commonwealth senators : PERCENTAGE OF VOTERS TO ELECTORS ENROLLED. Fe- Males males New South Wales j ^^03 52.70 41.16 Victoria I ^903 56.89 45.63 1 I ' ' 1906 58.57 43.90 903 56.89 45.63 906 62.30 51.14 Queensland < ^^03 62.49 44-94 ( 1906 53.03 37.14 South Australia \ '^^ 41.58 23.28 ] 1906 44.45 28.43 Western Australia 5 ^^03 35-96 14.86 Tasmania 5 ^^03 54.53 34-30 906 40.67 28.74 903 54.53 34-30 906 61.65 45.95 Commonwealth 5 ^903 53-09 39-96 ( 1906 56.38 43-30 Still another test may be applied — the referendum held on July 31, 1900, on the question of federation. Again is seen a 100 SELECTED ARTICLES wide lack of interest in matters of public importance — common to both men and women : COMMONWEALTH REFERENDUM. Per cent of votes recorded to total number of persons, male and female, qualified to vote. New South Wales 63.39 Victoria 56.29 Tasmania . 36.48 South Australia 5444 Queensland 64.78 Western Australia 67.13 It will be noted that, although the percentage of enrolled fe- males voting in the Australian states at state elections is no- ticeably lower than the percentage of qualified males so voting, the women of all the states except Tasmania show a much keener interest in state elections than do the men in federal elections. But the suffrage is a new privilege of citizenship to the women of all but one of the Australian states, gained with- out much effort on their part. It may not yet be concluded how far they are likely in the future to evince an appreciation of their enfranchisement. The upshot of the whole matter appears to be that in New Zealand the votes which women have had for sixteen years have changed the current of political thought as little as they have made any actual difference as yet in woman's economic and mental dependence upon man. In the Australian states, where there are found nearly all of the types of liberal legisla- tion enacted in New * Zealand, women have but recently been enfranchised, as a clear result of a progressive movement for which they can in no way be held responsible. And in Australia, as in New Zealand, women take the responsibilities of citizenship just as mere men do, show no more interest and no less in political questions than they, and cast the privileged ballot with all the male elector's usual lack of forethought and occasional studied conviction. WOMAN SUFFRAGE loi Vote of Massachusetts on Municipal Suffrage for Women at the State Election, November 5, 1895. After twenty-five years of agitation by the suffragists, the question of municipal suffrage for women was brought to a test at the State Election, November 5, 1895. The voters were asked their opinion, and gave a most emphatic reply. Never was there so full an expression of opinion upon any question submitted to the people of Massachusetts. The vote for governor at the State Election was 328,121. The vote of the men upon municipal woman suffrage at the same election was 273,946. Over 83 per cent, of those voting for governor voted upon this question, while in 1891 only 62 per cent, of those \MDting for governor voted upon the constitutional amendment abolishing the poll tax as a prerequisite for voting, and in 1896 only 72 per cent, of those voting for governor voted upon the constitutional amendment providing for biennial elections. Never has any question submitted to the people of Massachu- setts received so overwhelming a defeat. The vote of th^ men was, "No'' 186,976, "Yes" 86,970, a "No" majority of 100,006. The vote in 1889 on the prohibition amendment to the constitu- tion was, **No" 133,085, "Yes" 86,459, a "No" majority of 46,626. The vote in 1896 on the biennial elections amendment was, "No" 161,263, "Yes" 115,505, a "No" majority of 45,758. So that the majority against woman suffrage in Massachusetts is more than twice as great as that against either prohibition or biennial elec- tions. The vote of the women on the suffrage question, "Yes" 22,204, "No" 861, is as significant as that of the men. By the census of 1895 the number of men in Massachusetts qualified to register and vote was 560,802. The number of women qualified to register and vote on this question was at least 575,000. Of these more than 550,000 declined to vote, and less than four in a hundred voted "Yes." In other words, more than 96 per cent, of the women of the commonwealth either prefer the present status of the suffrage or are wholly indifferent in the matter. In 48 towns not one woman voted "Yes," and in 137 other towns the women voting "Yes" numbered fifteen or less. As the vast majority of the w^omen opposed to the suffrage expressed I02 SELECTED ARTICLES their opinion by refusing to vote, the women's vote for the pur- poses of tabulation, has little value. In the following statement of votes, therefore, the votes of the men alone are considered. Massachusetts, at the time of the election, had 31 cities and 322 towns. Of the 31 cities, every one cast a large majority against woman suffrage. The vote of the cities was, "No" 120,657, ''Yes" 53,982, a ''No" majority of 66,675. Many people have thought that the vote against waman suffrage was dis- proportionately heavy in the cities, but this is not so. The vote of the 322 towns was, "No" 66,319, "Yes" 32,988, a "No" majority of 33^33^- The cities of Massachusetts contain two-thirds of the population of the state, and, in an even distribution of senti- ment, should therefore contribute two-thirds of the "No" major- ity. That is just what they did, and the closeness of the figures to an exact two-thirds is remarkable. Of the 322 towns, 293 voted "No," 28 voted "Yes," and i was a tie. The 28 towns voting "Yes" were among the smallest in the state, their vote averaging only "Yes'* 51, "No'* 42. Every County and every Congressional, Councillor, Senatorial and Representative district in the Commonwealth cast a majority against the proposition. World To-Day. 11: 1264-8. December, 1906. Present Status of Woman Suffrage. Ida Husted Harper. The recent death of Miss Susan B. Anthony has called forth a wide discussion in regard to the movement for woman suffrage, of which she was for fifty years the leader. As this discussion has shown in some instances a considerable lack of knowledge as to the present situation, a review of it may be of interest. When the question of giving the franchise to women was first agitated, about the middle of the last century, their posi- tion was one of the greatest inferiority in every respect — laws, education, industrial opportunity and social advantages. The pioneers of the movement logically held that if women could become political factors their interests would very soon rank in importance with those of men. They therefore advocated the WOMAN SUFFRAGE 103 possession of the suffrage as the first requisite. But they also made every possible effort to secure the desired changes by other means. As all of these advantages except the ballot could be obtained through the alteration of statutes, the decision of boards of trustees, the willingness of employers and the gen- eral advance of public sentiment, they were gradually brought about, until now laws are reasonably fair to women : women's educational and industrial opportunities approximate those of men, and their right to speak in public, to organize, to work along all lines of activity is fully conceded. Notwithstanding all this progress the effort to obtain the franchise has had so small results as to create a belief among many that it never will succeed. The reason why this con- cession has been so largely withheld is the fact that it alone requires a change in the constitution of the state, and this can be made only by permission of a majority of the voters. Imagine, for instance, that the colleges of New York could not have been opened to women except through the consent of the masses of men in the lower East Side of New York city and the slums of the other cities, and you have the situation in regard to woijian suffrage. Consider also that this is the only one of the concessions that has any political significance; that can make or unmake legislators and other officeholders ; that can affect the liquor, patent medicine and other vast commercial interests by compelling not only laws for the purpose but their administra- tion ; that can change the status of the entire community. In a word, consider the tremendous power that would be conferred on women through the possession of the franchise, and it will be clear why the work of securing it has been so slow and so difficult. Thus handicapped, what is the status of this movement to- day? In four states — Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and Idaho — women have the full suffrage on exactly the same terms as men ; in Kansas they have the municipal franchise ; in Montana and Louisiana all woman taxpayers may vote on questions of special taxation ; in the villages of New York they may do the same, and the charters of twelve of the thirty-six third-class cities give them this privilege; in Iowa all women may vote on issuing bonds; .in Mississippi taxpayers and widows have a I04 SELECTED ARTICLES mere fragment of a vote on a few matters pertaining to country- schools and the running at large of stock; in Minnesota they may vote for public library boards ; in Arkansas the names of women on a petition against liquor-selHng within certain limits count the same as men's ; in twenty-two states and territories, they have a school suffrage — Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minne- sota, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin. This partial franchise, which has been conferred entirely by legislative action, has never been taken away except in one state — Kentucky. Its first school law in 1838 gave a school vote to women in country districts, which in 1888 was extended to those of villages, and in 1894 to the three ctities, Lexington, Covington and Newport. In 1902^ school question came up in which the colored people were vitally interested and more colored than white women voted. The legislature immediately took away the suffrage from all women in those three cities. In the early days of the movement its leaders thought that every scrap of suffrage gained was a step toward full enfran- chisement, but they no longer hold this opinion. It will be noted that, with the exception of the taxpayers' franchise in New York (1901), no partial suffrage has been granted within the past ten or twelve years. This has given rise to the opinion, frequently expressed, that interest in the question is on the wane. The reason, on the contrary, lies in the fact that the National Suffrage Association strongly opposes any further effort in this direction and uses its influence to prevent it. To obtain these fragmentary votes requires about as much time, energy and money as to secure the submission of an amendment for the full suffrage, and they amount to almost nothing when granted. For instance, in Massachusetts women have had so- called school-suffrage since 1879, but it consists merely in a vote for members of the board of education, but not for supervisors, appropriations or any question whatever connected with the public schools, nor are they allowed any voice in nominating candidates. For this small privilege they were obliged until 1892 to pay a poll tax and exercise constant watchfulness to keep WOMAN SUFFRAGE 105, their names on the voting list. The latter is still necessary, and they must register and comply with all the requirements that men do for the full suffrage; and yet great capital is made by the opponents because the women there do not turn out en masse to the polls. In Illinois, for another instance, women in the country and villages may vote for the school board, but in Chicago and the other cities where it is appointed by the mayor or council, the only privilege they have is to vote once in two years for three trustees of the state university. And yet there is a loud outcry because they do not by thousands take the trouble to register and brave the disagreeable features of election day to exercise this infinitesimal privilege. The situation is very similar in all states where women have an alleged school fran- chise, .and their apparent indifference is seized upon by the anti-suffragists as a reason why they should not have any further political rights. In Michigan, after ten years of heroic effort by. the women,, they finally secured a law for municipal suffrage (1893), the bill passing both houses of the legislature by large majorities and receiving the governor's signature. Before the first election it was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. Municipal suffrage was granted to women by the Kansas, legislature in 1887, and it was hoped that through this means, it would be possible to enforce the liquor prohibition laws and other measures for law and order. By various devices, how- ever, women have been gradually prevented from exercising the franchise where it could have this eft'ect, vmtil now they can vote in the larger cities only for mayor, councilmen, school board, city attorney, treasurer and clerk. They can not vote for police judge, city marshal, chief cf police, judge of the city court, justices of the peace or constables. Notwithstanding these re- strictions the almost unvarying testimony is that through their participation in politics a higher class of officials and better government are secured. The best proof of this Hes in the fact that every move to increase their voting power is violently opposed by the law-defying elements of the community. For this very reason the women of Kansas are strenuous in urging those of other states not to ask for the municipal franchise.. io6 SELECTED ARTICLES They have found that by the use of it they have incurred the hostility of the party poUticians as well as the lawless classes, and that it acts as a direct bar against the extension to them of the full suffrage. That there have not been any gains in the way of a restricted ballot during the past ten years is not, there- fore, any indication of a lack of interest, but rather of sagacious- ness on the part of the women. There is another form of limited suffrage which its advocates are very desirous of having made the subject of an experiment, that for presidential electors. There is no question that legisla- tures have a right to confer this upon women, and it is held that through its use women would demon- strate whether they really do want to vote, what would be the effect of their presence at the polls, etc. Its opponents object because they believe the results would be similar to that of mu- nicipal suffrage in creating political hostility. Its advocates an- swer that when the women showed with which party the major- ity of them would affiliate, that party would at once take steps to give them the full suffrage. The opponents reply that the experience of the states where they have the full franchise is that in local matters they will not be bound by party lines. A bill to give women presidential suffrage has passed one house of the legislature in several states. Within the last few weeks one has passed the senate in Rhode Island and the house in Iowa. Doubtless the other branch will defeat it in each state, but it may eventually be adopted somewhere, and the experiment will be watched with a great deal of interest. The very next legislature could repeal it, however, as it can any franchise which it confers. Women can not be sure that any form of suf- frage is permanent unless it has been made a part of the con- stitution of the state by a majority vote of the electors. In that case it could only be repealed by another majority vote, and they themselves would have a voice in the matter. The next phase of the question to be considered relates to the four states where women vote at all elections and on all ques- tions and candidates. In a territory the legislature has power to grant full suffrage, and the first legislative council of Wy- oming, in 1869, gave this to women. In 1889 it was incorpor- ated in the constitution for statehood (with but one dissenting WOMAN SUFFRAGE 107 voice in the convention), this was adopted by a three-fourths vote, women themselves voting on it, and the state came into . the union in 1890 with its women fully enfranchised. A strong effort was made to obtain woman suffrage from the territorial legislature of Colorado in 1870, but it was un- successful. A second determined attempt was made to have it incorporated in the constitution for statehood in 1876. All that could be secured was a provision that the first state legislature should submit the question to the voters. This was done in 1877 and it was defeated by a two-thirds vote. The proposi- tion was submitted again in 1893 and carried — 35»798 yeas 29,451 nays — the former vote almost reversed. The territorial legislature of Utah conferred full suffrage on women in 1870, and they exercised it very generally until 1887,. when all women, Gentiles and Mormon, were arbitrarily disfran- chised by Congress as part of a plan for eradicating polygamy. The convention for statehood in 1895 placed a clause in the constitution giving women the complete franchise ; it was adopt- ed by 28,618 yeas, 2,687 nays, and signed by President Cleve- land, January 4, 1S96. In 1895 the legislature of Idaho submitted an amendment ful- ly enfranchising women, which was endorsed by all political parties. It was carried in November, 1896, by 12,126 yeas, 6,282 nays. At the same time a similar amendment in California was de- feated by the vote of San Francisco and Alameda counties. It was carried in every county in southern California, Los Angeles giving a majority of 4.600. Since 1896 an amendment has been submitted in South Dakota (1897) and lost by an adverse ma- jority of 3,285; in Oregon (1900) and defeated by 2,137 votes,, mostly in Portland. In neither of these last two campaigns did the National Suffrage Association take part. New Hampshire held a convention in December, 1902, to revise its constitution and, by a vote of 145 to 92, incorporated a clause for complete woman suffrage. There was not the remotest chance of its carrying, as it was opposed by the managers of both party "machines," by the Boston & Maine Railroad, whose influence is supreme, by the manufacturing corporations and by the Master of the Grange, who was candidate for governor. Nevertheless,^ io8 SELECTED ARTICLES purely for the moral effect, the national association assisted the New Hampshire women to make a vigorous campaign. The amendment received 21,7^ nays, 14,162 yeas. The results in creating public sentiment and increasing their membership fully' justified the expectations of the suffragists, and the next time the question is presented it will be carried. A great deal of surprise is expressed, and with much rea- son, that after securing woman suffrage in four states within six years, there should not be another gain in ten years. The situation may be stated briefly as follows : Up to 1896 it had been an easy matter to persuade a legislature to submit an amendment, as they did not think it could be carried. The four victories, one after the other, showed that with a fair field the women could win their fight. In those states where, at pres- ent, there is a very strong chance of success, the legislatures now refuse emphatically to submit the question. All the women ask is the privilege of carrying their case to the voters, and the very fact that the political powers will not allow this is un- " deniable proof of the strength of the movement. There is not a doubt that Iowa would give a large majority in favor of wom- an suffrage, the legislature knows it, and for years it has re- fused positively to let the question go before the people. When the legislature of California last year denied the petition of the women for a resubmission of the amendment, some of the members said frankly, "It will carry next time; it is much easier to defeat you here." It is not to the special advantage of any political party or of any great vested interest to have women vote, and these two powers, cooperating, control legislation and elections. For the last ten years commercialisrh has dominated absolutely and there has been no opportunity for moral issues. This time has been employed by the suffragists in strengthening their organ- ization, educating public sentiment and getting ready for the reaction in the national life, which is now clearly foreshadowed. The work of the national association is on a sound business basis, systematically and thoroughly organized, reaching out to all parts of the country. The treasurer's last report showed nearly $30,000 on hand, and arrangements under way by women of wealth to raise a large annual fund. I^early one hundred WOMAN SUFFRAGE 109 and seven thousand pieces of literature were sent out from the headquarters on demand last year; over eighty thousand ar- ticles furnished by the press bureau to four thousand seven hundred newspapers ; and subscriptions received for fifty-four thousand copies of Progress, the monthly paper which they pub- lish. Organizations of women everywhere are veering around toward suffrage. The great International Council of Women, with branches in twenty countries and representing eight mil- lion members, has adopted this as part of its work. The Federation of Clubs is becoming honeycombed with woman suf- frage ideas, and has a leader among suffragists for its president. The protest made to the committee on territories of the United States Senate against classing women with idiots, insane and criminals in the suffrage clause of the proposed new states, was signed by hundreds of women's clubs that had no connec- tion with the suffrage association. Last year 339 organizations of men alone, of women alone, and of both, formed for widely different purposes, officially endorsed woman suffrage. In Chi- cago the Teachers' Federation of four thousand, the Woman's Club of one thousand two hundred and many other societies are cooperating to secure a vote for women in the new city charter. Wage-earning women and college women are forming suffrage clubs. The changed attitude of the press is everywhere noticeable. The two ponderous fulminations of ex-President Cleveland received scarcely a favorable comment, but were made the subject of endless flippant paragraphs, whereas they were merely repetitions of what were considered profound argu- ments a generation ago. On every side is the most convincing evidence of the progress of public sentiment on this question. Intrenched in the con- stitution, as the suffrage is, its possession is most difficult to obtain, but the movement for this purpose never was on as solid a foundation, the prospects never were as favorable and' its advocates never were so inspired with courage and hope as at the present time. no SELECTED ARTICLES World To-Day. 13: 1008-12. October, 1907. Electing Women to Parliament. Ida Husted Harper. This present year of 1907 marks an epoch in the evolution •of nvomankind, as for the first time in all history women have taken their seats in a national parliament as elected represen- tatives of the people. To Finland belongs the honor of this in- novation. Women tirst voted for members of parliament in New Zealand in 1893, but they are not entitled to sit in that body. They have had the parliamentary vote in Australia since 1902 and are eligible as members, but none has yet been elected, although one woman candidate for senator received a large vote at the last election. The first Finish Women's Association was founded in 1884 by the Baroness Alexandra Gripenberg, member of an ancient i)oble family, highly educated, broad and far-seeing in her views, and v^ith the means to attend international meetings of women in all countries and imbibe the universal ideas of freedom and independence. This association worked for the rights of women along all lines, but in 1892 one still more radical was organized by Annie Furuhjelm, daughter of an admiral who was next to the last governor of Alaska under Russian rule. When the necessity came for political effort this large organized body was ready to be called at once into service. The two principal associations had long demanded the suffrage for women and had a strong support always in parliament, but conditions prevented its taking action on the question. In 1899 the aft'airs of Finland reached a crisis. Its Consti- tution was annulled by the Russian government and every species of oppression used to crush the rising independence of the people. They set to work to secure half a million signatures to a petition to the Czar, and women wrote day and night be- hind barred shutters preparing ten thousand copies of this pe- tition for circulation. And women it was who, taking their lives in their hands, collected most of the signatures, four hundred of them making this canvass in Helsingfors alone. They dis- seminated literature, collected funds, attended secret conclaves and went bravely to prison and to Siberian exile — those of the middle class, peasants and wage-earners of the cities working WOMAN SUFFRAGE in and suffering together. Then came the war with Japan, the vast revohition in Russia and finally the culmination — Finland's great "strike," in October, 1905, when for a whole week there was no gas or electricity ; when not a train, tram, boat or car- riage moved; when there were no mails, no telephone service, no courts, no schools ; when soldiers, police and all public officers ceased from duty, and the women everywhere sharing all, en- during all without complaint and encouraging the men to be brave and un3aelding. As the result of it all Finland gained her Constitution and that which was most strongly demanded — the right of suffrage. In this the inclusion of women was scarcely questioned, but they themselves had made this obligatory by other means than those of patriotism and self-sacrifice in the country's darkest days. The Finnish delegates had come home from the International Council of Women, held at Berlin in 1904, quickened with the inspiration of that great meeting, and in the autumn the Woman's Alliance Union was called in Helsingfors, the first public meeting which ever took place in Finland for woman suffrage. It was announced to be for women alone and more than a thousand of all classes and all political parties were present, while hundreds were turned away for lack of room. Forty-seven memorials signed by hundreds of women were sent from various parts of the country. Resolutions were unanimously adopted demanding that the full franchise should be extended to women and that they should be made eligible for all offices. From that time the Alliance put other questions aside and devoted its energies to the movement for woman suffrage. They expected then that it would be a work of years, but in twelve months came the revolution, the "strike" and the Declaration of Rights. While this document was under consideration the wom- en appointed Dr. Tekla Hultin, a scholarly woman connected with the National Bureau of Statistics, to present their claims to be included in the provision for universal suffrage. In an- swer to her eloquent and powerful argument the franchise for women was placed in the draft for the new government, which was presented to the Czar for his approval. The Czar sent for Senator Mechelin, leader of the parliament, to consult with him as to the woman-suffrage clause, and asked many questions -112 SELECTED ARTICLES as to its working in other countries. At the close of the in- terview the Senator said: "The opinion of the nation demands it, and there is no reason to fear that women will not use their vote with the same feeling of responsibility as men." The Czar signed the document November 7, 1905. It was necessary now that the question should go before the commission which would draft the Constitution and the electoral law and ' that these should be approved by the parliament. CJn November 26 meetings of women were held in 150 districts throughout the country to choose delegates to a mass convention in Helsingfors. This took place December 7 and, although lii* days were very short, the weather cold and the roads almost im- passable, 190 delegates were in attendance, representing about twenty thousand women of all classes and conditions. The reso- lution for woman suffrage was carried amidst the enthusiasm of a large audience, committees were appointed for meetings, peti- tions, canvassing, etc., and arrangements made for three hundred lectures. This never was a political question but was placed on the programs of all parties ; associations of every kind declared for it and scarcely a voice was raised against it. In the consti- tutional committee there were but two opposing votes. In the diet it was hardly debated ; in the senate there was but one vote against it, that of a bishop who declared that women had not enough brains. There was a dominant feeling that every citi- zen should have political freedom and be invested with civic responsibility. On May 29, 1906. the Finnish parliament extended full suf- frage to all men and women twenty-four years of age*, the men to pay a poll-tax of twenty-four cents and the women of twelve cents, and all entitled to vote were made eligible to any office. The law was approved by the Czar July 20 and went into effect October i. As the women would vote for the first time on March 15, 1907, the leaders among them made extensive preparations to instruct them in their new duties. The suffrage societies, the Young Women's Christian Association, the Social Democratic clubs, the temperance and other organizations arranged for lec- tures on the new law on proportional representation and on the political issues, while in many instances these were combined WOMAN SUFFRAGE 113 Avith talks on education, temperance, purity and other social questions. Society women, young lady students, house servants and old market women with shawls over their heads sat side by side, all equally interested. Trial elections were held, halls fitted up with ballot-boxes, tickets distributed, speeches made, canvassing boards of women appointed and persons at hand to conduct everything in a legal manner. These halls were crowd- ed and the women entered into the spirit of the affair with keenest interest and enjoyment. All parties nominated women for parliament and they ad- dressed their constituencies just as the men candidates did, ex- cept that it was noted in almost every instance they took up many reform questions and did not confine themselves to poli- tics. The democratic effect of universal suffrage can in no way be so forcibly illustrated as by a list of the nineteen women who were elected : OP^ THE SWEDISH PARTY. Miss Dagmar Neovius, born May 21, 1867, head teacher in a preparatory school, 4,509 votes. OF THE YOUNG FINNISH PARTY. Miss Lucina Hagman, born June 5, 1853, principal of a mixed lyceum, 6,085 votes. Miss Alii Nissinen, born December 26, 1866, head teacher in a preparatory school, 5,220 votes. OF THE AGRARIAN PARTY. Miss Hilma Rasanen, born 1877, teacher in an elementary school, 5,608 votes. OF THE OLD FINNISH PARTY. Baroness Alexandra Gripenberg, born August 30, 1857, editor, 27,585 votes. Mrs. Evelina Ala-Kulju, born October 27, 1867, wife of a peasant, 6,942 votes. Mrs. Hedvig Gebhard, born December 14, 1867, the only M. P. who was elected with her husband, 4,859 votes. Mrs. Liisi Kivioja, born January 10, 1857, wife of a minis- ter. 114 SELECTED ARTICLES Miss Hilda Maria Kakikoski, born January 30, 1864, teacher in a lyceum, 20,411 votes. Miss ]da Wemmelpiui, born February 10, 1868, principal of a popular high school. OF THE SOCIAL DEMOCKATIC PARTY. Miss Ida Aalle, born May 6. 1875, lecturer, 6,869 votes. Mrs. Anna Maria Huotari, born June 13, 1868, officer of the S. D. Women's Club, 11,685 votes. Mrs. Mimnii Kanervo, born May 26, 1870, wife of a work- man. Mrs. Jenny Maria Kilpiainen, born January 20, 1882, textile worker, 4,628 votes. Mrs. Maria Laine, born February 13, 1868, wife of a work- man, 5,593 votes. Mrs. Hilja Parssinen, born July 3, 1876, teacher and editor of the S. D. women's paper, 29,276 votes. Mrs. Maria Raunio, born May 26, 1872, lecturer, 11,042 votes. Miss Alexander Reinholdsson, born July 1, 1873, dressmaker and lecturer for the trade-union, 14,969 votes. Miss Miina Sillanapaa, born June 4, 1866, editor and president of the servants' trade-union, 20,484 votes. In the number of women members elected the Old Fin- nish Party, which represents conservatism, ranks next to the Social Democratic, which stands for extreme radicalism. The woman who leads in number of votes is a teacher and the second on the list is Baroness Gripenberg, a member of the no- bility. When in the various districts "house mothers" were found who were good speakers or organizers, but could not leave their homes and children, the wom.en's associations, with the con- sent of the husbands, paid competent women to do the house- work and take care of the children, thus enabling the wives and mothers to give some time to public duties. Thousands of wom- en live in remote forests and far-off villages whom it was al- most impossible to reach, and yet so thorough was the canvas- sing that the election returns from many districts show a larger proportion of women voting than of men. Everywhere they were treated with entire respect. Some of them went to the polls WOMAN SUFFRAGE 115 on crutches, others were carried in chairs, the very old were as- sisted by the young, but all seem to have voted. When the women were enfranchised they decided that rather than form new parties they w^ould join the old ones which best represented their convictions, but that they would not submit blindly to dictation merely to serve political interests. For many years Finland has been in the throes of a bitter struggle and the most violent party animosities have been aroused. It is inevitable that women must share these to some degree and it is also evident that women could not wholly eradicate them if they wished. Doubtless here, as elsewhere, political evils which are unavoid- able and which exist everywhere will be ascribed to woman suf- frage by its enemies, but the leaders of the movement in Finland and those of the various organizations are earnest and sincere in desiring to make political and social conditions better through the participation of women. The program of those who are mem- bers of parliament has not been definitely announced, but it is said they are unanimous in the determination to abolish state reg- ulation of vice. They will revise the marriage laws, raise the age of consent and provide better care for illegitimate children. On these and other measures for the protection of women and children, and which will tend directly toward the improvement of society, it is claimed that they will act in unison without any regard for party lines. World's Work. 17: 11419-20. April, 1909. What Woman Suffrage Does. In the campaign for woman suffrage in the Eastern States, little is said about the experience of those Western States where women have long voted; and the reports of visitors are con- flicting. An anti-suffrage visitor to Colorado will report that the voting of the w^omen has done no good; and a suffragist will report that it has met all reasonable expectations, and, on occasion, brought good results that could not otherwise have been dreamed of. In fact, this experience is hard to report fair- ly because there have not been decisive or spectacular results. But the conclusions of a man like Judge Lindsey, of the ii6 SELECTED ARTICLES Denver Juvenile Court, are especially valuable ; for he is not only a shrewd student of such a subject, but he has known it from the inside for the fourteen years since it has been in effect. These conclusions are : Respectable women do go to the polls. Forty-two per cent, of the state is female, and an average of 40 per cent, of the total vote is cast by women. The low classes of women, there- fore, do not exert a disproportionate influence by the ballot. Women who have husbands or fathers, as a rule, vote as their husbands and fathers vote, but this is not a useless duplication of votes any more than the votes of men of the same family which, as a rule, are cast for the same candidates. And 25 per cent, of the women earn their own living. The votes of women have not taken politics out of the con- trol of the corporations nor of the bosses. It must be remem- bered, however, that there has been no chance directly to vote on this question. But fear of the women has prevented the nom- inatipn of men of bad morals and the women have defeated such men, even when nominated on regular tickets. The net result, therefore, has not been very impressive. Yet the ballot for women is not regarded as an experiment. There is no thought of restricting the suffrage to males. Nobody proposes such a thing or would dare propose it. Woman suf- frage is universally taken for granted and considered right; and the people of Colorado believe that the other states ought to adopt it. Besides Colorado, Idaho, Utah, and Wyommg have woman suffrage, and in these states there is no thought of ever going back to manhood suffrage. In Washington, the Gover- nor has just signed a bill which provides for an election in No- vember, 1910, which will decide whether women shall be allowed to vote in that state or not. In Australia and in New Zealand women vote, and the Parliament of Finland has women as mem- bers. Although in England and in our Eastern States, the cam- paign may not be successful at an early date, sooner or later it is likely to win. Judge Lindsey, it will be recalled, was re-elected last year as Judge of the Juvenile Court of Denver, as an independent can- didate, and he received more votes than both the Democratic and Republican nominees, and it was the votes of women that WOMAN SUFFRAGE 117 elected him. On other occasions, it has been shown that the women do exert a definite good influence when questions touch- ing the home, children, and personal morals take such form as to permit a clear-cut expression of opinion by the ballot. This is the one definite gain to be put to the credit of women as voters. The question of the adoption of woman suffrage in the East- ern States is a social question ; and the difficulty to be overcome is the purely social prejudice against it. The majority of women do not yet care for it — in fact, probably prefer not to have it; but their objection is not based on political reasons nor on the experience of other communities, so much as on the social habits of a fixed order of society to which the thought of practical affairs is more or less repulsive. A society that has, or thinks that it has, a fixed status is an exceedingly conservative thing. But woman suffrage does not go backward. It holds the ground that it gains, and in time it will spread — as fast and as far as the mass of women demand it. The granting of it in Sweden shows that it is a movement, too, that is not confined to English-speaking countries. AFFIRMATIVE DISCUSSION Arena. lo: 201-13. July, 1894. Last Protest Against Woman's Enfranchisement. James L. Hughes. One reads Professor Goldwin Smith's essay on "Woman suffrage" with a feeHng of regret that a man who signed John Stuart Mill's first petition in favor of the enfranchisement of married women should have written such a paper. Liberal men and women must regard his generous appeal for woman's greater freedom as more in harmony with the best thought of the pres- ent age than the writing of his essay. Every one will recognize the moral courage of the man who writes to correct what he con- ceives to be the errors promulgated in his youth, but many will doubtless see in his attitude of both earlier and later years, the same tendency to oppose the trend of popular thought. There is nothing unnatural in a conflict between the opinions of the same individual in youth and age, when maturer thought and broader vision overcome early prejudices and imperfect knowledge, but regret must always be felt when advancing years transform a champion of liberty into an opponent of reforms for which he once labored. Professor Smith's reason for changing his attitude is ''that the women of his acquaintance for whom he had most respect, and who seemed to be the best representatives of their sex, were opposed to. the change." This is not a very logical argument. Professor Smith is too liberal a man to refuse the franchise to all women because some women do not recognize the duty of voting. Duty is the broad ground on which the question rests. Thousands of true, pure, home-loving women sincerely believe it to be their duty to vote, in order to help decide great social and national questions that affect the well-being of their country and their homes. They surely have as well defined 120 SELECTED ARTICLES a right to desire to vote as Professor Smith's friends have to oppose woman's enfranchisement. The women of my acquain- tance whom I most esteem do wish to vote. They do not, how- ever, wish to compel Professor Smith's friends to vote ; neither should his friends have the right to prevent mine from voting. This is an age of individual liberty. Right and duty and con- science should guide us. Even majorities should never tyrannize over minorities in such a way as to prevent the honest expres- sion of opinions in the most effectual way — by marking a ballot. Professor Smith's article is a discussion of the marriage rela- tions of men and women ; of the admission of women to uni- versities and to professions ; of the relative amounts paid men and women for their work and similar questions, quite as much as of suffrage. All these are related to that of suffrage indirect- ly, it is true ; but they should be introduced into a consideration of the suffrage question only so far as the enfranchisement of women can be shown to be of evil or good influence in regard ,to them. It seems unnecessary to discuss, in an article on woman suffrage, the merits or demerits of all the efforts made to secure woman's freedom. If allowing woman to vote prevents her marrying or unfits her for home duties or leads to want of true harmony in the family, these are clearly legitimate reasons against woman suffrage ; but beyond these limits, the matri- monial subject, historical or philosophical, is logically out of place in dealing with the right or wrong, the expediency or in- expediency, of woman suffrage. The same criticism holds in regard to other matters incidentally related to the subject under consideration. The fact that Mill in his "Subjection of women" may be wrong in his views concerning marriage, or that an occasional intemperate advocate of woman suffrage, may have attributed woman's subordination to man's wicked desire to en- slave her, does not justify so able a writer as Professor Smith in a further entanglement of subjects not logically related. He' should have swept away confusing elements. Most advocates of woman's enfranchisement will agree with Professor Smith's opinion that "Woman's disabilities are the results of primitive conditions under which both men and women suffered, and from which both are in process of ^emancipation. Whatever may now be obsolete in the relations of husband and wife is not WOMAN SUFFRAGE 121 a relic of slavery but of primitive marriage, and may be re- garded as at worst an arrangement once indispensable which has survived its hour." In this conclusion of his elaborate argument Professor Smith is more nearly correct than Mill, logically and historically. It is equally true, however, that very many liberal men and v/omen think that the present conventional ideal of marriage retains some of the evils of that "primitive arrangement" which have survived beyond their proper hour. Such questions will be considered in this article only so far as they are directly related to woman suffrage. The general basis on which woman suffrage should stand or fall, as laid down by Professor Smith, is clear and fair:— That to which every member of a community, whether man, woman or child, whether white or black, whether above or below the age of twenty-one, has a right, is the largest attainable meas- ure of good government. If this [woman suffrage] or any other political change would be conducive to good government, the whole community has a right to it; if it would not, the whole com- munity including women or those, whoever they may be, whom it proposes to enfranchise, has a right to a refusal of the change. What is good for woman, is good in the same measure for man, and ought not for a moment to be withheld. The plain question is whether the exercise of political power by women w«uld be generally conducive to good government; if it would not, the concession would be a wrong done to the whole community. These statements are honorable and just. Woman demands no special laws. She asks her place as a citizen, and wishes only to stand, a free woman, side by side with her brother man to aid in working out the highest destiny of humanity. Where her influence would be evil instead of good she has no desire to go. More than this, she is willing to trust enlightened and liberal men to decide in regard to the justness and the wis- dom of her claims to the right of a higher and broader sphere of duty. Professor Smith is right, too, when he says, "As to the equality of the sexes, no question is necessarily raised." The question of woman suffrage can be settled entirely independently of abstract discussions regarding woman's complete equality with man. Many fair-minded people are driven to take an an- tagonistic attitude toward woman suffrage because its advocates unnecessarily raise incidental discussion regarding the equality of the sexes which are misleading. It is fair to advocates of 122 SELECTED ARTICLES equal suffrage to say that their use of the word "equality" has been misunderstood. The claim to equality does not mean that woman's nature is the same as man's; but that woman should be equal with man in legal rights, and free to use her power for good as man may — by pen and tongue and vote. The questions of equality in brain power, in physique and in natural tendencies, cannot logically be made the basis of argument either for or against woman suffrage. Whatever woman's powers are, they constitute her individuality, and this individ- uality is the complement of man's, and is as essential as his in securing perfect harmony in any department of human work. Beyond this point, even Professor Smith's beautiful language cannot charm us into partial agreement with him. The reasons for differing from his conclusions will be found in the following answers to his arguments, which are given in his own words : — "A man may have liberty without a vote, and a vote without liberty." This statement is more epigrammatic than accurate. No man is free in the true sense of the word unless he has the fullest rights of citizenship, independent of all limitations. The right to vote is the highest test of liberty. "Women cannot claim the suffrage as a class, since they are not a class but a sex." The injustice of refusing the suffrage to a sex is much greater than refusing it to a race or a class. No race or class includes half the people in the world. But women do not claim the suffrage either as a class or a sex ; they claim it as individuals — as beings created by God, and held responsible for their acts quite as much as men are. They realize their power to think, and they ask the right to crystallize their thoughts into effective agencies against evil. They deny that the fact of being women destroys their individuality or re- lieves them of responsibility. Women do not think it right to give the suffrage to any class as a class, but to all honest in- dividuals capable of using it intelligently. "For an abstract claim of right there appears to be no foundation. Power which is natural carries with it right, though it is subject to the restraint of conscience." This is simply a beautifully masked assertion of the horrible doctrine that "Might is right." It ignores the fact, too, that intellectual and spiritual powers are the highest powers, and that they are WOMAN SUFFRAGE 123 "natural powers" quite as much as physical force is. Nothing- but the inherited tendency to assume superiority for the male sex, could lead a liberal and cultured man to state that man has any abstract right to vote that does not belong equally to woman. Woman is governed by law as man is ; woman may own prop- erty and pay taxes as man does ; woman is interested in the home and in the state as fully as man is; woman is as much interested in her children as man is; woman is a responsible in- dividual quite as much as man is. It is utterly unjust to say that every abstract claim of right that can be established in favor of man's voting does not belong equally to woman. "Man alone can uphold government and enforce the law. Let the edifice of law be as moral as you will, its foundation is the force of the community, and the force of the community is male. Laws passed by the woman's vote will be felt to have no force behind them. Would the stronger sex obey any laws manifestly carried by the female vote, in the interests of woman against man? Man would be tempted to resist woman's government when it galled him." Women have made no pro- posal to establish a government by women. They strongly object to government by one sex, either male or female. It is not possible to have all the men voting on one side, and all the women on the other. All women do not think alike, nor will they ever vote unanimously any more than do the men. It is purely imaginary to speak of woman's government. Govern- ment will always be maintained by a majority composed of the united votes of men and women. Moreover votes are now cast in the ballot box, and it will not be possible to find out whether the majority consists chiefly of men or of women. Therefore it is clear that the question of force cannot be brought into the suffrage discussion. The force of a nation must remain on the side of the majority. But modern governments do not rely on force for their existence or for the execution of their laws. The edicts of despots had to be forced on unwilling people. Rebels to-day know that their rebellion is not against kings or gov- ernments, but against the will of the people. Men submit to laws because they have shared in making them. "The transfer of power from the military to the unmilitary sex involves a change in the character of a nation. It involves 124 SELECTED ARTICLES in short, national emasculation." Again it is assumed that wom- an suffrage means woman's rule and man's dethronement. Again it must be stated that unity of rule is the aim of all reputable advocates of woman's enfranchisement. It is probable this would result in "a change in the character of the nation," but not such a change as that dreaded by Professor Smith. The "war" argument is a very old one, often answered. Women suffer as much as men from war. Their hardships at home are often equal, and their anxieties greater than those of the soldiers on the field or in the camp. These soldiers are husbands, sons, brothers or lovers of sorrowing women. Many women labor in hospitals and various other ways for the soldiers. Woman's work is not man's work, nor man's work woman's, in war or in peace ; but her work is quite as needful to the world's advancement, both in peace and war, as man's. The time Cometh, too, when *'War shall be no more," and, however men may sneer at woman suffrage, woman's work -will aid in the ful- filment of this prophecy. "One of the features of a revolutionary era is the prevalence of a feeble facility of abdication. The holders of power, how- ever natural and legitimate it may be, are too ready to resign at the first demand." This is an age of evolution, not of revolu- tion. In the suffrage question, for instance, no one proposes to disenfranchise man and enfranchise woman in his stead. That would be revolutionary. The proposal of this era is to recognize the duty and extend the right of voting to interested, intelligent and responsible human beings who are not now enfranchised. This is just and reasonable evolution. It may seem presumptu- ous to hesitate to accept the statement of so eminent an historical authority as Professor Smith, but the impression does not pre- vail generally that the holders of power are too ready to resign at the first demand. Absolutism granted the Magna Charta with a very bad grace. The swords of the barons were more cogent than the king's "feeble facility of abdication." The privileged holders of authority have never shown a tendency to yield grace- fully even to the demands of freedom and justice. It is a , glorious truth that as men grow more free, they become more just. Each generation transmits more liberal instincts than it received. Relics of barbaric injustice are swept away rapidly WOMAN SUFFRAGE 125 by the ever rising tide of popular freedom. More can be ac- complished now in a year of light than formerly in a century of darkness. The high priest of aggressive liberalism should not describe the surrender of wrong to the ever increasing power of enlightened progressiveness as the "feeble facility of abdica- tion." "The elevation of woman is a different thing from assimila- tion to man.'' Woman does not ask assimilation to man. She could not be assimilated if she wished such a change. God made her woman, and she cannot make herself man. He>* meiiia) and moral nature is as distinctive as her physical nature. Just why Professor Smith imagines that the suffrage would assimilate her to man is not clear. He grants woman the right lo think, cUid to express her thoughts in books or on the plat- form. These things do not assimilate her to man ; neither would the making of a ballot paper. "Woman, if she becomes a man, will be a weaker man." This statement rests upon a misconception. Women do not wish to be virified. Women are not virihed by public work. Tliey write learnedly on public questions without loss of wom- anly tenderness or grace. Surely Professor Smith does not ex- pect that going once in four or five years, or even once a year, to vote will make a woman virile. Lucy Stone could quell riotous mobs at anti-slavery meetings, but she was always a sweet-voiced, modest little woman, and she loved her hus- band and babe as well as any wife or mother ever did. Mrs. IJowe and Mrs. Livermore have struck strong blows nobly for woman's freedom, and for many other great reforms, but , the tongues whose eloquence raised the people to great deeds, also sung sweet lullabies to happy children in their model homes. They are now silver-haired women more than seventy years old, but they are as distinctly womanly as any of their Christian sisters in the world. Women cannot be transformed into men. If they could be there would be less hope in their enfranchisement. Woman suffrage will not merely increase votes — it will bring a new element into the voting power of the world. Women are essentially different from men, and they cannot become like men. The unity of the woman element with the man element in character, is as essential to true harmony and true progress in the state as in the house. 126 SELECTED ARTICLES '*If woman becomes a man she must be prepared to resign her privilege as a woman. She cannot expect to have both privilege and equality." Thoughtful women demand no privi- lege because they are women. They would be satisfied if they could stand beside their brothers on a perfectly equal footing. They reject subordination, and they resent the patronizing gal- lantry which assumes their inferiority or their vanity. They see that their sex has been weakened both by subjection and by sentimental gallantry. It is not complimentary to men to assume that they are courteous to women because they believe them to be inferior or weaker, or that men would be less polite to women if women had the privilege of living up to their highest ideals of duty by taking part in the development of their country. Neither is it complimentary to womanhood to tell women that they have special privileges because they are effeminate, and that they will lose these privileges unless they respectfully keep their places in the sphere assigned to them by men. Even Professor Smith's exquisite language fails to give dignity to this old "Then you may stand in the street car" argument. "What leaders of the women's rights movement practically seek is, for the woman power without responsibility; for the man responsibility without power." Both these statements mis- represent the men and women who advocate woman suffrage. Women recognize their responsilibity ; at least those who ask enfranchisement do so. Experience would deepen this sense. Some" women do not ask the right to vote simply because they do not recognize their responsibility, but those who clearly see It merely ask the right to do their duty. Women do not seek to take the power out of men's hands but wish to share power as well as responsibility with them. "The number of women who have spontaneously asked for the change appears to be small." Every extension of the fran- chise from the time of Simon de Montfort to the present, might at first have been objected to on the same ground. No other unenfranchised body ever awakened to a sense of the in- justice of being refused the ballot so rapidly as women have, during the past ten years. If this argument had force, it might have been used to prevent every progressive movement in the de- velopment of civilization. Even Christianity itself must have WOMAN SUFFRAGE 127 been condemned if it had been tested by the number who "spon- taneously" asked for it. "There appears to be a tendency among the leaders of the revolt of woman to disparage matrimony as a bondage, and the rearing of children is an aim too low for intellectual being." It is natural to suppose that this general statement is limited to the female leaders of the so-called revolt. No one would charge such men as Wendell Phillips, George William Curtis, Phillip Brooks, Joseph Cook, T. W. Higginson, Emerson, Longfellow, Whittier, Bishop Simpson, Charles Sumner, Chief Justice Chase. Charles Kingsley, Professor Huxley, or more than half the members of the British Parliament with such a tendency. The Countess of Aberdeen is president of the Woman's En- franchisement Association in England. Lucy Stone, Mary A. Livermore and Julia Ward Howe led the woman suffrage move- ment in America. The leadership of these noble women did not interfere with their motherhood. All distinguished women do not marry — neither do all distinguished men. "Women must bear and nurse children, and if they do this, it is impossible that they should compete with men in occupations which demand complete devotion as well as superior strength of muscle or brain !" This argument might fairly be ruled out of a discussion on woman suffrage, but it may be answered in several ways. Women do not wish to compete with men in all occupations. They are the best judges of what they should or should not do, and every rule of fair play demands that they be allowed to decide for themselves. Not all women get the opportunity of marrying. Voting is not a laborious occupation, requiring "complete devotion as well as superior strength." It means but a pleasant walk and a few minutes' time. Canvassing will not always be an important factor in elections, and so long as it has to be done, married women with young families can be spared from taking part in it. There are plenty of men and unmarried women, and widows and married women with grown-up children, to do all the essential work of electioneering. Voting would waste none of woman's strength, and not so much of her time as is needed to make a fashionable call. But many married women have to bear and raise their children, and earn most of the money for their support, too. There are too many 128 SELECTED ARTICLES cases in cities where women support drunken husbands in addi- tion to their children, yet on election day the husband may vote for the politicians who license the drink traffic, while the suffer- ing wife has no right to vote for the protection of herself and her children. ''Hitherto the family has been a unit, represented in the state by its head ; a change that throws the family into the political caldron surely calls for special consideration." Hitherto the family has not been represented at all as a unity. One unit in the family has represented himself and assumed to represent others. The man who gathers the adult members of his family together to consult them with a view of representing the opinion of the majority of them by his vote, would be a curiosity. No man can, with any sense of fairness, be said to represent his family unless he does this. The family has not always been a unit, because, in many cases, the father and several adult sons in the same family have votes. This fact has not disrupted the peace of reasonable families. It is a strange conception of family harmony that husband and wife must think alike in re- gard to all subjects. This would not be true harmony, it would be mere sameness ; and it is only logically conceivable on the sur- render of the individuality of one to that of the other. This can never occur without degradation to the one who has to submit. Woman has had too much of such degradation. Why should two reasonable beings cease to recognize each others' right to in- dependent judgment because they are married to each other? Woman suffrage will elevate the condition of both husband and wife. The wife will be emancipated from a subjection pro- nounced by God to be a curse, and the husband will be saved from the debasing selfishness of believing himself to be the only member of his household worthy of being entrusted with the dignity of voting. "When party lays its hand on the home, those who care for the home more than for party receive a warning to be on their guard." The home should be a vital element in national life. Whoever brings the home element to bear more directly on poli- tics is a benefactor to his race. The larger the voting power of a home, the greater its influence becomes in moulding the laws by which homes are to be governed. Woman directly represents the home, therefore she should vote. WOMAN SUFFRAGE 129 . "Man's life is more or less public, while that of woman is in the home.'' Granting the correctness of this statement, does it not prove the need of women suffrage in order that the home may be representd in the body politic? Is the home of so little consequence to the state that it needs no direct representation? The home element is the most important in the state; and the fact that "The life of the woman is in the home" proves beyond a doubt that woman is naturally intended to speak and vote for the home. "Men feel as a sex the full measure of responsibility in pub- lic action. This is not felt as strongly by their partners." It would be a great blessing if by a stroke of his magic pen Pro- fessor Smith could make men live up to the first of these state- ments. Comparatively few men realize the sacred responsibility of public action, even in voting. It may be true that men feel public responsibility more than women. There is only one way in which it can become clear to the mind of either man or woman, and that is by doing duty. Self activity is an absolute essential in revealing thought, feeling or responsibility. Women will feel the responsibilities of public duties when they are allowed to perform them. "Have women as a sex any wrongs which male legislators cannot be expected to redress?" This is not the question. Women do not ask the right to vote merely to redress their wrongs. They ask the franchise because they believe themselves to be important elements in the national life of the country in which thy live. They seek to vote and claim the right to be elected to positions on school boards, municipal councils, and even in legislatures, parliaments and congresses, in order that they may elevate the tone of public morals, and aid in securing laws for the protection of their brothers, sisters, sons and daughters. They do not wish to vote only for women or on questions relating to women. They know that "Unconscious- ness of sex is essential to the best work of either sex." They wish to stand side by side with men in working out the grandest destiny of the race. It may not be out of place to say, howefver. that male legislatures never can represent women fully. No legislature composed of one class or sex ever has represented or ever can represent another class or sex. Again, until women are 130 SELECTED ARTICLES allowed to vote no legislature of any kind can possibly represent them. Representation necessitates voluntary choice on the pan of those represented. Unless a parliament is elected by women as well as men it cannot claim to represent women in any accurate sense. "Male legislatures have already gone far in giving women statutory protection." Women do not ask protection. They ask justice. They ask recognition of their powers, and of their right to use them. They, ask freedom to perform their duty as they conceive it. True women resent man's ideal that woman is a weak and delicate being to be protected. From what are they to be protected? The only protection they need is from man himself, in his assumption of their just rights and privileges. Woman claims liberty, not protection. She is not content with barbaric or oriental subordination, nor with the equally degrading ideal of an extravagant chivalry. She asks recognition as a good, sensible, human being, with powers as distinct and as essential as man's, which she purposes to use in cooperation with man in working out human destiny. "There remain few bars to the competition of women with men in the professions and trades." Why should there be any artificial barriers in woman's way to prevent her doing any honest work for which she has a taste, and for which she deems herself fitted? What right has man to raise any barriers against woman? What right have women even to bar any pathway against an individual woman who wishes to walk therein? Lib- eral men and women are rapidly sweeping away the conven- tionalities that have crippled the efforts of women circumscribed their spheres and dwarfed their very souls ; but every step towards the light has been taken in opposition to unprogressive men and conventional women who vainly tried to check enlight- ening truth. "That women have confidence in the justice and affection of men their present appeal shows ; for it is f ron\ man's free will that they must expect the cession of the suffrage." Women have confidence in the justice of enlightened and unprejudiced men, and they are now engaged in enlightening man and freeing him from his dwarfing prejudices. The fact that the ablest modern theologians and social scientists and many of the greatest states- WOMAN SUFFRAGE 131 men are in favor of woman suffrage, gives woman confidence in man's justice. The recent majority in the British House of Commons naturally strengthens the confidence, but it does more, it increases woman's faith in the justice of her cause. Woman asks man to undo a great wrong, and she believes he will be wise enough to recognize woman's responsible individuality, and just enough to free her from the restrictions of a primitive civiliza- tion. The fact that woman appeals to man for justice, does not prove that women should be satisfied to allow man alone to continue to make the laws, but the reverse. She appeals to man because at present he holds the power in his own hands, so that her appeal cannot logically be used, as Professor Smith uses it, for the basis of an argument against woman suffrage. 'Ts it not because women have kept out of politics, and gen- erally out of the contention arena, that they have remained gentle, tender and delicate women?" Politics should not be de- grading. It is discreditable to men that the sacred duty of state- craft should be associated with any processes or experiences of a debasing character. But the presence of woman purifies politics. The women of Wyoming are as womanly and as gentle as those in the neighboring states where women do not vote. The women who lead in municipal reforms in England, or who cham- pion the cause of woman's enfranchisement there, are as true and pure and sweet-voiced as those who are conventional models. Politics should mean high thinking on social and national questions, and the carrying out of calm decisions by voting for right measures. Thinking about her country's history and pres- ent condition, its hopes and relationships to other countries, need not destroy a woman's gentleness. Strength of character does not rob woman of her witching charm. The condition of politics, as admitted by Professor Smith, indicates the need of women's elevating, purifying influence. "At present the demand in England is only for the enfran- chisement of spinsters and widows. But this limitation, while it^ betrays a consciousness that there .would be danger to the peace and order of the family, is understood to be merely a stroke of tactics. Widow and spinster suffrage is the thin edge of the wedge." Women have not been satisfied from the be- ginning with "widow and spinster suffrage," nor did they ever 132 SELECTED ARTICLES admit for a moment that the enfranchisement of married women would "endanger the peace and order of the family." Women accepted jnst what men were liberal enough to give, and men declined to allow married women to vote because '*They were already represented by their husbands." Professor Smith ad- mits that ''Erom the political point of view there would be manifest absurdity and wrong in making marriage politically penal, and excluding from the franchise the very women who are commonly held to be best discharging the duties of their sex, and would be likely to be its fairest representatives." The advocates of woman suffrage say "amen" to this. They think it strange that men are willing to allow a woman to vote until she marries, and then say to her practically, "Since you were foolish enough to marry a man you are no longer worthy of being trusted with a ballot." Such a law is absurd and wrong, but women did not make it. The law that women would like to have prevail everywhere is that in force in New Zealand, — "Every person of the age of twenty-one years shall be entitled to vote in all elections." "The woman of the political platform does not limit her am- bition to a vote. She wants to sit in Parliament or in Congress. Why not? Many of the men in any parliament or congress could easily be replaced by women of larger intelligence, greater breadth of view and better education. There are plenty of women of leisure whose duties would permit them to assume the responsibilities of representing their fellow citizens in parlia- ment. There is no new principle in this idea. Women have long been elected to positions on school boards and municipal coun- cils. Tt might, as Professor Smith says, "shock the prejudices" of some conventional people at first to see women in Parliament, but prejudices have a habit of being shocked by the practical developments of our progressive age. The best thing to do with prejudices is to shock them. Prejudices must always yield to common sense and justice, and each successive generation be- comes freer from the bondage of prejudices. It will be a great event in the world's history when the first woman takes her seat in Congress or Parliament. When the happy time comes, the world will marvel that it took so many centuries to accomplish such manifest justice. There is no danger that women will turn WOMAN SUFFRAGE 133 all the men out of Parliament. It would be as unjust and as unwise to have the men ruled by women alone, as it now is to have women ruled by men alone. ''Wyoming and New Zealand have made the experiment of woman suffrage. Let them fairly try it, and if the result is good, let the rest of the world follow. Let Wyoming and New Zealand try it, say for ten years." This does not seem un- reasonable. So thorough a student of history as Professor Smith knows that every great reform and scientific development has been demonstrated to be impossible by learned theorists who opposed it. He knows the crushing effect that experience has had on ''impossible theorists." It was clearly demonstrated by the scientific men of England that a locomtive could not run on smooth rails, but the locomotive ran and has been running ever since. It is prudent to close an essay against woman suf- frage by suggesting that it be tested. It is evident that Profes- sor Smith's opinion, if not his hope, is that the experiments he suggests will prove woman suffrage to be a failure. But woman suffrage has been tested for twenty-five years in Wyoming, and legislators, judges, ministers and newspaper writers unanimously pronounce it in all respects a success. The present governor of that state forcibly says, "Not one of the predictions of its opponents has been verified." Professor Smith affirms, "The neighboring states, which must have the clearest view of the results, have not been induced to follow the example of Wy- oming." The ink with which these words were written was not long dry when Colorado by popular vote adopted woman suf- frage by a splendid majonty. The test has been made in Eng- land, in Canada and in nearly every one of the United States for years. Women have voted in school and municipal elections, and have been elected to public offices and to representative bodies, with only good results. There is no logic, but only prejudice, to prove that what is just and wise in school and municipal elections is not wise and just in parliamentary elec- tions. The test suggested has been made and woman suffrage is a fixed element in human development. Women have shown themselves capable of taking an intelligent part in public affairs ; they have to submit to laws on the same conditions as men ; they pay taxes ; they are producers of wealth ; they are deeply 134 SELECTED ARTICLES interested in moral and philanthropic work; they naturally repre- sent the home, and they are responsible human beings. Every male enemy of the home may vote. Mothers see saloon keepers and profligates, who aim to destrop their sons and daughters, helping to make the laws, while they themselves are unable tO' do so. Ignorant foreigners, uneducated men of native birth, weak young men without experience or training, are allowed to vote in all elections because they* are males; but the most cultured and intelligent women are refused this right because they are women. Sex slavery is more indefensible than race or class slavery; and the complete emancipaticn of woman will be a grander triumph for justice and truth and liberty than the granting of freedom to any race or class in the history of the world. Arena. 15: 642-53. March, 1896. Bishop Doane and Woman Suffrage. Margaret Noble Lee. The bishop's objections to woman suffrage are ranged under four heads, which he says he will not argue but merely, assert. He asserts : 1. Suffrage is not a right of anybody. It is a privilege grant- ed by tlie Constitution to such persons as the framers of the Constitution and founders of the government deemed best. Looseness in the use of terms gives this assertion more explosive force than direction. To shift to the misty realm of metaphysics and fence with superfine sophistries concerning dis- tinctions between rights and privileges has been the traditional tactics of equal suffrage opponents. In this contest the ground should be the Constitution, lighted by plain common sense, and the weapons exact terms. As to ^'anybody" having a right to suffrage regardless of place or qualifications, there is no such question at issue. No- woman suffragist holds suffrage to be the right of the alien, the defective in mind, the criminal, or the juvenile classes. In order to differ from suffragists, the bishop's contention must be that suffrage is not the right of any citizen of the republic ; further, inasmuch as woman suffragists do not claim the legaU WOMAN SUFFRAGE 135 right of suffrage, he must mean precisely that suffrage is not the just, natural, and inherent right of any American citizen. The Constitution twice refers to the "right of citizens of the United States to vote," in one place providing a penalty for the infringement of that right, and in another declaring that it shall not be denied because of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. By thus providing penalties for the in- fringement of the right to vote, the framers of the Constitution no more assumed to create and bestow that right than statutes for the punishment of theft assume to create the right of owner- ship. In both cases the enactment merely protects what it recognizes to be already in existence. The fact is, the bishop is guilty of an anachronism ; he puts the cart before the horse. The Constitution is the effect and not the cause of suffrage. So far were the framers of that in- strument from creating the "privilege of suffrage" that had not popular suft'rage breathed into it the breath of life, the docu- ment would have remained absolutely impotent. On the bishop's hypothesis, whence came the "privilege" of the people to vote upon the adoption of the Constitution — whence the right of the founders to frame a constitution? The bishop's foundation for suffrage has the same support as the fabled Atlas who upheld the world standing on the back of an elephant, which stood upon the back of a tortoise. In the critical period of the formation of the Constitution, the people were in no mood to accept as a privilege from any body of men what they already enjoyed as a right. They had won self-government and political equality, and the ballot was the symbol of their freedom. Suffrage is insep- arable from self-government, and. the right to it is inherent in the citizens of the republic. The justification of a republic lies in the nature of personality. Mulford in his profound work, "The Nation," says, "Personality has its condition and its realization only in freedom." While the bishop finds in his theory a reason for excluding woman from participation in the state, this philosophy admits her. Shut out from state membership, she is arbitrarily cut off from the first condition of self-realization. Her personality with which she is divinely endowed is forcibly restricted by human power. The bishop asserts : 136 SELECTED ARTICLES 2. The old political proverb, "No taxation without representa- tion," is utterly inapplicable to this question. It grew out of the tyrannical action of a government across the sea in which not one of all the people on whom the tax was levied had the faintest voice in the framing of the laws nor in the choice of the gov- ernment. . . . But women who are taxed are represented by their relatives, by their potent influence, and by man's sense of justice. The pith of this assertion is that our famous tax creed does not apply to women, for the reason that women who are taxed are represented by some or all of the three agencies deemed by the bishop equivalent to suffrage for women. While one is tempted to inquire whether the bishop would be willing to vest his vote in his relatives, merge it in his potent influence, or waive it, confiding to man's sense of justice, the point may be conceded that if women who are taxed can be proved to be. represented, the old adage is inapplicable. The claim that taxed women are represented involves the admission of their right to representation. It remains to de- termine in what way this is provided for and secured to them. Representation in any sense worth the name has as its essential characteristic the responsibility, of the representative to those he represents, who on election day can bring him to strict account- ability. Clearly the representation accorded to women by the bishop is not of this kind ; it has no legal sanction ; it is optional with the representative ; it is a voluntary guardianship, such as the government extends to Indians not taxed. The colonists were favored with this mode of representation. They had relatives ''across the sea ;" they had "potent influence" in Parlia- ment ; they had ''man's sense of justice" to rely upon. They re- fused to pay taxes ; they rebelled. They knew that representation without responsibility is mockery. Even if this pseudo representation were adequate, taxed women would be least assured of it, for the majority of them are husbandless, and their male relatives may have wives of their own to "represent" or may differ from them in political opinions. Tax-paying widows and single women thus comprise a class of political pariahs bearing the burdens of government but subject to the will of the governing caste. In New York state, for example, on an assessed valuation of a billion dollars, women pay in round numbers one million dollars in taxes, more money than the British government annually exacted froms the colonists. WOMAN SUFFRAGE 137 The theory of vicarious representation for women is founded upon the timeworn notion that the family is the political unit, that all women worth considering aire married, and that the married woman is still a jemme couverte, with neither person- ality, nor force in the state. But the family is not the political unit in any sense. A political unit has a single vote and retains that vote. A family may have one vote, may have many, or may have none.. The voting strength of the family depends on the number of males in it, and families without male members are political wards. Aside from its irresponsibility, its unequal distribution among women, its legal non-existence, political representation of one sex by another is in its nature impossible. A vote is the ex- pression of a will ; two wills make two votes, and if but one vote be cast, injustice is done either to the strength of two wills or the individual judgment of the one not expressed. If the will of the woman is not expressed, an afifront is offered to the individuality of one whom the state has now recognized as a person and therefore entitled to expression. If the man change his vote at the persuasion of his wife, she is represented, but he is not, which is as unjust as the ordinary situation to-day, in which this evil is rare. As a matter of fact, comparatively few men tax their minds with delicate adjustments and balanc- ings in order that their vote may represent the composite vote of two. The average man votes as he wishes and represents his wife as he wishes her represented. The bishop asserts : 3. Equality does not mean identity of duties, rights, priv- ileges', occupations. The sex differences are proof enough of this. The paths in which men and women are set to walk are parallel, but not the same. This statement is absolutely sound ; it is a truism. No amount of legal equality can do away with natural differences, and this holds between men and men as well as between men and women. The black man has legal equality with the white, but his "duties, rights, privileges, occupations," are not identical, and no law can make them so. All that women seek of the law is the equality granted to the negro, and they seek this because they realize that they have duties to the state which are not identical with those of men. The bishop fears that this equality 138 SELECTED ARTICLES would destroy the ''equilibrium of society," and quotes the words of St. Paul, *Tf the whole body were hearing, where were the smelling?" This fear is groundless. Like the human body, the body politic is not "one member, but many" ; and in the very chapter containing the passage quoted, St. Paul emphasizes the importance to the body of all its members, and condemns the disparaging by one member of the use or need of another. The trouble in the body politic has been that one^member has assumed to be the whole body, and has arrogantly said to the other, "I have no need of thee." The bishop is alarmed lest political equality may disturb economic laws. He pictures "overstocked profess^'ons, men and woVnen crowding each other in and out of occupations, neglected duties, responsibilities divided until they are destroyed ... if this unnatural idea be enforced." This figment of the imagina- tion is "purely prophetic without the inspiration of prophecy." The bishop imagines woman's industrial freedom to be dependent upon her political emancipation. As a matter of fact woman is to-day as free in the choice of profession or occupation as the ballot can ever make her. The last census reveals the presence of women in almost every remunerative employment pursued in the United States, and yet we hear of no consequent friction in the shop nor misery in the home. If economic equality does not produce fratricidal competition in the labor world, how is political equality to bring this about? The bishop has again mistaken effect for cause. The suffrage movement is a result of industrial freedom, not its cause. And statisticians agree that the entrance of women into the business world, instead of pro- ducing the evils here conceived, has been a beneficent means in relieving the wants of homes. The bishop asserts : 4. The theory of increased wages for women to be secured by giving- votes to women workers, is equally preposterous. Wag- es', like work, are regulated by the unfailing law of supply and demand. Women do not expect to force up wages by their ballots any more than men can now do so, nor do they think that their votes will ever work miracles ; but they do count upon securing by their ballots equal pay for equal work in municipal, state, or national service, such as a statute of Wyoming provides for that state. WOMAN SUFFRAGE 139^ So much for the "fundamental and axiomatic truths" of the bishop's argument. The bishop next proceeds with some personal objections to the enfranchisement of women. In his opinion, some of the bad results would be decadence of gallantry in men, increase of re- ligious prejudices in political questions, multiplication of venal voters, and contention in homes. Loss of gallantry has been the fevorite bogy of anti-suffragists to scare off women from this reform. It should be known by this time that if the issue involved a choice between justice and gallantry, suffragists would unanimously prefer justice. However, they hold American man- hood in too high respect to believe its crowning characteristic of courtesy to women merely superficial, and they fail to note any diminution in the politeness of men towards themselves. The women of Wyoming boast of the chivalry of their men, which seems to have withstood the shock of being "jostled at the polls." Men may be jammed by women in street cars» crushed at receptions, elbowed in markets, made to take their turn at box-offices, but we are told that they will not be jostled at the polls. By a curious process of reasoning the bishop discovers equally strong objections ^to the vote of women, in their good- ness and in their badness. In one paragraph he applauds their native religious fervor, and in the next is horrified at the num- ber of corrupt women that would be added to the electorate. Undoubtedly when admitted to the franchise, women will take their religion with them ; but if it be deserving of the "infinite honor" with which the bishop regards it, it should preserve them against the bitter "religious" , feuds he anticipates. At its worst it would stop short of the shedding of blood, which has marked recent theological differences of male political factions, in a number of cities. And he insists that what damage in- judicious good w^omen may fail to do in government, wicked women will compass by the sale of their votes. If woman suf- frage were yet a mere theory, such a prediction as this would be more pardonable ; but wherever equal suffrage prevails, all parties agree that women as a sex cast pure billots. At all events the same means adopted to deal with venality in men voters will be equally effective in the case of women. 140 SELECTED ARTICLES In the equal-suffrage home, according to the bishop, either the wife must echo her husband or bedlam will break loose, and "in the heat and violence of party differences a new cause of dissension and alienation be added to the already strained re- lations in many families." The strife extends below stairs, kitchen arraying itself against parlor, and for days at election time, home life becomes a prolonged political broil. This jere- miad might affect timid suffragists, were it not in its nature a conclusion from an "imaginary premise,-' which the bishop else- where condemns as ''illogical to the last degree." Under the same roof are now found differences in religious l)eliefs, fre- quently between husband and wife, and generally between mis- tress and maid, without destruction of domestic concord ; and it is improbable that less vital differences will ruin homes otherwise happy. To the bishop's question, ''Shall the cook leave her kitchen to cast a vote which shall counterbalance that of her mistress?" the answer is an emphatic Yes, just as the coach- man does ; and many mistresses might thus learn a needed lesson • in political equality already learned by their husbands through the votes of their employees. The bishop reaches the climax of assertion when he says : There is no freer human being on earth to-day, thank God, than the American woman. She has all liberty that is not license. Acting upon this theory Miss Anthony cast a vote at one elec- tion with her fellow-townsmen, and was fined one hundred dol- lars by a United States judge. Such an assertion finds its an- swers in the words of John Randolph : "That state in which any people is divested of the power of self-government, and regulated by laws to which its assent is not required and may not be given, is political slavery." The political enfranchisement of women is grounded in justice, in science, and in the theory of the modern state. "Jus- tice," declared Webster, "is the greatest concern of man on earth." Only through its application have the rights of individ- uals been conceived and acknowledged. Only through the posses- • sion-of rights is moral growth in the state possible. This growth is the law of both sexes and its development requires freedom. WOMAN SUFFRAGE 141 Men have won this freedom from the hands of tyranny, and on the ground of justice women demand it of them. On what principle can men withhold it? Has either sex the prerogative to determine the rights of the other sex? Such an assumption in any field but politics would meet with universal derision. Society makes progress along various lines — industry, culture, religion, and politics, the aim and object of all being the moral elevation of the individual and of the community. Each depart- ment of activity offers to the individual an opportunity for use- fulness, and should be open to every responsible person so that according to his or her peculiar talents each may serve the great social end. Industry, culture, and religion are now open to woman, but she is still denied the opportunity to serve the state by the performance oi political duties. But if man has the right to exclude her from this field, he has the same right to limit her in other directions. In that case he should prescribe her duties, in fact become the keeper of her conscience. Nature, then, has made an egregious blunder in giving woman conscience or will of her own. Man either has complete sovereignty over woman, or his assumption of it in any province is usurpation. As a matter of history, the arguments used to bar woman from state functions are of a piece with those formerly employed to keep her from business, education, and the professions. In excluding woman from the suffrage man not only assumes political sovereignty over her but moral superiority as well. The exercise of the suffrage to-day is conceded to be a moral obligation. But it is urged that this obligation does not rest on woman. Who is to determine this? Are moral duties to be assigned by one sex to the other? or by majorities? The essential feature of moral duty lies in each individual determining his or her own, so long as the rights of others are not interfered with. Woman cannot be a free moral agent while arbitrarily restricted in any sphere of moral action. And if the proposition of Burke that "The qualifications for government are virtue and wisdom, actual or presumptive," contains any truth, suffrage is as much the woman's moral duty as the man's. A stock objection of opponents to equal suffrage is that woman has all she can do as mother of the race. Sociology demonstrates this objection to be without scientific basis. The evolution of the 142 SELECTED ARTICLES state has been from a military to an industrial plane. In warring societies and epo'chs, where mortality is great, the birth-rate has been correspondingly high, and the maternal function emphasized to the suppression of other capacities in woman. The same law holds in the animal kingdom. Spencer shows that species destined to heavy chance mortality meet the emergency by enor- mous reproduction. With increased life chances offspring are less numerous. Accordingly in industrial societies the birth-rate decreases, and quality replaces quantity as the criterion of the family. The development of society from the military to the industrial stage has transformed the life of woman no less than of man. Smaller families, the general employment of servants, and the introduction into the household of labor-saving inventions and manufactured products now afford women time for new activi- ties. Some of the sex are devoting their leisure to "pink teas" and other "social functions" ; many, however, find in it an op- portunity for larger usefulness, to themselves, to their families, and to society. Enlarged contact with the world has forced upon the atten- tion of some of these women social problems which centuries of Christian civilization guided and controlled by man have not solved. These problems in great part affect the family and the home, but women in their present status are powerless to cope with them. They have begun to realize that it is vain to expect virtuous and happy homes in great numbers while pernicious influences are so unrestrictedly at work in the state, counter- balancing more or less the effects of early training and following their new opportunity they regard it as their duty to help guard the course as well as the sources of life's stream. To do this they must extend their labors into the larger domain of the state. It is useless to tell them to go back home and take care of their children. They have come outside for this very purpose. Their children are in state schools; they have an interest in the composition of the school board, in the character of the teachers, in the housing of pupils, and in all that constitutes our public- school system. Their children are necessarily on the streets and in public places ; they must then resist and combat every vice which spreads its snare for the innocent. Indeed, to do their WOMAN SUFFRAGE - 143 full duty as mothers of the race they must extend their power into the state, to make it as tolerable a place as possible for their children. No apprehension need be felt that woman will then neglect her home duties. This was the agonized fear when she sought an education. In that crisis the great Dr. Johnson declared that woman "was better attending to her toilet than using the pen." The only sphere hitherto freely conceded to. woman has been religion with the Book of Job underscored. , The theory of the modern state alone furnishes an adequate reason for the enfranchisement of women. The state now assumes many functions once performed by the family and other private agencies, and has greatly enlarged its sphere for the promotion of the general welfare. It educates children, cares for the sick and the defective, enforces sanitary regulations, re- forms rather than punishes its criminals, provides factory and tenement inspection, and undertakes many other services for the common good. The state as a police force existing only for the bodily protection of its citizens has become a social organism fostering the mental and moral as well as the physical well-being of its members. In these new functions of the state, women are fitted by nature and experience to cooperate with men. Politics, it is true, are not at present inviting; but general experience has been that with the advent of woman in the shop, the office, the counting-room, the college, and wherever she has gone, the moral . atmosphere has improved. Her mere presence at political meet- ings, to which she is now cordially invited, has raised the tone of campaign addresses. It is hardly probable that a different result would follow her presence at the polls. What does the ballot to-day signify? Is a vote an expression of so much physical power, and does a majority indicate a pre- ponderance of brute force? If this be true "educational cam- paigns" and appeals to reason are senseless. Time was when voting was done by the clash of the spear upon the shield. The ballot originally was a substitute for this demonstration, but now the state does not limit suffrage to warriors, and qualifica- tions of voters are never physical. The ballot represents mere opinion, and law finds its validity in a majority of opinions. The basis of the modern state is intelligence. Why then should the state ignore the intelligence of half its citizens? The econ- 144 . SELECTED ARTICLES omy of human society demands that every factor should be used to the extent of its capacity. Why do women stake so much on the ballot? Because it is at the root of every tax, every public institution, every choice of officials, every law ; it frees government from arbitrary clement ; removes discontent, and affords to all full and equal political power. It is the door to self-realization. Its possession would make women responsible factors in the state ; without it they are non-entities. Certain anti-suffragists protest that woman is morally superior to man, that she should exert an influence on the state, but that man should be the bearer of it. If this in- fluence is desirable, why not introduce it directly into the state rather than filter it through a less moral medium? Women, however, do not claim the ballot on the ground of ''moral superiority." The state does not need them more than tliey need the ballot. Arena. i6: 570-80. September, 1896. Right of Woman to the Ballot. Charles H. Chapman. I have read Mr. Rossiter Johnston's pamphlet entitled "The blank-cartridge ballot," and am very much pleased with it. It is a very clever piece of work. It is well written, logically con- ' structed, and of excellent diction. It is, in fact, the best present tation of the argument that I have ever read. It lacks but two things to make it irrefutable, — a basis of truth and a confirma- tion by facts. The gist of Mr. Johnson's argument, boiled down and stripped of all superfluous emendations, is, "Woman cannot vote because she cannot fight." In other words, the elective franchise is de- pendent on the capacity for bearing arms, and woman cannot bear arms. Accept this as an axiom and Mr. Johnson's de- ductions follow without further discussion. But the age of blind acceptance of beliefs has passed. We no longer blindly accept the authority of powers and maintain without question that the sun moves round the earth or any other so-called axiom equally reasonable which they feel called upon to advance. "Woman cannot fight." I seldom open a newspaper without WOMAN SUFFRAGE 145 finding some instance of a woman making a pretty good fight against a burglar, highwayman, or other ruffian. Without com- menting on Jeanne d'Arc, the Countess de Montfort, and other memories of the dark ages, we can refer Mr. Johnson to the annals of our border wars where he will find many an instance where woman has fought, — fought like the savage she-wolf in her lair, for the safety of her children, husband, and home. What is the most essential qualification for a fighter, a com- batant who stands out in the face of the enemy and throws down his gage of battle with the resolution to win the cause or die? Is it strength? Is it physical endurance? Is it steadiness of nerve? All these are well enough in their way and valuable imder circumstances, but the one indispensable element is cour- age. Without that, all other advantages are worse than useless. Yon see the illustration of this on the college foot-ball field to-day. Watch the practice of the team against the scrub. Who is that little undersized runt of a boy running with the ball in the heart of every wedge and scrimmage, tackling and throwing those big fellows as the bulldog throws the bull? What is he doing on the team? Why is not one of those men on the scrub, or one of these dozen big men among the bystanders, big, straight-standing, strong-looking, finely developed men, playing in the place of that little caricature of humanity? You put the question to the captain or coach and he replies, "Yes, so and so is small, but he has the grit and can play, while that big, hand- some man is as powerful as he looks and a wonder in the gymnasium, but he hasn't got the 'sand' to play foot-ball.'* 'Where the spirit is lacking, the flesh is weak." Woman possesses courage in the same ratio as man, no more and no less. Daughters inherit the gift from their fathers, and sons from their mothers. It is as free to both sexes as honesty, intelligence, memory, or any other virtue of mankind. Many women are skilled in the use of firearms and other weapons and use them well enough to defeat the average man in any contest of ex- pertness. The statement that woman cannot fight or bear arms is proven false by the experience of centuries. She can and will do so most desperately if forced to do so, as the female of any animal 146 SELECTED ARTICLES species will do in defence of her offspring. The lioness, tigress, and she-wolf are less aggressive than their consorts, but the hunter knows them for much more dangerous foes when they turn to bay in defence of their litters. The male deer flees at the mere scent of the prowling wolf, but the doe braves the com- bat in defence of her fawn ; and even the timid hare will attack the marauding weasel to protect her progeny. The statement that woman cannot fight or bear arms is a perversion of the truth ; but when we say, "Woman, as a rule, does not fight ; she leaves to man, more aggressive by nature and better qualified physically, the bearing of the brunt of actual conflict," we state fairly the facts of the case. "But," we hear our opponent argue, "war is a serious matter. Nations in warfare call upon every resource they can command. Why is it that woman, if she can fight as well as you claim to show, has never been called on to bear the brunt of battle?" The answer is clear. The fighting force of a people is always in small proportion to the population. Every person in the field requires five or six at home to keep him there in fighting trim. The soldier does not live on air. He requires to be fed, to be clothed, to be nursed in sickness. His children and family and private affairs need attention while he is absent on the tented field. "An army travels on its stomach,'' is an axiom most thoroughly proven to every soldier who has ever had to do arduous duty on short rations. Now this is the part of war that has devolved on woman from time immemorial, to feed and clothe the armies, to nurse the sick and wounded, and in addition to take the burden of the absent and perform the task of caring for and feeding the chil- dren and the aged and infirm, a task of double labor in the ab- sence of her helpmate ; and of the two the stay-at-homes have at times the harder, if the less dangerous part. When Mr. Johnson argues that the franchise is dependent on the power and the will to handle the musket, to pay what Mr. Johnson calls the service tax, which tax he claims is levied on men alone, and which, if I am rightly informed, the government pays for in monthly wages and prospective pensions, the money for which is collected by taxes levied on men and women alike, it seems to me, considering that women have been doing their WOMAN SUFFRAGE 147 share at home and bearing the burdens of men in addition to their own, besides working extensively in the hospitals and com- missary departments, that the service tax is pretty equally dis- tributed between the sexes after all. ''Men must work and women must weep," writes Kingsley ; but when men must fight, women must both work and weep. Yet "women cannot vote because they cannot fight." The lame, halt, and blind and also the aged men vote, but that is "because they are so few that it has not been thought worth while to bar them out," to quote Mr. Johnson. I fail to recall any passage in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States, the various state constitutions, or the writings or speeches of our most prominent statesmen, that would lead to the above inference. I have always had the impression that the ballot was the birthright of every male citizen of legal age, not wrung from the government by force, but freely given by his fellow-citizens to be used for his and their benefit; and I have always held it to be the glory of the nation that this right was inalienable to the citizen be he weak or strong, great or small, and forfeitable only by crime. We fought a tyrannical power, not for the right itself, but for the power to give the right. We gained that power, and we, the sovereign people, gave freely the right of franchise to every male citizen of the United States. Equally so can we give that right to every female citizen. But let us see what proportion of these non-combatants Mr. Johnson thinks so small as to be not worth while barring out. The men actually under arms on both sides in the "late un- pleasantness" numbered about three millions. The total vote cast for president in i860 was 4,680,193. Deduct from the muster of the troops the members of the regular army and navy who, although fighters, had no vote, and the prospective citizens not yet naturalized, many of whom sharned native citizens by the eagerness with which they took up arms for their adopted country, and add to the voting total the voters who shunned the polls (a large class as we know from experience), and we can safely say that forty per cent, of those qualified by law to vote were incapacitated or wilfully re- fused to bear arms to enforce the ballot that they cast. This is 148 SELECTED ARTICLES the proportion that Mr. Johnson considers not worth while barring out. ^'But," I think I hear the objection, *'these men who held back from supporting their ballots with a 'pinch of powder and a pellet of lead' were not needed at the front. If they had been they would have done their duty in the ranks." I will not refer to the draft riots and other disturbances which followed the levies of 1863, showing in what a willing spirit the stay-at-home voters answered their country's call, but will pass on to. more pertinent matters. There is no doubt that the Confederate cause needed every available man at the front. There is no doubt that it used every expedient to get them there. Men were forced into the ranks under penalty of death on refusal, driven in like cattle at the point of the bayonet, hunted down and dragged out of their hiding-places in holes and caves, and given the choice of instant death or enlistment. The country was drained of every man that could carry a musket. Boys not yet through school and grandfathers stiff with age marched side by side, and in days of travel no able bodied white man could be found who was not a soldier. The enlisted strength of the Confederate troops was about 600,000. The vote for president in i860 in ten of the secession states was 857,704. South Carolina's vote was cast by her legis- lature and does not figure in the total, but her voting strength, calculated on the basis of her white population, was about 45,ooD, making the total southern vo.te about 900,000 in round numbers. Here are 300,000 blank-cartridge ballots, about one third of the whole, which Mr. Johnson considers not worth while barring out. "But," to quote again, "such a man [/. .e., non-combatant] might still be very powerful in creating a riot or suppressing one, in overthrowing a government or in sustaining one in an emergency, and this fact has to be recognized." Women have had a chance of creating riots and of over- throwing governments in the French Revolution and elsewhere, and also in suppressing sedition and sustaining governments at various times and in various capacities, and have proved not wanting in power and wisdom, and these facts have to be recognized. And while we are supposing imaginary states of affairs let us suppose that woman put into use some of that WOMAN SUFFRAGE 149 power for organization that she possesses in common with man, and organized a strike against one of these wars in whose mak- ing and conduct she had no voice. Suppose the women of the country said : ''We will have none of this war. We will not feed and clothe the soldiers. We will not nurse the wounded. We will not care for our hus- band's, father's, brother's, family and manage his business affairs while he is in the field trying to shoot some one else's husband, father, or brother." That war would come to a stop so sud- denly that not even a blank-cartridge ballot would be needed to give it its final quietus. Gen. Lee would not have surrendered in another four years if Grant's troops had amused themselves firing blank cartridges at him, but he would have yielded in less than six months if he had lacked the toil, support, and sympathy of the women of the South. "When gunpowder came into use," says Mr, Johnson, ''suf- frage began to be popularized, and it has been widening ever since, but it only follows the development of the rifle." This sentence is a little obscure. It is, of course, a well-known fact that suffrage has been popularized and widened in common with improvements in firearms, ordnance, and other military and naval appliances, as it has with the increased knowledge and use of printing, machinery, chemistry, medicine, and other mod- ern sciences and arts. We take it, however, that Mr. Johnson means to infer that the spread of the ballot has been due to the possession of arms and the knowledge of using them; that it is a thing wrested from authority by individual force ; that it is not a gift dictated by justice and right, but a concession actuated by fear and intimidation. Let us see how far this idea is borne out by facts. Women, Mr. Johnson claims, cannot bear arms or fight, and women, we are glad to admit, do not usually enforce their de- mands by means of warfare and violence. In Great Britain Sweden, Norway, Russia, Finland, Austria-Hungary, Croatia, Dalmatia, Italy, the Madras and Bombay Presidencies of India, Cape Colony, New Zealand, Iceland, Dominion of Canada, and Northwest territories, and twenty-eight states' and territories of the United States, women enjoy partial or entire suffrage. In 150 SELECTED ARTICLES every case was it given tliem in recognition of their right to have some voice in making the laws and in choosing the officers to enforce the laws by which they are governed, in no instance being granted through fear of force. Take for example the state of Wyoming, a government located in what writers delight to call the "wild and woolly West," where men are shot for breakfast, and "bad men" keep private graveyards for their victims ; where every man's life is supposed to depend on his skill in using the loaded revolver he carries at his side ; an ideal community, evidently, for Mr. John- son's fighting voter, the man who enforces his ballot with his musket. Wyoming territory gave woman equal suffrage in 1870. After twenty years of trial, Wyoming thought so well of woman's ''blank-cartridge" ballot that in 1889 the convention by a unanimous vote inserted an equal-suffrage provision in the state constitution, which constitution was ratified by the voters by a three-fourths majority. Mr. Johnson claims that in Great Britain every enlargement of the franchise was wrung from the governing class by fear and intimidation. Surely this is an ungenerous criticism of the great Liberal party and its leaders, W. E. Gladstone, John Bright, and others, who have spent years trying to relieve, elevate, and enlighten the weak and downtrodden, and have time and again come to the rescue of those so ignorant and defenceless that their only appeal was, "W^e suffer ; help us ;" who have striven for years to give to Ireland the self-government she desires but cannot obtain, and whose work would ere this have been crowned with success but for the bigotry and opposition of certain fac- tions of the Irish themselves. But is it not time to do away with this worn-out fallacy, this barbarous conception of universal suffrage and represent- ative government as being dependent only on the physical force that lies behind the ballot box, and not in the intelligence, jus- tice, and respect for the self-made law of an enlightened people? The ballot is the gift of the strong to the weak, the generous recognition by the strong that the w^eak have rights which he is bound by justice and honor to respect whether he is able to ignore them by his superior strength or not. The powerful says to humbleness, "I know that you possess equal interest in life WOMAN SUFFRAGE 151 with me although your strength does not permit you to manifest it; I give you the right to an equal voice in this matter with myself, and, if necessary, I will add my strength to yours to maintain it." Thus, to use Mr. Johnson's own simile, if Mr. Johnson was in danger of being dispossessed of his franchise, Mr. Astor, the plutocrat, and the humble servitor would both fly to Mr. Johnson's aid, and if Mr. x^stor were in like danger, Mr. Johnson and his sweeper would be on hand, even if Mr. Astor were too old, sick, or crippled to lift a finger in his own behalf. So also would they if Mrs. Astor's property were assailed, and why should they not do so if Mrs. Astor's franchise were assailed? Free and popular government is the best form of govern- ment for an intelligent and enlightened people, and it is only safe for such. Any attempt to introduce it into barbarous and uncivilized nations has resulted and always will result in failure. The ballot must be guided by intelligence to be beneficial. In the hands of ignorance it becomes something worse than Mr. Johnson's dreaded blank cartridges. It becomes the instrument of the noisy demagogue, of the wily and unscrupulous politician, to be used for furtherment of his own selfish gain and the detri- ment of the public good ; the weapon of the political machine and the bane of good government. The greatest danger to the gov- ernment is not in the admission as voters of intelligent and edu- cated women who could use the ballot wisely and well, but the failure to bar the franchise from ignorant and unprincipled for- eigners who use their votes at the bidding of an unscrupulous *'boss" to support open fraud and corruption in public office. Mr. Johnson cites the case of the negro voter as an example of the uselessness of the blank-cartridge ballot. He claims their failure as voters is "not from lack of intelligence, for many of them are well educated and are quite as intelHgent as some of the whites." (Query: How many, what per cent, of the whole? Also how many are as intelligent as the average of the whites?) Yet in the same paragraph he prophesies, *Tf the time should ever come when every colored man owns a Winchester rifle, and when the race has learned how to organize, then the colored vote will be cast and will be counted." Now I will prophesy that when the colored race has acquired sufficient intelligence as 152 SELECTED ARTICLES a- whole to organize and incidentally to make a wise and proper use of the franchise already granted, then the colored vote will be cast and counted without reference to the Winchester rifle either as a present fact or possible contingency. Mr. Johnson inquires with anxiety what would happen if eight hundred thousand men were to undertake to stand against six hundred thousand men and a million women. As George Stephenson replied to an eminent personage inquiring as to the result of a collision between his newly constructed engine and a female o^ the bovine species, that "it would be varra bad for the coo," so I am inclined to think that in the above very ex- traordinary contingency the eight hundred thousand would find themselves in a very uncomfortable position without delay. "You are to bid any man stand," quotes Mr. Johnson. "How if he will not stand?" In these times we usually arrest such a man and imprison or fine him for breach of the peace. If we can- not do so, I agree that we must decline into a state of anarchy, not because we have asked intelligent women to share with us the difficulties and responsibilities of self-government, but be- cause we have so degenerated from enlightenment toward savag- ery as to refuse to recognize and enforce the laws and obliga- tions imposed by our own will and actions. Mr. Johnson seems greatly concerned at the danger to the government at every closely contested election. He says, "When we elect a president by a popular majority of less than one per cent, of all the votes there must always be a temptation to the defeated party to try the experiment of not submitting, and we have seen what this led to in one noticeable instance" (meaning, we presume, the great Rebellion). We can assure Mr. Johnson that the situation he dreads has already occurred in our history in an even more aggravated form without the condition that he predicts arising. For example, in 1824 Andrew Jackson had a clear plurality of the popular vote over John Quincy Adams, but the House of Representatives elected Mr. Adams and the people acquiesced in their choice without an at- tempted appeal to arms. In 1876 the country was almost evenly divided over the rivals, Mr. Hayes and Mr. Tilden, so evenly divided that the question was settled by Congress by the smallest possible majority. Yet no talk of armed resistance stirred the WOMAN SUFFRAGE 153 country, and either candidate, placing his good sense and good citizenship before his personal ambition, would have refused with scorn and horror any attempt on the part of his supporters to gain him the office by force. In 1888 Mr. Cleveland had a clear popular majority in his favor, but the election of Mr. Harrison was accepted as an ac- complished fact, without a thought of protest. Other examples could be given, but these suffice to show the non-existence of the idea that even the majority would attempt to break by force the laws that they themselves have made. As for the great Rebellion, Mr. Johnson is too well informed to claim that the divided vote of the election of i860 was the cause of that civil struggle. The war was the inevitable arrival of that crisis long foreseen and foretold by Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and other statesmen, the inexorable result of the axiom that freedom and slavery can- not be co-existent in the same nation. The slaveholders, driven from their last stronghold, and condemned by the voice of the people, appealed to the foundation of their system, brute force, and once again civilization triumphed over barbarism. History teaches us that governments based on military strength are not stable, for they are constantly at the mercy of any stronger force and they contain in themselves elements of discord that weaken the nation more than the trained warriors strengthen it. The very arms that it most relies on for pro- tection may at any moment turn against it. Such governments are neither popular, representative, nor democratic. Their very foundation precludes it. Government by force can only exist by concentration of force. Concentration of force means the surrender of all authority into the smallest possible number of hands, in other words a despotism, hereditary or elective, king or dictator. The Romans maintained a representative government in a wise and stable form as long as they retained the principle of uniform representation, but when they endeavored to govern conquered territory by force, without listening to the voice of the governed, the government, one standing alone without rival in the world, rapidly degenerated through various forms of oli- garchy and dictatorship to the empire, which was riven apart by its own internal dissensions and the utter apathy of the J 54 SELECTED ARTICLES people toward a government in which they had no representa- tion. The power to bear arms is not the qualilication to wield the ballot even among savage tribes. In the lodges of the Indians, it is not the mighty hunter, the bold and dashing young warrior, to whom it is given to decide the policy and destiny of the tribe. It is the ancient chieftan, hoary with years and wisdom, whose tottering steps will never more follow on the trail, whose dim eyes can no more sight the rifle, whose withered arm is too weak for the mighty war-club, — he it is who enters the council lodge, and gives his voice and his vote to the welfare of the people, and the young men hearken to his counsels and obey his behests with the reverence that strength ever pays to wisdom and experience. We need the vote of woman in our public responsibilities as we need her voice and assistance in our homes and daily tasks. Government needs many hands and many voices directed by intelligence. Too many such we cannot have, and we are foolish to neglect to avail ourselves of the intelligence and wisdom that knock for admittance. The right of women to vote is contained in the principles of republican government, "Government of the people, by the people, . for the people." It is as self-evident as her right to exist, her right to a half interest in the control of her children, her right to a share of her husband's property, or her right to a share of her parents' estate. Not one but many politicians and statesmen have admitted that when women unanimously, or in a large majority, demanded the ballot, it would be given them; no power, they say, can withhold it. It is because so many are indifferent to their right and privilege, and a few, imitating the dog in the manger, with the statement, "We don't want to vote, so you sha'n't," bitterly oppose it, that universal suffrage has not yet been attained. Where then is the dominating idea of the man and the musket behind the ballot? Evidently it has no place in the experience of men whose business is politics and government. Given uni- versal suffrage, in the event of war woman would occupy the same place that she has in the past, except that she would be more fitted by practice and experience to take the place of the soldier called to the field. WOMAN SUFFRAGE 155 The ancient Germans possessed sufficient confidence in their women to place in their hands the decision of their legal troubles, and the female courts were the admiration of their contem- poraries for their unbiassed justice and wisdom. Can we not: manifest enough confidence in our women to give them a share in our public affairs ? Must we wait until the con- cession is wrung from us by the unanimous demand of woman- kind, whose voice we, as civilized men, must recognize in the household or in pubHc, although unbacked by the armed force that pessimists deem necessary? Cannot we refuse to lend an ear to the clique that endeavors to debar others from the right that they are too prejudiced, timorous, or unpatriotic to desire to use, and say to woman : '*We give to you the ballot, as your undisputed right as an American citizen. We give it not through fear or coercion, but in recog- nition of your right ; and we will defend you in this, your right, as we have defended you in others in the past; and we shall expect you to use this privilege for our good as well as your own and the common welfare of the country?" If, then, in some future time, the contingency dreaded by the timorcus should arise, and a number of relics of barbarism should attempt to thwart by force the will of the people, I trust there will be enough right-thinking men and right-thinking wom- en of all parties and opinions to compel observance of the law. When there are not such, the government had better fall at once as being too civilized for a race degenerated into bar- barism. W^ gave life, work, intellect, and money in untold profusion to free the slaves. Are we not generous enough to do the same for the rights of our mothers, wives, and sisters? Arena. 49: 92-4. July, 1908. Shall Our Mothers, Wives, and Sisters Be Our Equals or Our Subjects? Frank Parsons. Sex has no essential relation to suffrage. The reasoning on which the case for manhood suffrage rests is that the ballot is necessary as a protection against injustice, and very desirable 156 SELECTED ARTICLES as a means of education and development. These reasons ap- ply to women as well as to men. The only limitations placed upon manhood suffrage relate to age, intelHgence, character and interest, or residence and identification with the country sufficient to justify the interference of interest, and these should be the only limitations placed upon woman suffrage. Inconsistency is supposed to be feminine, but consistency is not a prevalent virtue even with men. We make a vigorous statement of inherent and inalienable rights and would fly to arms if any one denied us political liberty and equality, yet we deny those sacred rights to those within our power. We declare that taxation without representation is tyranny, but tax numbers of women directly and practically the whole mass of women in- directly without representation in either case, so we are self-con- fessed tyrants unless it is understood that there is a mental reservation to the effect that it must be a man who is taxed without representation or there is no tyranny. We affirm the governments derive their just powers from consent of the gov- erned, but exclude the consent of half of the governed. We profess democracy and establish an aristocracy of men. We boast of our liberty and hold the best part of the people in subjection. We proclaim a republic and ignore the fact that no real republic can exist where half of the people of full age and discretion, character and interest have no part in the elections, and though they have to obey the laws are allowed no voice in making them. We gave the suffrage to millions of unprepared slaves, and claimed it for ourselves (or our ancestors did, and we approve the act, with some slight modifications, perhaps) centuries before we knew much about using it, believing the use the best means of developing fitness for use, and yet we deny the suffrage to women because they are not familiar with politics. We permit the slums of New York and Chicago to vote, but deny the privilege to such women as Susan B. An- thony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Mary A. Livermore, Jane Addams, Clara Barton and a host of the best minds on earth, on the ground that women do not know enough to vote. We allow multitudes of men to vote who are exempt from military duty and yet deny the right to women because they cannot fight, and even Herbert Spencer deems this argument conclusive. We WOMAN SUFFRAGE 157 give the suffrage to millions of men who do not care enough for it to use it, and yet deny it to women because some of. them do not wish to vote. With our brothers over the sea a woman may sit on a throne, but is not permitted to sit in Parliament. Justice seems to say, "Put the age of discretion where ex- perience indicates the reasonable average to be, and make the requirements as to character, intelligence and interest what you please. Then if women come up to the requirements let them vote, and if men do not come up to those requirements refuse them the ballot. To be just is to treat all persons alike under the same essential circumstances, and sex has nothing to do with the reasons on which the suffrage rests. Women are as much entitled as men to the education, development, influence and protection afforded by the ballot. Exclude women who prove to be unfit in the light of impartial and relevant tests, but do not class the whole sex with infants, idiots, criminals, In- dians, aliens and paupers." In four of our states and in New Zealand women have the full suffrage, and its exercise has been attended with none of the evils predicted by its opponents, but with beneficial results so marked as to call forth emphatic statements in its favor by leading legislatures, judges of the highest courts, and other leading officials who affirm that woman suffrage has tended strongly to purify politics, improve the character of nominations and aid the enforcement of the law. The approval of equal suffrage is all but universal where it has been tried, almost the only exception being the case of some would-be politician who might get what he wants if it were not for the women's vote, or the case of an individual like the man from Wyoming who declared that woman suffrage was a failure in that state, but when they looked up his record they found he had carried the ball and chain for an unpleasant period in consequence of the verdict of a jury of women. In Kansas and in England women enjoy the right of munici- pal suffrage ; and in 25 of our states they have the school suf- frage. There is no doubt that the full suffrage already adopted in four of our states will come in all. Certainly there is much need for its adoption and need of the most vital moment. The laws and governments made by men have not been fair 158 SELECTED ARTICLES to women or children. By the common law a married woman has no property rights, nor any legal existence. Husband and wife are one, and the husband is the one. A married woman is a fenime coverte, or a woman under the cover or wing of her husband, and being so hidden the common law cannot see her but recognizes the husband as the only personality in sight of the'laiw. In Shakespeare's day a woman practically belonged to her husband the same as his horse or dog except that he could not kill her suddenly. In the early part of this century, it is said a man in England led his wife to market with a rope about her neck, and sold her in the street, getting more for the rope than for the woman. Blackstone says that a man may give his wife moderate correction, but I have hunted in vain through Black- stone to find a similar right granted to the wife against her husband. It must be admitted, however, that the law is not without its compensations, as may be seen by the case of darky Reuben who made a complaint against his wife for beating him, and got her convicted and fined, whereupon she having no rnoney he had to pay the fine himself. Miss Diana Hirschler, in her address at the Washington suffrage convention a few years ago, cites an old writer as say- ing, "If a man beat an outlaw, a traitor, a pagan or his wife, it is dispunishable, for by the Law Common these can have no action," adding very appropriately, "God grant gentle women bet- ter sport and better company." The fact is that women were formerly thought of by men as their property, and the denial of civic and legal rights was the natural consequence of that conception. With the growth of enlightenment the law has been changed by statute in many respects, but the continued denial of civic equality is a persistent remnant of the conception born of a barbarous age, that woman belongs to man. Even the lighter disabilities were slow in going, and are not all gone yet. Only a generation ago a man in Massachusetts mar- ried a woman who had $50,000 in personality. He took pos- session of it as he had a legal right to do, and then made a will providing that in case of his death the lady should have the income from the $50,000 during her life, provided she did not marry again. In Massachusetts and other states a woman can now control her property, for the most part. But the laws WOMAN SUFFRAGE 159 are still in many respects unjust. Joint earnings and funds be- long to the husband absolutely, so that if a wife allows her money or her personality to become mixed with her husband's, she loses legal control of it. In about one-third of our states the husband can appropriate his wife's earnings just as he can take the earnings of his horse and wagon. In all but eight of our states the mother is still denied an equal right with the father to the control of their children. The laws of divorce are not impartial. The laws of descent of property are not equal. A widow's dower affects only a third of the realty of her husband, while a widower's curtesy relates to the whole of his wife's real estate. Children under man-made lawa are left to . fester by thousands in an atmosphere pestilent with immoral and criminal influences, left to "soak and blacken soul and body in the slime of city slums." In many of our. states the law makes no effective effort to remove the saloon, the gambling- den and the brothel from the path of youth, nor to banish the poisonous cigarette or the still more poisonous "literature" of sensationalism and immorality. It is time the women had a chance to see what they can do. They make home pure and beautiful. They can make our streets and cities pure and beau- tiful also. Their sovereignty in the home is beneficient ; their sovereignty in the state will be no less so. It is the right of woman to use not only the power of per- suasion, but the power of the ballot to protect herself and her children. The ballot is the point at which intelligence and moral sentiment take hold upon action and mold institutions and laws. Woman has a right to this most effective means of transform- ing the social environment into greater fitness for the highest life of herself and all her loved ones. It is the right of woman also to enjoy the educating and developing effects of civic re- sponsibilities. It is the right of man that woman shall vote in order that his companionship with her may be lifted to the plane of equal- ity, and blessed with a new development, a new element of pow- er and thought and sj^mpathy. What man would have his wife and daughters subjects instead of equals? What man would deny to his mother the right he claims for himself? It is a man's right to have his children born and reared by women who i6o SELECTED ARTICLES have had full advantages of development and who understand the world and conditions under which their children will live. It is the right of children, living and unborn, to have the ennobled motherhood and the more excellent training that will come with a symmetrical, well-rounded, fully developed woman- hood. It is the right of every child to be born and reared by a sovereign citizen and not by a subject. It is the right of every child that the mothers of the land shall have the power to banish vicious influences from the social and political environment in which the child must live, the power to bring the force and wis- dom of mother-love to bear directly on civic affairs to purify and invigorate the civic and social atmosphere the child must breathe throughout its formative years. It is the right of society to have the purest force in the world put into action in political life. It is the right of society to have the virtue, love and devotion of womanhood crystal- lized into law. Women are far less influenced by the commer- cial spirit than men. Commercialism is the danger of our time. The despotism, of the dollar is the threat of the future. The power of women in politics would be of incalculable value in the resistance it would offer to the domination of the mercantile spirit, and the conscienceless pursuit of gain. Women have a higher regard for principle than men. They love justice and mercy. They are against oppression. They would favor peace even if trade should suffer. They would banish the slums and make cities beautiful. Their gentleness, sympathy, refinement and incorruptibility are sadly needed in our politics ; their no- bility should be registered in our statutes. Century. 48: 605-13. August, 1894. Right and Expediency of Woman Suffrage. George F. Hoar. There are a great many things women are not expected to do. There are a great many things that no doctor of divinity or college professor, or very old man or very young man, is expected to do. If the process of voting or attending political meetings will degrade women, it will degrade clergymen. If it will soil the purity of delicate and refined ladies, it will soi! WOMAN SUFFRAGE i6i the purity of delicate and refined gentlemen. Meanness, coarse- ness, selfishness, violence, and fraud are not of the essence of government. If the fastidious refined scholar or man of wealth will not leave his palace in Fifth avenue to go to the polling- places in the city of New York, the government of that city will perhaps be abandoned to the base and criminal classes. But give his wife and daughter the right to go, and he will go with them, and he will see to it that the process of voting is con- ducted under conditions and with surroundings which will make it decent and clean, and fit for the participation of every refined person of either sex. Shall women leave the cradle, or the parlor, or the kitchen, to plunge into politics? No. Shall our farmers leave the farm, or our scholars the study, or our workmen the factory, or our sailors the ship, to plunge into politics? No. Women can contribute their share to, and exercise their right in, the government of the state with not more sacrifice of the other duties of life than is made by their husbands or broth- ers. There are some public duties which require the devotion of a large part of the working hours of life, and in some cases the entire life of the citizen to whom they are assigned. As many of these duties can be performed by the women as by the men, and the public duties which can be performed by women as well as by men, are as important to the well-being of the state. There are many duties for which most women are un- fitted. There are some few for which all women are unfitted. There are many public duties for which most men are unfitted, and there are some which — as I hope it may come in the course of time to be seen — are unfit for any human being, man or woman, to perform, and which in the better time that we look for will cease to be considered duties at all. The same arguments with which we have to deal have been used against every extension of suffrage. Good and wise men dreaded to admit the large mass of ignorant and poor, men easily excited by passion, to the great and sacred work of rul- ing the state. But history and experience have shown us that on the whole that state is best ruled where the largest number of citizens have a share in its government. The evils of uni- versal suffrage, whatever they are, can easily be shown to be i62 SELECTED ARTICLES less than the evil of oligarchy, or of a government of any privileged classes. There are plenty of disturbing causes to swerve the govern- ing power in the state from the simple course of wisdom and rectitude. But I believe that the larger the numbei^of persons who share in the government the more likely the simple natural law is to prevail and the disturbing forces to disappenr. Per- sonal ambition may control the government given to one man. Give the government to twenty men, and you have twenty in- terests to control the disturbing cause. Each of the twent}^ will be likely to have some prejudice and some interests which con- flict with those of the others. The larger the number, the less likely the disturbing causes to operate and the more likely to control one another. Add lOO per cent, to the voting population of this country, and you decrease the proportionate power of the -disturbing forces operating to overcome the sirnple law and the interest of the nation which should direct and control its government. You make it harder to buy up the votes in num- bers enough to corrupt the community. The passion on one side is neutralized by the passion on the other. The rogues have less influence, because rogues do not agree. One has one motive for selfishness, another has a different one. The ap- peals to class prejudice, attempts to excite contempt and deri- sion or ignorance or jealousy and envy towards wealth and education, abound, unhappily, to-day. But I believe they are less than they were in the time of Washington and Jefferson. The questions asked to-day on our political platforms, as to the matter which is up for discussion, are: Is it right? Is it just? Is it humane? Is it for the highest welfare of the state? No speaker touches a public audience better than he who appeals to the best, purest, and highest motives in our na- ture. Contemporary Review. 94: 11 -6. July, 1908. LiberaHsm and Woman's Suffrage. Bertrand Russell. The chief traditional argument in favour of democracy is that it is difficult for one class to judge of the interest of an- other, and rare for one class to care as much for the interest of WOMAN SUFFRAGE 163 another as-for its own. The illustrations of this in history are too numerons to need citing: oligarchies have invariably been more or less ignorant of and indifferent to the interests of those whom' they governed. It may be said that the relations of men and women are so close that this particular argument does not apply to the case of women. But I think this view is not borne out by the facts. (There are, as every one knows, many respects in which the Idws are unequal as between men and women. And there are many evils from which women suffer which are quietly accepted as inevitable, because those who have political power are not those who have to endure the evils. Is it just, for example, that a working woman and her children should, through no fault of her Own be reduced to destitu- tion if her husband takes to drink? Yet no one regards this as a political question. But perhaps a more important argument for democracy is its educational effect on the voter and its effect in improving the relations between different classes. To speak first of the educational effect : There is the direct education of being brought into contact with political questions, and there is the education of character resulting from responsibility and freedom. Of these two, the education of character seems to me the more im- portant, but the other is by no means a small matter. Anyone who has watched an election must have been struck by the amount of knowledge on politics which the voters acquire from meetings and canvassers, and discussions among themselves. The diffusion of such knowledge throughout the population not only increases the stability of a civilization, but also has the merit of making people aware of greater and more important mat- ters than, are to be found in their personal circumstances. Closely connected with this purely political education is the education of character which I spoke of just now. It is good for people to feel that momentous questions depend in part up- on their decision : it leads them to think responsibly and serious- ly, and it cultivates self-respect. One of the great arguments in favour of liberty is that those who have the direction of their own lives are in general intrinsically better than they would have been if others had regulated their lives for them. And this applies with at least as much force to the part of life .1^4 SELECTED ARTICLES which is political or affected by politics as it does to more private concerns. Therefore, when it is said that women should be politically educated first before being given the vote, it isi forgotten that the vote itself is the great engine of political/ education. This has proved to be the case with working meij who very generally had hardly any political education befor^ they got the vote; and that it will prove so with women seems not open to doubt. Another of the arguments for democracy is that it improves the relations between classes. When one class has power and another has not, those who have the power are not likely to feel as much respect for those who have not as for those who have. We all know the aristocratic attitude in politics, the at- titude which instinctively ignores all interests except those of its own class, and feels that other classes are comparatively of no account. This attitude has been rapidly dying out under the influence of popular election. But in relation to women all men are in the position of aristocrats, and a contempt for the opinions or interests of women receives no political punish- ment. Considering how much closer are the relations of men and women than the relations of different classes, and how much better for both parties are equal relations than unequal ones, this must be regarded as a powerful argument in favour of giving votes to women. For it seems certain that the political enfranchisement of women would react beneficially on private life, engendering greater liberty and greater mutual respect in the relations of the sexes. The chief arguments of principle in favour of women's suf- frage may, then, be summed up as follows : First, that from defect of imagination and good will no class can be trusted to care adequately for the interests of another class, and that, in fact, women's interests have been unduly neglected by men. Secondly, that participation in politics widens people's outlook, and improves character by cultivating self-respect and a sense of responsibility; and that these advantages are just as certain to accrue to women if they have the vote as they were to ac- crue to working men. Thirdly, that it is easier to give due re- spect to those who have the same legal powers as we have, and that a feeling of equality between men and women is of im- mense benefit, not only in politics, but in private life. WOMAN SUFFRAGE 165 I ought to add among the arguments of principle the argu- ment of abstract justice. This argument is sometimes supposed to rest upon an antiquated philosophy of natural right, and is, therefore, now rather discredited. But it does not seem to me to require any such fallacious foundation. To inflict a special disability upon any class of the community is in itself an evil, and is calculated to generate resentment on the one side and arrogance on the other. It may be admitted that this evil, in some cases, is more than balanced by compensating advantages ; but it remains evil, and any gain for the sake of which it is to be endured must be very great and very certain. In the case of disabilities of women, no such gain is apparent, and the argument from justice must therefore be admitted. Having now considered the main arguments in favour of giving votes to women, I will pass to some of the arguments on the other side. (i) We are often told that women are unreasonable, that they are governed by their emotions, and that they are unable to understand politics. I do not know that I need waste much time on this argument. ''Reason," in the mouths of those men who advance this modest opinion, generally means "wanting what I want," and "being governed by emotions" means "want- ing what I don't want." Queen Elizabeth considered the House of Commons incapable of understanding foreign politics, be- ^ cause their aims were not the same as hers. The House of Lords considers the House of Commons incapable of under- standing the land question, because the House of Commons does not recognize the paramount necessity of increasing rents. I suspect women's incapacity for politics is of the same kind, and that if they alone had the vote it would be men who would 1 be incapable and emotional. (2) We are told that women would be priest-ridden, that they would vote always at the dictation of their religious ad- visers. In Catholic countries there may be some truth in this as things stand, though in Great Britain there seems no reason whatever to think it would be 'the case. But if it were true, it would only mark the neglect of women's political education, which is due to their exclusion from the vote, and would pre- sumably be remedied by their enfranchisement. If it were i66 SELECTED ARTICLES not remedied, that would mean that a mmority are inflicting their policy upon the majority, and that those who fear priestly domination are nevertheless prepared to prolong their own dom- ination because they are so certain that it is the better. But such a position is the negation of all democratic principles, and would, if logically carried out, be found to justify all degrees of intolerance, including religious persecution. This argument, therefore, even if it were not mistaken as to facts, would not be available for anyone who believes in popular government. (3) Women, it is said, ought not to have the vote because they cannot fight. If this argument were pushed home we ought to disfranchise all men who are too old to fight, or are in any way physically incapable; and we ought to disfranchise Quakers because they will not fight. But it is hard to see why the vote would be confined to those who can fight. The idea seems to be that you will have all the men on one sid^ and all the women on the other, and that then the action of the majority would be defeated by an appeal to arms. But the supposition is so fantastic that it is hard to take it seriously, especially as the same people who make it tell us that it is unnecessary to give votes to women, because they would always vote with their husbands. The notion that in such a country as England an appeal to arms could ever be made successfully against the de- cision of Parliament is obviously absurd ; and if this idea is not entertained, the question whether women can fight is of no* importance. (4) I come now to a very favourite argument. Women's- suffrage, we are told, would promote quarrels in families and destroy the happiness of home life. Those who advance this argument apparently think that it is impossible to discuss with- out quarreling, that a man cannot be happy unless all his words are received as oracles by a dutiful family, and that the- ideal of home life is to avoid all conversation on every impor- tant subject. A husband and wife who cannot get on together unless they confine themselves to trivialities had better, I should' say, learn a little mutual forbearance ; and I should count it among the advantages of women's suffrage that it would tend to promote a reasonable discussion of things outside the home. (5) It is often said that women ought not to have votes- WOMAN SUFFRAGE 167 because they do not want them. Those who say this, by the way, are loudest in condemnation of those women who have taken steps to let us know that they do want votes. But that is natural, for no one is so annoying as a person who disproves one's favourite argument. Speaking seriously, the allegation that women do not want the vote is rapidly becoming untrue, al- though it is perhaps not yet untrue of the majority. But even if it is still true of the majority, it does not warrant the conclu- sion that women ought to have the vote. In the first place, ir does not warrant the exclusion of that large and increasing num- ber of women who do not want the vote. In the second place, all the arguments which we considered in favor of women's suf- frage remain valid, even if women are indifferent, and when women have had the political education resulting from the fran- chise, they will see the advantage of the vote. The question, therefore, whether a majority of women desire the vote is not really relevant to the issue, though it does, of course, vitally af- fect the likelihood of their getting the vote. (6) One bogey which is used to frighten timid people is the argument that there are more women than men in the United Kingdom, and that, therefore, we should be governed by women if we gave the vote to all women. Now, in the first piace, very few advocates of women's suffrage demand the vote for all women. In the second place, if it is urged that any measure of women's suft'rage would be merely a stage on the way to the enfranchisement of all women (which I should admit), it still does not follow that we should be governed by women. This assumes, like the argument that women cannot fight, that we shall have all women on one side and all men on the other ; but I cannot think that either sex will make themselves so very ob- noxious as to bring about such a result as that. And in the third place, even if we were governed by women, would it be so very terrible? At present we are governed by men, and the result, though perhaps not very admirable, is one which we all endure patiently. I fail to see why being governed by one sex should be any worse than being governed by the other. This argument, therefore, is peculiarly futile, for what it dreads would certainly not happen, and there is no reason to think it would matter if it did. i68 SELECTED ARTICLES Harper*s Weekly. 50: 1702-3. December i, 1906. Positive Arguments for Woman Suffrage. Not long ago we recalled some of the current objections to woman suffrage, and showed how conclusively they have been refuted by John Stuart Mill. No less cogent are the positive arguments marshalled by Mill for the bestowal of the franchise upon women — arguments put forward in the interest of men themselves. Before directing attention to some of these, how- ever, -we should glance at one objection which previously we overlooked, namely, that at present, in many highly civilized communities, the majority of women seem not to want the suffrage, and that, consequently, the concession may be postponed until they ask for it. As Mill recognized, exactly the same thing may be said of the women in the harem of an Oriental : They do not complain because the freedom of European women is denied to them. They think our women insufferably bold and unfeminine. Even among men complaint of the general order of society would be rare, indeed, if they did not know of a different order existing somewhere else. The same phenomenon has been observed in all other cases of servitude, at least in the beginning of the emancipatory movement. The case of women is now the only case in which to rebel against established rules is still looked upon, as was formerly, a subject's claim to the right of rebelling against his king. It was, therefore, Mill's conviction that women cannot be expected to devote themselves to the emancipation of their sex until men, in considerable num- ber, are prepared to join with them in the undertaking. Why should men cooperate in the movement? Because, in the first place, woman's right to the suffrage is entirely inde- pendent of any question which can be raised concerning the rela- tive inferiority or superiority of her faculties. The right to share in the choice of those who are to exercise a public trust is altogether a distinct thing from that of competing for the trust itself. If no one could vote for a member of Congress who was not fit to be a candidate, our federal government would be, indeed, a narrow oligarchy. To have a voice in choosing those of whom one is to be governed is a ^ means of self-protec- tion due to every one, though he were to remain forever ex- WOMAN SUFFRAGE 169. eluded from the function of governing; and that women are considered fit to have such a choice may be presumed from the fact that the law already gives it to them in the most important of all cases to themselves ; for the choice of the man who as husband is to govern a woman to the end of her life is always, supposed to be made voluntarily by herself. It is true that, in the case of election to public trusts, it is the business of consti- tutional law to surround the right of suffrage with all needful' securities and limitations; but whatever securities are sufficient in the case of the male sex should be acknowledged to be ade- quate in the case of women also. Turning to the fitness of women not only to participate in elections, but themselves to hold public offices, Mill submitted that, if the political system of a country is such as to exclude unfit men, it would equally exclude unfit women; while, if it; were not, there would be no additional evil in the fact that the .unfit persons admitted might be either women or men. As. long as it is acknowledged that even a few women may be fit for public duties, the laws which shut the door on those ex- ceptions cannot be justified by any opinion which can be held' respecting the capacities of women in general. Not for a mo- ment, however, would Mill admit the general proposition that,, as a rule, women are incapable of governing. He maintains, on the contrary, that if anything conclusive can be inferred from experience, without recourse to psychological analysis, it is that the things which women are not allowed to do, to wit, hold public offices, administrative or legislative, are the very ones- for which they are peculiarly qualified; since their innate voca- tion for government has made its way and become conspicuous through the very few opportunities which have been accorded^ to them ; whereas, in the lines of distinction, which, apparently, were freely opened to them, such as painting, sculpture, archi- tecture, music, philosophy, science, and the highest grades of literature, they have by no means equally distinguished them- selves. No doubt the number of reigning queens presented in history is small in comparison with that of kings. Of this small- er number, however, a far larger proportion have shown talents for rule ; though many of the feminine rulers have occupied the throne in difficult periods. It is no less remarkable that, in- I70 SELECTED ARTICLES a great number of instances, feminine rulers have been distin- guished by merits the most opposite to the imaginary and (K)n- ventional character of women ; they have been as conspicuous for the firmness and vigor of their rule as for its intelligence. If to queens and empresses be added regents and viceroys of provinces, the list of women who have been eminent rulers of mankind swells to a great length. Mill's long official acquain- tance with the affairs of India enabled him to aver that if a Hindu principality is strongly, vigilantly, and economically gov- erned, in three cases out of four that principality will be found to be under a woman's rule. There are many such instances ; for though, by Hindu institutions, a woman cannot reign, she can be, and frequently is, the legal regent of a kingdom during the minority of the heir. When we consider that these princesses have never been seen in public, have never conversed with any man not of their own family except from behind a curtain, and that they do not read, the example they afford of the nat- ural capacity of women for government must be acknowledged to be very striking. Is it reasonable, then, asks Mill, to assert that those who have shown themselves fit for the greater func- tions of politics are incapable of qualifying themselves for the less? Is there any reason, in the nature of things, that the wives and sisters of princes should, wherever called on, be found as competent as the princes themselves to their business, but that the wives and sisters of statesmen and administrators should be unable to do what is done by their brothers and husbands? The truth is that exactly where, and in proportion as women's capacities for government have been tried, in that proportion have they been found adequate. Mill went so far as to contend that women, considered as a whole, are even better qualified than men for legislation and administration, because they are more practical. The special nature of the mental capacities most characteristic of a woman of talent are all of a kind which fits them for practice, and makes them tend towards it. For what is meant by a woman's capacity of intuitive perception? It means a rapid and correct insight into present fact. It has nothing to do with general principles. When, however, women chance to be conversant with such general principles, or, in other words, to be as well WOMAN SUFFRAGE 171 provided, by reading and education, as men are with the broad results of other people's experience, they are better furnished than are men in general with the essential requisites of skilful and successful practice. Men who 'have been much taught are apt to be deficient in the sense of present facts; they do not see in the facts which they are called upon to deal with what is really there, but what they have been taught to expect. This is seldom the case with women of any ability. Their capacity of "intuition" preserves them from it. In fine, with equality of experience and the general faculties, a woman usually sees much more than a man of what is immediately before her. Mill goes to show that this sensibility to the present is the main quality on which the capacity for practice, as distinguished from theory, depends. Women are comparatively unlikely to fall into a common error of men, that, namely, of sticking to their rules in a case whose specialties either take it out of the class to which the rules are applicable, or require a special adapta- tion to them.- Much was said in Mill's time, and is said now, about the greater nervous susceptibility of women being a disqualification for practice in anything but domestic life, by rendering them mobile, changeable, and incapable of dogged perservance. Their nervous susceptibility may be traced largely, if not mainly, ta the way in which they are brought up. Women who in their early years have shared in the healthful physical education and bodily freedom of their brothers, and who, in after life, obtain a suffi- ciency of pure air and exercise, very rarely exhibit such exces- sive susceptibility of nerves as might disqualify them for active pursuits. It is possible, indeed, that what we call the nervous temperament may be inherited by a greater number of women than men. Assuming this to be a fact, we may ask whether, men of nervous temperament are found to be unfit for the du- ties and pursuits usually followed by men? If not, why should women of the same temperament be unfit for them? It has, indeed, been observed that the peculiarities of the nervous tem- perament, while no doubt within certain limits an obstacle to success in some employments, are an aid to it in others. When the occupation is suitable to the temperament, and sometimes when it is unsuitable, the most brilliant examples of success. 172 SELECTED ARTICLES are continually given by men of high nervous sensibility. It is the specific character of the nervous temperament to be capable of sustained excitement, holding out through long-continued ef- fort. It is this capability which makes the high-bred racehorse run with sustained speed till he drops down dead, and which has enabled many delicate women to maintain the most sublime con- stancy, not only at the stake, but through a long preliminary series of bodily and mental tortures. Mill's observations have led him to believe that people of this temperament are particularly apt for what may be called the executive department of the leadership of mankind. To them we must look for the material of great orators, great thinkers, impressive diffusers of moral influences. It may, at first sight, be presumed that their con- stitution would be less favorable to the qualities required from a statesman in the cabinet or from a judge; and it would be so, if the consequence necessarily followed that, because people are excitable, they must always be in a state of excitement. But this is wholly a question of training. ' — ' Still confining ourselves to the man's point of view, we should not overlook another benefit to be expected from conceding the franchise to women. We should thus double the mass of men- tal faculties available for the higher service of the community. Where there is now one person qualified to benefit mankind and promote the general improvement as an administrator of some branch of public affairs, there would then be a chance of two. Mental superiority of an}^ kind is at present everywhere so much below the demand ; there is such a deficiency of persons com- petent to do excellently anything which it requires any consid- erable amount of ability to do ; that the loss to the world by refusing to make use of one-half of the whole quantity of talent it possesses is extremely serious. To Mill's mind, however, the primary and paramount argum.ent for woman suffrage is that, after the concession has been made, the most universal and pervading of all hum^n relations will be regulated by justice in- stead of injustice. To any one who attaches a moral meaning to words, it would seem hardly possible, by any explanation or illustration, to place in a stronger light than it is placed by the bare statement the vast amount of this gain to human nature. All the selfish propensities, the self -worship, the unjust self-pref- WOMAN SUFFRAGE 173 erence which exist among mankind have their source and root in. and derive their principal nourish.ntnt from, the present constitution of the relation between men and women. AD that education and civilization are doing to efface the influences on character of the law of force, and to replace them by those of justice, remains merely on the surface as long as the citadel of the enemy is not attacked. So long as the right of the strong to power over the weak rules in the very heart of human society, the attempt to make the equal right of the weak the principle of that society's outward actions will always be an uphill struggle. Ladies' Home Journal. 27: 21-2. January, 1910. Why Women Should Vote. Jane Addams. For many generations it has been believed that woman's place is within the walls of her own home, and it is indeed im- possible to imagine the time when her duty there shall be ended or to forecast any social change which shall release her from that paramount obligation. This paper is an attempt to show that many women to-day are failing to discharge their duties to their own households properly simply because they do not perceive that as society grows more complicated it is necessary that woman shall ex- tend her sense of responsibility to many things outside of her own home if she would continue to preserve the home in its entirety. One could illustrate in many ways. A woman's sim- plest duty, one would say, is to keep her house clean and wholesome and to feed her children properly. Yet if she lives in a tenement house, as so many of my neighbors do, she can- not fulfill these simple obligations by her own efforts because she is utterly dependent upon the city administration for the conditions which render decent living possible. Her basement will not be dry, h*er stairways will not be fireproof, her house will not be provided with sufficient windows to give light and air, nor will it be equipped with sanitary plumbing, unless the Public works department sends inspectors who constantly in- sist that these elementary decencies be provided. Women who 174 SELECTED ARTICLES live in the country sweep their own dooryards and may either feed the refuse of the table to a flock of chickens or allow, it innocently to decay in the open air and sunshine. In a crowded city quarter, however, if the street is not cleaned by the city authorities no amount of private sweeping will keep the tene- ment free from grime; if the garbage is not properly collected ^nd destroyed a tenement-house mother may see her children sicken and die of diseases from which she alone is powerless to shield them, although her tenderness and devotion are unbound- ed. She cannot even secure untainted meat for her household, she cannot provide fresh fruit, unless the meat has been in- spected by city officials, and the decayed fruit, which is so often placed upon sale in the tenement districts, has been destroyed in the interests of public health. In short, if woman would keep on with her old business of caring for her house and rear- ing her children she will have to have some conscience in re- gard to public affairs lying quite outside of her immediate house- hold. The individual conscience and devotion are no longer effective. Chicago one spring had a spreading contagion of scarlet fever just at the time that the school nurses had been discon- tinued because business men had pronounced them too expensive. If the women who sent their children to the schools had been sufficiently public-spirited and had been provided with an im- plement through v/hich to express that pubHc spirit they would have insisted that the schools be supplied with nurses in order that their own children might be protected from contagion. In other words, if women would effectively continue their old avocations they must take part in the slow upbuilding of that code of legislation which is alone sufficient to protect the home from the dangers incident to modern life. One might instance the many deaths of children from contagious diseases the germs of which had been carried in tailored clothing. Country doctors testify as to the outbreak of scarlet fever in remote neighbor- hoods each autumn, after the children have "begun to wear the winter overcoats and cloaks which have been sent from in- fected city sweatshops. That their mothers mend their stock- ings and guard them from "taking cold" is not a sufficient pro- tection when the tailoring of the familv is done in the distant WOMAN SUFFRAGE 175 city under conditions which the mother cannot possibly control. The sanitary regulation of sweatshops by city officials is all that can be depended upon to prevent such needless destruction. Who shall say that women are not concerned in the enact- ment and enforcement of such legislation if they would preserve their homes? Even women who take no part in public affairs in order that they may give themselves entirely to their own families, sometimes going so far as to despise those other women who are endeavoring to secure protective legislation, may illustrate this point. The Hull-house neighborhood was at one time suf- fering from a typhoid epidemic. A careful investigation was made by which we were able to establish a very close connec- tion between the typhoid and a mode of plumbing which made it most probable that the infection had been carried by flies. Among the people who had been exposed to the infection was a widow who had Hved in the ward for a number of years, in a comfortable little house which she owned. Although the Ital- ian immigrants were closing in all around her she was not will- ing to sell her property and to move away until she had fin- ished the education of her children. In the mean time she held herself quite aloof from her Italian neighbors and could never be drawn into any of the public efforts to protect them by securing a better code of tenement-house sanitation. Her two daughters were sent to an Eastern college ; one June, when one of them had graduated and the other still had two years before she took the degree, they came to the spotless little house and to their self-sacrificing mother for the summer's holi- day. They both fell ill, not because their own home was not clean, not because their mother was not devoted, but because next door to them and also in the rear were wretched tenements, and because their mother's utmost efforts could not keep the infection out of her own house. One daughter died and one recovered but was an invahd for two years following. This is, perhaps, a fair illustration of the futility of the individual conscience when woman insists upon isolating her family from the rest of the community and its interests. The result is sure to be a pitiful failure. One of the interesting experiences in the Chicago campaign 176 SELECTED ARTICLES for inducing the members of the Charter convention to recom- mend municipal franchise for women in the provisions of the new charter was the vmexpected enthusiasm and help which came from large groups of foreign-born women. The Scandi- navian women represented in man}/ Lutheran church societies said quite simply that in the old country they had had the municipal franchise upon the same basis as men since the sev- enteenth century; all the women formerly living under the British government, in England, Australia or Canada, pointed out that Chicago women were asking now for what the British women had long had. But the most unexpected response came from the foreign colonies in which women had never heard such problems discussed and took the prospect of the municipal ballot as a simple device — which it is — to aid them in their daily struggle with adverse city conditions. The Italian women said that the men engaged in railroad construction were away all summer and did not know anything about their household difficulties. Some of them came to Hull-House one day to talk over the possibility of a public wash-house. They do not like to wash in their own tenements ; they have never seen a washing-tub until they came to America, and find it very diffi- cult to use it in the restricted space of their little kitchens and to hang the clothes within the house to dry. They say that in the Italian villages the women all go to the streams together ; in the town they go to the public wash-house ; and washing, instead of being lonely and disagreeable, is made pleasant by cheerful conversation. It is asking a great deal of these wom- en to change suddenly all their habits of living, and their con- tention that the tenement-house kitchen is too small for laun- dry-work is well taken. If women in Chicago knew the needs of the Italian colony they would realize that any change bring- ing cleanliness and fresh clothing into the Italian household would be a very sensible and hygienic measure. It is, perhaps, asking a great deal that the members of the city council should understand this, but surely a comprehension of the needs of these women and efforts toward ameliorating their lot might be regarded as matters of municipal obligation on the part of voting women. The same thing is true of the Jewish women in their desire WOMAN SUFFRAGE 177 for covered markets which have always been a municipal pro- vision in Russia and Poland. The vegetables piled high upon the wagons standing in the open markets of Chicago become covered with dust and soot. It seems to these women a violation of the most rudimentary decencies and they sometimes say quite sim- ply: "If women had anything to say about it they would change all that." If women follow only the lines of their traditional activ- ities here are certain primary duties which belong to even the most conservative women, and which no one woman or group of women can adequately discharge unless they join the more gen- eral movements looking toward social amelioration through le- gal enactment. The first of these, of which this article has already treated, is woman's responsibility for the members of her own household that they may be properly fed and clothed and surrounded by hygienic conditions. The second is a responsibility for the education of children : (a) that they may be provided with good schools ; (b) that they may be kept free from vicious influences on the street; (c) that when working they may be protected by adequate child-labor legislation. (a) The duty of woman toward the schools which her chil- dren attend is so obvious that it is not necessary to dwell upon it. But even this smple obligation cannot be effectively carried out without some form of social organization as the mothers' school clubs and mothers' congresses testify, and to which the most conservative women belong because they feel the need of wider reading and discussion concerning the many problems of childhood. It is, therefore, perhaps natural that the public should have beeii more willing to accord a vote to women in school matters than in any other, and yet women have never been mem- bers of a board of education in sufficient numbers to influence largely actual school curriculi. If they had been kindergartens, domestic science courses and school play-grounds would be far more numerous than they are. More than one woman has been convinced of the need of the ballot by the futility of her efforts in persuading a business man that young children need nurture in something besides the three R's. Perhaps, too, only women realize the influence which the school might exert upon the home 178 SELECTED ARTICLES if a proper adaptation to actual needs were considered. An Italian girl who has had lessons in cooking at the public school will help her mother to connect the entire family with American food and household habits. That the mother has never baked bread in Italy — only mixed it in her own house and then taken it out to the village oven — makes it all the more necessary that her daughter should understand the complications of a cooking stove. The same thing is true of the girl who learns to sew in the public school, and more than anything else, per- haps of the girl who receives the first simple instruction in the care of little children, that skillful care which every tenement- house baby requires if he is to be pulled tlirough his second summer. The only time, to my knowledge, that lessons in the care of children were in the public schools of Chicago was one summer when the vacation schools were being managed by a volunteer body of women. The instruction was eagerly re- ceived by the Italian girls, v/ha had been ''little mothers" to younger children ever since they could remember. As a result of this teaching I recall a young girl who care- fully explained to her Italian mother that the reason the babies in Italy were so healthy and the babies in Chicago were so sick- ly was not, as her mother had always firmly insisted, because her babies in Italy had goat's milk and her babies in America had cow's milk, but because the milk in Italy was clean and the milk in Chicago was dirty. She said that when you milked your own goat before the door you knew that the milk was clean, but when you bought milk from the grocery store after it had been carried for many miles in the country "you couldn't tell whether or not it was fit for the baby to drink until the men from the City Hall, who had watched it all the way, said it was all right." She also informed her mother that the "City Hall wanted to fix up the milk so that it couldn't make the baby sick, but that they hadn't quite enough votes for it yet." The Italian mother believed what her child had been taught in the big school; it seemed to her quite as natural that the city should be concerned in providing pure milk for her younger children as that it should provide big schools and teachers for her older children. She reached this na'ive conclusion because she had never heard those arguments which make it seem reasonable WOMAN SUFFRAGE 179 that a woman should be given the school franchise, but no oth- er. (b) But women are also beginning to realize that children need attention outside of school hours ; that much of the petty vice in cities is merely the love of pleasure gone wrong, the overrestrained boy or girl seeking improper recreation and ex- citement. It is obvious that a little study of the needs of chil- dren, a sympathetic understanding of the conditions under which they go astray, might save hundreds of them. Women traai- tionally have had an opportunity to observe the plays of chil- dren and the needs of youth, and yet in Chicago, at least, they had done singularly little in this vexed problem of juvenile de- linquency until they helped to inaugurate the Juvenile Court movement a dozen years ago. The Juvenile Court committee, made up largely of women, paid the salaries of the probation officers connected with the court for the first six years of its existence, and after the salaries were cared for by the county the same organization turned itself into a Juvenile Protective League, and through a score of paid officers are doing valiant service in minimizing some of the dangers of city life which boys and girls encounter. The Protective League, however, was not formed until the women had had a civic training through their semi-official con- nection with the Juvenile Court. This is, perhaps, an illustra- tion of our inability to see the duty "next to hand" until we have become alert through our knowledge of conditions in con- nection with the larger duties. We would all agree that social amelioration must come about through the efforts of many peo- ple who are moved thereto by the compunction and stirring of the individual conscience, but we are only beginning to un- derstand that the individual conscience will respond to the spe- cial challenge largely proportional as the individual is able to see the social conditions because he has felt responsible for their improvement. Because this body of women assumed a public resonsibility they have seen to it that every series of pictures displayed m the five-cent theater is subjected to a careful censor- ship before it is produced, and those series suggesting obscenity and criminality have been practically eliminated. The police department has performed this and many other duties to which i8o SELECTED ARTICLES it was oblivious before simply because these women have made it realize that it is necessary to protect and purify those places of amusement which are crowded with young people every, night. This is but the negative side of the polic}^ pursued by the public ciuthorities in the fifteen small parks of Chicago, each of which is provided with halls in which young people may meet nightly for social gatherings and dances. The more extensively the modern city endeavors on the one hand to control and on the other hand to provide recreational facilities for its young peo- ple the more necessary it is that women should assist in their direction and extension. After all, a care for wholesome and innocent amusement is what women have for many years as- sumed. When the reaction comes on the part of taxpayers women's votes may be necessary to keep the city to its bene- ficent obligations toward its own young people. (c) As the education of her children has been more and more transferred to the school, so that even children four years old go to the kindergarten, the woman has been left in a household of constantly narrowing interests, not only because the children are away, but also because one industry after another is slip- ping from the household into the factory. Ever since steam power has been applied to the processes of weaving and spin- nmg woman's traditional work has been carried on largely out- side of the home. The clothing and household linen are not only spun and woven, but also usually sewed, by machinery; the preparation of many foods has also passed into the factory and necessarily a certain number of women have been obliged to follow their work there, although it is doubtful, in spite of the large number of factory girls, whether women now are doing as large a proportion of the world's work as they used to do Because many thousands of those working in factories and shops are girls between the ages of fourteen and twenty-two there is a necessity that older women should be interested in the condi- tions of industry. The very fact that these girls are not going to remain in industry permanently makes it more important that some one should see to it that they shall not be incapacitated for their future family life because they work for exhausting hours and under insanitary conditions. If woman's sense of obligation had enlarged as the industrial WOMAN SUFFRAGE i8i conditions changed she might naturally and almost imperceptibly have inaugurated the movements for social amelioration in the line of factory legislation and shop sanitation. That she has not done so is doubtless due to the fact that her conscience is slow to recognize any obligation outside of her own family circle, and because she was so absorbed in her own household that she failed to see what the conditions outside actually were. It would be interesting to know how far the consciousness that she had no vote and could not change matters operated in this direction. After all, we see only those things to which our attention has been drawn, we feel responsibility for those things which are brought to us as matters of responsibility. If conscientious wom- en were convinced that it was a civic duty to be informed in regard to these grave industrial affairs, and then to express the conclusions which they had reached by depositing a piece of paper in ballot-box, one cannot imagine that they would shirk simply because the action* ran counter to old traditions. To those of my readers who would admit that although woman has no right to shirk her old obligations, that all of these measures could be. secured more easily through her influence upon the men of her family than through the direct use of the ballot, I should like to tell a little story. 1 have a friend m Chicago who is the mother of four sons and the grandmother of twelve grandsons who are voters. She is a woman of wealth, of secured social position, of sterling character and clear intel- ligence, and may, therefore, quite fairly be cited as a "woman of influence." Upon one of her recent birthdays, when she was asked how she had kept so young, she promptly replied : "Be- cause I have always advocated at least one unpopular cause." It may have been in pursuance of this policy that for many years she has been an ardent advocate of free silver, although her manufacturing family are all Republicans ! I happened to call at her house on the day that Mr. McKinley was elected presi- dent against Mr. Bryan for the first time. I found my friend very much disturbed. She said somewhat bitterly that she had at last discovered what the much-vaunted influence of woman was worth; that she had implored each of her sons and grand- sons, had entered into endless arguments and moral appeals to induce one of them to represent her convictions by voting for i82 SELECTED ARTICLES Bryan ! That, although sincerely devoted to her, each one had assured her that his convictions forced him to vote the Repub- lican ticket. She said that all she had been able to secure was the promise from one of the grandsons, for whom she had an especial tenderness because he bore her husband's name, that he would not vote at all. He could not vote for Bryan, but out of respect for her feeling he would refrain from voting for McKinley. My friend said that for many years she had suspect- ed that women could influence men only in regard to those things in which men were not deeply concerned, but when it came to persuading a man to a woman's view in affairs of poli- tics or business it was absolutely useless. I contended that a woman had no right to persuade a man to vote against his own convictions ; that I respected the men of her family for follow- ing their own judgment regardless of the appeal which the honored head .of the house had made to their chivalric devo- tion. To this she replied that she would agree with that point of view when a woman had the same opportunity as a man to reg- ister her convictions by vote. I believed then as I do now, that nothing is gained when independence of judgment is assailed by ^'influence," sentimental or otherwise, and that we test advancing civilization somewhat by our power to respect differences and by our tolerance of another's honest conviction. This is, perhaps, the attitude of many busy women who would be glad to use the ballot to further public measures in which they are interested and for which they have been working for years. It offends the taste of such a woman to be obliged to use indirect ''influence" v/hen she is accustomed to well-bred, open action in other affairs, and she very much resents the time spent in persuading a voter to take her point of view, and possibly to give up his own, quite as honest and valuable as hers, al- though different because resulting from a totally different ex- perience. Public-spirited women who wish to use the ballot, as I know them, do not wish to do the work of men nor to tak? over men's affairs. They simply want an opportunity to do their own work and to take care of those affairs which naturally and historically belong to women, but which are constantly be- ing overlooked and slighted in our political institutions. In a complex community like the modern city all points of WOMAN SUFFRAGE 183 view need to be represented ; the resultants of diverse experi- ences need to be pooled if the community would make for sane and balanced progress. If it would meet fairly each problem. as it arises, whether it be connected with a freight tunnel having to do largely with business men, or with the increasing death rate among children under five years of age, a problem in which women- are vitally concerned, or with the question of more ade- quate street-car transfers, in which both men and women might be said to be equally interested, it must not ignore the judg- ments of its entire adult population. To turn the administration of our civic affairs wholly over to men may mean that the American city will continue to push forward in its commercial and industrial development, and con- tinue to lag behind in those things which make a city healthful and beautiful. After all, the woman's traditional function has been to make her dwelling-place both clean and fair. Is that dreariness in city life, that lack of domesticity which the hum- blest farm dwelling presents, due to a withdrawal of one of the naturally cooperating forces? If women have in any sense been responsible for the gentler side of life which softens and blurs some of its harsher conditions, may they not have a duty to perform in our American cities? In closing, may I recapitulate that if woman would fulfill her traditional responsibility to her own children; if she would educate and protect from danger factory children who must find their recreation on the street; if she would bring the cultural forces to bear upon our materialistic civilization ; and if she would do it all with the dignity and directness fitting one who carries on her immemorial duties, then she must bring herself to the use of the ballot — that latest implement for self-govern- ment. May we not fairly say that American women need this implement in order to preserve the home? Lippincott's. 82: 101-4. July, 1908. Woman Suffrage in America. Annie R. Ramsey. History must be the basis of any prophecy as to the outcome of the demand for woman suffrage, and in rehearsing the story of the movement one is amused and surprised at the number i84 SELECTED ARTICLES of old prophecies met. They once stood like giants in the path and proclaimed themselves as the reasons against woman's ap- pearance at the polls, and as the dire consequences thereof, but when boldly approached most of these giants will be found to be tame bugaboos or kindly, harmless old fellows who have gone sound to sleep in the midst of the din. Yet it is in com- batting these old prophecies that we shall find the basis for the new. As far back as the second of July, 1776, two days before the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the state of New Jersey changed the wording of the enfranchisement clause of its provincial chart from, "Male free-holders worth fifty pounds," to "All inhabitants worth fifty pounds," thus giving the ballot to men and women alike. So it can readily be seen that the inception of the woman suffrage movement in this country antedates the birth of the Republic. It is true that in colonial days, and under the laws of the time, there were very few women worth fifty pounds in their individual right, and these who were belonged to the aristocratic class. As a consequence, in their thirty-one years of voting they used their power oftenest in favor of the Federalist party. But democratic principles and ideas became more and more firmly rooted, whereupon the property qualification grew very unpop- ular. When in 1807 the Democratic party were victorious at the polls, a new law was enacted, by which only white males whose names were on the list of state or county as having paid a poll tax were allowed to vote, women and negroes being disenfran- chised. Many decades passed before any concerted movement was made to enfranchise women. In 1847, Lucy Stone, a graduate of Oberlin College, began the lectures she gave from coast to coast on the subject of woman suffrage, and from 1850 to 1861 conventions of women, derided, nicknamed, often over-zealous, and sometimes ridiculous, met annually and ''agitated.'' After the turmoil of the Civil War died away, the issue of woman suffrage was revived in several states, notably Kansas, but WVoming was the first to enfranchise women, in 1869. Since then Colorado, Utah, and Idaho have followed its example, the women in those states possessing suffrage at all elections upon WOMAN SUFFRAGE 185 equal terms with men. In addition to these many states have granted partial suffrage to women. It must be borne in mind that many hidden causes were working to this result quite as surely as the one open cause of the desire for justice. It would take too long to recite the gradual changes of the position of women in the industrial, busi- ness, and professional world, or to follow in detail the slow im- provement of her legal status. By economic exigencies, by the introduction of luxury, by the invention of labor-saving ma- chines, women have been forced forward and thus made more fit and more free to enter public life. Therefore the army of suffragists has been largely recruited in the last fifteen years from the most intelligent and reflective part of the community. When such a stage is reached in any movement founded on a plea whose abstract justice is admitted, it is certain that the end will soon be attained, and it is no particular foresight which prophesies that woman's suffrage will eventually be tried. When it comes the years of ''agitation" will seem to have been as the rush of an express train, although so many workers have grown weary or died in the waiting for it. With this com.monplace but comprehensive prophecy there are four minor forecasts which will delay the day and alter its tendencies when it dawns, and the best way to present them is to cite the arguments the Antis have used for years. The first of these is that women will not vote when they get the ballot, because the majority of women do not wish to vote. No, of course not. Who does want to vote just for the sake of voting? But give a woman something to vote about and she is not slow in doing it. Here are the facts : For thirty- nine years the proportion of women of Wyoming who voted has consistently increased. This proportion, as ascertained from actual inspection of voting lists, in three successive elections, was ninety per cent, of the resident women and eighty per cent, of the men. And instead of the number of male voters falling off in consequence of the voting of women, the male vote in- creased, and far exceeds the proportion of men voting in Mas- sachusetts. Whenever there has been a vital issue women have taken an i86 SELECTED ARTICLES active part. What woman does not wish to vote against the city "improvement" which lessens the value of her property, and does no good to any but the dishonest politician who proposed it? What woman would not vote on the questions of better water, better gas, better sanitation, on the conduct of the schools, the cleaning of the city's streets, the making and keeping of its laws of health, and its government by honest men? The second prophecy is that once the poll habit is formed, the house and the children will be neglected. Yet it does not appear that a man neglects his shop or office in order to vote: why then should a woman take a different stand in regard to her business? — for assuredly home-keeping and child-training are the business of all women happy enough to possess a home and children. ^. This second prophecy is not borne out by the women of states possessing part or all of the franchise. Wyoming women are not distinguished for their poor domestic arrangements and their unhappy husbands and children, nor are those of the British colonies of New Zealand and Australia, which have fully en- franchised the women. Surely it is only fair to judge a princi- ple by the success of experiments. u;^ As a third prophecy, we are told that the effect of the ballot given to woman will be the degradation of her character. Is it possible that thinking about politics is so degrading? How have men escaped contamination? Are reading and dis- cussion upon themes and schemes of good government so per- nicious that no woman can approach them and retire unsoiled? What we say among ourselves and in our homes might surely be said on a slip of paper with as little harm to our morals. Do the prophets mean that going to the polls on election day is not merely disagreeable, but degradirrg? It has been claimed that the coming of women to the polls has improved the con- dition thereof, and that now, with the Australian ballot in use, there is little that is disagreeable in the process of voting. The prophecy may be founded on the fact that voters are not exempt from military and jury duty. Priests — who do not even give sons to the state — are practically so exempt; and doctors rarely sit on a jury. And women to-day follow the drum as nurses quite as faithfully and fearlessly as their brothers, the chaplain and the doctor. WOMAN SUFFRAGE 187 The fourth argument — perhaps the truest and most to be dreaded — is that when suffrage is granted to women the flood- gates of ignorance and folly are opened ; that the vast majority of women are uninformed, and not informable, on political sub- jects; that they cannot be taught to think both clearly and large- ly, that they will be the followers of the most successful in- triguer and ward "heeler." So they may, for a time, and I would respectfully submit that in these things they would close- ly imitate the men they know best, and each class of society would but enlarge its ranks. Very little else could be looked for at first if every woman lit or unlit rushed to the polls ; but the mass of women is being slowly educated. The subject of this education and uplifting has been one that for thirty-five years has engaged the energies and occupied the thought of earnest women at the top of the social scale, and the result must tell in future generations. It is only sane to judge the future from the past when trying to forecast the fate of a movement which for more than three generations has been rolling up an ever-increasing snow ball of reasons and concessions. There is hope in the fact that responsibility educates. In- telligent women can see no reason why the vote should be de- nied them any more than it is denied intelligent men, because there are some of each sex who are unworthy and unfit. Most earnest thinkers, to-day, believe in an educational qualification, and this applied to men and women alike would help the whole body politic. This is not a plea but a prophecy, and I cannot more forcibly remind you of this than by a condensation of the old prophecies with their refutation into the form of a recapitulation. 1. Woman's suffrage will be tried; perhaps not soon, but in no very distant time. 2. It will not destroy the home, and woman's work therein. 3. It will not degrade woman, or produce any very great change in her character. 4. It will not fail because of woman's indifference. 5. It will not overwhelm our present government by a great tide of crude and ill-considered opinion. It is far more likely, for a while at least, to bring strength to reform and iife-blood to vital issues. i88 SELECTED ARTICLES North American Review. 163: 91-7. July, 1896. Why Women Should Have the Ballot. John Gibbon. I have been seeking for some years a good, sound reason why women should not vote, and I have, after diligent search, found one, and only one. It is because they are women. There is no other, so far as I have yet been able to discover, which rises above the frivolous. Various so-called reasons have been urged, indeed : women, it is said, are weak, foolish, frivolous, depend- ent; they can't fight; they have other and more important duties to attend to; they have all the rights they ought to have now; they are protected by men's votes, and so forth, but the real and only reason is that they are women. There are men, and plenty of them, against whom all the considerations enumerated above, except that of sex, can be urged as reasons why they should not vote ; but they are never urged against them because they are men: that is, they belong to that class which heretofore has had the power to say who shall vote. Women have life, property, opportunities for pursuit of hap- piness, to protect just as men have. Why should they not have the same means of guarding these that men have? The only reason is that they had the bad luck to come into the world as females, and man got "the drop" on power first. Protection by proxy will not hold for a moment. In this country no man is willing to admit that his rights can be pro- tected by the vote of another. No such doctrine as that has ever Deen admitted here, and men would laugh it to scorn even when the man whose right to be protected was a black man just emerg- ing from an ignorant, degraded servitude. So well was the absurdity of such a theory recognized that, for their protection, the right to vote was placed after the war in the hands of persons, many of whom were but little above the brutes, pro- vided always they were fortunate enough to have come into the world males. Man, in the aggregate, says in his might that certain classes of persons shall not vote, and specifies non-citizens, paupers, con- victs, idiots, and women ; and these classes are excepted for the good of society — all except the women. An idot, even, might see why a pauper and a convict should not vote, and if he is an WOMAN SUFFRAGE 189 honest idiot he might have a glimmering as to why he himself should not vote; but it would puzzle him to tell why a woman should be put in the same class with himself, the pauper, and the convict. Suffrage, it is said, is not a right. Perhaps it is not; but, then, neither is life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness — in some places. In this country, however, it was solemnly declared over a century ago that these are amongst the inalienable rights of mankind, bestowed upon them equally by the Creator, and that, to secure them, governments are' instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. No such right had ever been more than dreamed of before that, and we have been ever since striving to make good the assertions of our forefathers. We have succeeded, too, pretty well, considering the difficulties in our path, one of which was a fuur-years' slaughter of our brothers to force them to acknowledge the truth of the words of our ancestors. There are some things not yet made exactly straight, and in striving to point out what they are, we are met at the very threshold by two pertinent enquiries: (i) Is woman a "person"!' and (2) Is she governed with her ^'consent"? It is scarcely worth while to offer any argument on the first question, as probably almost all will acknowledge that she is "a person." So far as the second is concerned all must accept it as true that she is governed with her consent, just as the other members of the class in which she is placed by man are governed with their consent, namely, the non-citizen, the pauper, the convict, and the idiot. An eminent divine recently declared that the old maxim that there should be no taxation without represencation is utterly inapplicable to this question of woman suffrage ; but he failed to give any reason, good or bad, for his assertion, although he attempted to offer some excuses for it. Women who are taxed, he urged, are represented by their relatives, potent influence, by men's sense ot justice, chivalry, etc. All of which amounts to this : the paupers, the convicts, the idiots, and the aliens are represented in the same way, leav- ing out the "chivalry," which is a very poor representative with a great many people. 190 SELECTED ARTICLES All we have to do to set aside this argument of "representa- tion by proxy" is to recall the very many women who 'have no "relatives," "influence," "sense of justice," or "chivalry" to represent them. They have to go without even this poor repre- sentation, and thus inequality and injustice are perpetuated. It is gratifying to know that "women's property" is better protected than men's in one state; but is it true that this protection is bet- ter in all states, or as good? As long as this is not so, just so long are inequality and injustice maintained in violation of our fundamental law. A woman being "a person" is a citizen of the United States (if bom or naturalized in them), by virtue of the amendments which abolished human slavery in this country ; and by the same amendments every "citizen" is entitled to all privileges and immunities under the law and to its equal protection. If women have progressed towards an approach to the equal protection of the laws, it has been due more to the progress of human affairs in this century than to anything else ; and it is possible that much of this progress has been due to the influence of women in rectifying a state of affairs which would not origi- nally have existed if women had been represented by their own votes, instead of being represented by man's "chivalry," etc. Representative "chivalry" may do very well for those fortunate enough to possess it, but if all could appeal to it with confidence and security there would no longer be any need for whipping- posts as a punishment for wife beating. This progress in pub- lic sentiment has wiped from the statute books of some of the states laws which were a disgrace to the age ; and which would never have been there could women have applied in time an ounce of prevention. Having demonstrated, as I think, woman's clear right constitutionally to the ballot, it may be well to note some of the evils which, in man's imagination, are going to follow the granting of this right. To my mind one of the funniest of these apprehensions is the possibility of man's being "jostled," or woman's being insulted,, at the polls. Are men jostled at the church door, at the theatre entrance, or at the ticket office? Or are women insulted there? Is there any m^ore chance of jostling or insulting at the polls WOMAN SUFFRAGE 191 [lan at any of these places? On the contrary, are not the chances less at the polls than anywhere else? I refer now, of course to this country alone. How long would it take an Ameri- can public to discover that a woman with temerity enough to "jostle" a man, or a man foolish enough to insult a woman there, was grossly outraging the highest prerogative of American citi- enship ? All sympathy bestowed upon women who may be told they must vote, and all talk about how very difficult it would be in this case "to miake the horse drink," are entirely wasted. We do not tell even men in this country: "You must vote." It is made their privilege to exercise the right of franchise. All true Americans then look upon this right as a duty which they per- form with greater or less conscientiousness. Nearly all others are drawn to the polls by the wiles of the politician who needs the votes, or by the wealth of the rich who crave office and in- fluence. It needs no very close study of human nature to predict which, under such circumstances, will perform most faithfully the patriotic duty, the woman or the man. If the woman does not come out ahead in that race, she will fall short of the just expectations of mankind, and belie her past history. The trouble with her now is that she does not clearly see what her duty demands. She occupies the position of a child who does not want to take medicine which will do 'her good, because it looks bad or tastes bad, and man is doing everything in his power to confirm her in the notion that her instincts and prejudices are well founded. She does not know what a power for good this ballot is. She has been so well taken care of in this country that she cannot imagine herself any better off, and is perfectly willing to think that this state of things will last forever, and that no retrogression is possible. If you invite attention to the fact of the large number of ignorant votes which go towards creating the law-making power under which she lives, her only thought apparently is the dread of coming in contact with the dirty, ignorant casters of those votes when she may be called upon to go to the. polls, and in this thought she is industriously encouraged by political man, who does not desire to increase a class of votes which he may not be able to influence, and knows he cannot buy. 192 SELECTED ARTICLES What the result would be is not quite so much a matter of conjecture as the Bishop of Albany appears to think, for the problem of -woman suffrage has already been partially solved, and the solution is growing in^-strength day by day, as the con- viction becomes forced on the community where the experiment is in process of trial, that the. ballot in the hands of woman, so far from being an evil, is a positive blessing. The fear, in those communities, that a few thousand votes deposited by fallen women can hold the balance of power in an. election againsf the many, many more thousands of women who are alive to the full importance of the franchise privilege, is no longer felt. Such fears need no longer excite the apprehension of theorists carried away by the ''enormous and awful probability of a vote that might turn the tide of an election, purchasable by the highest bidder." Let those who entertain such apprehensions rest easy. The man who should win his election by the purchase of such a vote would be speedily relegated to the walks ' of private life by the votes of women whose duty it would then be doubly strong to cast them. It is rather dangerous and illogical to draw a conclusion "through an imaginary premise," and that is exactly the pit I fear the Bishop of Albany fell into w*hen he de- clared it to be a fact /'that to multiply suffrage means to multi- ply every kind of vote by two." Such is not the fact. Experience in woman suffrage does not show it. Our knowledge of woman nature tends to prove directly the reverse. There is, it may safely be asserted, no one question in which women have a greater interest than that governing the sale of liquor. In the abuse of liquor no class in the world suffers as. do women. Will it be contended by any one conversant with the facts that if woman is given the ballot each "kind of vote"" on this question would be simply multiplied "by two?" Does not our knowledge on the subject lead us to directly the opposite conclusion? Some years ago a crusade was started in a sectioii of this country by women, against liquor selling. They could not use the ballot in the question, for they did not possess it, and the men voters who (mis) represented them did not agree with them in their views. They therefore adopted a novel plaT> and proceeded to organize a campaign of prayer against the evil. Did it succeed? No. Every kind of ridicule was thrown. WOMAN SUFFRAGE 193 scheme, and the touching appeals to the Lord of Hosts- were met by jeers, hootings,'and derision. Passing through a Western town at the time, I witnessed a sight which went far towards convincing me of the justice of the cause of woman suffrage. Near the depot where the train stopped I was startled at the sight of a group of women quietly kneeling in front of a liquor, saloon, and evidently engaged in offering up a prayer in accordance with the resolutions they had formed to try and abate a nuisance which directly affected them, their husbands, brothers, and sons. Perhaps they ought not to have been there. Perhaps that was not the way to bring about a reform. But it was the way they had concluded to try, and their method was entitled to a decent respect, even if none was felt by their chivalric represent- atives for the Power to whom their appeal was made. The scene was a singular and novel one : the group of silent kneeling women ; the lounging liquor-dealers looking on placidly from the doors and windows, and the crowd of men and boys gazing on. Suddenly the silence was broken by the sound of music approaching, and in a few moments a brass band, sur- rounded by a noisy rabble of boys, came sweeping round the corner of the street, halting close to the kneeling women. The band continued to play a loud, rollicking air, which drowned every other sound, as our train pulled out of the station. The band, I presume, had a right to be in the street. It had a right also to play "'We'll never get drunk any more," or any other roistering tune its leader chose, but the outrage was none the less a great one, and one which never could or would have been perpetrated if these kneeling women and their sisters had possessed the right of franchise. Surely it will not be claimed by anybody that this is a case where chivalric repre- sentation would be of any service, or where, if the ballot were given to women, the prohibition or temperance vote would be simply multiplied "by two." In this matter of the franchise, if justice is the aim, why should we bestow the ballot upon ignorance and deny it to intelli- gence? Why bestow it upon one who, in this nineteenth cen- tury, proclaims, in the face of all evidence to the contrary, that 194 SELECTED ARTICLES .the sun revolves about the earth, because he is a man, and re- fuse it to one whose burning words in the cause of freedom have been translated into every living language on the face of the earth, because she is a woman f When the war closed, many millions of men and women were made free. In order to enable them to protect their freedom, it was deemed necessary to place the ballot in the hands of the free-men. It did not apparently matter so much about the women ; because, it is presumed, it was thought they could pro- tect themselves or could lean upon the chivalry of the men. With all the power of the United States to back up the govern- ment, the black man had still for his protection to be endowed with the ballot. The women could get along without it, because they were women. The only qualifications were that the voter should be of age — and a man. It would have been well to add another qualification — that he should be able to read and write. The next time we extend the suffrage it is to be hoped we will not repeat the same mistake, but bestow on women who can read and write the right to cast a ballot. Once in possession of the franchise, it would be strange, indeed, if she did not make a better use of it than ignorance and degradation have ever suc- ceeded in doing. That the day for the enfranchisement of women in this coun- try is coming cannot be doubted by any one capable of reading the very apparent signs which have been shown for some years past. One of the most remarkable of these signs is the desperate struggle those opposed to woman suffrage are making to prevent its accompHshment. Desperate struggles are not made against attacks Jess formidable and persistent than those which have been waged so long in favor of placing woman on the same legal level with man, by putting in her hand the only weapon com- petent for her protection. These attacks in favor of the right of franchise have been varied in their success, but as a whole the advance has been marked and such as to excite the apprension of the opponents of the measure, who are driven to forecast all sorts of imaginary evils as sure to follow the inauguration of this new and "untried" system of voting. WOMAN SUFFRAGE 195 North American Review. 91: 75-86. January, 1910. Appeal of Politics to Woman. Rosamond Lee Sutherland. Why men, however ignorant or feeble-minded, just because they are men, should be credited with exclusively possessing a Heaven-bestowed ability of governing, to which women, what- ever their training or mentality, may never aspire, must forever remain one of the unexplained mysteries. That even men are not all qualilied for the ballot or entirely beyond criticism in its use might be suspected by the unregenerate from a perusal of the newspapers, say, at the time of the recent election in New York city, or any other large city, for that matter. When the ballot shall be given to women — as it is sure to be sooner or later— is it thinkable that any of them will make a worse use of it than some men are now doing? On the other hand, is it not quite possible, indeed, is it not probable, that there will be an improvement? It has been argued adversely that to give the ballot to women would but double the vote without effecting the result, as most women would follow the party convictions of father or husband, but if danger of doubling the vote through a tendency to follow a husband's or father's footsteps is a valid objection to giving the franchise to women, then as a general proposition a man's sons shou-ld not be given a vote for the same reason. Our politics, as well as our religion are, after all, largely mat- ters of inheritance and environment, and if the objection is good there should be but one voter in the family — the head of the household. If death has removed the father, for example, the mother is, or should be, the head of the bouse and the property-owner. Why should she not then be the one to cast the vote? It might really be a better plan than the present sys- tem imder which large property interests must often go wholly unrepresented, except on the tax list, until a son becomes of age. 196 SELECTED ARTICLES Outlook. 82: 622. March 17, 1906. Child Labor and Woman Suffrage. Florence Kelly. Having noted with interest the use which The Outlook makes in its issue of February 24 (p. 382) of a portion of my report as Chairman of the Industrial Committee of the Na- tional American Woman Suffrage Association, presented to the recent convention at Baltimore, it occurs to me that you may be disposed to give space for my interpretation of the facts cited. I am convinced that the enfranchisement of women is in- dispensable to the solution of the child labor problem, and I cited the conditions existing in Maryland, in New York, and else- where, in support of this view. In Maryland, where children work all night as messengers and telegraph boys, and in glass- works, while men and women sleep, women have never voted, and have made but limited use of the right to petition which they possess. The children of Maryland are suffering from this failure of the women of Maryland to protect them. In Georgia, where no protection is afforded to working chil- dren, little girls work in cotton-mills all night at the age of six, seven, and eight years. In that state women have used their right of petition five years on behalf of the working chil- dren, and have achieved nothing for their protection. Women in Georgia have no vote on any subject. In Illinois women have used the right of petition with in- creasing vigilance and energy for more than a generation. There, children do not work at night, though the largest glass-bottle works in the world are at Alton, Illinois, and the messenger service of Chicago is second only to that of New York city. The effort for the protection of the children in industry in Illinois is, however, a ceaseless, wearying struggle. Only last year, for instance, the appropriation for the state factory in- spectors' expenses was cut in half, and the present energetic officer was kept in office only by long-continued protest of wom- en's organizations against his removal. The amount of exertion required of the disfranchised women of Illinois for the protection of the working children alone is greater than that required of the voting women of Colorado for the performance of all their political duties. RSITY .^ '^' ./ ^ WOMAN SUFFRAGE 197 In the four states in which women vote on all subjects, child labor and ilHteracy have ceased to be problems. Nowhere in the industrial world are children so effectively safeguarded in life, Umb, health, education, and morals as in Denver, where mothers and teachers unite to keep in office the justly famous Judge Lindsey of the juvenile court, overcoming (with the help of a minority of politically independent fathers) the united efforts of the Republican and the Democratic bosses against them. In contrast with the good fortune of the children of Denver is the plight of the half-million illiterate children in the thirteen southern states in which women have no vote and make slight use (if any) of the right of petition. In New York city, also, where women have no vote, the young children pay the penalty of the disfranchisement of their mothers and teachers, as is shown by the facts cited by The Outlook (February 24, p. 283). It is largely because these facts and many others like them have come to my attention that I am serving as Chairman of the Industrial Committee of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Public. 11: 205-6. May 29, 1908. Women Who Know That They Need the Ballot. Jane Addams. A woman with young children was very much troubled be- cause her tenement had no fire-escapes. She came to Hull House to ask us to put one on. We advised her to have her husband see the alderman from our ward, who had scattered promises of fire-escapes right and left, before he was elected. She answered, "But my husband is away at work for months at a time, and when he is at home he is not as much afraid of fire as I am, and he doe^ not understand as well as I do how helpless the children woiild be if there was a fire." That woman was from the interior of Sicily, and there is no more conservative woman anywhere than can be found in the in- terior of Sicily; but at the end of our talk she said, "Well, if I had a vote, I believe I should get a fire-escape !" So women 198 SELECTED ARTICLES are being brought to wish for the ballot in a thousand ways, not through any theory, but as a result of their practical ex- perience. The American women are being converted in the same way. The Chicago Woman's Club has more than a thousand members^ including many women of influence. They have been very suc- cessful in getting good laws passed and improvements intro- duced. But they find that in order to get them enforced and steadily carried out, they need the power that a vote gives. Take the Juvenile court. Several different men have acted as judges. The women have followed the proceedings of the Juvenile court with close .interest, and they know very well which of those judges was the ablest in dealing with the children's cases. They often say, "Oh, if we could only have Judge So and So back again !" But they have no voice in choosing the judges. Around us there are many factories that employ young girls in running dangerous machinery, making tin cans, etc. Our women collected a long list of bad accidents, the loss of fingers- and of hands. They went before a committee of the legisla- ture, and told the result of their investigations. The committee seemed impressed, and promised to recommend legislation call- ing for the use of guards on the machines. But a deputation of business men went to the legislature after us, and destroyed all the effect of our hearing. They had votes, and they succeeded in preventing the needed legislation. Woman's Home Companion, p. 20. April, 1908. Working Woman and the Ballot. Jane Addams. In the earlier stages of the movement for woman suffrage great stress was laid upon two points : that the woman of proper- ty should have the power to protect her interests, and that the woman of education could be entrusted with the vote with benefit to the nation. We are beginning to realize that in asking for the ballot for women, neither of these limitations can be considered. The woman of property has, indeed, just claims to the suf- frage, that she may have a voice in those public measures which depend upon and imply an increase in taxes. WOMAN SUFFRAGE 199 The woman of education, already a power for good in the community, needs the franchise, so that when she asks for pure- food laws, for the protection of infant life, for child-labor re- strictions, she shall not be treated as a mere powerless theorist, whose requests may quite reasonably be set aside in favor of the more urgent demands of vote-endowed electors, who may de- termine the term of office of the legislators with whom they are pleading. But if, both for their own sakes and for the good of the republic, women of property and women of education should be enfranchised, far more is the power of the ballot needed by the working woman, whose stake in the country is represented by her life, her health, her. virtue, and the safety and happiness of her children. The ballot is not demanded for her because she is good or wise, or because she will make no mistakes in its use. Neither goodness nor wisdom is the sole possession of one class, and freedom from mistakes is the privilege of none. Working women need the ballot because they must possess some control over the conditions of their lives and those of their children ; and, in this twentieth-century world, the ballot box offers the only channel- through which they can give expression to such legitimate control. Nations are no longer what they once were, essentially mili- tary organizations. As long as a state of preparedness against the ever-present danger of attack from outside foes formed the only stable foundation for national existence, it was quite fitting that military prowess should be regarded as the first of virtues, and the ability to bear arms the test of citizenship. But the entire structure of the modern world is built upon a groundwork of industry, and the problems that concern it are in the main those of industrial well-being, and of national, state and city housekeeping. - The advantage of co-operation, the strength of union, was admitted in war long before combination was thought of in the peaceful realm of industry. All that side of life remained an individual affair, and the home an individual home; and so they continued until quite recent times. As long as the individual worker, man or woman, could possess his own tools, work his own hours, bargain for his own pay, he largely controlled his 200 SELECTED ARTICLES own life and made a bargain on terms at least approximately ' on an equality with his employer. It is only our dull wits that fail to see that such a balance of power in bargaining is no longer possible. As our methods of baking our bread,, of weav- ing our cloth and sewing our garments have altered, so have the relations of employer and employed altered. .Woman has always had a large share in the industrial arts, and she has still. But while woman has been carried along with the stream of industrial development from its source in home work up to the present specialization involved in factory methods, she has parted with her old normal power of con- trolling the conditions of her life industrially to a much greater extent than has the working man, who has become equipped with the ballot. This has also been the case in her other sphere, the activities of the home. The modern city offers an extreme instance of the powerlessness of the most conscientious housekeeper, especi- ally if the household income be small, to decide the freshness of the air her family shall breathe, the kind of food they shall eat or the clothes they shall wear. In city life without proper building regulations, and proper inspection of fire escapes, and the means of ventilation, the house will neither be a safe nor a healthy house. No one woman can make it so, toil she ever so hard. The streets used by street railways, automobiles, carriages, express wagons, and an endless army of pedestrians, have to be paved by engineers and cleaned by professional street cleaners. The industrious housekeeper's individual broom, which was well enough in early tim,'2s, would make but a poor showing here. One woman trying to get pure milk for her children is helpless. She has to buy whatever the dealier, or the city or state who should control the dealer, chooses to say she shall have ; and thousands of babies die every year because anxious mothers have no way of controlling re- sponsible authorities. And still the great primitive needs of humanity are the same t food, clothing, shelter and the rearing of the next generation.. To feed and to clothe the family, to bear and to train children has been woman's immemorial business. It is her business still,, and that it is sometimes performed with indifference and is not: WOMAN SUFFRAGE 20T always her joy and her pride is often the result of onr imper- fect adjustment of these old functions to altered conditions. It: was easy to see and to acknowledge the ruler of the home in the mother, the housekeeper, the bread giver, when all her^ duties were performed within her own four walls — her baking,, her brewing, her weaving, her mixing of simples, her nursing of the sick. Her importance to the community was then self- evident. Yet the possessor of historical insight and of a quickened imagination can recognize to-day, under all our altered forms of living, that woman is still performing the same functions. She- has not laid them' aside because the forms of her work have altered. The girl who packs crackers in the modern factory is the veritable descendant of her early foremother grinding the wheat and roasting the cake in the ashes. The tens of thousands of girl votaries who tend the power sewing machines are but the daughters of ancestral woman whose fingers fashioned rough garments out of skins. The teachers who fill our public schools ; almost to the exclusion of men are partners in the mother work of training the child to fill his place in the world when his time shall come, and, in a sense, the modern representatives of the savage woman when she instructed the baby hunter in the art of ' of setting snares or sharpening his stone axes. There is little doubt that women in industry at the present moment afford a striking example of maladjustment, owing to- the factory surroundings of the work they are performing, along with their lack of power to control those surroundings. No one in close touch with the lives of our American work- ing people can be satisfied with existing conditions, either in- dustrial or domestic, and very much of this undesirable state of affairs has come about through the fact that industrial and domestic activities have so largely slipped out of the control of woman with her home-building instincts, her love for order and ' her passion for details. The old division of labor, which defined man's work as that lying outside the home and woman's inside, had much to ^ recommend it. .The trouble with us is that we have enlarged -i the boundaries of the home and have not enlarged the home - maker's powers with it. For what is the modern factory, from > 202 SELECTED ARTICLES the cotton mill to the steam laundry, from the flour mill to the canning works, but a place where an assemblage of workers do on a large scale for the whole community what each individual housekeeper used to do on a small scale for her own household? What are all these new social efforts — our public-school system, our municipal playgrounds, public baths and li- braries, our systems of street cleaning and transportation, our hospitals and asylums — but modern eft'orts to meet in modern ways the old needs of humanity? Are women to have no direc- tion in these matters because the innate desire to help others, to feed, to clothe, to nurse, to teach and to train the race has taken on new forms? Of recent years many attempts have been made to remedy this. Public officials, dimly feehng that. something was wrong, have sought women's co-operation, by consulting with women's clubs, by increasing the number of women upon the boards of charitable institutions, and even by appointing them to executive official positions. But all women who have tried to work through methods so indirect will acknowledge how wasteful of energy and ineffective are such round-about plans, compared with the simple and easy method of expressing opinion through thie vote. It is quite by accident that those states where women enjoy partial or complete suffrage make also the best showing as re- gards the administration of schools, the restriction of child labor, and the protection of young girls? There is probably no country in the world where the interests of children, taking them from every point of view, are so carefully guarded as in Colorado, where the women have full suffrage. Colorado was likewise the first state to raise the age of protection for girls to eighteen. But it is not only the interests of children which the women of a community are especially fitted to guard. They are also the natural protectors of those of their own sex, who, though past childhood, are still young, inexperienced and, in the in- dustrial contest, utterly helpless. The average age of working womien in the United States is suprisingly low, and the majority of them are much too young and inexperienced to secure for themselves reasonable hours of work, or to estimate the risks from unguarded machinery or dangerous processes, from foul air, from indecent or immoral surroundings. WOMAN SUFFRAGE 203; A seasonal trade means slack work and long periods of un- employment alternated with such rushes that half-grown girls are driven to the limits of physical endurance, so that fainting and nervous collapses are not uncommon. The effects of factory and store life upon- a young growing creature are seen in a low- ered physical standard which must tell in the future in a weak- ened constitution for herself and her children. Injuries from revolving rollers, laundry machines, and so forth, spinal troubles and varicose veins from long standing, and the frequent oc- currence of consumption — sure index of fagging vitality — are other results of our short-sighted industrial methods. The extremely low wages paid to young women workers, doubtless serve to recruit the ranks of prostitution, the wages paid in many trades being utterly insufficient to support a girl' respectably, to give her decent food, clothing and lodging, not to speak of satisfying her perfectly innocent desire for amusement and youthful society. And yet all industrial legislation affecting these girls is decided without consultation with their mothers or with other adult women of the community. A voice in the management of schools and playgrounds, and water supplies, and street cleaning, may come to women through school and municipal suffrage, but this by no means covers all the ground. Child-labor laws are state affairs. Pure-food laws are state made and state administered. Even national legis- lation may come very close to the most intimate concerns of a woman's life, such, for instance, as the proposed national di- vorce bill, or the regulations which admit immigrants or deny them admittance. For woman's voice to be effective in all our enlarged house- keeping she needs full suffrage ; and, if she needed it for nothing else, she has a claim to share the fullest social civic life for the- sake of her own mental development. Take the foreign-born woman. True education in citizenship is not conferred by a naturalization paper, but by the accumulated experiences of life in the new country. Our school laws, our sanitary and labor regulations, whose very existence the immigrant woman often learns only when she comes up against them, as it were, fornr. her first introduction to the sense of a large complex civic life. For the results of conferring the ballot upon working womem 204 SELECTED ARTICLES we can now look across the state to Australia and New Zealand, where the legislation in which women have borne their share is beginning to attract the attention of thoughtful men and women in all civilized lands. The women voters in those countries have asked for the protection of women and children on lines very similar to those on which our women have so long worked. But they have the ballot, their representatives sit in the legisla- tures. Our sponsors rarely penetrate further than some outside lobby. Therefore, it is not strange that the legislation of those countries on matters involving the care of infant life, the wages and the hours of women factory workers, the limitation of the work of children, and juvenile-court legislation, is in many re- spects in advance of anything we in America can yet boast. Yet the women of Australia, we are told, spent but little of their energy in pleading for these reforms, but bent all their efforts in winning for themselves the ballot, in forging for themselves the labor-saving tool, which should do their work for them, and do it quickly and efficiently. NEGATIVE DISCUSSION Arena. 2: 175-81. June, 1900. Real Case of the Remonstrants Against Woman Suffrage. O. B. Frothingham. The fact that woman exerts power instead of force is a reason for keeping her in her present condition, which is one of command. Wendell Phillips used to say that she had too much power, and ought to be held to more responsibility; but how voting would secure this, I cannot imagine, especially in these days of a secret ballot. Governments ought to rest upon power ; they do, in fact, in the final resort, rest upon force, and this is embodied in the male sex. Termagants may borrow what comfort they can from the King of Dahomey's body-guard of fe- males, but the King of Dahomey does not rank high among monarchs, neither do those who compose his body-guard rank high among w^omen. Their feminine attributes are of the smallest. The necessities of the "service" have not proved favor- able to their womanhood. It is true that on ordinary occasions a large number of men are released from military duty. The crisis seldom occurs when those under the legal line or above it are called. Still, they may be, they are liable. At one period of our Civil War we v/ere grateful for the reserve of women who could not be summoned to the front, and who were at liberty to wait on the wounded in hospitals, to solace the dying, to manage sanitary fairs, and attend to the various works of mercy, while stronger arms wielded weapons. It is a grand position, that of standing outside of strife and using moral power alone, keeping alive patriotism, inspiring valor, holding up the highest aims, animating sons, husbands, fathers, and breathing an atmosphere of pity and heroism, aloof from the perils of camp life. This is a noble sort of disfranchisement, 2o6 SELECTED ARTICLES something wholly different from the disfranchisement "of the pauper, the criminal, the insane. These are discharged; wom- .en are exempt. These are set aside as persons not human ; women are absolved as constituting a higher class. There is a Tcry real distinction between being placed among the beasts, and being placed among the ''ministering angels." Another argument in favor of the retention of women of their present place is the preponderance in them of feeling, a pre- ponderance that becomes the more striking as they become more perfect in the traits which distinguish the sex. This peculiarity acts as a disqualification in the sphere of practical politics, which rests mainly upon sagacity, but is invaluable as an influence on society. The consciousness of possessing political responsibility may, in some cases, ennoble; though that will depend on cir- cumstances. The possession of the ballot may sometimes be of actual value. The strongest argument in favor of female suf- frage I ever heard turned on this latter point. A poor woman was brought before a police justice, charged with some offence. The judge imposed the heaviest sentence that was allowed by the law. A bystander observed to his companion, "That woman should have been let off more easily." "Yes," replied the other, "she would have been if she could have helped herself. But, you see, she has no vote, and ours is an elective judiciary." Let us hope that all judges are not like that one, and that there are women who are not dragged before police courts. Whatever we may think oi theoretical politics, the practice of poHtics is not ennobling. The educating power of the suffrage is sometimes over-estimated. It does educate in chicanery, cunning, the arts of party management, the market price of manhood, skill in offering rewards for service. But does it educate in intelligence, a broad view of statemanship, the love of justice, patriotism, humanity, respect for citizenship? Virtuous women cannot be aware of the dangers they will have to encounter if they enter the political arena. Society is not alive to the corruption that will follow the introduction of a new kind of bribery into na- tional and state affairs. We need all the purity, modesty, reticence, we can get, and it comes to us best, in the least adul- terated form, from a class set apart, and having simply a moral influence on the questions before the people. The importance of WOMAN SUFFRAGE 207 a mass of influence conditioned by moral restrictions alone, can hardly be estimated too highly, and, at present, women hold this advantage : they will exert it more and more, as they ex- pand in the true graces that belong to their sex. Just now they come nearer to being a privileged body than any under the sun, as near as our American institutions permit. Much more truly privileged than any European order, because purely ethical in character, not formally instituted, but ordained by Divine decree. Even now deference is paid them, but this deference is but a shadow of what will be when they fully justify their high calling. The old feudal politeness is but a symbol of the respect that will be rendered by the best minds to the arbiters of a sacred destiny. It may be conceded that the actual woman is na more virtuous than the man, but her genius is certainly more ethereal ; her temptation to earthiness is less ; she is delivered from the necessity of wading through mud to a throne^ This predominance of sentiment in woman renders her essen- tially an idealist. She jumps at conclusions. She cannot stop short of final results. She carries out principles to the end, re- gardless of processes. She can make no allowance for slowness* for tentative or compromising measures. Her reforms are sweeping. She would close all the bars and liquor saloons, and make it a crime to sell intoxicating drink. She would shut up all gambling-rooms, all houses of assignation, thus compelling people to be virtuous. We may hope to arrive at the same goal by-and- by, but by gradual steps. Of the philosophy of government there is no question. Our concern is with practical politics, en- tirely, and practical politics is an experimental science, where not the best thing but the best thing possible is considered. Mis- takes, blunders, errors there must be. Steps must be retraced. Votes must be annulled. Our feet are always in the water, for in a republic, men sail, as Fisher Ames said, on a raft. The possession of the suffrage is therefore a painful if not, as many think, a doubtful boon, a duty rather than a privilege. They wha would discharge it thoroughly are compelled to work hard, to- encounter dirt, to frequent disagreeable places, to consort with unpleasant people, to listen smilingly to vacuous speeches, and,, after all, to accept a portion only of the desired truth. The dainty man shrinks from the task; the careless man avoids it; 2o8 SELECTED ARTICLES the indifferent man neglects it. There is complaint, there is re- monstrance, and partial improvement. But the duty is any- thing but a pleasure, and they upon whom the work is thrust are, in many instances, unwilling that women should defile themselves with that mire. To cast a ballot is an easy matter, but to per- form the preliminary drudgery is not easy. A few are jealous of their right to vote, but not all. There are numbers who welcome disfranchisement from change of residence, as bring- ing at least temporary exemption. I am speaking of women who follow the bent of their genius. These are the few, and they will be likely to shun the bitter controversies of political life, greatly preferring the attitude of moral inspirers ; these would simply be hampered by the action of the voters. In the event of woman suffrage being established, the low'er class would hardly go to the polls because if they opposed the men, there would be strife ; the fashionable would not, because they do not care ; the philanthropic have too much to do already, with charitable work ; the great middle class, con- sisting of the wives, sisters, daughters of active men in the world's, business, is precisely that which we rely on for im- mediate moral influence, and which it is desirable to rescue from absorption in the common run of mundane interests. In either case, there is a distinct loss of power. The cultivated and philanthropic classes are embarrassed ; the lower class is angered ; the middle class is confused by the conflict of their dreams with their duties, their aspirations after moral serenity and their daily social responsibilities. They can neither be inspirers nor help- mates, and their condition is not a happy one. There seem to be two theories of woman among those who hope for her future. With no others have we anything to do. According to one view, she is a creature in an inferior position ; oppressed, kept in subjection, held down by the might of man; a creature without opportunities, or chance to show what she is, or what she can do. The laws are against her; customs are but seemingly in her favor ; politeness is a gilded form of contempt. If this theory be true, then by all means, let emancipation be eagerly pursued, and brought about as soon as possible. Let liberty have her full course. Hands off ! We must all conspire to lift women up; to put them on the same level with men; to WOMAN SUFFRAGE 209 'abolish every vestige of ownership or subjugation. Every right- minded man desires no less than this. The other theory regards woman as an independent creature ; with a genius of her own, having a record in the past, a work in the present, a career in the time to come, providentially placed and equipped, and simply misapprehended. If this account be received, then all she needs is appreciation, a hearty welcome, an honest sympathy. En- courage her shyness. Applaud her achievements. Let all doors that lead into cellars be kept shut. ^ Let her not be set to tasks that she cannot perform. Let her not be invited to imitate men, or to enter into competition with them. Let her services to society be gratefully acknowledged and more like them be asked for. She is the complement of man, and of course man cannot get along without her. If he is the hand, she is the heart; not his superior, but his equal in another sphere.. It is needless to say that this latter theory is the one accepted here. Atlantic Monthly. 65: 310-20. March, 1890. Woman Suffrage Pro and Con. Charles Worcester Clark. Women have, on the whole, less information on political sub- jects than have men. As their powers are of the domestic rather than the political sort, so their ordinary course of life is not such as to give them much knowledge of public questions or of the character of public men. They need special preparation in order to vote intelligently. So, it made be said, do men. Never- theless, very few men do make a study of politics. The great majority, except for the questionable information furnished by the partisan press, go to the polls with. only such knowledge of the issues and the candidates as comes to them in their every- day life. But, fortunately, this is considerable. It is much more than women have. The average man understands the difference in functions of national and state governments, and knows what part the candidate for whom he votes will have to play if elected. The average woman knows nothing of this. Neither has she any idea what the tariff is, though she may applaud or denounce it with all the vehemence of the party newspaper she occasionally rtads. This ignorance is not discreditable to her, 210 SELECTED ARTICLES for she has enough to do already, but it exists. There is, of * course, a large number of women of high education and com- parative leisure, who are well informed on public questions; better informed, perhaps, than any corresponding number of men, except it be those whose profession is politics, and in im- partiality women must be much superior to these. There is, however, no possible way of making selections from the mass. Some one has contended that all women ought to be allowed to vote, because Mrs. Julia Ward Howe is far better fitted for citizenship than is the average male voter. This sort of argu- ment proves too much, for by the same token we would all gladly submit to a despotism if only Mrs. Howe were to be the despot. There is no reason for believing that the average woman would take any more pains to fit herself for the duties of a voter than the average man takes ; and the information which comes to her without special effort is certainly less, as is conse- quently her interest in public affairs, unconnected as they are with her daily life. It is very likely that on their first enfran- chisement only the best qualified women would vote, as is said to be the case in Kansas ; but the exigencies of party politics would never permit such a state of things to continue long. Thus, to enfranchise women would be, in the end, to diminish, if not the average sound judgment of the body of voters, at least the average information and the average interest in public affairs. But, apart from general principles, what would be the effect of woman's ballot on the laws, on women, and on society? First of all, does women need enfranchisement as a means of protec- tion against unequal laws? That there are some such, especially concerning independent rights in property, it would be idle to deny. Women ask for the ballot that they may repeal them. Their argument is valid. The need of any class for protection against acknowledged wrongs must be admitted to justify a de- mand for the suffrage. But this argument, though unanswerable, is not conclusive of the whole subject. If the votes of women were to be, in the future, continually necessary to save them from oppression, their claim to the franchise would be just. But the objectionable laws are not the deliberate expression of present public sentiment; they are a relic of past prejudice, and WOMAN SUFFRAGE 211 are, moreover, gradually disappearing. If those who magnify their sufferings under them had put into direct effort to secure their repeal one half the energy they have expended on the cir- cuitous method of repeal by means of woman suft'rage, these obnoxious statutes would now be a thing of the past. It is, in fact, impossible to avoid the suspicion that the suffragists, who in all their tactics display the wisdom of the serpent, are not very anxious to destroy their strongest argument. Yet woman suffrage is a far more serious matter than any mere question of hastening the death of a few antiquated laws. The end desired is insignificant in comparison with the means proposed for ob- taining it. Nevertheless, a sense of unfairness in existing statutes is one of the strongest motives in arousing women to discontent with their present condition, and in prompting a de- mands this cause of discontent, wherever it still exists, be .ponents of woman suffrage, no less than justiae to women, de- mands that this cause of discontent, wherever it still exists, be removed. Men certainly ought to be more ready to give women just laws alone than to give the laws and the suffrage at the same time. After all, it is by no means certain that woman suffrage would bring "women's rights." Aside, however, from the question of special laws, the ballot is claimed for women who are property holders, on the ground that they are taxed without representation. But property taxes are laid without discrimination. Women do not need the ballot for protection against impositions directed with especial severity against their possessions. Rightly or wrongly, we give equal suffrage to all,, in this country, regardless of their wealth. To grant the ballot to women of property, while withholding it from others, would be to increase the relative power in the state of property holders as such, regardless of the question of sex. Thus the proposition fo enfranchise those women alone who are taxpayers ought to be treated as a measure designed to increase the political power of property, rather than as one required to guard any peculiar rights of woman. That would, very likely, be a good thing, especially in cities ; but a distinction so contrary to American ideas could not long be maintained. The result would inevitably be the admission of all women to the right of suffrage. Besides, it is women without property, wage-earners, 212 SELECTED ARTICLES who most need legal protection ; while every mother has a stronger interest in the commonwealth than stocks and bonds can give. To extend the franchise to widowed mothers, who must otherwise be unrepresented in the state, would be a gracious and reasonable act. Moreover, being a recognition of the principle of family representation, it would count as a precedent against, rather than for, any further enfranchisement of women. For this reason, probably, such a proposal finds no favor with pro- fessional agitators. In the second place, what would be the effect of woman's participation in politics on her own character and life? Wlould she find herself burdened by an additional duty, or uplifted by th inspiration of broader interests? Women have their share of the world's work as it is, and on the principle of division of labor the duties of government should be left where they now are, with men. But, on the other hand, women ought not to be discouraged from entering any field of thought, least of all, as the English petitioners say, ''the concerns of their country." Is participation in political action, then, essential to interest m political subjects? In certain cases, doubtless, it creates such an interest; it must be observed, however, that many of our most intelligent men, though to their shame, neglect their public duties entirely. The educating power of the ballot is much ex- aggerated in popular estimation. Some women might be aroused by its possession, but only a few. Moreover, even for these few there is danger that the right of suffrage would develop false ideals. The work of the home is already too much put off upon school and church. The idea seems to be prevalent in some quarters that commonplace women will do well enough for mothers, but that superior women should teach. One of the latter class has lately said that a college graduate ''had no busi- ness to go and get married." It was "obtaining her education on false pretenses." Her higher duty lay in the school-room. In the same way, the past year has furnished abundant illustration, in its prohibition campaigns, of the notion that the ballot, wom- an's ballot if she had it, could do the work for morality which the home, the church, and the school combined have failed to do. If women actually had the ballot, those of them who cherish this mistake would indulge in it still further, and, until disap- WOMAN SUFFRAGE 213 pointment taught them wisdom, would neglect their real oppor- tunities for their imaginary ones. They would lower them- selves in the delusion that they were elevating politics. In this respect, then, to just what extent it is idle to conjecture, woman suffrage might at present, in this country, have an injurious effect on her ideals and life. I do not wish to magnify this danger, nor to underrate the benefit which the franchise would confer on women who have both opportunity and disposition to make the most of it. Its influence in enlarging their range of thought, and in giving them one more common interest with men, would be one certain good result of their enfranchisement ; but it would be realized by comparatively few. To the majority, suffrage would be only a burdensome duty, sometimes ill per- formed, more often neglected. Bibliotheca Sacra. 67: 335-46. April, 1910. Is Woman's Suffrage an Enlightened and Justifiable Policy for the State? Henry A. Stimson. The argument against woman's suffrage may be summed up in two phrases: it will hot do vv^hat is claimed for it; and it will occasion unanticipated evil. What Woman's Suffrage Will Not Do. I. It will not remove economic ills. Many are urging it be- cause of its assumed value in bettering the condition of women workers, particularly girls w^ho are on a strike or are abused by the police, and teachers and other women who do not re- ceive the same pay as men holding similar positions. No one has, as yet, proposed a program by which, when the ballot is given to women, they can proceed effectively to secure this result. The pay of any worker in any industry is primarily de- termined by what the industry can afford, and by the available supply of labor. The chief act in the employment of women is that, with most women, work outside the home is only an ad interim employment. It is taken up by young women in anticipation of the day when they will marry and abandon it for the life that opens for them in their own home ; it is held by other 214 SELECTED ARTICLES women because the exigencies of their life leave them without a home, or with a home where there is not adequate support. In the latter case they are handicapped in so many directions that their work is necessarily done under serious restrictions. They can- not give their whole strength or thought to their work because of divided cares involved in their home relations. Or they are not under the necessity of earning wage adequate to their support, because, as in the case of many young women, they have a home provided for them and they need only to earn enough for their extra or personal wants. In all such cases women do work, and miust work, for less pay than workers of a more serious class require. Their presence in the market breaks' the price of wages, and is, as shown by Mr. Charles Booth in his exhaustive studies of industrial life in London, the chief reason for the distressing condition of women in that great city. The pri-ce paid for any given work is sure to be fixed by the price at which the cheapest workers can be obtained, and nothing that the state can do will alter that law of industry, under which goods must be pro- duced as cheaply as possible or the industry must eventually fail. No one has, as yet, ventured to point out exactly how giving women the ballot will affect wages. What will affect wages is industrial conditions which give a community excep- tional advantage in the oper^ market, cheap raw material, cheap mechanical power, attractive conditions of light and air and cleanliness, abundance of labor of an intelligent class. These and similar things are essential to successful production ; and wherever these maintain, wages will be foimd to be in harmony with them, that is, they will be higher than under other condi- tions ; and they can be maintained because the economic situa- tion of the mills makes it possible to pay them. All that the state can do is to secure as far as possible proper conditions oi labor, and to prevent that injury to the community which occurs from child labor and the employment of women in what are to them destructive vocations to which cither their necessities or the attractions of large wages might draw them, as, for example, mining. 2. It will not secure better personal treatment for women. Despite the emphasis with which some women speakers repudiate the thought of privilege, the fact is that society rests on the WOMAN SUFFRAGE 215 possession of privilege as one of its corner-stones. The char- acteristic of civilized society is that every member, rich or poor, by virtue of his being a part of the social structure, however humble, shares the privileges v^hich pertain to the community as a whole. Those privileges are in part the gift of God, in cli- mate, and material surroundings, and in still larger part the in- heritance of the past, in which much blood has been shed and great sacrifice has been made to secure liberties which otherwise would not exist and which many other communities do not possess. These are privileges to which we may be born, or which we may share by adoption. We speak of them as the gifts of God, or of nature, or of inheritance. In any case they are privileges, and in no true sense rights. They become rights only so far as they are maintained by a sacrifice on the part of the sharers of them akin to that by which they were won. In civilized society the range of such privileges is vastly increased. It extends to personal protection, to all that is involved in good mannefs, and especially in the courtesy that is shown to women and the tenderness of the public toward children. As a matter" of fact, courtesy as between men, but pre-eminently as toward women on the part of men, is the mark of such society. That courtesy is found only in highly civilized communities, and takes on its best forms only when those communities are largely gov- erned by the standards of a very high morality and a very spir- itual religion. They are quickly lost, wherever a community drops its standard of morality, or becomes indifferent to the sanction of its religion ; so that the treatment of women in the streets and in the social intercourse of a community is one of the surest and most quickly accepted standards of both its morals and its culture. This courtesy does not depend upon any particu- lar form of administration of the state. It may be found in a. monarchy in as highly developed a form as in a republic. It is due primarily to the respect which men have for women, and to the character of the women. Where they maintain high ideals of dignity and purity and womanly reserve and intelligence, where especially they represent that standard which the word "mother" connotes, there courtesy in its finest form is found. It is difficult to see how the possession of the ballot can possibly affect this for good. Public life, in all forms, is remote from what has 2i6 SELECTED ARTICLES been in the past the ideal life of women, and has been so entirely out of the range of their life that it is difficult to see how it can introduce into it elements that will reinforce those traits which constitute at once woman's greatest charm and her most effective influence. It is a simple fact of history that a community which does not accord in its esteem a place to women above men, as- signs them to a place below them. It is impossible to maintain them on the same level. No state and no civilization has ever succeeded in doing this. 3. It will not help the community politically. It is urged that introducing women by the ballot into public life will purify politics. At present the effort to purify politics is resisted chiefly by two factors : on the one hand, a mass of ignorant voters ; and on the other hand corrupt, but highly skilled, political man- agers. Giving women the ballot would at once add greatly to the number of ignorant voters, and the mass with which every reform movement has to deal would become by so much the more obstructive, making the situation by so much more difficult than it is now ; while, on the other hand, the machine politician is so adept at his trade, because it has so long been practised by him and his kind, because he is so much less scrupulous than women, and because he can give himself wholly to it as a busi- ness, that good women and intelligent women would find them- selves no match for him in the battle of public life, and would be compelled, in spite of themselves, either to adopt his ways ?nd become like him, increasing corruption, or to surrender to his efforts, and consciously or unconsciously become his tool. The educational process for women, to fit them for the ballot, would necessarily be preceded by a long period of political disorganiza- tion and corruption which would only repeat the Carpet-bag period of the South, and reproduce evils not unlike those which were precipitated upon the country by giving the suffrage to the Freedmen, even though at the time that seemed an absolute necessity following upon the Civil War. 4. Furthermore, it will not help women individually. It is claimed that the suffrage is necessary chiefly for the good that it will do to woman. This is so purely an untried experi- ment that there is room for very grave doubts about it. Un- doubtedly, it is well for man or woman to be intelligent in mat- WOMAN SUFFRAGE 217 ters of public life, but that that intelligence will be secured to any great degree by the possession of the ballot does not ap- pear; or, at least, it would seem that every opportunity of gain- ing information, and of intelligent interest in public affairs, is open to woman to-day if she cares to avail herself of them, and the growing intelligence of the community will make this knowl- edge both attractive and available for her, whether she has the ballot or not. It is not necessary to deliver women from the "tyranny ci men" or the oppression of daily toil. Civilization is rapidly doing that. In barbarism woman does all the arduous labor. As society advances man has assumed that, and the woman has been left free for the care of the home, until to-day even milking and the making of butter on the 'farm are no longer woman's work. The vast majority of women in civilized lands can to-day live a womanly life. Personal culture and personal comfort and gracious service are within their reach as never before. But it is also to be said that the possession of the ballot will be very sure to create unanticipated evils. What Woman's Suffrage Will Do. 1. It will bring new temptations to w^eak women, and crowd them upon them with great force, in ways which women little anticipate. It will draw women out of their homes and expose them in the very necessities of public life to forms of tempta- tions for which they are little prepared. Men have this ex- perience, and one of the saddest facts in our public life is the breaking down of otherwise reputable men as a consequence of their going into politics, or accepting office. It will be a sad day when the community has to face the added amount of evil which will appear if women enter the same field. 2. It will greatly increase the ignorant and usable proletariat. It is not a question whether women are more or less intelligent than men, or whether their character is stronger or weaker. The possession of the ballot would at once add a mass of voters to the voting list who are little informed as to the questions that are before them, are little accustomed to deal with external pres- sure, and are correspondingly open to undue influence. This to-day is the great burden upon the civic life of every demo- 2i8 SELECTED ARTICLES cratic community, and democracy is to-day on trial in no other direction more seriously than in this, its inability promptly and adequately to educate its less intelligent voters, and to hold them to any adequate sense of their electoral responsibilities. In- creasing the number of such voters would be a disaster. 3. It will introduce new elements of evil into corrupt poli- tics, because women are women and not men. Their entrance into corrupt political life so far as they would enter it, and many would, because women are not all saints, would be the introduction of an unspeakable element of public demoralization, to offset which it would be necessary to show that the benefit of having good women enter politics would far counterbalance this evil, which unfortunately, is not demonstrable. 4. It will cost women the* loss of much of the personal in- fluence which they now possess. So far as women have in- fluenced legislation and public officers, and their influence has been constant and effective in many directions, it has been due to the character and the intelligence of the women who advocated good causes. Does any one think that the late Mrs. Josephine Shaw Lowell, of blessed memory, would have had more influence in the state of New York than she did have if she had had the ballot? Men in all departments of public life were only too glad to yield to her judgment and to follow her intelligent de- sire. To-day in many departments of administration of the state, the presence and the counsel of wise and good women is in the highest degree important. The danger is that if women should appear advocating public measures, being at the same time themselves identified with political factions, or perhaps known as successful political managers, their personal influence would surely be diminished, and not increased. So long as a woman now is recognized as interested in any matter of public welfare, the very fact that she is unselfish in her advocacy, and has no private interests to gain, gives her a power that would disappear, were her political condition to be altered. 5. It will add a new excitement to lives already greatly over-excited, especially in the cities. One of the chief prob- lems in our American life to-day is to protect even the men from the pressure of overstrain. We are seeing many of the strongest fall and die in the prime of middle life because the WOMAN SUFFRAGE 219 burden of life is too heavy for them. All wise physicians are warning both men and women of the danger of so much excite- mtent. The sterility of American homes, which in some parts of the country has become alarming, is now Shown to be closely connected with this condition. The suffrage will add one more to these destructive influences bearing upon that element in human life which is most sensitive, and needs more protection; and the mothers, actual or potential, to-day are needing a re- adjustment of the conditions of their life, if the family is to be preserved and the home is to be guarded against the influences which to-day in so many melancholy cases are destroying it. 6. It will divert the attention of the women from the agencies for good which are now within their reach. One can- not but feel that if a small part of the time and excited interest which is given by the women to this effort of securing the suf- frage were given to dealing directly with the evils of which they are talking, not one of them but what would have been remedied. Their own attention and the attention of other well-disposed people is diverted from the actual condition of the working- girl, and of the teacher and her compensation, of the shop-girl, of the school children, and of women and children in factories, in order that it may be fixed on this question of suffrage, which is at best a remote and problematic method of doing them any good. The service which women could render, are rendering in many instances, in all these directions, is to-day unlimited. It is both effective and prompt in its results. The suffrage agita- tion, so far as these immediate interests are concerned, is doing far more harm than good. 7. And, finally, it introduces a terrible risk into the life of the state because, once given, it is unalterable. The experiment must be tried, if at all, in its entirety. The women recognize the little value of the attempts that have been made of giving them a limited suffrage. In Massachusetts, where thirty years ago women were permitted to vote in educational matters, it is a complete failure. In one hundred eighty cities and towns of Massachusetts last year net a single woman voted. In France, more recently women have been permitted to vote for the judges of the commercial courts, though more women are engaged in business in France than in any other country, and French women 220 SELECTED ARTICLES are proverbially expert as business women, hardl}^ a woman has voted. And in the cases where small groups did appear to vote they were found to be clerks in banks whose officers sent them out for the purpose. Therefore, it must be tried, if to-day we would satisfy its advocates, without limitation. It must be given to women very much as the ballot was given to the lib- erated slaves of the South. We certainly do not want to find ourselves under the necessity of trying to take it back, because of the evils which it may be found to produce, by methods like those by which the southern states have felt compelled to protect themselves, — methods obviously more disastrous to the morals of the state than the evils which they were set to remedy. It must, therefore, be recognized that while woman's suffrage may be called an experiment, if it be once granted, it ceases that instant to be experimental ; but becomes, for better or worse, an unalterable fact in political life, with probable consequences far too serious to make the thought of the experiment even tolerable, not to say prudent. Thus, for every reason, both positive and negative, the claims of woman's suffrage are unsound, and ought to be re- sisted. Century. 48: 613-23. August, 1894. Wrongs and Perils of Woman Suffrage. J. M. Buckley. The pending proposal to extend the suffrage to women im- poses upon men the duty of deciding whether to retain power where it was lodged by the founders of existing governments, or to make women eligible to vote and hold office upon the same terms as men. Disfranchised Classes. With inconsiderable exceptions, the common sense of the human race, as expressed in civil government, has confined its prerogatives to men. When necessary to preserve an unbroken line in hereditary monarchies, women have been invested with sovereignty. In some communities, where property qualifications exist, they possess a limited right to vote, and to hold minor ' executive offices. WOMAN SUFFRAGE 221 To portray an idiot, a criminal in prison garb, an Indian in barbaric finery, a lunatic staring in frenzy, and a woman whose . features indicate intelligence and refinement, and to entitle the representation, "American Woman and her Political Peers," may beguile the unwary, but others will ask, Does the picture include all disfranchised classes? and, Is their exclusion from the suffrage for similar reasons? It does not include all. To complete the picture, might be added a portrait of Alexander Hamilton, who, at the appear- ance of trouble between Great Britain and the Colonies, when he was still a school-boy barely eighteen years of age, wrote a series of papers in defense of the rights of the Colonies which were at first taken for the production of Jphn Jay ; and who, when only twenty, — and consequently not allowed to vote,—' was aide-de-camp to Washington. There would also 'be needed a portrait of one of the dis- tinguished foreigners who, after a study of the constitution of this country, have adopted it as their own, and yet, after ar- living, are disfranchised for a term of years. Foreigners are disfranchised for a period of time assumed to be long enough for men of average ability to comprehend the institutions and interests, and to identify themselves therewith sufficiently to "have a stake in the country" ; criminals are not allowed to vote because, being foes to society and to the govern-^ ment, they have forfeited all claim to personal and political liberty ; insane persons and idiots are debarred, being incom- petent to understand; Indians, on account of their tribal claims to an independent sovereignty, and other causes peculiar to them- selves ; Chinamen, because forbidden naturalization. Young men under twenty-one years of age are not permitted to vote because it? is assumed that the average male has not the knowl- edge and stability of character wisely to exercise the franchise' until he has had twenty-one years of life in the land of his birth. "Woman is not refused admission to the suffrage on any of these! grounds. The picture is not true to life, and the ideas which it is designed to suggest confuse rather than elucidate the question whether women should'be eligible to vote, and hold cfhbe, upon the same terms as men. " 222 SELECTED ARTICLES Whether the suffrage shall be conferred upon any class of men or women cannot be decided exclusively upon the question of natural rights. These do, indeed, require the protection of all in the enjoyment of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, so long as the same are exercised in a manner compatible with the rights of others. The arrival of a second man upon a desert island would necessitate a whole series of compromises which, if not accepted, would result in the abject submission of the weaker, his flight, or war to the death. In this country it is agreed that the majority of voters shall rule. What fundamental principle gives to two millions the ab- solute right to ruk over two millions less one? As- at the age of seventeen . some are better qualified for the suffrage than many at forty, what absolute natural right decrees that none shall exercise the franchise until twenty-one years old? These, and many other provisions, are compromises to which the people submit for the sake of the results. Should a citizen change his residence from one state to another, he must remain there a specified time before he can vote; nor could he, one day after legally changing his residence, return and cast a ballot where he had lived all his life. If born in Canada, though brought over the line when an infant, he could never become president. Also, every citizen must vote at such times and places as the law prescribes. Nor can one unavoidably detained from his legal residence, even in the service of the country, as in the army and nayy, or in the federal Congress, demand a subsequent oppor- tunity, or be permitted to deposit a sealed ballot in advance of the time, forward the same or vote by proxy. Foundations of Society. An advocate of woman suffrage declares that its opponents ''must show that it is incompatible either with the best concep- tion of the state, or with the nature of womanhood." While the burden of proof should rest upon those who would change the universal practice, I hold, and will present the grounds for the belief, that to impose direct responsibility in this particular upon women is incompatible with the nature of womanhood, and with the best conception of the st^te. There is a feminine, as well as a masculine, soul ; a spiritual sex, as well as a corporeal. WOMAN SUFFRAGE 223 Frederick Harrison, in contrasting men and women, justly says, "Not one man in ten can compare with the average woman in tact, subtlety of observation, in refinement of mental habit, in rapidity, agility, and sympathetic touch ; in sudden movement, in perseverance, in passive endurance, in dealing with the min- utest surroundings of comfort, grace, and convenience." He predicates of man, as distinguished from woman, "a greater capacity for prolonged attention, intense abstraction, wide range, extraordinary complication, immense endurance, intensity, variety, and majesty of will." From the same difference arise the virtues and vices, re- spectively, of the sexes, modified by different degrees of physical strength. li there be no such feminine nature as distinguished from the masculine; if the abstraction of the mental and spiritual elements peculiar to woman, and their being replaced by those characteristic of man, would make no radical and harmful differ- ence in the constitution of society, there is no reason for ex- empting women from the responsibilities of government. . On closely considering the state, it appears that the funda- mental fact is not most frequently the subject of discussion. The political economist occasionally refers to it, the statesman and legislator deal with a few of its phases, it is seen more frequently in the courts, and asserts itself in various details in a thousand forms, but it is seldom comprehended as a whole. That fact is that the individuals who form the state are constant- ly changing, are proceeding, in fact, across the earth, finally disappearing, rather than permanently domiciled upon it. Nevertheless, the state endures because there are constantly fresh arrivals through the families into which society is divided. The state direct^ takes no cognizance of these immature beings, who, though human, are without strength or understanding. Their parents are their rulers, responsible for their support, and exercising the prerogatives of government, issuing mandates, requiring submission ; permitted to chastise, imprison, and to -direct their actions in numberless ways. It depends upon the parents to train them in such a manner as to qualify them for the duties of citizenship, according to the statutes and laws of the land. Only when parents are incapable or unwilling to dis- 2^24 SELECTED ARTICLES charge their responsibilities does the state take cognizance of the situation. In proportion as this state within a state is main- tained in its integrity is the nation strong, happy, and prosperous. It is the fountain of private, and the source of public, morality. Whatever may be said of a few minds of a peculiar structure, lifelong partnerships for better or worse could not be maintained by two natures of the same kind, debating all questions in the same plane, with no natural predominating tendency. The co- herence and permanence of the family depend upon the differ- ence in the mental and emotional constitution of men and wom- en. The family is a union of two manifestations of a common human nature, masculine and feminine of soul as well as body; molding, governing, and guiding the children, each after its own manner, and diffusing through society the blended influence of wife, mother, daughter, sister, and husband, father, son, and brother. The bearing of these principles upon the relations of wives and mothers to the suffrage is that to govern in the state would unfit woman for her position in the family. Tt is mere sophism to say that the simple dropping of a pi^ece of paper into a ballot-box could not produce such a result. Unless women are to be treated like children, and furnished with the ballot by men, it is not the mere dropping of a piece of paper, for it implies the whole mode of thinking, feeling, and acting, o.f which a vote is the concentrated expression. "The vote is the expression of government ; voting is governing." To vote intelligently is to think and act in the imperative mood ; and to be qualified as voters, girls must be trained to think, feel, and act in the spirit of boys. To void the force of this, it would be necessary to show that women will not be affected in this way, or that, should they be, no harm will result. John Stuart Mill admits that it will produce this effect, and asserts that women are held "in sub- jection" in the family, and should be emancipated. Wendell Phillips said, "No one can foresee the effect; therefore the only way is to plunge in." Others affirm that "under all possible cir- cumstances feminine instincts will preserve woman." "Plunging in" without a high probability that the effect will be good is never wise, except when destruction impends over the existing situation. WOMAN SUFFRAGE 225 To assume that either men or women will remain unchanged in their intellectual, moral, and emotional susceptibilities, what- ever their situation, is contrary 'to the facts of evolution, en- vironment, and culture. In countless individual cases, and even in nations, woman has shown a capacity to rise or fall, a sus- ceptibility to moral and intellectual modifications not surpassed, if equaled, by men. Not only would the governing spirit become a part of her character, greatly obstructing the discharge of the duties of home, but it would make her position there an insupportable re- straint. Man is naturally self-reliant; woman may, in an emer- gency, develop self-reliance and complete independence ; but is naturally disposed either to coalesce in the determining tendency of her husband, or to control it by persuasion. Imbued with the governing spirit, she will become as restive in her position as would he if similarly placed. This is avowed by many advocates of woman suffrage, and held up as a result to be desired. The more consistent go fearlessly to the end, and define marriage as a civil contract to be terminated at the will of either party, and society as a collection of independent units instead of an assemblage of families. That there are exceptions to the ideal family, here assumed as the nucleus of society, is true. Some women rule their hus- bands ; a larger number through the misfortune, weakness, or wickedness of the husband are obliged to support the family, and there are many single women and widows. These excep- tions to the general law often have much to bear; but not so much as to justify the overthrow of the whole structure with a view to rebuild upon exceptions. Every female child must be presumed eligible to wifehood and motherhood ; therefore the whole sex should be left to the exercise of that kind of in- fluence for which their nature and relation to the family qualify them, and which is required in the interest of society. An argument drawn from exceptions may be very plausibly affirmed. Suppose a movement to enact a law requiring the training of all children in public institutions. In its support it might be maintained that there are numerous orphans, that many children have lost one parent, and that many parents are cruel, intemperate, incompetent, or unfaithful; that relatively 226 SELECTED ARTICLES few feel, and conscientiously and intelligently discharge, their responsibilities. These propositions are indisputable : how then shall the scheme to require all children to be educated by the state be shown to be untenable? Only by affirming that the gen- eral law of nature is that parents must be responsible for their offspring. To remove the children of those willing and able to train them, because of these exceptions, would be cruel and unjust; and such a wholesale destruction of home life is not necessary, because the general rule is that parents, with all their imperfections, do train their children in a manner better adapted to promote the public weal than is any institutional training. Individual exceptions must be cared for by private philanthropy, or by special statutes which are compatible with the effectual working of the general law. The same method of reasoning vindicates the conclusion that the general law necessary for the preservation of the family should not be overthrown in order that unmarried women and widows might be introduced into political life. Nor would a specific statute admitting single women to the suffrage, and excluding married women therefrom, be ex- pedient or right; for then another evil of stupendous propor- tions would result, namely: the putting of a premium upon the unmarried or childless condition, since such women would have much more time and strength for the political arena than wives and mothers, and could gain many more personal, pecuniary, and political advantages. Notable Reversals of Opinion. It was a deep and serious consideration of these things which lead some of the greatest of men to reverse their opinions after having been strongly in favor of woman suffrage, or in- clined to espouse it. Horace Bushnell, when assured that the principles of prog- ress which he had adopted required him to support woman suf- frage, reopened the question. After protracted thought he was forced to the conclusion that it would be "a reform against nature." John Bright, the patriot, the tried and valued friend of every movement for the general benefit of woman, accustomed to WOMAN SUFFRAGE 227 equality of women in Friends' meetings, was one of those who on May 20, 1867, voted in favor of Mr. Mill's amendment to strike out of a reform bill the word man, and insert the word person. Nine years afterward, namely, in March, 1876, he spoke against the enfranchisement of women. When charged with having changed his opinions, he said that he gave Mr. Mill the benefit of the doubt, and sympathized with him in his courageous stand, and in a letter published in "The Woman Question in Europe," by Theodore Stanton, he wrote : I cannot give you all the reasons for the view I take^ but I act from the belief that to introduce women into the strife of political life would be a great evil to them, and that to our own sex no possible good could arise. When women are not safe under the charge or care of fathers, husbands, brothers, and sons, it is the fault of our non-civilization, and not of our laws. As civilization founded on Christian principles advances, women will gain all that is right for them to have, though they are not seen contending in the strife of political parties. To this he adds personal testimony: In my experience I have observed evil results to many women who have entered hotly into political conflict and discussion. I would save them from it. I am respectfully yours, JOHN BRIGHT. Goldwin Smith is also one of those who voted with Mr. Mill, He was led to change his opinion by considerations similar to those adduced by Mr. Bright, and adds that another important reason was that he found "that those women whom he had al- ways regarded as the best representatives of their sex among his acquaintances were by no means in favor of the change." Herbert Spencer, in "Justice," renounces his former position, and maintains that there are fundamental reasons for keeping the spheres of the sexes distinct. He had formerly argued the matter "from the point of view of a general principle of indi- vidual rights," but he finds that this cannot be sustained, as he "discovers mental and emotional differences between the sexes, which disqualify women for the burdens of government and the exercise of its functions." Mr. Gladstone, who had -sometimes spoken as though he thought the change might have more to be said in its favor than against it, was appealed to two years ago in the most desperate crisis of his life by -those women in England who demand the suffrage offering their support if he would avow himself in 228 SELECTED ARTICLES favor of the principle. He sat down to investigate it in the light of the bill then proposed in parliament, "Extending Parlia- mentary Suffrage to Women," but confined to unmarried women, and after pointing out the impropriety of that proposal says : I speak of the change as beirg a fundamental change in the whole social function of woman, because I am bound in consider- ing this bill to take into view not only what it enacts, but what it involves. ... It proposes to place the individual woman on the same footing in regard to Farliamentary elections as the indi- vidual man. She is to vote, she is to propose or nominate, sue is to be designated by the law as competent to use and to direct, with advantag9 not only to the community but to herself, all those public agencies which belong to our system of parliamen- tary representation. She — not the individual woman marked by special tastes, possessed of special gifts, but the woman as such — is by these changes to be plenarily launched into the whirl- . pool of public life, such as it is in the nineteenth century, and such as it is tO' be in the twentieth century. ... A permanent and vast difference of type has been impressed upon woman and man respectively by the Maker of both. Their differences of social office rest mainly upon causes not flexible and elastic like most mental qualities, but physical and in their nature unchange- able. I, for one, am not prepared to say which of the two classes has the higher, and which the other, province, but I recognize the subtle and profound character of the difference be- tween them. ... I am not without fear lest, beginning with the state, we should eventually have been found to have intruded into what is yet more fundamental and sacred, the precinct of the family, and should dislocate or injuriously modify the re]a- tions of dO'mesfic life. . . . As this is not a party question, or a class question, so neither is it a sex question. I have no lear lest the woman should encroach upon the power of the man; the fear I have is lest we should invite her unwittingly to tres- pass upon the delicacy, the purity, the refinement, the e.evation of her own nature, which are the present sources of its power. I admit that in the universities, in the professions, m the sec- ondary circles of public action we have already gone so far as to give a shadow of plausibility to the present proposals to go farther; but it is a shadow only, for we have done nothing thai plunges the woman as such into the turmoil of masculine life. Upon Bishop John H. Vincent, the fotmder of Chautauqua, the consideration of this subject has naturally been forced, and to it he has given years of reflection, closely following the in- fluence of modern general and higher education upon society, and in particular upon the home. In former years he was an ad- vocate of v^oman suffrage ; but though enthusiastically devoted to the spread of knowledge, and having distributed diplomas to thousands of women who have pursued the extended course of reading of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle, he has been compelled to reverse his attitude. In response to a re- quest for a concise statement of the grotuids which led to the change of his. views, I received the letter which appears : WOMAN SUFFRAGE 229 When about thirty years of age I accepted for a time the doctrine of woman suffrage, and publicly defended it. Years of wide and careful observation have convinced me that the demand for woman suffrage in America is without foundation in equity, and, if successful, must prove harmful to American society. I find some worthy women defending it, but the majority of our best women, especially our most intelligent, domestic, and godly mothers, neither ask for nor desire it. The instinct of mother- hood is against it. The basal conviction of our best manhood is against it. The movement is at root a protest against the rep- resentative relations and functions by virtue of which each sex depends upon and is exalted by the other. This theory and policy, tending to the subversion of the natural and divine order, must make man less a man", and woman less a woman. A distinguished woman advocate of this suffrage movement says, "We need the ballot to protect us against men." When one sex is compelled thus to protect itself against the other the foundations of so- ciety are already crumbling. Woman now makes man what he is. She controls him as babe, boy, manly son, brother, lover, husband, father. Her influence is enormous. If she use it wise- ly, she needs no additional power. If she abuse her opportunity, she deserves no additional responsibility. Her womanly weight, now without measure, will be limited to the value of' a single ballot, and her control over from two to five additional votes forfeited. The curse of America to-day is in the dominated partizan vote — the vote of ignorance and superstition. Shall we help mat- ters by doubling this dangerous mass? Free from the direct complications and passions of the political arena, the best women may exert a conservative and moral influence over men as voters. Force her down into the same bad atmosphere, and both man and woman must inevitably suffer incalculable loss. We know what woman can be in the "commune," in "riots," and on the "rostrum." Woman can, through the votes of men, have every right to which she is entitled. All she has man has gladly given her. It is his glory to represent her. To rob him of this right is to weaken both. He and she are just now in danger through his mistaken courtesy. JOHN H. VINCENT. Affirmative Arguments Weighed. The previous considerations, if well founded, will be sufficient to- deter every thoughtful citizen who believes the family to be the foitndation and safeguard of all that is valuable in civiliza- tion from attempting an experiment so dangerous ; yet an ex- amination of the popular phrases relied upon to prepare the way for the plunge seems necessary. It is alleged that ''it is obviously fair and right that those who obey the laws should have a voice m making them ; that all who pay the tax^s should have a voice in levying them; and that men cannot represent women until women shall have legally consented to it, and this they have never done." . -But if it is better to exempt them from the responsibilities of government, that the influence which they are naturally quali- 230 SELECTED ARTICLES fied to exert, and which is -essential to the well-being of society^ may not be diminished, it would not be "fair and right" to give women the same kind of voice in making laws that men have. Woman's influence in forming the characters and princ- iples of the law-makers insures care for her. "No taxation without representation" as an abstract principle is just, but it does not follow that the representation must be identical. The authors of the Declaration of Independence, the framers of the Massachusetts Bill of Rights, did not perceive any incongruity between declaring that "all men are born free and equal," that there should be "no taxation without represen- tation," that "governments derive their just powers from' the consent of the governed," and at the same time relieving women from the responsibility and burdens of government. Taxation is not levied upon the property of men and women respectively upon different principles, but upon property as such by whom- soever held. The property rights of woman are better protected now then they could be if she were actively engaged in politics. Not long since, a lady of rare intelligence, arguing in favor of the suffrage, stated that it was proposed to pave a street in which she lived, contrary to the judgment and wishes of the property-holders, most of whom' were widows and single women. She attributed the scheme to "recklessness on the part of men, most of whom paid no taxes. Had she and her friends been able to vote, such a thing would not have been attempted," When asked concerning the outcome, the response was that she and a few other in- terested women "went to the leaders of both parties, and easily persuaded them to defeat the proposition." She did not appear to perceive that if she had been a voter her influence would have been confined to members of her own party. Should it be said that this principle, if admitted, would justify slavery, it may be fairly replied that the motive of slavery was self-aggrandizement by individuals, its method the violent re- straint of personal liberty. But the motive which relieves woman from government is the belief that the exercise of the suffrage by her will work an injury to .herself and to the family, and thereby to the state. - ^ ^y]% The proposition that men cannot Fepresent women until they WOMAN SUFFRAGE ' 231 have legally consented to it is specious, but not sound. Who has ever been asked whether he consents to the government that ex- ists here? That government was established before the present in- habitants were born. Under it the supreme power inheres in adult male citizens. The consent of the governed is and must be taken for granted, except as changes are made by constitutional methods, until a revolution arises. Then all questions sink out of sight save this, "Shall the government stand?" and that ques- tion must be decided by the arbitrament of war. It is affirmed that "capacity indicates sphere ; woman has a capacity to vote intelligently, therefore she should be empowered to do so," and that "the dignity and authority of the ballot would increase her influence as it does that of man." There are various acts for which woman has the ability that she should not be asked or compelled by the law to perform. If it be said, Why not leave the question to her judgment and instincts? it is be- cause the qualifications of voters must be prescribed by law. If the population of the globe consisted exclusively of men or women, to confer the ballot upon any who had been without it would increase their dignity and authority. But since it is com- posed of both, and woman's influence is not derived from author- ity, or her true dignity symbolized by the ballot, the clenched fist, or the drawn sword, it would add nothing to her power. The claim is made that "woman suffrage has worked bene- ficially wherever tried." It was tried in New Jersey. On July 2, 1776, the provincial assembly conferred the suffrage upon women ; in 1797 seventy-five women voted, and in the presidential election of 1800 a large number availed themselves of the privi- lege. At first the law was construed to admit single women only, but afterward it was made to include females eighteen years old, married or single, without distinction of race. In the spring of 1807 a special election was held in Essex County to decide on the location of the courthouse and jail. Newark and vicinity struggled to retain the county buildings, Elizabeth- town to remove them. The contest waxed warm, and, according to a paper on "The Origin, Practice, and Prohibition of Female Suffrage in New Jersey," read by the Hon. William A. White- head, Corresponding Secretary of the New Jersey Historical Society, :232 SELECTED ARTICLES It was soon found, though only women of full age, possessing the required property qualittcation, were permitted by judges of election to vote, that every married woman in the country was not only of "full age," but also "worth fifty pounds proclama- tion money clear estate," and as such entitled to vote if they chose. And not only once, but as often as, by change of dress or complicity of the inspectors, they might be able to repeat the process. . . . In Acquackanonk township, thought to contain about three hundred voters, over eighteen hundred votes were polled, all but seven in the interest of Newark. One woman voted three times. Her name was Mary John son, and she cast her first vote under that name. Afterward, as a somewhat stouter-looking woman, she voted as Mary Still, nnd later in the day as a corpulent person whose name was Mary Yet. The legislature set aside the election as fraudulent, and the whole state was so disgusted that an act was passed restrict- ing the suffrage to white male citizens twenty-one years of age. It was tried in Utah. Introduced by the Mormons, who de signed by it to maintain their ascendancy over the Gentiles, the women supported not only polygamy wherever they had an op- portunity, but anything else suggested by the Mormon hierarchy On March 22, 1882, the federal Congress passed an act deciding that no polygamist, or any woman cohabiting with such, could take part in any election. This left the wives of monogamists, and unmarried women, in possession of their vote ; but the Edmunds-Tucker bill, designed to destroy polygamy, by a fed eral law, February 9, 1887, withdrew the suffrage from hU women in Utah. ''It has been tried in the great state of Wyoming, where it has worked so beneficially that the legislature has unanimouslv adopted a resolution of commendation." The entire population of the state of Wyoming, according! to the census of 1890, is only 60,705, of which 39,343 are males and 21,362 females. The largest city is Cheyenne, with a popu lation of 11,690, and the next, Laramie, which has 6,388. Be- sides these there was only one town with a population of mo^^ than 3,000, and only one with more than two and less th .r; three, and only four with more than 1,000 and less than two Of the population of the state, 16,291 are between five -"n'^ twenty years of age, and there are only 27,044 males of vof t; .< age in the state; and this sparse population is scattered ovet .^'- area twice that of the state of New York. According to judii - WOMAN SUFFRAGE 233^ Cary of Wyoming the women consist of less than twenty per cent, of the voting population. "Usually about half of them go. to the polls." The complacency with w^hich the legislature unanimously praises itself and its constituents has often been paralleled, but in the absence of details can hardly be regarded as the best: testimony of which the case admits. None of the questions, comprehended in the government of dense populations and vast cities is brought to the test. Citizens so generally isolated are- practically a law to themselves. Pauperism would not be likely to exist under such conditions ; vice in many sections could be practised without attracting attention ; crowds at elections, m the absence of people enough to make a crowd, would be diffi- cult to assemble. Unless the state has been grossly slandered various troubles have occurred within a few years approximating the gravity of civil war. There is no unusual restraint upon the sale of liquor, and little attention is paid to enforcing such laws- as women might be supposed to be specially interested to main- tain. Without intending to reflect in a wholesale way upon the- officers elected in that state, such inquiries as I have made, witb some observation, show that, as a whole, they do not merit any unusual eulogium. But the population is too small, and the conditions are too peculiar, to make the experiment of any value ; nor is the legislative testimony of importance when it is con- sidered that any class, male or female, the commendation of whose influence might be under consideration, contains a suffici- ent number who would execute vengeance at the polls upon those- who would venture to take a negative position. "Women are better than men, and therefore would make^ better laws, and would reform politics." To show that women are better than men it is customary to^ present statistics of the number of the sexes respectively in prisons and in churches. Undoubtedly more than two thirds, of the imprisoned criminals of the country are men, and prob- ably more than two thirds of the communicants of the churches, are women. But that this indicates that women are naturally better than men it is easier to assert than to prove. The major- ity of women are shielded and protected, while most men lead adventurous lives, away from home. Men have excessive phys- 234 SELECTED ARTICLES ical energy, which, frequently involves them in fierce conH <• When they commit crimes they are more likely, undci tic present regime, to be convicted; for juries dislike to convK*f women, especially of crimes punished by long terms of imprs' ti mient or death. Men's crimes are generally of violence, tin :r suit of excess, or distortion of those natural charactensrii.^ which in normal degree and legitimate use give them the pcvvi'? of defense and aggression. Women's abstention from cnii»e> of violence is due to those characteristics which fit them tOi the persuasive influence which in their normal condition tht-v exert. The same differences affect their attendance at church The majority of church-going women spend their lives during rhr week at home, so that to attend religious meetings is a pleasant variety. Most men spend their lives away from home in labon ous exercises, for which they find little relief in attending church except when sustained by high religious motives. That under ordinary circumstances the instincts of women would be in favor of good laws, there is no doubt ; but how far their tern peraments would aff'ect the character of special enactments, and how far their personal prejudices and prepossessions would affect their political action, are practical questions of moment. "Women will always vote against war, and thus put an end to it in the world. They will not send their husbands, brothers, fathers, and friends to the slaughter." Does history support this statement? Wherever there has been a war, women have been as much interested as men. They have even encouraged their husbands, fathers, brothers, and lovers to enlist, and would have despised them if they had not In the last war in this country, the women on both sides were more intense and irreconcilable than the men. It is alleged that "the demand for the suffrage is the in evitable consequence of the higher education." This follows only when the normal dissimilarity in the con- stitution of the sexes — "a difference but not a scale of inferiority or superiority" — is ignored or underestimated. The proper char- acterization of such culture is the lower education. WOMAN SUFFRAGE 23S Insurmountable Objections. The practical objections to woman suffrage can be most clearly stated in detail. Univefsal suffrage exists in the United States, with the. ex- ception of the classes hereinbefore specified. It is an unreason- able expectation that this policy will be changed. If women are to be admitted to the suffrage, all of sound mind, of legal age,, not disfranchised by the effect of crime or other special causes- applying equally to men, will be entitled to vote. This will add. the more than three millions of negro women, all naturalized women of foreign birth, all domestic servants — in a word, all' women without respect to intelligence, character, or race, except the Chinese and Indians. In the. whole country it will nearly double the vote, and in several states much more than double- it. Similar considerations apply to jury duty, which is a con- comitant of the ballot. That the nation has gone so far in a dangerous path does; not make it necessary to proceed farther. The physiological and pathological reasons for the abstention of women from political work and excitement are not diminished but increased by the complexity of modem civilization. Excep- tional cases of voluntary endurance of physical and mental strain, exhibited by the triumph of certain women in the con- tests of scholastic life, or in bearing unusual burdens in business, should not divert attention from the usual facts of personal or domestic life, or from the fact that a large proportion of the- best women in youth* middle life, and age will be unable to re- spond to demands upon them at set times, in storm or calm,, for the different forms of service involved in voting and holding office, or in securing the qualifications for the one or the other. Here and there a physician may evoke smiles and compli- ments from advocates of the suffrage for women by declaring that he knows of no anatonlical or physiological impediment to the assumption by women of the duties of political life. But the medical faculty as a whole have no sympathy with his sy- cophancy, and the common sense of the race, and the observation and experience of most women, concur with them rather than with those w^ho would render legal and necessary the participa- 236 SELECTED ARTICLES tion of the whole sex in the agitations and exposures of cam- paigns and elections. Woman suffrage cannot achieve what its advocates expect. They think that it will reform' public morals, close tlie saloons and other places of evil resort, and realize absolute prudence,, honesty, and economy in management. Laws that do not carry the votes of a majority of the men of a community cannot be executed. Law-abiding citizens re- quire no force to induce obedience ; but those disposed to break the law can be compelled to keep it only by force. There is a natural instinct in man which leads him to submit to persuasion by women, and to resist force applied by them. It cannot be eradicated by philosophy, refinement, or religion, and in every generation reappears with undiminished vigor. If women were admitted to political life, the tendency would be for both parties to pass all kinds of laws to please women, which would be. dead letters unless they carried the judgment of a majority of the male citizens. In the absence of this, to enforce them would involve a change in the character of the government in the direc- tion of despotism. Religious feuds zvould affect political life much more than under present circumstances. It is of immense importance to the welfare of this country that the separation of church and state be complete. The feelings of women upon the subject of re- ligion are so intense that the franchise, in a large majority of in- stances, would be exercised under the power of religious preju- dice. John Bright, in one of his most important speeches on this subject, exclaimed, "Of one thing there is no doubt: the influence of priest, parson, and minister will be greatly increased if this measure is passed." Chivalry, with its refining influence over , men, must pass away when women become politicians. It is not a favorable portent that of late it has become customary for the advocates of woman suffrage to disparage that chivalrous feeling which causes normal men, wherever modern civilization exists, to treat women with deference, and to be ready to extend them needful, aid. At present one of the chief refining elements of society is the respect felt for women as such by men. Even those who voluntarily form evil associations still esteem the ideal woman. WOMAN SUFFRAGE 2^7 The passing or decline of this sentiment is equally unfavorable to both ; for it will accustom men to resist the influence of women. That it will be undiminished when the fierce conflicts of party politics are involved is an unwarranted hope. All special cour- tesy to women grows out of the recognition of a kind of in- fluence peculiar to them, and a dependence on their part which must be swept away when they contend on the same plane with men in the political arena. There are many indications that it lessens in proportion as women come forward to compete with men in public life and in business. In the latter case it is an incidental result of a necessity; but it will be the natural con- sequence of a condition when women appear in politics. In England, when women first appeared upon the hustings, they were received with the old chivalry, but in recent elections, the contest being fierce, all respect has disappeared. Noted women were treated most disrespectfully in the very heart of London, and people of all parties agree that England has never seen so much participation of women, or such rude treatment of them, as in the last election. In Wales Mrs. Cornwallis West tried to quell a disturbance among the electors who refused to hear Colonel West speak. She obtained a momentary hearing, but the disorder revived, and she exclaimed with much heat^ "I am an Irish woman, but it was not until I came to Wales that I found men capable of refusing to hear a woman who was pleading a cause." She was silenced by yells and hisses, and was finally compelled to retire from the platform. The introduction of women into political life will increase its bitterness. That politics create violent feuds is too evident to be questioned. At present they are modified by the undis- ■ turbed relations between the wives, mothers, daughters, and sisters of the combatants. When the struggle has been decided at the polls, these social relations serve to bring about a calm, and the resumption of personal harmony. This was admirably stated by Horace Bushnell : Hitherto it has heen an advantage to be going* into our suf- frages with a full half, and that (when left to its normal en^ vironment and habits) the better half morally, as a corps of reserve left behind, so that we may fall back on this quiet ele- ment, or base, several times a day, and always at night, to recom- pense our courage and settle again our mental and moral equilibri- 238 SELECTED ARTICLES iim. Now it is proposed that we have no reserve any longer, that we go into our conflicts taking our women with us, all to be kept heat- ing in the same fire for weeks or months together, without inter- spersings of rest, or quieting times of composure. We are to be as much more excited of course, as we can be, and the women are of course to be as much more excited than we as they are more excitable. Let no man imagine that our women are going into thes-e encounters to be just as quiet or as little nerved as now, when they sit in the rear, unexcited, letting us come back to them often to recover our reason. They are to be no more mi- tigators now, but instigators rather, sweltering in the same fierce heats and commotions, only more fiercely stirred than we. It is the very distinctive qualities culminating in an exquisite •sensibility, the source of woman's charm in private and family and social life, which, exposed to the attrition and agitations of party conflicts, will most fan the flame. In this country these liabilities have been illustrated where women have come into anything analogous to political life. The feud that existed for years between two wings of the Woman Suffrage Association in the United States is ancient but still in- structive history. The Woman's Christian Temperance Union organized for the promotion of an end in which all were agreed, managed by lead- ers to whom all are accustomed to defer, would not be expected to have any serious difficulty. But when ,a feud arose which ostensibly began because of a divergence of opinion with respect to the relation which the Union should sustain to political parties, it speedily became intense, and a distinguished woman, the leader of the minority, more than intimates concerning the national president, that, in all her great work she has* been but seeking a background for Tier personal exploits, and a theater for the exercise of her won- •derful powers and accomplishments. To this, by order of the executive committee, a reply was pre- pared by a sub-committee of four women of national recognition, which, after making various charges, culminates in a passage unsurpassed in sting of innuendo: Whatever values has won as chairman of the Women's Re- publican National League, as one of the famous "spell-binclers," and wife of a Republican official, she has lost the faith of her old comrades in her sincerity, the chaplet of their admiring love, and the crown of leadership in the grandest body of women known in the world. The closest approximation to political life on a national scale €ver made in this country was the National Board of Lady WOAIAN SUFFRAGE ■ 239 Managers of the World's Fair. These were women of high character and social influence, most of them accustomed to various forms of public life, selected because of their standing in the states whence they came. A large proportion of them at all times spoke and acted in such a manner as to command universal respect, and their work as a whole secured the appro- bation of the coimtry. But the board had honors to confer, awards to make, and patronage to distribute. Discord arose between the secretary and the president, the former being a lawyer and a noted advo- cate of woman suffrage. This controversy lasted for months, threatening to embroil the country. Jealousy of the president's failure to introduce some of her colleagues to the Duchess de Veragua caused a stormy scene. Later, another charged a wom- an in higher office with instructing the presidents of the various meetings to exclude her from participation in the speaking. Owing to various bitter quarrels among the members, and fac- tional opposition, the president intimated her intention to resign. It must be remembered that the president was a woman of tact and rare ability as a presiding officer. On one day, after a long altercation accompanied by many personal contradictions, the board stopped business, and the members left the hall in confu- sion without adjourning. A sectional war broke out, when a lady exclaimed with reference to the nomination of jurors: "New York has eight representatives and North Dakota none. I want to know the reason why. There is something crooked going on here, and 1 am going to find it out." Subsequently several women commissioners appealed to the National Commission against alleged injustice. And later, in open debate, one delegate charged another with being "an arro- gant, malicious, injurious, and vindictive woman," which caused intense general excitement accompanied by ejaculations and tears. F'or several days the disturbance was renewed ; but peace was finally made, and the account of the controversy was ex- punged from the records. Such was thie effect of these scenes that some of the members of the board reversed their opinion on the desirableness of woman's entering political life. Further illustrations appeared during the recent canvass in the state of New York for petitions to strike out the word male 240 SELECTED ARTICLES from the Constitution, when a counter-movement was begun by women. The protestants were characterized by educated ladies in public assemblies as "traitors to their sex," "copper- heads," "betrayers of the cause of woman," and such was the intensity of the feelings that these terms and phrases evoked general applause. The women who presumed to resist the in- novation were characterized by one of their sisters, in a con- tribution to an important periodical, as "parasites who have mentally retrograded." It will place a new and terrible strain upon the family rela- tion. The ratio of marriages relatively to the number of the population is diminishing; the number of divorces has been in- creasing alarmingly for the past thirty years. They are most numerous in sections of the country where there has been a per- sistent and almost fierce demand for the ballot. The introduction of political disputes and party work into family life will develop and increase incompatibility, a prolilic cause of separations, infidelity to the marriage contract, and di- vorce. To this it has been responded : "There has always been more contention over religion than over politics, yet often the wife is a member of one church, and the husband of another or of none ; and yet the family is not disrupted, and it is evident from the seeming concord of the household that the two have agreed to disagree." That the family can bear existing strains does not prove that it could endure all that it has and a greater than any of them. Even the worst of men generally wish their wives, unless they become fanatics, to be religious, or do not seriously object to it. But there is a radical difference between political excitement and any other. A political difference means that the most intense feelings shall be excited and kept at fever heat for several weeks or months, liable to culminate in a direct act of opposition, the wife going to the polls against her husband, and he against her, exchanging glances of sympathy with life- long political opponents, perhaps cooperating in active opposition. The wife may be working and voting against her husband's most intimate business or personal friends, and endeavoring to secure the passage of laws especially obnoxious to him. In cases of disagreement, where there are children, each parent would en- deavor to surpass the other in capturing recruits at the family WOMAN SUFFRAGE 241- altar, the table, and the fireside. At the end of the conflict the defeated would be left without the sympathy of the other ; and not only without the sympathy, but in many cases with the taunt and sneer. These possibilities should not be considered merely or chiefly with respect to established families, united "by the reciprocal ties of friendly intercourse," through many years down to the time of the introduction of woman suffrage. The strain will be most felt whenever and wherever the tie is weakest, whether the cause be the inexperience and impulsiveness of early married life, or the accumulated incompatibilities which test the self- control of many. To resort to the assumption that ''women will generally vote as their husbands do" is to renounce most of the consid'erations advanced in favor of the movement. To invest her mith the responsibility of voting will diminish the real power of woman in speech. At present she may say what she will; men hear, and, without subjecting her woids to too close a scrutin}^ are influenced by her spirit. Require her to vote, identify her with a party, and in some instances she will grow timid ; where she refuses to restrain herself, she will be- come an impediment to party success, and will be ignored. When women oppose women, their party conflicts will deprive them of that power by which they now leaven public sentiment. // may reasonably be expected to deteriorate the moral tone of most of the women who become political leaders, and affect "unfavorably all who take an active part in politics; and it zvill introduce dangerous forms of corruption. The principal causes of political immorality are the desire for power, for "spoils" in money and office bribery, craft, party and personal prejudice. Is it reasonable to believe that women who become political lead- ers, and intensely excited in political campaigns, will escape the influence of these demoralizing elements? Certainly it will not be maintained that women are destitute of ambition, that they are above the influence of prejudice or prepossession, that per- sonal favoritism can never warp their judgment, that money, or what it procures, has no charm for them. While seme — in the aggregate, many — would resist every temptation, preserv^e their wom.anliness, and illustrate in high places all the virtues, is cer- tain. But to subject the entire sex to such influences would in- evitably lower its moral tone. 242 SELECTED ARTICLES When women vote generally, — and if they are not to vote generally the agitation is useless, — all classes will need to be instructed and led to the polls. There must be women leaders for different classes, as there are among men. Women who aspire to be leaders, or are made such by their constituents^ will be compelled to associate for political purposes with other women similarly related to the party. At present the morals of society are largely preserved by the fact that a woman of doubtful character is not admitted to the society of women of unspotted reputation. It is easy to maintain such an attitude now ; it would be impossible in a general participation of women in politics. Also that leading political women will be brought into confidential relations with men occupying similar relations in the same party is a consequence of the proposed revolution which would not long be delayed. Its effect upon domestic peace^ and public and private morality, could not be salutary. A Rational Forecast. Should the suffrage be extended to women the grant can never be recalled. Experiments in legislating upon economic questions, even if unwise, need not be permanently harmful, for they may be repealed ; but in dealing with the suffrage, or with moral questions , new laws, if bad, are exceedingly dangerous. They will develop a class lowered in tone, or deriving personal, pecuniary, or political advantages from the new environment, who will vehemently declare that the effect of the innovation is beneficial, and resist all efforts to return to the former state. Should the duty of governing in the state be imposed upon women, all the members of society will suffer; children, by diminished care from their mothers ; husbands, from the in- crease of the contentions, and the decline of the attractions of home ; young men and maidens, from the diminution or de- struction of the idealism which invests the family with such charms as to make the hope of a home of one's own, where in the contrasts of the sexes life may be ever a delight, an impulse to economy and virtue — but the greatest sufferer will be woman. Often those who recollect her genuine freedom of speech, "the might of her gentleness," the almost resistless potency of her look and touch and voice, will long for the former proud de- WOMAN SUFFRAGE 243 pendence of woman on manliness, reciprocated by man's rever- ence for womanliness ; while "the new generation, to whom such sweet recollections will be miknown, will blindly rave against their fate or despondently sink under it, as women have never done (from similar causes) under the old regime." Meanwhile the office-holding, intriguing, campaigning, lobbying, mannish woman will celebrate the day of emancipation, — which, alas, will be the day of degradation, — when, grasping at sovereignty, she lost her empire. The true woman needs no governing authority conferred upon her by law. In the present situation the highest evidence of respect that man can exhibit toward woman, and the noblest service he can perform for her, are to vote nay to the proposition that would take from her the diadem of pearls, the talisman of faith, hope, and love, by which all other requests are won from men, and substitute 'for it the iron crown of authority. Gunton's Magazine. 20: 333-44. April, 1901. Scientific Aspects of the Woman Suffrage Question. Mrs. Mary K. Sedgwick. In an ideal society men and women choose their occupations to suit both individual and sex fitness ; wherever this is im- possible energy is lost. Many occupations fall naturally to one sex or the other because of special fitness or unfitness. Men shoul(f do all the work calling for great physical strength, con- tinued exposure, or long absence from home; in general, work involving the combative powers. Women must, on the other hand, take care of the children and home ; they must do most of the teaching and nursing. Many other occupations may be entered by men and women with equal advantage, except that women are constantly handicapped by their peculiar physical limitations, a point which most suffragists ignore. Women have every opportunity that men have for intellectual development and public usefulness, except in government and war. To counterbalance these limitations, women have at least two functions that men have not, — bearing children and train- 244 SELECTED ARTICLES ing them, functions obviously quite as important as politics or military service. A third function may be added, for women have so far captured the direction of primary education that there are few men left teaching in elementary grades. As has often been said, if men have proved such poor law- makers as the suffragists assert, the mothers of the nations should prove that they can train their sons better before demanding the responsibility of the ballot. In any case it re- mains for the suffragists to show why it is such a supreme dis- advantage to women to be free from the conduct of government and of war. Why should women sacrifice the privilege of un- trammeled opinions, disinterested work and effective influence for the heated debate and bitter struggle for recognition and office which are such an ordeal for men in public life? The suffragists assert that probably not more than ten women in a hundred would care for active participation in poli- tics. There are grave objections to granting the suffrage for the use of so small a proportion of the sex. These ten women in each hundred are probably the ablest ?nd most ambitious of their group, women needed for the more important work of training children or for boards of philanthropy and reform where the disinterested work of women tells enormously, simply because disinterested. Woman's power in matters of public reform is much greater because she cannot be accused of having any selfish or ulterior motive. She is known to be working simply to right abuses, and to protect poor and defeated members of society; if she wins, it is the triumph of justice, her cause is humanity's. But the necessary corollary of the ballot is eli- gibility to office, and there would always be voices to accuse of interested motives th;e woman voter contending for reform. It is absurd to say that women on public philanthropical and edu- cational boards are in politics, and that they have therefore shown their political capabilities already. The struggle in Bos- ton in 1896 to separate politics from its public charitable, cor- rectional, and reform institutions refutes any such statement. If only ten women in a hundred used the suffrage wisely, there would be ninety in each hundred to swell the ranks of the indifferent, which means uninstructed voters, of whom we have far too many among men. Moreover, many of these inactive WOAIAN SUFFRAGE 245 women voters would be more than uninstructed ; they would be ignorant and unconscientious, some of them vicious. Women would have not only to cast a vote but to attend and watch primaries, caucuses, conventions. Many men do not do this, but unless wcmen are to improve matters it is futile to double the present vote. Our trouble lies in calling women a distinct class, and in re- garding the question from the point of view of the individual rather than of the whole state and nation. The men and women of a given stratum of society form one class together; for men and women living together, whether in tenements or palaces, are not antagonistic nor even indifferent to each other's welfare. It is only in comparing the exceptional woman with the average man, or the educated and public-spirited woman with the ignor- ant laborer that we get an apparent basis for equal suffrage. The whole agitation is founded upon, a misapprehension of the social unit, which is not the individual but the family, of which each part contributes its share to the general good. Those who argue that woman would purify politics think of women of the higher type, more conscientious than men of less education and lower moral standards. But the vote of this kind of woman does not replace that of an idle, worthless man. If she votes, so does he, and the woman of his family. Where is the gain of doubling the vote without improving its quality? Much of the alleged unfitness of women for public life could undoub'tedly be eradicated by proper education during the impressible period of youth. It will, however, always be true that women are more delicately organized than men, more quickly stirred emotionally and imaginatively. In political life women cannot acquire control of their emotions or the necessary practical training in public morals and manners ; such training must be largely obtained before the age of twenty-one, and the arena of politics is plainly the last place in which to secure it. Has political life trained our men to such lofty ideals of public honor, such impartial administration of justice, such habits of calm and fair discussion that we wish to entrust to its turmoil the impetuous and ardent nature of woman? Secretary Gage has said by newspaper report: "The increasing emotional- ism which characterizes American politics is one of our greatest 246 SELECTED ARTICLES > dangers, the tendency for great floods and waves of feeling to sweep over the community, and to carry thousands and millions with them into a sudden current. What we need is less emo- tionalism in politics, not more ; I think," he concluded, "that the sudden admission of women into political life would greatly ag- gravate this danger." Men admit that there is no career equal to politics for tense feeling and nervous wear. It demands the greatest coolness and deliberation, complete detachment from the personal view ; and it demands these ready-made, it is not a school for devel- oping them. Women do not need politics to incite them to cultivate their sense of public duty ; they are, no less than men, bound to serve the state, and able to serve it wisely. "The end of government is the good of mankind," said Locke, and that good can be attained only by conveying all the various forces of the race toward the common end. The contribution of women toward this end, while equally essential, is necessarily unlike that of men. Harper's Bazar. 43: 1169-70. November, 1909. Working-Woman and Anti-Suffrage. Priscilla Leonard. The American woman is altruistic. She loves to work for the common good. She is learning more and more, in her clubs and her charities, the need of helping other women toward bet- ter conditions. And it is, therefore, one of the strongest points of the suffragist attack that they promise enormous benefit; through the ballot, to the working-girl. Those women who are interested in child labor, in regulating hours and labor for women, in equalizing wages between men and women, are told that the vote for women will solve all these problems. If it is so, how can any woman stand out against this talisman for the relief of her toiling sisters. Yes — if it is so. But suppose it isn't? Politics and Economics. Politics are not economics. Economics are not politics. The law of supply and demand works right along, independent of WOMAN SUFFRAGE 247 elections. One single, simple fact knocks the ground out clean from under the argument that votes determine wages. In the panic year the working-man's wages came down and thousands of working-men were out of employment on our streets. Yet they each had a vote. In the panic year the wages of cooks and housemaids did not come down. No unemployed cooks and housemaids were seeking jobs from house to house in vain. Yet not one cook or housemaid had a vote. The reason was economic. There are never enough domestic servants in America to fill the demand. Therefore, their wages steadily increase. So great is the demand and so small the sup- ply that even untrained cooks are sure of relatively high wages, while the trained cooks push the price up steadily year by year. Not because their case is pitiful; not because other women want to ameliorate their lot, not because laws are made to help them, does the price rise — no indeed. Everybody is against their de- mands. No legislature has ever tried to provide seats for them or forbid night work or recommend a minimum wage. Eco- nomic law, which is largely self-regulating, takes care of them and makes them a privileged and high-paid class. To work en- thusiastically and passionately to give one's housemaid or cook a vote as a safeguard for her rights sounds absurd tO' every woman. It is absurd. But then — so is the demand for a vote for any other working-woman, in the hope of changing her economic condition. The Working-Woman's Three Handicaps. Why is the working-girl illy paid, forced to work under un- healthful conditions, and exploited generally? There are three main reasons. Every one of them is economic and absolutely unremediable by a vote or twenty votes. (i) There is an oversupply of working-girls in all the poor- ly paid trades. (2) The working-girl works largely, for pin-money, not for a living wa^e. (3) Her working period is usually temporary. In a trade in which there is not an oversupply of women ap- plicants and in which their work is equal to that of men, they 248 SELECTED ARTICLES command the same wages. Take novel-writing, for example. Mrs. Humphry Ward's prices are the top of the trade. Take Melba and Patti — they cannot complain of low wages. Rosa.^ Bonheur and Cecilia Beaux suffer no injustice in competing with men. Hetty Green can get as much out of the moneymarket as any broker. Even in the teaching profession, the agitation of the women teachers of New York state to have their wages equalized with those of men by act of the legislature would seem absurd to Calif ornians, for in California women teachers receive the same wages as the men without any laws on the sub- ject whatever, because there are never more than enough of them to supply the demand. (In Colorado, by the way, an equal-suffrage state, the women teachers at last accounts do not receive as much as the men teachers — showing that economics do not depend on politics there any more than in other places.) But an overcrowded trade is always illy paid — ^that is economic law. And the working-girls who suffer most, and whom all women want most to help, are invariably in the overcrowded trades. The result of oversupply is that the employer can fix his own prices. If three girls afe all trying for the same job (and it is more likely that there are thirty than three after it) wages -can be lowered and yet lowered and there will still be girls enough to fill the factory or the store or the laundry. With men, this situation has been recognized long ago — and the power- lessness of the vote to affect it — and men have, therefore, or- ganized their labor. When men's wages go too low or their hours are too long they strike and gain their point — if they gain it at all — by cutting off the supply of labor. That is an economic move — and therefore affects things. But politics do not control eco- nomics — if they did every laboring-man who is a voter would be getting two dollars a day at least and no days laid off. The Pin-Money Worker. Secondly, the working-girl is illy paid because she works for pin-money, not for a living wage. One of the largest stores in New York makes the rule that no girl shall be employed who does not live at home or with relatives. The reason is thus explained : *'Our wage for beginners and for untrained grades of work is so low that no girl can live decently on it, unless she WOMAN SUFFRAGE 249 lives at home and pays no board or else lives with relatives who help her along." That store always has more applicants than it needs, just like all the others. The girl who works to earn money simply to spend, or to provide only half of her sup- port, is the average working-girl. No law can keep her out of the labor-market; and in the labor-market by economic prin- ciples she determines the price for her self-supporting sisters. It is a wretched state of affairs, but it requires no hard thinking to see that the ballot could not remedy it in any way. The Temporary Worker and Her Age. Third, the working period for girls is usually temporary. The average age of the woman workers of America is from eighteen to twenty-two. Half of them cease to be wage-earners at twenty- five. One-sixth more of them drop out by thirty-five. The truth is the working-girl only expects to work until she marries, and the one-third who stay on are largely the widowed or the divorced. Because the majority only work for four years out of their whole lives, they are willing to take low pay and they never become — nor, for the most part, try to become — really skilled workers, who command good wages. Men go into work to stay and work up to better positions each year— there is the economic difference, which no vote and no law can change. For these reasons the anti-suffragists are not greatly swayed bj'- the suffragist assertions that the ballot is needed by the working-girl. They also see, what the suffragist usually omits to consider, that from a third to a half of the working-women of the United States are at any one time under voting age. Any suffrage, therefore, that really proposes to give the working- girl a vote must set the voting age at fourteen, at which age thousands of girls go into industry in the most crowded trades under the most trying conditions. The remedy for the present condition of the working-girl lies in trades-unions, in the education of girls in handicrafts and in domestic science, in the agitation for a living wage, and the solidarity of the pin-money worker with her self-supporting sister, rather than in giving the ballot to a class so many of whom are not old enough to use it. What legislation is necessary and possible is now pushed forward heartily by the National Con- 250 SELECTED ARTICLES sumers' League, the National Child Labor Comniiittee, and other bodies in which able men and women of all classes work to- gether. It is worthy of note that the Consumers' League, through a prominent lawyer armed with a brief prepared by a woman, won in the Supreme Court a test case as to limiting the hours for working-women — ^the Curt Miiller case in Oregon — whereas the courts of Colorado, an equal-suffrage state, threw out as unconstitutional an eight-hour law for Colorado working- women. Woman's Working Status Not Yet Settled. Woman is a new factor in most fields of industry. Man has been working away at his problems in the industrial world for centuries. It is going to take time to get justice for woman in industry, because she has brought in industrial complications and abuses that have to be studied and prevented not in a day, but through long adjustment. But to advocate the profound political change of a ballot for all women because one woman out of every six is in industry and needs the vote to change her economic conditions would be five times a mistake, especially since the sixth woman would not be really benefited at all aVid could not vote half the time on account of her youth. (We must not forget, either, the two million working-women in domestic service who need no legislation as to their wages.) The anti-suffragists are just as anxious as the suffragists to improve the status of woman in industry. They are found in all the movements for the relief of the working-girl, for the protection of the younger girls by child-labor laws, for the help of working-women. They seek the same end, but they have no belief in the ballot as a means. They see in it not a short cut to the millennium, but a will-o'-the-w4sp to follow which is a waste of time. In their ranks are many of the working-women themselves. As the July Remonstrance notes, the last great English petition against woman suffrage, presented to the House of Commons last March, signed by 243,852 women, furnishes striking proof of this fact. On the first page were the signatures of a peeress, who is a widow and a large land-owner, of a head mistress of a high school, of a highly educated work- ing-woman, of a librarian, of an author, and of a wage-earner. WOMAN SUFFRAGE 251 In the petition, as a whole, were representatives of every trade and profession and occupation and walk in life: authors, journal- ists, school-mistresses, farmers, shopkeepers; typists, clerks, domestic servants, mill hands, shop assistants, fishwives, coast- guards' wives, soldiers' and sailors' wives, charwomen and care- takers. Miss Gilder's View. Miss Jeannette Gilder, in the New York Times recently gave her view "as one working-wo nan sees it" thus : "I am an anti-suffragist because I have never heard a single argument advanced for the cause of suffrage that seemed to me convincing. . . . "I resent the assumption of the suffragists that they repre- sent the working-woman and that they are her best friends. They do represent a large element of the working-women, but not all ; nor are they her best friends. They believe that they are, no doubt; but I believe that they are her worst enemies, because they teach her discontent and hold out golden hopes to her that can never be realized. "I am just as much of a working- woman as Mrs. Kelly or Miss O'Reilly. I began at fourteen and have been at it ever since and expect to be at it till I die. I have worked hard and had as many responsibilities and discouragements as though I had rolled cigars in a factory or worked at a loom in a mill, and I have just as much right to speak for the working- woman as have they ; and I wish to say right here, as I have said else- where, that I cannot see that the ballot would have helped me one iota in getting on in the world or have made the rough places smooth. "I believe not only that the ballot in the hands of women would be a calamity, but I believe that it would prove a boomer- ang." Ladies' Home Journal. 25: 15. November, 1908. Why I Do Not Believe in Woman Suffrage. Mary Augusta Ward (Mrs. Humphry Ward.) There is, and always will be, a natural division between the spheres of men and women ; an axiom we may deny as we will, 252 SELECTED ARTICLES but which has a way in. the end of "proving'* itself "upon our pulses." Is there any reasonableness in denying that men have built up the modcrm political state, and that men must maintain it? The modern state, as we know, depends ultimately on force. This is constantly disputed by the idealists of the world ; but if it were not the case mankind would not be spend- ing these vast sums, all over the earth, on armies and navies ; the Hague Conference would not have refused to admit any discussion as to the limitation of armaments ; and your Presi- dent, the chief, — as you yourselves insist — of the most pacific na- tion in the world, would not have sent a recent message to Con- gress, asking for four new battleships of the most advanced and formidable type. Women may say what they please, but the whole priesent state of the civilized world shows that force, physical force, armed with the most deadly inventions known to the brain of man, is what each modern state in the long nm and in the last resort depends on for its national existence. We may lament that it is so ; we may look forward to a time when the world will be really ruled by arbitration ; but that day is a long way off. And, meanwhile, women have no right to claim full political power in a state where they can never themselves take the full responsibility of their actions, because they can never be called upon finally to enforce them. But the modern state depends on several other fundamental activities — physical force being the ultimate sanction of all of them — in none of which can women take any personal share. Finance and commerce are carried on by men ; and you have had disastrous evidence during this passing year as to the effect finance may have upon the general life. You may say that per- haps finance and commerce might be more efficiently and right- eously organized than they are, but shall we improve them by bringing in the votes and the political influence of those who have never had any guiding or responsible share in commerce and finance? Finance and commerce, again, depend on trans- port, on ships and railways, without which no modern state can exist ; and ships and railways depend themselves upon the great metal and mining industries, which are the exclusive concern of men. A patriarchal state can be maintained practically without finance, transport or mining; but wherever these enter in they WOMAN SUFFRAGE 253 make the framework of the state; and that framework has been made and must be maintamed by men. Then again there is diplomacy ; the modern state by reason of its very complexity, and of the enormous importance of the issues with which it deals, can only defend itself— short of weapons of war — in the great world-competition by the skilled weapons of diplomacy. And this skill depends upon a trained knowledge of the world and its affairs, which only men can get. It is their natural business to get it; they are not held back from getting it by the cares of the home and family; and, as far as we can see, it must always remain their business, by virtue of a natural selection, against which it is childish to fight. Do women wish to embarrass the diplomacy which protects them and their children by adding to the ignorance-vote of the men, already immensely strong, an ignorance-vote which is imposed by Nature and irreparable? One common reply to these arguments is that women are concerned in all these things as the daughters, wives and mothers of men. Nothing is more true ; and the fact carries with it the necessity for a wider outlook and a wider mental training for women in the future than they have been accustomed to in the past. Their influence on all great questions should be, and will be, in proportion to their education. It is only where force and numbers come in that they ought to yield the field to men. Indeed, the educated woman will probably, it seems to me, as time goes on, have an influence somewhat greater than that cf the ordinary educated man. Her sex, and the fact that she stands at present outside of the rough-and-tumble of politics, make the better type of men more inclined to listen to her ; and the more knowledge she obtains, and the more political forbear- ance she shows, the greater will this influence be. Meanwhile, in the case of the poor, the difference between the man and the woman, in point of political judgment, is neces- sarily more strongly marked than it need be in the richer classes. The wife of the working-man has the sole care of the children and the home, and, in the majority of cases, is overburdened by it; her thoughts do not travel beyond the home circle, or that of the niearest local affairs ; she has, indeed, neither interest nor time for even rudimentary politics. But the man has at least 254 SELECTED ARTICLES the rough training of the public-house and its talk, of the village caucus and convention, if nothing else, and in addition he has generally the practical education given by his workman's club, his debating society, and all the hundred opportunities forced upon him, often by the mere conditions of his trade, of becoming acquainted with the great political issues of the day. So that in the case of the educated woman, the political vote would rather diminish than increase the power she has, or might have, already; while in the case of the uneducated the vote would couple political power with a political inexperience im- posed by natural conditions, and practically not alterable by woman's will. As to the danger of women's vote to a modern state we in England are, in some ways, more vulnerable than you. Our ministry may be . upset at any moment by a chance vote on water, or gas, or cordite, or any other pretext; and the whole country may be instantly plunged into a general election, the re- sult of which may change the whole face and history of Eng- land. We have none of the checks provided by your Constitu- tion; and therefore, with us the dangers of an increased ignor- ance-vote are enormous, and merely to risk them is, in my be- lief, an unpatriotic act. On the other hand, the personal power of your president is a greater factor in your national life than the power of an English prime minister is in ours; and the excitement attending a presidential election is notoriously great. The admission of women to the federal franchise, and to the power of vitally in- fluencing the presidential election, has therefore — coupled with the natural disadvantages of women — its special dangers for you, which are probably equal to those we are conscious of in our own case. And finally, does not this insistence upon the suffrage for women imply an absurd glorification of the vote as an instrument of power? The vote is only one of many means by which a man asserts himself in his world. It is a necessary part of the mechanism of the modern state, and all those great matters which depend exclusively on man's force and brain have to be settled by it. The possession of the vote has been, no doubt, a great education for masses of men, as probably the local gov- WOMAN SUFFRAGE 255 ernment vote will be for English women. But the great male trade unions were built up and their liberties won, in England, before •household suffrage in 1867 ; nor has the mere possession of the vote done much for the agricultural laborer since 1884. The suffrage for men is a recognition of the reality of things. Men have made the modern political state, they only can main- tain it, and they must govern it. In the case of womien — outside the local government field — the vote would be out of correspond- ence with facts, and it would rest on unreality. But the intellectual, the moral and the industrial life are created by a hundred forces other than the political force, and from the exercise of no one of them are women shut out. What we have to do is to press forward in all these fields ; and it is possible, even probable, that women's influence in them, exercised apart from the ordinary political machine, will be all the stronger and all the healthier. This is no mere "Hearth and fireside" argument. The time has gone by, if it ever existed, when a woman can be said to have no interest beyond her home. On the contrary, the public life of the modern state cannot do without women. It seems to me a discredit to America that women are not more officially and universally concerned in those public matters of local ad- ministration where they are as competent and as much needed as men. But if we are wise we women, both of England and America, shall let what we may call the imperial franchise, in both countries, alone. If we are true patriots we shall not -claim it, we shall concern ourselves in local and social admin- istration ; in legislation and politics we shall endeavor to bring the powers of thought and education to bear, together, perhaps, with such special machinery as I tried to indicate in the earlier part of this paper ; but we shall not ask for power where we -can have no true responsibility. There is a greatness in self-restraint, as there is a greatness in self-assertion. Let us insist with all our will on our public right to educate children, to have a say in reforming the dwellings of the poor, in the moral and physical purification of our towns, in the brightening of our country life, in the na- tional care of the sick and insane, and upon equal opportunities with men in the realms of science and art. But let us, in the 256 SELECTED ARTICLES name of common-sense, leave to men the franchise which de- termines war and peace, diplomacy and finance, and those vast industrial affairs which are exclusively masculine — the franchise which elects the president and Congress, and puts a British prime minister in power. Nineteenth Century. 64: 343-52. August, 1908. Women's Anti-Suffrage Movement. Mary Augusta Ward (Mrs. Humphry Ward.) The women of to-day, who oppose female suffrage, can no longer content themselves with "Appeals" or "Remonstrances." We have reached perhaps the crisis of the movement, and an ac- tive propaganda must be met by one no less active. Last year the first steps in opposition were taken, and in a few weeks 37,000 signatures were collected. This year a National Women's Anti-Suffrage League has been started, evoking the same instant and widespread response, and on the 21st of July a crowded meeting, under the presidency of the Countess of Jersey, was held at the Westminster Palace Hotel for the pur- pose of approving the constitution, and adopting the manifesto of the new league. The manifesto ran as follows : 1. It is time that the women who are opposed to the con- cession of the parliamentary franchise to women should make themselves fully and widely heard. The arguments on the other side have been put with great ability and earnestness, in season and out of season, and enforced by methods legitimate and il- legitimate. 2. An anti-suffrage league has therefore been formed, and all women who sympathize with its object are earnestly request- ed to join it. 3. The matter is urgent. Unless those who hold that the success of the women's suffrage movement would bring disaster upon England are prepared to take immediate and effective action, judgment may go by default and our company drift towards a momentous revolution, both social and political, be- ifore it has realized the dangers involved. WOMAN SUFFRAGE 257 4. It is sometimes said that the concession of the franchise is "inevitable," and that a claim of this kind once started and vehemently pressed must be granted. Let those who take this view consider the case of America. A vigorous campaign in favor of women's suffrage has been carried on in the states for more than a generation. After forty years the American agitation has been practically defeated. The English agitation must be defeated in the same way by steady work and argument of women themselves. 5. Let us state the main reason why this league opposes the concession of the parliamentary vote to women : (a) Because the spheres of mien and women, owing to natural causes, are essentially different, and therefore their share in the management of the state should be different. (b) Because the complex modern state depends for its very existence on naval and military power, diplomacy, finance, and the great mining, constructive, shipping and transport in- dustries, in none of which can women take any practical part. Yet it is upon these matters, and the vast interests involved in them, that the work of Parliament largely turns. (c) Because by the concession of the local government vote and the admission of women to county and borough councils, the nation has opened a wide sphere of public work and influence to women, which is within their powers. To make proper use of it, however, will tax all the energies that women have to spare, apart from the care of the home and the development of the individual life. (d) Because the influence of women in social causes will be diminished rather than increased by the possession of the parliamentary vote. At present they stand, in matters of social reform, apart from and beyond party politics, and are listened to accordingly. The legitimate influence of woman in politics — in all classes, rich and poor — ^will always be in proportion to their education and common sense. But the deciding power of the parliamentary vote should be left to men, whose physical force is ultimately responsible for the conduct of the state. (e) Because all the reforms which are put forward as rea- sons for tbe vote can be obtained by other means than the vote, as is proved by the general history of the laws relating to women 25.8 SELECTED ARTICLES and children during the past century. The channels of public opinion are always freely open to women. Moreover, the serv- ices which women can with advantage render to the nation in the field of social and educational reform, and in the investiga- tion of social problems, have been recognized by Parliament. Women have been included in royal commissions, and admitted to a share in local government. The true path of progress seems to lie in further development along these lines. Representative women, for instance, might be brought into closer consultative relation with government departments, in matters where the special interests of women are concerned. (f) Because any measure for the enfranchisement of women must either (i) concede the vote to women on the same terms as to men, and thereby in practice involve an unjust and in- vidious limitation; or (2) by giving the vote to wives of voters tend to the introduction of political differences into domestic life ; or (3) by the adoption of adult suffrage, which seems the inevitable result of admitting the principle, place the female vote in an overpowering majority. (g) Because, finally, the danger which might arise from the concession of woman suffrage, in the case of a state burdened with such complex and far-reaching responsibilities as England, is out of all proportion to the risk run by those smaller com- munities which have adopted it. The admission to full political power of a number of voters debarred by nature and circum- stance from the average political knowledge and experience open to men, would weaken the central governing forces of the state, and be fraught with peril to the country. Women who hold these views must now organize in their support. 6. We appeal, therefore, to those who disapprove the present suffrage agitation, to join our league, and to support it by every means in their power. Upon this text the following speech was delivered: "As to the reasons for the fight, we are probably all pretty much agreed in this room. Women are 'not undevelcped men but diverse,' and the more complex the development of any state, the more diverse. Difference, not inferiority — it is ,on that we take our stand. The modern state depends for its very existence WOMAN SUFFRAGE 259 — and no juggling with facts can get rid of the truth — on the physical force of men, combined with the trained and specialized knowledge which men alone are able to get, because women, on whom the child-bearing and child-rearing of the world rest, have no time and no opportunity to get it. The difference in these re- spects between even the educated man and the educated woman — exceptions apart — is evident to us all. Speaking generally, the man's mere daily life as breadwinner, as merchant, engineer, official, or manufacturer, gives him a practical training that is not open to women. The pursuit of advanced science, the con- stantly developing applications of sciences to industry and life, the great system of the world's commerce and finance, the funda- mental activities of railways and shipping, the hard physical drudgery, in fact, of the world, day by day— not to^ speak of naval and military affairs, and of that diplomacy which protects us and our children from war — these are male, conceived and ex- ecuted by men. The work of Parliament turns upon them, assumes them at every turn. That so many ignorant male voters have to be called into the nation's councils upon them, is the penalty we pay for what on the whole are the great goods of democracy. But this ignorance-vote is large enough in all conscience, when one considers the risks of the modern state ; and to add to it yet another, where the ignorance is imposed by nature and ir- reparable — the vote of women who in the vast majority of cases are debarred by their mere sex from that practical political ex- perience which is at least always open to men — could any pro- ceeding be more dangerous, more unreasonable? The women who ask it — able, honorable, noble women though they be — are not surely true patriots, in so far as they ask it. There is a greatness in self-restraint as well as in self-assertion ; and to embarrass the difficult work of men, in matters where men's experience alone provides the. materials for judgment, is not to help women. On the contrary. We are mothers, wives, and sisters of men, and we know that our interests are bound up with the best interests of men, and that to claim to do their work as well as our own is to injure both. "But we shall be told there is a vast field where men and women are equally concerned — the field of industrial and domes- tic legislation — and that women here ought to have an equal voice. 26o SELECTED ARTICLES And if there were any practical possibility of dividing up the work of Parliament, so that women should vote on only those matters where they are equally concerned with men, there would be a great deal to be said for a special franchise of the kind. But there is no such possibility. Mr. Gladstone tried something like it when in the case of the first Home Rule Bill he endieavored to draw a line between certain subjects and others, in the case of the Irish members. We all know that he failed. The work of Parliament is one and indivisible. The handling of every subject bears on the Handling of every other, and the vote once given, can^only carry with it the whole range of parliamentary power. "But what then? Are women without power over the subjects that specially concern them, because they are and, as we hope, will remain without the parliamentary vote. "By no means. They have first of all the power which will always belong, vote or no vote, to knowledge and experience wherever they are to be found. During the last half-century, as the education of women has advanced, and as their experience has been enlarged, their influence upon public men and upon legislation has steadily increased. Not a single bill is now passed bearing on the special interests of women and children, but women are anxiously consulted. When the special schools for defective children were constituted throughout the country, the influence of women shaped the law at every successive stage ; when the Midwives Act was passed, it was not, as Mrs. Pank- hurst says, 'passed by men without consulting women' — it was, as I happened to know, mainly the work of a group of energetic and clearheaded women, who proved their point and achieved their reform, even against a strong masculine opposition. The Probation of Offenders Act of last year was framed throughout in consultation with women possessed of expert knowledge and experience; and as for the Children's Bill of this session, this children's Charter, which does Mr. Samuel such honor, it could not have been drawn up without the advice and help of women, which it has had throughout. Women moreover, are now placed on royal commissions, and we may be very sure that the in- fluence of Mrs. "Sidney Webb on the Poor Law commission is at least equal to that of any man upon it. WOMAN SUFFRAGE 261 ''But this is not all. Women have not only the influence given them by special knowledge and ability, knowledge which enables them now in all fields to represent and speak for their sex ; they have also freely open to them, whether as electors or elected, the immense field of local governm,ent. They have had the municipal vote for thirty-seven years ; they have long been eligible as Poor Law guardians, as parish or district councillors, and they have now been made eligible as county and borough councillors. If anyone will take up any competent book on local government and look at the powers of county and borough councils, he will ask himself, I think, how long will it be before women overtake or fill the immense sphere which has been here opened to them? They have not, indeed, shown any great zeal to fill it. The women's vote has been extremely small, ex- cept when some exciting cause has intervened — not unlike the men, however, in this ! But all the time, if the vote were really the talisman that the Suffragists proclaim, what women might have done in local government! — what they still might do ! *' Tf we get the vote,' says one of the suffragist leaflets, ^more attention would be given to the condition of the children, to the care of the sick and aged, to education,' and so on. But meanwhile all sorts of powers are lying unused under the hands of women. There has been much talk, for instance, of the evils of street trading for children of school age. But this is a matter which depends entirely upon the county council; and if the women's vote in London, which they have now possessed for thirty years or more, had been properly used and directed, street trading could have been made impossible. Organized playgrounds again for children throughout London could have been established, as they have been established in Boston and New York; a hundred things could have been done for chil- dren, if voters and organizers had so willed it. Meanwhile, the need for women school managers of a capable sort throughout London is really urgent. In the cripple schools with which I have been specially connected, we cannot get women enough to do the work which urgently wants doing for these delicate and helpless children. And meanwhile good brains and skilled hands are being diverted from women's real tasks to this barren agitation for equal rights with men, in men's own field, this sex-rivalry, which has too often masqueraded as reform. 262 SELECTED ARTICLES "Two arguments often used in the controversy are not. touched in the manifesto, which had of necessity to be short. But they have had remarkable influence upon the working popu- lation of the north. I mean (i) the argument, that the posses- sion of the vote would raise the wages of women to an equality with those of men ; (2) that hygienic regulation of the employ- ment of women — married women especially — should not be im- posed on women without their consent, expressed through the vote. "Heavy indeed is the responsibility of those who are teach- ing an excitable factory population that the possession of a vote will raise their wages ! If this were even remotely true, would the average wage of the agricultural laborer , twenty-four years after his political enfranchisement, be still 15s. or i6s. a week? Would all that mass of low-paid male labor disclosed by Mr. Rowntree's book on York, or Mr. Booth's London, still exist — if the vote could remedy it? "The reasons why women's wage is generally lower than that of men are partly economic, partly physical. There are more women than men ; men are stronger than women ; there is far more competition for men's labor ; marriage and the expec- tation of marriage affect the industrial value of women's work unfavorably; and above all the organization of women's labor is still backward and weak. "Many causes now in operation will, we hope, tend in time to the better payment of women ; the more even spread of the world's population, better training, better organization, and so on. But to teach the laboring women of England that a parlia- mentary vote is of itself to raise wages and bring them the economic millennium, is, as it seems to me, to poison the wells of thought and action among them, and to increase instead of lightening the burdens on our sex. "As to factory regulations, the opinion of women in the mat- ter, trained and experienced women, has been of increasing" importance with the government for many years past. I believe I am not wrong in saying that a very large proportion of the recent reforms in factory legislation for women and children are due to the reports of women inspectors, in daily contact with the people, and bringing their trained knowledge to bear. But let WOMAN SUFFRAGE 263 us ask a further question. Is the work of married women in factories the concern only of women? Not at all. It is the con- cern of the nation as a whole, who are the trustees for and the guardians of the coming generation." North American Review. 161: 257-67. September, 1895. Why Women Do Not Want the Ballot. William Croswell Doane. Whether we like it or not, the question of giving the ballot to women is a question to be faced. From the last legislature of the state of New York favorable action was secured on the proposal to submit to popular vote the omission of the word "male" from the qualification of voters in the constitution. This is of course only tentative and preliminary. Another legislature must pass the law before it can be submitted to the people. But it behooves men and women who are opposed to it to be awake to the duty of hindering its further progress. It seems important, in view of the renewed effort in Albany this coming winter, to appeal to the sober-minded thought of men and women ; to omit rhetoric, oratory, abuse, misrepresenta- tion, and ask for a serious consideration of a subject, certainly fraught with grave and serious consequences ; for anything that touches the ballot touches the foundations of government. Among the difficulties which beset the whole question now are the indifference and listlessness, or the frivolity and trifling with which in too many instances it is regarded. Many a man says: "Oh! let the experiment be tried; it cannot succeed; it will do no harm to pay women the courtesy of this compli- mentary vote, and then defeat it at the polls." But this is an experiment too much like playing with fire to be safe. Once granted, it can never be recalled. And the risk of random voting on matters of such importance is too great to be run. Many a woman opposed to the mieasure feels that the whole thought of signing petitions, and having her name printed, and appealing to the legislature, is so distasteful to her, that she would prefer to take the chance of probable failure. Meanwhile, the advocates 264 SELECTED ARTICLES pile up petitions, and multiply unmeaning names. Many a man trifles with his responsibility, under the silly idea that it is un- gallant to say ''No" to a woman. And many a wpman laughs at the whole matter as a joke, mixed up with bicycles and bloomers,, and a number of other trivial questions- which have no re- motest relation to the principle involved. Let us look fairly and squarely at the facts. There is one class of women to be eliminated from the discussion, because they fly into a ''frenzy" which is not ''fine," mistake abuse for argument, and are only vulgarly violent, with sharp tongues or sharper pens saturated with bitterness and venom. They are,, if there were only such as these, their own best answerers, fur- nishing sufficient reason against the movement. There is another class which includes members of both sexes, with whom one cannot deal without sacrificing self-respect or reverence, who revile all that one holds in holiest veneration, Holy Scripture, holy matrimony, St. Paul, even our dear Lord Himself. How reverent and religious women can cast their lot in with a cause which has this drift in it is inconceivable; and yet some of them do so. One has neither need nor desire to make reply to such as these. They may be safely left, when the sediment has gathered at the bottom, and shows through the quietness of the settled surface, to their own condemnation. But the cause has among its adherents and advocates a very different class of women and men, to whose sober second thought it is worth while to appeal, and against whose specious but sin- cere reasonings others need to be warned and guarded. It is because of these, and of their reasonings, that this paper is written. It is not intended to argue the underlying principles of the case, which have been argued abundantly already, but only to assert them. 1. Suffrage is not a right of anybody. It is a privilege granted by the constitution to such persons as the framers of the constitution and the founders of the government deem best. 2. The old political proverb, "No taxation without repre- sentation," is utterly inapplicable to this question. It grew out of the tyrannical action of a government "across the sea," in which no one of all the people on whom the tax was levied had the faintest voice in the framing of the laws or in the choice of WOMAN . SUFFRAGE 265: the government. We may be said to have in this country a great deal of representation without taxation, because, in thousands of instances, voters, and indeed the very men who impose the tax, own no property at all. But women who are taxed are represent- ed by their relatives, by their potent influence, and by men's sense of justice, amounting even to chivalry, which the woman suffragists are doing all they can to destroy, but which has, secured to them far more protection, far more independent con- trol of their property, than men have reserved to themselves. ^ The complement and object of taxation is not the right to vote, but the protection of property. And women's property is better protected than men's. 3. Equality does not mean identity of duties, rights, privi- leges, occupations. The sex differences are proof enough of this. The paths in which men and women are set to walk are parallel, but not the same. And the equilibrium of society cannot be main- tained, nor the equipoise of the body, unless this is recognized. As St. Paul put it forcibly long ago: *'If the whole body were hearing, where were the smelling?" Over-stocked professions,,, men and women crowding each other in and out of occupations, neglected duties, responsibilities divided until they are destroyed, must be the result if this unnatural idea be enforced. 4. The theory of increased wages for women, to be secured by giving votes to women-workers, is equally preposterous. Wages, like work, are regulated by the unfailing law of supply and demand. Work cannot be created, and wages cannot be forced up. If there are too many workers there will be less em- ployment and lower pay. These are some of the fundamental and axiomatic truths of the argument. It is important, too, to guard against the specious method of mixing up things that have no relation to each other. A man or a woman who opposes the forcing of the ballot upon women is classed with the people who dislike female bicyclists and the bloomer costume — questions of taste about which we -may differ, but which lie upon the lower plane of aesthetics. The unattrac- tiveness of an ugly dress or an ungraceful movement may repel a man's feelings and lessen the charm of a woman, but there it : ends. Women may ride bicycles and wear bloomers without ; 266 SELECTED ARTICLES violating any political principle, provided they neither ride on the one, nor walk in the other, to the polls. It is still more important to draw another distinction. The slavery of American women exists only in the warped imagina- tions and heated rhetoric of a few people, who have screamed themselves hoarse upon platforms or written themselves into a rage in newspapers. There is no freer human being on earth to-day, thank God, than the American woman. She has freedom of person, of property, and of profession, absolute and entire. She has all liberty that is not license. Let a woman tell the facts. I quote from one of Mrs. Schuy- ler Van Rensselaer's admirable papers in the New York World : "For more than thirty years all the women of New York have been able to enjoy their own property, whether inherited or acquired, without control or interference from any man. A married woman may carry on a trade, business, or profession and keep her earniiigs for herself alone. She may sue and be sued and make contracts as freely and independently as an un- married woman or a man. She may sell or transfer her real as well as her personal property just as she chooses. And she is not liable for her husband's debts: or obliged to contribute to his support. Meanwhile, a husband is obliged to support his wife and children. He is liable for the price of all 'necessaries- purchased by her, and for money borrowed by her for their pur- chase; and 'necessaries' are liberally construed as 'commensur- ate with her husband's means, her wonted living as his spouse, and her station in the community.' "A man who obtains a divorce cannot ask for alimony; a woman who obtains one is entitled to it, and to continue to re- ceive it even if she remarries. A woman in business cannot be arrested in an action for a debt fraudulently contracted, as a man may be. Every woman enjoys certain exemptions from the sale of her property under execution, but only a man who has and provides for a household or family is exempt in the same way. A woman is entitled to one-third of her husband's real estate at his death, and cannot be deprived of it by will; and no real estate can be sold by him> during his lifetime unless she signs off this dower right. A husband's right to a portion of his wife's property begins only after the birth of a living chi'd and even then she need not have his consent to sell it during her lifetime, and may deprive him of it altogether by will." While one "forbears threatenings," it is worth while to wonder whether this would go on if the relations of the sexes to each other were changed. Courtesies that are compelled by law would soon become onerous. Instincts that were required by statute would become irksome, until they were laid aside. A man jostled at the polls and in the primary meetings would be less inclined to step aside or stand up elsewhere to give a woman place. The almost uniform method of confusing questions, resorted WOMAN SUFFRAGE 267- to so constantly in the attacks of the woman suffragists, must be protested against to the end. Giving a woman the ballot has. nothing whatever to do with her higher education, with her choice of occupations, with the part she may take in the discus- sion of public questions, or with her share in the administration, of public interests. Along the lines of their distinctive ability,, and in the ways of their natural adaptation, no sane man ques- tions the wisdom and the duty of the highest education for women, of the freest following out of their vocations, of the im- portance of their intelligent knowledge, and the value of their- expressed opinions in great moral and social public questions,, and of their capacity in certain offices of responsibility, duty and. trust. So far as to principles, and fairness of methods in argument.. And now for the appeal to serious men and women, for the serious consideration of this most serious question. The appeal is rightly made, first, in behalf of the women of America who. are earnestly opposed to the imposition upon them of a burden which, from their point of view, not only is not a duty, but is an evil; not only not a right, but actually a wrong. It is very easy, by the process that is sometimes called "counting noses,"' to say that this is a matter of minorities, and that majorities must rule. But, like many other arguments in favor of this cause, the statement is based upon the "take-things-for-granted"' plan. Given a large body of earnest agitators (some of them paid agents who live by the agitation), and everybody knows that numberless signatures may be obtained to a petition for almost anything — names of indifferent, unintelligent, brow-beaten and button-holed people, who sign rather than argue, and assent in the spirit of lazy complaisance, rather than offend the asker by refusing. Such signatures mean nothing, although they swell the number into a more than millenary petition, and make it more or less miles long. Not for a moment disputing the fact that some of the narnes stand for intelligence and intention,, for conviction and conscience, that they represent education, social position, tax-paying interest, I claim, from my own large and long experience, that, in any community with which I am- acquainted, the most serious, intelligent, cultivated women, with the largest money interest in the government, and the most quiet,. 268 SELECTED ARTICLES thoughtful, earnest women, are, conscientiously and on clear convictions, opposed to woman suffrage. I insist that it is a wrong to force such women to the alternative of going to the polls, against their instincts and their convictions, or of allowing the unthinking majority of votes to be enlarged by the ballots of women carried away by a theory, or influenced by a desire for power. What the result would be is matter of conjecture; but my conviction is that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to bring the great mass of really intelligent and responsible women to vote, against their ingrained habits, their instincts, their inclinations, and their judgments. And it is important to stop and consider what that means. The old' proverb applies here of the horse dragged to the water, which cannot be made to drink. Legislation may be secured that will say to every woman : "You shall have the privilege of voting" ; but, after all, it means only "may," and you cannot put the verb into the imperative and say : "You shall vote." There are two factors of grave danger in the political issues and elections of America. First of all, the religious question, which, guard it as we will, crops up from time to time, in appro- priations to charities or schools or religious organizations, or in fanatical fury against some form of religious order and belief. There have been two noted instances, at least, in which the danger has been shadowed forth in the arraying of Protestants against Roman Catholics. In one case, the violent stirring up of Protestant women abor.t a school question produced an angry contest, in which the Protestants carried the day; while in the other, after a careful canvass, quietly made among Protestant women, the summons of a single Roman priest mustered a force of female voters, always liable to be controlled by clerical direc- tion, which carried the day for Rome. And the dregs and debris of the contest were bitter and wretched to a degree. It is to the infinite honor of women that they are more quickly interested, more keenly concerned, and more deeply influenced in their religious feelings and convictions than men. But it adds to the wrong and horror of allowing religion to be dragged into poli- tics, if on one side or the other, a great body of voters could be wielded by any religious or ecclesiastical influence to decide the question and carry the day. WOMAN SUFFRAGE 269 The other factor, known and read of all men, is the venal voter — the man whose ballot is for sale to the highest bidder. The possession of the ballot has not purified the male voter from the heinous sin of a sold vote. Why should it purify the woman? It is a well-known fact that, in all our large cities, there is a great body of women who sell themselves, soul gind body. It is idle to stop and say that men are responsible for this horror. I have no desire to screen men. I believe the man who sins against purity is before God a sinner equally with the woman. But the fact stands that a woman who will sell her purity, her honor, her reputation, herself, will sell anything. And in the city of New York, with its fifty thousand fallen women, there is this enor- mous and awful possibility of a vote that might turn the tide of any election, purchasable by the highest bidder, who would nat- urally use his disreputable bargain for disreputable and danger- ous ends. By some strange confusion of infantile innocence, unimaginable ignorance of facts, or malicious interpretation of words, men who have called attention to this danger have been accused of insulting their wives and mothers, or of implying that Mrs. Cady Stanton or Miss Anthony would sell her vote. But this sort of answer is only the action of the cuttle-fish which hides its method of escape, or the dust of the fleeing ani- mal which blinds the eyes of its pursuer. The hideous fact of the number of degraded and venal women remains. The awful fact of venal voters among men remains ; and of the equally criminal class of political go-betweens, who spend the money of candidates and corporations in these most illegitimate "election expenses." And the possibility and probability of the increase of a corrupted ballot giving, in a close election, the balance of power, secured by a purchase of the votes of women lost to all sense of shame, follows as an immediate and in- evitable danger. It is constantly urged that women voters would be more conscientious and careful than men are, would be always on the side of reform, would advance the interests of temperance and of all great moral and social movements. But, in the first place, this is purely prophetic, without the inspiration of prophecy. It is mere guess-work. To reach a real conclusion through an imaginary premise is illogical to the last degree. 1270 SELECTED ARTICLES There are, perhaps in smaller proportion, bad women as well -as bad men, intemperate women, ignorant women. In the com- parisons usually made by the advocates of woman's suffrage, it is always the virtuous and intelligent woman who is con- trasted with the ignorant and unprincipled man. The fact is, that to multiply suffrage means to multiply every kind of vote by two, and while it would mean an increase of votes cast on principle and for principle, it would also mean an increase of unprincipled votes against the best interests of society. It is greatly to be doubted whether politics, either in its methods or in its results, would be purified in this way. The giving of the ballot to men " has not improved either the morals or the re- sponsibility of men. Why should it make women more moral or more responsible? Voting, after all, is to a large degree by parties and for individuals, and there is no such violence of partisanship in the world as the violence of female partisanship. No one who has heard a good "Primrose League lady" in Eng- land abuse Mr. Gladstone will question this. And the condition of feeling in the South during and since the war is a painful evidence of it. It was the women of the South who fanned the flame of secession, who forced the continuance of the hopeless strife, and who to-day, where there is any spirit of out-and-out sectionalism, are the unrelenting, unforgetting, unforgiving southerners. This relation of the southern women to the war is a serious note of warning, in another direction, about "the wom- an in politics." There can be no doubt that women in the South knew more, thought more, felt more, talked more about politics than the women of the North. And what was the result and effect of their intelligent interest? Slavery and the slave laws, with all their frightful possibilities, maintained in the time of peace, and sectionalism run mad when the opportunity for the war came ! There are two other considerations which cannot be omitted in the study of this subject, the family relation, and the relation between men and women in the world. To-day, in the house- hold, the man is the voter. Suppose the wife becomes a voter too. She will either reproduce her husband's political views, and there would be in one house two Democratic voters, and in another tivo Republican voters, where there had been one. And WOMAN SUFFRAGE 271 this is no gain towards a decision of questions. It is only a multiplying of ballots, producing no change of results. Or else the wife would take the opposite side from her husband's, and, instantly, with all the heat and violence of party differences and political disagreements, a bone of contention is introduced into the home ; a new cause of dissension and alienation is added to the already strained relations in many families. Then there is the question of mistress and maid. Shall the cook leave her kitchen to cast a vote, which shall counterbalance the vote of the mistress, or shall the employer undertake to control the politics of the "kitchen cabinet"? And all this, not merely on the vot- ing day, or in the deposit of the ballot, but the weeks before and after the election are to be spent in the heat of discussion, or in the smart of defeat. The American home is not too sacred and secure to-day to make it safe to undermine it with the ex- plosive materials of politics and partisanship. And meanwhile, as things are now, the intelligent woman, interested in some great measure of reform, has in her hand, not the ability to rival, offset, or double her husband's vote, but the power of her persuasion, her affection, her ingenuity, to influence it. It would be incredible, if it were not shown to be true, that any large number of thinking and intelligent beings, knowing, feel- ing, using, this tremendous power, should be willing to run the risk of losing it, by substituting a thing far lower and feebler in its stead. And with the experience of what she has gained for her sex, with the evidence of what voting men have brought about for her under the influence of non-voting women, and through solicitude for their interests, the rashness of this pro- posed experiment defies description. It is perfectly idle to imagine that the relation between men and women in the outside world can remain the same when their attitude to each other is so entirely changed. With women mingling in the rough strifes and contests of political life, and assuming positions and duties hitherto unknown to them, there will inevitably come the quenching of that chivalrous feeling of men towards women, born of the protection hitherto expected by women and afforded by men, which is the inspiring cause of so large a part of the amenities of life and the politeness of manners. And yet, just because woman is physically weak, and 272 SELECTED ARTICLES man physically strong, there will be no change in the real neces- sities of things. One may well look with grave anxiety at what is really a revolution of the natural order, utterly unable to con- jecture what the results may be when women shall have become, not only votresses, but \&gis\?itr esses, mayor^^^^^, and alder- women. It is the favorite habit of women arguing this cause to deal with it as though woman's suffrage were an evolution. But it cannot fairly be considered as, in any way, a progress along the line of that steady advance in the power and position of women, which has been wrought out by Christian civiliza- tion. It would not be progress, it would be retrogression. And it is not the least after the manner of growth and improvement in the character, the education, or the opportunities of women. It is a new departure; an entire digression; a violent change, and the appeal of this article is in a way "from Philip drunk to Philip sober." Certain women have said so loudly, and so often, that they are "enslaved," "reduced to a level with idiots," "classed with criminals," "deprived of natural rights," "down- trodden and oppressed," that they have really come to believe it and to make some sensible people believe it. I trust that wiser •counsels may in the end prevail. Meanwhile, inasmuch as the active agitators for this radical revolution in the very funda- mental elements of government, have resorted to every known means to secure their ends, I cannot but feel, that, however the other women may shrink from the publicity, it is their bounden duty by influence, by argument, by petition, to "fight fire with fire" ; to see to it that, in the approaching elections for the senate and assembly of the state of New York, men shall be chosen who will defend them from this wrong; and when the elections are completed, to let it be known and felt in Albgny that what some women claim as a political right, they consider a personal grievance and a public harm. North American Review. 190: 158-69. August, 1909. Impediments to Woman Suffrage. Mrs. Gilbert E. Jones. There is little doubt that we are indulging in a twentieth- century "feminist" movement. It has been tried in the past and history repeats itself. Women have made themselves felt in WOMAN SUFFRAGE 273 the destiny of nations before now, and it will be interesting and instructive to see if the women's political efforts of to-day will be effectual and whether the results will be permanent. The plea of the suffragists is for the equality of the sexes. They assume, as a rule, that women have been browbeaten and downtrodden; that they are now awakening; and if we are will- ing to admit the equality of the sexes, that they should stand on an equal footing in the pursuit of industry and in the control of the government which they must obey. The anti-suffragists grant the equality of the sexes. Men are no better than women, and science assures us that they are no more intelligent. But the ''Anti" insists that the difference between the sexes shall not be ignored. Consequently, all suffrage arguments may be reduced to the proposition of ''equality'*; all anti-suffrage arguments to that of ''differentiation." The "woman-suft'rage" agitation has been in active opera- tion since 1848. In these sixty years many more complex issues have been before the public and have been more generally and keenly felt. Slavery has been abolished, the Spanish war has been fought, the silver problem has been settled, but we still have the wcman-suffrage question with us, after sixty years of dispute from Massachusetts to California. Of late the efforts of the suffragists have been more pronounced, but their failures have increased proportionately. In the last twelve years the legislatures of the various states have turned down suffrage pro- posals on an average of once in every twenty-seven days. Why is it that the American public cannot be aroused? Such a simple issue, such simple arguments should have caught the popular imagination long ago. Public opinion has been at white-heat many times in this interval. Take the Civil War, for instance: the nation was determined to give the negro political equality ; it was willing to go through a long and bloody war, and to give the lives of 500,000 men to have it done. The suffragists have been telling us, ever since the days of Lincoln, that we are denying our mothers, sisters, wives and daughters a privilege to which they have as much right as the negro. Why is it that they have not set the country aflame, from one end to the other, with this argument? If they are right the men of this country are not only unfair, but tyrannical, and public opinion, on which 274 SELECTED ARTICLES our government depends, has been countenancing manifest in- justice. But even if they are wrong, if women have not the same right to poHtical equality that all men have, why Have they not succeeded? One would suppose the claims of the sufifragist stirring enough to rouse the most indifferent, so what have really been the impediments? The thorough reform in the laws regarding women is unques- tionably one impediment ; the great respect which the American man has for the American woman is another. In no other coun- try and in no other time has woman been held in such high estimation as she is in the United States of America to-day. She has never before had such complete educational and industrial opportunities offered her. In social, civic, philanthropic centres she is a leader and a power. More women have their individual bank accounts here than in any other part of the world. Woman is granted freedom of religious expression, freedom of speech and pen, freedom from a too conservative home life and parental dependence. Complete emancipation is hers, if she chooses to find it — from a ''preacher in the pulpit" to a "full-fledged black- smith" — from "motherhood" to female "bachelorhood." The American woman of to-day, the average woman, is further in advance of the average woman of other countries than is any other class of our population, and all this without the ballot. So where is the practical injustice in not granting women the vote? It is by studying the fundamental principles of our govern- ment that women can find one certain reason why they have been refused the ballot after their sixty years' pleading. The framers of our state constitutions saw the wisdom of naming "men" only as voters. The government's right to restrict the citizen and demand certain qualifications has a simple but very direct meaning. Instinct and tradition have made men the protectors of women. This is a natural law. Our Constitution is basically, fundamentally and structurally framed for safety and stability, "as the safety of the whole is the interest of the whole." What was needed in our earlier days to create confidence in our form of government is quite as important to-day. Foreign forces, the foreigners within our borders and our own native interests must be considered and cannot be provided for without a stable gov- WOMAN SUFFRAGE 275 ernment. Our federal and state constitutions amply fulfil this need, and it is significant to find the word "male" inserted, in designating who shall be the voters, for ''men" are the only- citizens who can preserve the safety of our country, our laws and our women. Uncle Sam insists on a full-grown man, of the age of twenty-one years, as the voter, with qualifications as to •age, place of residence, etc. Women are certainly within the age and residence qualifications, and they offer morality, intel- ligence and tax-paying qualifications besides. But the govern- ment does not impose these qualifications on men. Men do not vote because they are moral, intelligent or taxpayers only. Then what does the government require of man that the woman cannot give? The government asks the man to accept the responsibility of maintaining it, of preserving its very exist- ence. It recognizes that the man forms the only basis on which any government can rest. A government owes its existence not to the obedience of its subjects, not to the taxes it receives, but to the fact that the men of the state will come to the support of the state. Even a despotism recognizes this f'^ct in a dim sort of way. But in a democracy this is, and must be, the key-note of the whole structure. The man is the rock on which the gov- ernment is built, whatever its form. The woman never was and never will be. Giving the man the vote is nothing more than a recognition of this fact. Giving women the vote would be to deny it. For it must be remembered that the women in asking for the vote are asking not only for a voice in such public af- fairs as interest them especially, but for complete sovereign power. But this is a contradiction, for if women vote men must protect that vote, and, to illustrate this truth, a quotation from the "New York Times," April 7th, 1909, will suffice : "If women had the franchise, and then all the women should vote on one side and the men on the other, and the women should cast the bigg-est vote, would the men, with their greater physical force, go to arms'? And would the women have to give in? That was the question which Mrs. Florence Masterton proposed at the meeting of the 'William Lloyd Garrison Equal Franchise League' at its annual meeting at the home of Miss Florence Guernsey, No. 2 West Eighty-sixth Street. 'Not at all,' said one of the women present; 'majority rules in this country, and if the women were in the majority then the government would come to their assistance and force the acceptance of their vote.' " How could the government force the acceptance of their vote? By calling on the able-bodied men to enforce it. That is the real 276 SELECTED ARTICLES meaning of government, and it therefore lies actually only in the hands of men, and our theory of government should conform to fundamental facts. To guarantee safety and stability to our Union government cannot indulge in sentiment or emotional methods, as it is a practical business organization. To give women the ballot would be but adding 'Voice and expression" to our already difficult settUng of elections. There are voices enough now. The question is, Should we not have more re- striction rather than add to our mixed voting population? Government has again to be considered. "Votes for women"^ would also mean that women would hold office, executive, legis- lative and judicial. Women could be elected to sit in our legis- latures, become governors, mayors, judges and jurors. Certainly the nation's legal and judicial authority will not be strengthened by placing women in these official positions, as women are not fitted for such tasks. Government can be likened to a bank and full-grown men are Uncle Sam's capital. If a weaker being is to be intrusted with the guidance of the nation it will have the effect of making silver, instead of gold, our money standard. Both are excellent in their way, but one cannot wholly replace the other. So in the last analysis men must be the basic power and the leaders to guarantee safety to our country, and women cannot relieve them of that burden. As to the service to the state, given by women in bearing sons, the men work not only to support those sons, but support also their mothers and wives, and that far beyond the child- bearing age. Motherhood is unquestionably the greatest service to the human race that can possibly be conceived of. The state benefits by it. But motherhood is neither a state duty nor a state service. The state gives the franchise when it demands service; motherhood it can neither demand nor deny. Mother- hood will still be motherhood whether the state is a democracy or a despotism, and motherhood would still continue were all government abolished. The state depends on it, as it depends on the rain that falls and the sun that shines in the heavens. But it cannot invoke a natural law which must operate as long as the human race survives, as an obligation under which the state shall rest, and therefore part with its privileges. That tax-paying women should vote seems a claim easily WOMAN SUFFRAGE 277 granted if it could prove an advantage to the woman or the state ; but it cannot, and an infinite amount of idle sentiment is displayed over this particular subject. Universal manhood suffrage is the crowning result in the long evolution of govern- ment. It did not exist in our earlier history. Voters were de- fined as. "Freeholders" who had some moneyed or property qualification. From 1619 there was a gradual and determined struggle to keep property-owners and tax-paying citizens as the only voters or persons having a voice in elections. The con- stitutional provisions regulating suffrage were in constant dis- pute, and because of these difficulties fraud and deception were prevalent. It was easy to contract* for small pieces of property, ^'freehold," before election and give them up afterwards with no exchange of money. Taxation and representation of this kind had its many variations and "freeholds" became merely nominal. Reforms were needed and enacted and constitutional amendments were not infrequent. Statesmen, lawyers, citizens and the wise men from the North, South, East and West have been consulted and have conscientiously discussed this question of who should vote, with the result that universal manhood suffrage has been generally adopted. Invariably they have worked away from qualified suffrage and no citizen in the United States votes because he pays taxes. Tax-payers are represented in every state in the Union. Legislators are responsible to tax- payers, but there is no reason or precedent for the proposition that legislators must be responsible to every taxpayer in order to avoid taxation without representation and it cannot be turned into an individual right. Woman suffragists insist that women should vote because they pay taxes, yet the history of suffrage proves that this basis for the suffrage is unwise and inexpedient and does not apply in the case of the male citizen. If tax-paying womicn alone are granted the privilege of the ballot on this plea, will it not create distinct class legislation for rich women? In former times aristocracy prevailed and many voted in propor- tion to the amount of property they held. The rich man had more voting power than the poor man. This was undemocratic, and gradually all moneyed and aristocratic qualifications dis- appeared. The suffragists frequently assert that all women are tax- 278" SELECTED ARTICLES payers because of our system of indirect taxation. In one sense this is true; yet it must be remembered that the vast body of women, including the wage-earning women in this country, are not economically /^dependent, as they are mainly supported by the men of their families. No woman who is economically c?(?- pendent on her husband or father or whoever may be supporting her may properly be said to pay taxes. The man supporting her pays them for her or she pays them with his money. So far as this argument is concerned she should therefore be eliminated, and the question should be confined to the woman who pays direct taxes. If tax-paying women are to vote because they pay taxes, may not corporations, minors, non-residents and unnat- uralized citizens ask for the same privilege? If it is just to one it must be just to all. Corporations are persons in the eyes of the law and can be indicted, tried and convicted under the crim- inal laws. Their stockholders are men and women and they pay enormous taxes. Minors' estates are taxed, and neither they nor their guardians, as guardians, have a voice in elections representing them. Unnaturalized citizens often pay taxes a life- time and can never vote. A non-resident can only vote in the state of his residence, and yet he may pay taxes in several others. There is but one rule for all of these instances, only one reason why they have no vote. The governnient cannot exact their allegiance; they cannot be called on to support the state they do not reside in or of which they are not citizens. Women who demand, the ballot do not take this into consideration; they ignore these facts. Women suffragists say they are "American citizens" and have the "right" to vote as such. This assertion must be corrected, as it does not apply even to the "male" citizen. Citizenship is a granted right, not a natural one, derived and regulated by each country or state, according to its ideas of government. Mrs. Rossiter Johnson states in her book, "Women and the Republic" (the best authority on Anti-Suffrage), "Where a majority deemed the preservation of the . state depended upon disfranchising a number of voters they would be disfranchised, although they remained citizens." The fallacy of the suffragist that a voter and a citizen should be one and the same must be disclosed with emphasis, as in this they mislead many women. Chief- Justice . WOMAN SUFFRAGE 279 Waite, of the United States Supeme Court, decided that citizen- ship carried with it no voting power or right. The same de- cision has been handed down by many courts in disposing of test cases. A resident of the District of Columbia has all the privileges of citizenship ; but he cannot vote, as that is a state right, and the District of Columbia is not a state. Citizenship does not entitle a man or woman to vote, so the injustice to woman cannot be found here. The four woman-suffrage states, Utah, Wyoming, Idaho and Colorado, do not give an interesting object-lesson of how suffrage can be effective. Suffragists have "suffrage" testimony that is encouraging and convincing to the many credulous unin- vestigating converts. Anti-suffragists have ample evidence to prove woman suffrage in these States a dismal failure. The late General Palmer pronounced woman suffrage a "failure" in Colorado just before his death; yet no one in that state had the welfare of its citizens so dear at heart as that magnificent old General. The much-discussed Judge Lindsey, of the Juvenile Courts of Denver, expressed his views in an interview presented in the **New York Times," February 7th, 1909: "I can't say that the women's vote has helped things much in Colorado. Both the political parties of the state have been, and still are, under absolute domination of the public-service corporations. Now this is a point that I want you to maJce clear: I have found that women in politics are no better and no worse than men. Don't forget that when a question narrows itself down to the- bread-line, to selfish interests, both sexes follow the same line of action — they look out for No. 1. . If a woman wants to get a political job she will stand for iniquity; if s-he's afraid of losing her job she'll do the same thing." The thoroughly unprejudiced opifiion is that "woman suf- frage" has proved to be utterly "futile." Not bad arid not good, or rather not worth while. It has not brought about one single benefit that cannot be found' in other states where women do not vote. Certainly no state can boast of good, safe political condi- tions when it must call out 2i stalwart, forcible reserve oi "wom- en and the kids" to elect on^? good man to office. New York state had a greater victory in electing Charles Evans Hughes as governor, and the men of the state alone were needed to accom- plish the fact. In the states where woman suffrage is in practice divorce 28o SELECTED ARTICLES laws are singularly lax, and men and women from other states flock there to take advantage of them. In strong contrast to this state of affairs, it is well known that the anti-suffragists demand universal divorce laws. Equality that women ask for and further emancipation of women will lessen the chances of marriage, and divorce will soon be created at will. Nearly a million divorces have been granted in the United States, during the last twenty years; that is i,ooo every week or an average of. 140 every day, yet women ask for more liberty. The tendency to ally with Socialism, the emptiness of the promises to the wage-earner, the groundlessness of the cry, ^Taxation without representation is, tyranny," the fundamental truth that government is the work of the man because it depends on him alone for its very existence, the failure of suffrage in the four suffrage states ; these are some of the impediments in the way of the woman suffragists. But the most important of all lies in the long-continued indifference of the great mass of the people. It cannot be said that they do not understand the move- ment or that* they have not heard of it; nor can it be said that there is nothing in it to appeal to the popular imagination. On the contrary, few propositions, not even Socialism, afford the stump-speaker such excellent material for arousing his hearers. It can hardly be believed that this indifference is due to the fact that the public has found the fallacies in the suffrage arguments. The suffragists believe that this negative attitude is due to long- standing prejudice. The last sixty years have seen every im- portant legal restriction on women removed in New York state and in many of the other states of the Union. The same legis- lators at Albany that have removed property-holding restrictions from married women granted them full contractual and conjugal rights; in short, placed them on a legal equality with men, have turned a deaf ear to the annual demand for political equality. The public opinion of the state has looked with approval on these legislative reforms and has sanctioned woman's demand for equal opportunity in every detail of life. Yet this same public opinion stands neutral. This is not prejudice. The most striking arguments fail to arouse and we have simply a complete lack of interest, but next to no opposition. The active anti-suffragists are a mere handful and could not for one moment withstand WOMAN SUFFRAGE 281 the issue if public opinion were really back of it. Is it not absurd to say that the movement has been downed for sixty years by prejudice against women when everything else they could pos- sibly ask for has been granted them unreservedly, and when all the efforts of the suffragists during that time have not even aroused resistance except spasmodically? No one can deny the equality of the sexes, but there is still a chasm between them, in spite of the fact that the heights on either side are equally majestic. This chasm has never been ade- quately explored, but it will not for that reason do to tell us that it does not exist. It is by instinct rather than by reason that the great American public has remained passive on this subject. The American man feels strongly that he is, and must always be, the protector of his ''women folk." He does not ask why; he knows that it is true. He also feels dimly that the demand of women for the ballot ''to protect themselves" is inconsistent with his protectorate. He is willing to give women everything they ask. But if he is going to protect women he will not give them the "ruling power." He cannot, therefore, be aroused to enthusiasm on the subject. The women feel this as strongly as the men and that is why they cannot be roused. That this attitude is unrea- soning must be to a great extent admitted; that it is prejudiced must be strongly denied. It is an unstudied acknowledgment of the distinction between the sexes. If it is to be removed, then there will go wiih it much of the best that there is in men and women. When men come to feel that they are no longer the protectors of their wives, daughters, mothers and sisters, and when the women look to the ballot for their protection rather than to their husbands, sons and fathers, then woman suffrage will be a necessity and public opinion will be clamoring for it. But till this is true the subject will be one to which the American people will re^main indifferent. Quarterly Review. 210: 276-304. January, 1909. Woman Suffrage. Albert Venn Dicey. Let us now turn to the reasons which tell directly against the admission of women to the parliamentary franchise. The first is that woman suffrage must lead to adult suffrage, 282, SELECTED ARTICLES and will increase all the admitted defects of so-called universal or, in strictness, manhood suffrage. Every reason and every sentiment which supports the cry of Votes for women' tells in favour of adult suffrage. It would be no easy task to give, even in name, political equality to women under our present electoral system. But this feat could be performed with the greatest ease under a scheme of adult suffrage which would give a vote to every man or w^oman who had attained the age of twenty-one years. Woman suffrage, then, independently of the new electors being women, must add to the defects of manhood suffrage. A huge constituency is just because of its size, a bad electoral body. As the number of electors is increased, the powder and the re- sponsibility of each man are diminished. Authority passes into the hands of persons who posses neither the independence due to the possession of property nor the intelligence due to educa- tion. Our electorate now consists of some 7,000,000 men. Adult suffrage would. .create an electorate of, say roundly, from at least 20,000,000 to 24,000,000 individuals, of whom considerably over io,coo,ooo would be women. This mere increase in numbers is no slight evil. That more than half the new electors should be absolutely devoid of political training and traditions creates of itself a national peril; but common sense forbids any fair rea- soner to stop at this point. This uneducated majority of the electorate would be women. The very advocates of woman suf- frage make it part of their case that the civic virtues of women have never as yet been fully developed. Assuredly the most ordinary prudence warns us against admitting to a full share of sovereignty persons who have lacked all experience of its exercise. ' Grant, for the sake of argument — ^though the concession is not justified by our knowledge of human nature — that posses- sion of power invariably teaches its possessors to use it with justice. Still it remains the height of folly to entrust the guid- ance of the State, at a time when the country is surrounded by perils of all kinds, to unskilled apprentices who have no ex- perience in piloting the commonwealth through pressing dangers. The most sagacious advocates of women's rights do not deny that each sex exhibits virtues which are found only in a less WOMAN SUFFRAGE 283 degree, or, it may be, not at all, in the other. We hear much of the keenness of women's personal sympathies, of their capa- city for passionate and often generous emotion ; we are told that either nature or training, or both in combination, may lead women to see more readily than men the minute details on which depends the transaction of business. Yet it would not be unfair to say that, while women often perceive more readily than men the actual facts before them, they have a less firm grasp on principles ; that a woman, in short, compared with a man of equal ability, may have a better eye for the circumstances around her, but has less of foresight. She has assuredly also less of tenacity. From differences, upon some of which, in whatever form they ought to be expressed, no man has insisted more strongly than Mill, it follows that the participation of women in sovereign power must introduce into English politics a new and incalcul- able element which will not work wholly for good. An English democracy, in common wath all democracies, is too emotional. The strong point of popular government is assuredly neither foresight nor firmness of purpose. Now every student of Brit- ish history can see that occasionally the statesmanlike foresight, and still more certainly the intense tenacity or obstinacy of pur- pose, which have marked the British aristocracy and the British middle classes, have been the salvation of the country. These qualities defended the independence of England against the des- potism of Louis XIV, and, in a later age, against the attacks, first of revolutionary Jacobinism, and next of Napoleonic Imper- ialism. No one as yet knows whether our democracy can ex- hibit the unconquerable tenacity of purpose which once and again has saved England from subjection to foreign power. Who can contemplate without dread a state of things under which democratic passion, intensified by feminine emotion, may deprive the country both of the calmness which foresees and the reso- lution which repels the onslaught of foreign enemies? There is, we venture to say, no man, and no woman either, who at moments of calm reflection can believe that, at a time of threat- ened invasion, the safety of the country would be increased by the possibility that British policy might be determined by the votes and the influence of the fighting suffragists. 284 SELECTED ARTICLES A second objection to the proposed sovereignty of women is this, It has hitherto been in Great Britain a primary and es- sential condition of the admission of any body of persons to a share in sovereignty that the class on whose behalf parliamen- tary votes are demanded should be eager and ready to take up parliamentary responsibilities. In 1832 nobody doubted t^ at the middle classes, or in 1867 that the artisans, desired admission to the full powers of citizenship. But this primary condition of constitutional changes has in the present instance not been ful- filled. Many women, indeed, desire votes ; a few women clam- our passionately for votes. But a large number of English women protest against the introduction of woman suffrage; they deprecate the concession to themselves of rights which they regard as intolerable burdens, and the concession to other women of powers which they believe the recipients cannot exercise with advantage to the country. This protest must command attention ; it reveals an excep- tional state of opinion which must, so long as it exists, tell strongly against the introduction of woman, suffrage into Great Britain. The position of these political protestants is in no way absurd. It is best expressed in the words of a woman : "The woman whose profound, though often unspoken, reluc- tance to the proposed addition to their duties and responsibilities I am endeavoring to interpret, do not regard the question as main- ly referring to the value, to the best distribution, of a particular bit of political machinery; but as involving that of the right and fair division of labour between the sexes. We regard the suffrage not as confsrring a necessarily advantageous position, but rather as the symbol, and to some extent the instrument, of a public participation in political functions; not as a prize to be coveted, but as a token of a task which should not be indis- criminately imposed — a task not to be lightly undertaken, or discharged without encountering both toil and opposition. We think that justice and fairness consist, not in ignoring actual dif- ferences, but in so adjusting necessary burdens with due regard to the lines of irremovable difference as to secure the most even distribution of pressure. W^e believe that the fact that Nature has irrevocably imposed certain burdens on our sex constitutes a claim, as a matter of justice, that we s-hould be relieved from some part of those functions which men are competent to share with us." Nor is there the least lack of public spirit in the protest by freeborn Englishwomen against subjection to a sovereignty of women which they neither desire nor revere, and which they believe would be disastrous to the country. One point is past dispute. Every reason which supports the claim of women to WOMAN SUFFRAGE 285 votes supports also the right of women to be consulted on tne question whether they shall be given votes or not. It is im- possible to maintain that women have a right to determine every matter which concerns the interest of England or of the British Empire, but have no right to be consulted whether it is well for England and for women themselves that the country should try the new experiment of woman suffrage. No serious reasoner will try to escape this conclusion by the idle retort that a woman who does not desire a vote need not use it. The very essence of her objection is that a vote imposes upon her a duty which may be an intolerable burden, and subjects her to the rule of a class, namely women, which she deems incompetent to exercise sov- ereign power. A third objection is that the basis of all government is force, which means in the last resort physical strength. Now predom- inant force lies in the hands of men; and these facts, whether we like them or not, tell in more ways than people often real- ize against giving a share in sovereignty to English women. The matter well deserves consideration. There is, in the first place, a grave danger that the nom- inally sovereign body may not be in reality able to enforce the law of the land. In this country the legal or constitutional sov- ereign is Parliament, i. e. the King, the House of Lords, and the House of Commons, acting together; but the 'political sov- ereign' is the electorate, which, being wide enough to share and represent the feelings of the mass of the people, does in general obtain obedience to the laws which it approves. But the reason why laws made with the assent or acquiescence of the electorate are obeyed, is that the electors constitute a power to which no single citizen and no class of citizens can offer permanent re- sistance. That the employment of physical force is the basis of law and of sovereignty, any one may assure himself by observing the way in which law loses its authority whenever the support of the force whence law derives its power is withdrawn. Why has the law of the land little better than a nominal existence in some parts of Ireland? The answer is that, for reasons of party convenience, the British government will not in Ireland use the power placed in its hands by Parliament for the en- ^86 SELECTED ARTICLES forcement of the law. Let a fighting suffragist in her calmer moments ask herself why it is that her petulance or her cunning is allowed occasionally to interrupt the sittings of the House of Commons and lower the dignity of Parliament? The an- swer assuredly is that habitual consideration for the weakness of women makes Englishmen for the moment unwilling to use the force needed for the suppression of misbehaviour, which it may any day be necessary to punish with the severity due to serious crime. Meanwhile law is enfeebled unless supported by adequate force. Now the sovereignty of Parliament, or in other words the power of the electorate, might easily be imperilled if the majority of the electors were a class which, though more nu- merous, was weaker than a minority of the nation. But this is exactly the state of things which might arise under a system of adult suffrage embracing not only men but women. Suppose an Act of Parliament passed which was opposed to the wishes of the decided majority of male electors, but carried practically by the votes of women. In such a case the ominous result would ensue that, whilst the political sovereign, that is the majority of electors, supported the law, the body possessed of predominant strength would be strongly opposed to the law. Rarely, indeed, could it happen that anything like the whole body of female electors would be opposed to anything like the whole body of male electors. It is not necessary for our argument to imagine so portentous a state of affairs. But it is certainly possible un- der a system of adult suffrage, and in a country where, as in England, women constitute the greater part of the population, that a body composed of a large majority of female electors acting together with a minority of male electors, might force upon the country a law or a policy opposed to the deliberate will and judgment of the majority of Englishmen. Is it certain that in such circumstances Englishmen would obey and enforce a law that punished as a crime conduct which they in general held ought to be treated as an offence, not against the law, but against morality? Can we, again, feel assured that Englishmen might not forbid the making of an ignominious peace, even though the majority of the electorate, consisting for the most part of womenj held the horrors of war must be terminated at all WOMAN SUFFRAGE 28r costs by a treaty which, in the eyes of most Englishmen, sac- rificed the dignity and imperilled the independence of the coun- try? Add to this a consideration to which little attention has been! paid. The army, the police, governors of gaols, every person, in short, by whom the coercive power of the state is directly exercised, must, under any constitution whatever, be men. When- ever, therefore, a large majority of male electors is outvoted by a majority constituted mainly of women, the minority will com-" mand the sympathy of the officials by whose hands the state exercises its power. Woman suffrage, therefore, in common with every system which separates nominal sovereignty from the possession of irresistible power, involves the risk that the con- stitutional sovereign of the country may be rendered powerless, by a class, in this instance the majority of the male electors, possessed of predominant physical force. Look at the connexion between the force and government from another point of view. It is an open secret of sound consti- tutionalism that any polity which is to stand the trials to which every great institution devised by man is exposed, must give effect, under whatever form, to the will of the class possessed of paramount and enduring power. In this sense, and in this. sense only, statesmen who most honour law and justice must desire that might and right, law and strength, should harmonize with and support each other. The many failures and the rare successes of constitution-makers equally attest the importance of this principle. Why was it that the democrats and Puritans who planned institutions so ingenious as the constitution of 1653 could create no permanent form of popular government? A partial answer to a complicated question is surely to be found in the fact that the premature democratic institutions of Puritanism, and even the Protectorate with its approach towards the ancient king- ship, did not represent the strength of England. The yeomanry, on which the republicans of the Commonwealth relied, was al- ready a declining power. Why, on the other hand, did the Revo- lution settlement of 1689, with all its defects, stand substantially unchanged for some 140 years? The answer is that this work of Whig statesmanship on the whole satisfied the large land- owners, the merchants, the traders, who constituted the true strength of England. 288 SELECTED ARTICLES Consider for a moment the experiment, tried in our own times by the American democracy, of conferring full political rights on the negroes of the South. There was much to be said in its favour. In a democratic republic, men argued, no class could ob- tain respect or secure its own civil rights unless it had its share in political sovereignty. This was the conviction of most, though not of all abolitionists; it was shared by some of the best and wisest American statesmen. In the decision finally adopted, generous enthusiasm and philanthropy played a far greater part than partisanship or the shallow astuteness of party managers. The generous experiment has turned out a dubious success, if not a failure. The negro vote is a sham and a fraud. Some candid observers will assert that the state of feeling between the whites and the blacks is worse than ever, though others hap- pily draw a brighter picture of the condition of the South. No one, thank Heaven, regrets the aboliton of slavery ; but patriotic American citizens, among them may be numbered some of the most sagacious men of colour, hold, it would appear, the opinion that the wiser course would have been to use the power of the rcvunited Republic, at the end of the War of Secession, for securing to the negroes every civil right, instead of hurrying on their accession to political rights which have certainly not given them political authority. Let no indignant suffragist suppose that we are so dull as to suggest, what any man of sense knows to be strictly false, that English women occupy anything like the position of ignorant and hardly civiHzed negroes. The suggestion that English women are slaves, patent as is its absurdity, comes, if at all, from the more heated and less wise advocates of woman suffrage. All that is here contended for is that page after page of history exemplifies the futility of giving to any class, whether of men or of women, political rights in excess of genuine political power. Full participation, further, not in civil rights, but in sover- eignty, depends on capacity to perform all the duties of citizen- ship and the defence of his country is at certain periods the main, as at all times it ought to be the essential duty of a British citizen. But this duty women as a class have not the capacity to perform. No one dreams of the formation of an army of Ama- zons and were such a thing a possibility, it would be a step WOMAN SUFFRAGE 289 back towards barbarism. Nor *is it only in the defence of the country against foreign enemies that women are, by nature, incapable of taking part; the same is the case with the mainten- ance of law and order at home. Law is a command; its sanc- tions are ineffective without force to apply them ; and women are unable to share in the forcible maintenance of the laws, which, if they had the vote, they would share in making. It is no argu- ment, in this connexion, to say that many men are incapable, from age or weakness, of defending the state, but enjoy the fran- chise all the same. The aged have taken, or been able to take, their share of public duties ; the weaklings are exceptions. Of women the reverse is true. No one dreams that they ought to be constables, officers of police, governors of gaols, or coast- guards. No woman is bound, as is a man, to attend the Justices in suppressing a riot upon pain of fine and imprisonment. All this is no absolute ground from excluding women from a share in sovereign power, but it does afford a ground which is not palpably unjust for their exclusion from political authority. Distinctions of rights founded upon sex have often given rise to injustice, but they have this in their favour; they rest upon a difference not created by social conventions or by human prej- udice and selfishness, or by accidental circumstances, (such as riches and poverty which split society into classes, but upon the nature of things. This difference is as far-reaching as it is nat- ural and immutable. It is one which, just because it is per- manent and unchangeable, every honest thinker must take into account. That men are men and women are women is an ob- vious truism ; yet it contains an undeniable truth which, like some other unwelcome facts, rhetoric, even when, as with Mill, it masquerades as strict reasoning, cannot conceal. This is a mat- ter worth insisting upon, for there is nothing which hinders the calm discussion of a political problem requiring for its solution something like judicial serenity, so much as the difficulty, in- separable from all discussions involving reference to sex, of putting plain facts into plain language. The comparative weak- ness of women inevitably means loss of power. Nor can it be forgotten, that not only are women physically, and probably men- tally weaker than men- but they are inevitably, as a class, bur- dened with duties of the utmost national importance, and of an 290 SELECTED ARTICLES absorbing and exhausting nature, from which men are free. In any case, the close connexion between government and force tells against the claim made on behalf of women to the possession of as much political authority as is conceded to men. 1 RETURN CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT TO— ^ 202 Main Library LOAN PERIOD 1 HOME USE 2 : 3 4 5 < b ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS Renewals and Recharges may be made 4 days prior to the due date. Books may be Renewed by calling 642-3405 DUE AS STAMPED BELOW M\5 R1997 RECEIVED FEB 2 2 199 } CIRCUUTION D :PT. filAV 1 ra MAY 1 7 zm 3 :rl3 b 3 Djm. 1 1 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY |; FORMNO. DD6 BERKELEY, CA 94720 ^^ 'VJ liiii 0057=133141 YC 08470 UNIVERSITY OF CAUFORNIA LIBRARY m