IDA HUSTED HARPER JANE ADDAMS DAVID LLOYD-GEORGE ISRAEL ZANGWILL ELBERT
HUBBARD
When future generations look for an exact event to mark the triumphal
turning-point in the progress of the woman-suffrage movement, they will
probably select the election which took place in the great American
State of California in October, 1911. Other States had given women
votes before, but they were smaller communities, where the movement
could still be regarded as an eccentricity, a mere whimsicality. When,
however, California in 1911 granted full suffrage to her women, almost
half a million in number, the movement became obviously important. The
vote of California might well turn the scale in a Presidential
election. Moreover, other States followed California's example. Woman
suffrage soon dominated the West, and began its progress eastward. The
shrewd Lincoln said that no government could continue to exist half
slave and half free; and the axiom is equally true of a divided
suffrage. There can be little question that woman suffrage will
ultimately be adopted throughout the Eastern States, not because of
force, but through the ever-increasing pressure of political
expediency.
Hence we give here an account of the progress of the woman-suffrage
cause up to the California election as it appeared to the prominent
suffragist writer, Ida Husted Harper, and to the honored suffragist
leader, Jane Addams. The peculiarities of the movement in England seem
to necessitate separate treatment, so we present the view of its
antagonists as temperately expressed by Britain's celebrated Minister
of the Treasury, David Lloyd-George, and the defense of the "militants"
by the noted novelist, Israel Zangwill. Then comes a summary of the
entire theme by that widely known "friend of humanity," Elbert Hubbard.
For permission to quote some of these authoritative utterances which
had been previously printed, we owe cordial thanks to the publishers or
authors. Mrs. Harper's summary appeared originally in the _American
Review of Reviews_, and Miss Addams's comments in _The Survey_ of June,
1912. Both Elbert Hubbard's words and those of Lloyd-George are
reprinted from _Hearst's Magazine_ of August, 1912, and August, 1913.