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201963d Congress)

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{Document
No. 497

WOMAN SUFFRAGE

VIEWS

OF THE

MINORITY OF THE
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES .

FORTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION

AS SUBMITTED BY

HON. THOMAS B. REED

REPRESENTATIVE FROM MAINE



PRESENTED BY MR. CLAPP
JUNE 13, 1914.—Ordered to be printed

WASHINGTON
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
1914EXTENDING THE EIGHT OF SUFFRAGE TO WOMEN.

"VIEWS OF THE MINORITY OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ON THE SUBJECT OF
WOMAN SUFFRAGE, SUBMITTED BY HON. THOMAS B. REED, OF
MAINE, APRIL 24, 1884.

Mr. Thomas B. Reed, of Maine, from the Committee on the Judi-
ciary, submitted the following views of the minority:

No one who listens to the reasons given by the superior class for the
continuance of any system of subjection can fail to be impressed
with the noble disinterestedness of mankind. When the subjection
of persons of African descent was to be maintained, the good of
those persons was always the main object. When it was the fashion
to beat children, to regard them as little animals who had no rights,
it was always for their good that they were treated with severity, and
never on account of the bad temper of their parents. Hence, when
it is proposed to give to the women of this country an opportunity
to present their case to the various State legislatures to demand of
the people of the country equality of political rights, it is not sur-
prising to find that the reasons on which the continuance of the in-
feriority of women is urged are drawn almost entirely from a tender
consideration for their own good. The anxiety felt lest they should
thereby deteriorate would be an honor to human nature were it not
an historical fact that the same sweet solicitude has been put up as a
barrier against every progress which women have made ever since
civilization began. There is no doubt to-day that if in Turkey or
Algiers, countries where women's sphere is most thoroughly confined
to the home circle, it was proposed to admit them to social life, to
remove the vsil from their faces and permit them to converse in
open day with the friends of their husbands and brothers, the con-
servative and judicious Turk or Algerine of the period, if he could
be brought to even consider such a horrible proposition, would point
out that the sphere of women was to make home happy by those
gentle insipidities which education would destroy; that by participa-
tion in conversation with men they would learn coarseness, debase
their natures, and men would thereby lose that ameliorating influ-
ence which still leaves them unfit to associate with women. He would
point out that "nature" had determined that women should be
secluded ; that their sphere was to raise and educate the man child
cand that any change would be a violation of the divine law which, in
the opinion of all conservative men, always ordains the present but
never the future.

So in civilized countries when it was proposed that women should
own their own property, that they should have the earnings of their
own labor, there were not wanting those who were sure that such a

f imposition could work only evil to women, and that continually,
t would destroy the family, discordant interests would provoke dis-4

WOMAN SUFFRAGE.

pute, and the only real safety for woman was in the headship of man,
not that man wanted superiority for any selfish reason, but to preserve
intact the family relation for woman Js good. To day a woman's prop-
erty belongs to herself; her earnings are her own; she has been eman-
cipated beyond the wildest hopes of any reformer of 25 years ago.
Almost every vocation is open to her. She is proving her usefulness
in spheres which the "nature" worshiped by the conservative of 25
years ago absolutely forbade her to enter. Notwithstanding all
these changes, the family circle remains unbroken, the man child
gets as well educated as before, and the ameliorating influence of
woman has become only the more marked. Thirty years ago hardly
any political assemblage of the people was graced by the presence of
women. Had it needed a law to enable them to be present, what an
argument could have been made against it. How easily it could have i
been shown that the coarseness, the dubious expressions, the general
vulgarity of the scene, could have had no other effect than to break
down that purity of word and thought which women have and. which
conservative and radical are alike sedulous to preserve. And yet the
actual presence of women at political meetings has not debased them,
but has raised the other sex. Coarseness has not become diffused
through both sexes, but has fled from both. To put the whole matter
in a short phrase: The association of the sexes in the family circle,
m society, 1" Vnifi-mpss having proypH improving
neither history, reason, nor sense to justify the assertion that q,sso-
cTaffion in politic will lower the one, or r|emoralize the other.

"** Hence we would do better to approach the question without trepi-
dation. We can better leave the "sphere" of woman to the future
than confine it in the chains of the past. Words change nothing.
Prejudices are none the less prejudices because we vaguely call them
"nature" and prate about what nature has forbidden when we only
mean that the thing we are opposing has not been hitherto done.
"Nature" forbade a steamship to cross the Atlantic the very moment
it was crossing, and yet it arrived just the same. What the majority
call "nature" has stood in the way of everxj)ro^ress of the past and
•present arid will stand in the wayTiif^alliuture progress. It nas also
stood in the way of many unwise things. It is only another name for
conservatism. With conservatism the minority have no quarrel. It
is essential to the stability of mankind, of government, and of social
life. To every new proposal it rightfully calls a halt, demanding
countersign, whether it be friend or foe. The enfranchisement of
women must pass the ordeal like everything else. It must give good
reason for its demand to be or take its place among the haif-forgotten
fantasies which have challenged the support of mankind and have not
stood the test of argument and discussion.

The committee claim that suffrage is not a right, but a privilege to
be guarded by those who have it, and to be by them doled out to
those who shall become worthy. That every extension of suffrage
has been granted in some form or other by those already holding it is
probably true. In some countries, however, it has been extended
upon the simple basis of expediency and in others in obedience to a
claim of right. If suffrage be a right, if it be true that no man has a
claim to govern any other man except to the extent that the other
man has a right to govern him, then there can be no discussion of theWOMAN SUFFKAGE.

5

question of woman suffrage. No reason on earth can be given by
^hose who claim suffrage as a right of manhood which does not make
c a right of womanhood also. If the suffrage is to be given man to
>rotect him in his life, liberty, and property, the same reasons urge
£ hat it be given to woman, for she has the same life, liberty, and
property to protect. If it be urged that her interests are so bound
ixp in those of man that they are sure to be protected, the answer is
that the same argument was urged as to the merger in the husband
of the wife's right of property, and was pronounced by the judgment
of mankind fallacious in practice and in principle. If the natures of
men and women are so alike that for that reason no harm is done by
suppressing women, what harm can be done by elevating them to
equality ? JjLiJie_naturejt ^

refusing rem^entation to those _who. might taJ^e juster~vi^

itianv social and political questions?

\fW (rovprrimftnt is foprided i^ot ri	nf tha wisest and best

V>ut upon the.rule- of all. The ignorant, the learned, the wise and the
unwise, tTie juaiciuirs^nd the unjudicious are all invited to assist in
governing, and upon the broad principle that the best government for
mankind is not the government which the wisest and best would select,
but that which the average of mankind would select. Laws are daily
enacted not because they seem the wisest even to those legislators who
pass them, but because they represent what the whole people wish.
^ And, in the long run, it may be just as bad to enact laws in advance of
public sentiment as to hold on to laws behind it. Upon what principle
•na Government like ours can one-half the minds be denied expression
it the polls ? Is it because they are untrained in public affairs ? Are
•~hey more so than the slaves were when the right of suffrage was con-
ierred on them? It should also be considered, upon the proposition
that to admit women would be temporarily to lower the suffrage on
account of their lack of training in public duties, that what is now
asked of us is not immediate admission to the right, but the privilege of
presenting to the legislatures of the different States the amendment,
which can not become effective until adopted by three-fourths of them.
It may be said that the agitation and discussion of this question will
long before its adoption have made women as familiar with public
affairs as the average of men, for the agitation is hardly likely to be
successful until after a majority, at least, of women are in favor of it.

We believe in the educating and improving effect of participation in
government. We believe that every citizen in the United States is
made more intelligent, more learned, and better educated by his par-
ticipation in politics and political campaigns. It must be remembered
that education, like all things else, is relative. While the average
American voter may not be all that impatient people desire, and is far
behind his own future, yet he is incomparably superior to the average
citizen of any other land where the subject does not fully participate in
the government. Discussions on the stump and, above all, the discus-
sions he himself has with his fellows, breed a desire for knowledge
which will take no refusal and which leads to great general intelligence.
In political discussion, acrimony and hate are not essential, and have
of late years quite perceptibly diminished and will more and more
diminish when discussions by women, and in the presence of women,
become more common. If, then, discussion of public affairs among6

WOMAN SUFFRAGE.

men has^elevated them[in knowledge and intelligence, why will it not
lead to the same results among women ? It is not merely educatior
that makes civilization, but diffusion of education. The standing of i
nation and its future depend not upon the education of the few, but
of the whole. Every improvement in the status of woman in the
matter of education has been an improvement to the whole race.
Women have by education thus far become more womanly, not less.
The same prophesies of ruin to womanliness were made against her
education on general subjects that are now made against her par-
ticipation in politics.

It is sometimes asserted that women now have a great influence in
politics through their husbands and brothers. That is undoubtedly
true. But that is just the kind of influence which is not wholesome
for the community, for it is influence unaccompanied by responsi-
bility. People are always ready to recommend to others what they
would not do themselves. If it be true that women can not be pre-
vented from exercising political influence, is not that only another
reason why they should be steadied in their political action by that
proper sense of responsibility which comes from acting themselves!

We conclude, then, every reason which in this country bestows the
ballot upon man is equally applicable to the proposition to bestow the
ballot upon woman, that in our judgment there is no foundation for
the fear that woman will thereby become unfitted for all the duties,
she has hitherto performed.

T. B. Keed.
E. B. Taylor.

M. A. McCoid.
T. M. Browne.

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the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
It is made in compliance with copyright law
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