In discussing woman's right to vote it is well to remember that the
right to rule, which is implicit in the right to vote, has always been
limited by conditions of birth, residence, wealth, morality or
intelligence. Universal manhood suffrage has never yet been achieved,
and probably never will be. Under the best Greek conditions, it was only
the free-born citizen, residing in his native city state, who voted. In
both Greece and Rome, the suffrage was limited to classes defined by
social position, wealth or military service. In our modern democracies
there have always been limitations of birth, which might be overcome by
naturalization; of residence, which could be overcome by living for a
certain time in a locality; of wealth, which was supposed to insure a
stake in the communal well-being; and of morals and intelligence, which
at least shut out criminals, the insane and the imbeciles.
Thus the right to vote is not the same thing as the right to live; and
even in a commonwealth founded on ideal justice only those having a
stake in the community life, and possessing normal intelligence and
morality, will be allowed to rule. In a word, equal suffrage is
possible, while universal man or woman suffrage is not.
All through our colonial period women had a large influence in
determining community questions, and in Massachusetts, under the old
Providence Charter, they voted for all elective officers for nearly a
hundred years. Here and there women--like Margaret Brent, of Maryland;
Abigail Adams, of Massachusetts; or Mrs. Corbin, of Virginia--put
forward their right to participate in the public life around them. But,
in 1776, women were not voting, and the Federal Constitution left the
matter of determining electoral rights to the several States. They all
decided for male suffrage.
The initial impulse to secure suffrage for American women came from
Europe. After the Revolution, Frances Wright, a young Scotchwoman, came
to America to lecture and write, claiming equal political rights with
men. In 1836, Ernestine L. Rose came from Poland and also advocated
equal political rights. All the teachings of the American Revolution had
favored the idea of human equality; and, as has been pointed out, when,
with established peace after the War of 1812, women engaged in
anti-slavery, temperance and allied movements, they were driven by the
logic of events to demand the suffrage.
In 1848, the women of the country began to organize. Mrs. Elizabeth Cady
Stanton, Lucretia Mott and Martha C. Wright called together at Seneca
Falls, New York, the first convention in America to further equal
suffrage. No permanent organization was founded, but in 1850 a
convention was held in Salem, Massachusetts, and in 1852 a Woman's
Rights Convention was called in Syracuse, New York, with delegates
present from eight States and Canada. Miss Susan B. Anthony had meantime
joined the movement; and from this time on conventions and appeals
became common.
The Civil War distracted attention from all social and political issues
but one. The Equal Rights Association turned its attention mainly to the
rights of negroes; and in 1869 the National Woman's Suffrage Association
was organized to work exclusively for woman's rights. Backed by such
women as Susan B. Anthony, Lucy Stone and Julia Ward Howe, and aided by
men like Henry Ward Beecher, the association became a national power. In
1890, the two organizations were united under the name of The National
American Woman's Suffrage Association. This organization still leads the
movement in America.[45]
[45] _The History of Woman Suffrage_, by ELIZABETH CADY STANTON, SUSAN
B. ANTHONY, and IDA HUSTED HARPER, 4 vols. Rochester, N.Y.
In 1902, an international meeting was called in Washington; and in 1904
the International Suffrage Alliance was formed in Berlin with Mrs.
Carrie Chapman Catt as president. Thirteen nations are now affiliated
with the Alliance; and the women of the world are highly organized to
further equal suffrage.
Two generations of women have given themselves to this movement, and a
third still faces it. To the first group belong those leaders we have
already named: Emma Willard, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Julia Ward Howe,
Susan B. Anthony and their associates. It was their problem to secure
woman's control of her own body and property, some share in the
direction of her children, and some opportunity to train her own mind
and earn an independent living. These women bore the heat and burden of
a conflict in which all the blind prejudices of a fixed régime were
strongly massed, presenting few promising points of attack. It is small
wonder that some of these leaders gained a reputation for being hard,
dogmatic, aggressive, and sometimes careless of popular sensibilities.
The first generation of reformers in any field must be made of stern
stuff; and their beneficiaries are apt to forget the conditions that
justified means no longer necessary.
The lives of these women could not be expected to fully illustrate the
type of life they hoped to see their sisters living when opportunity was
finally won. Only women who participated in this struggle could fully
appreciate the splendid devotion of these lives to the service of a
group many of whom, being personally comfortable, were insensible to the
needs of less fortunate women; and were sometimes even willing to fight
back any advanced ideas which might disturb their own comfort. The
feeling within this group of leaders, and the failure of oncoming
generations of American women to recognize the debt of obligation they
owe to its efforts, was illustrated by an incident that came up in
connection with the Third International Congress of Women which met in
London in 1899. The session was opened in Westminster Town Hall, with
seven hundred delegates present, representing the most thoughtful women
of the world. Lady Aberdeen was in the chair, and Mrs. Creighton, wife
of the late Bishop of London, was reading a paper. In the midst of deep
attention, a door at the rear of the platform was gently opened, and
Miss Susan B. Anthony stepped onto the stage. She had just arrived from
America. Her strong figure was bent with the weight of years; her face
was squared by the conflict and partial ostracism she had met; but her
glance had lost none of its stern kindliness, and her bearing none of
its indomitable courage. As she appeared, this most representative
audience of women in the world sprang to its feet and burst into wild
cheering. In vain did Lady Aberdeen rap for order and beg the audience
to let Mrs. Creighton proceed. Not until Miss Anthony came to the front
and urged the women to sit down was quiet restored. These women knew the
price of a life which their champion had paid for their opportunities.
A few months after this the school children of the prosperous city of
Rochester, N.Y., where Miss Anthony had been a leading citizen for many
years, were asked to write school compositions in which they named the
person they would most wish to be like. Over three thousand girls, in
the elementary grades, wrote these papers, but not one chose Miss
Anthony. This first generation of women reformers could not establish
the type of womanhood for the modern world; they had not the leisure,
nor the freedom, nor could they see all that lay in the future. But all
the more, because their lives were hard, should they be held in grateful
remembrance.
To the second generation of leaders belong women like Alice Freeman
Palmer, Mary Sheldon Barnes and Charlotte Perkins Gilman. They came on
the scene when the first campaign had been won; they could command their
own bodies and property; college doors were swinging open where they
could secure the training that should fit them for the struggle to win
educational, industrial, social and political opportunity for all their
sisters. They were still looked upon as blue-stockings and queer; they
had often to serve as the butt of ridicule; but they had education,
income, a certain degree of leisure, and a social recognition which, if
grudging in some quarters, was all the more generous in others.
With the rapid development of higher education, these women found
themselves associated with large groups of independent women who could
create a society of their own in advanced centers of population. There
was still much to be done in securing opportunity for women; but they
could go on establishing the type of life that free women were to live.
Their problems were, however, even more complex than those which
confronted their predecessors. What line of education should women
pursue? What lines of work could they best undertake? How could they
combine an independent professional or industrial career with the life
of a home and the responsibilities of a mother? How far must older
social restraints be modified in the interest of intellectual and
industrial freedom? It was a time for constructive statesmanship, rather
than for revolution; and each woman knew she was under criticism, and
that her success or failure was vastly more than her own personal
concern. In her all free women were being judged.
To the third generation belongs the host of women who are to-day filling
our college halls, managing the women's clubs, teaching the state
schools, and competing with men in every industrial calling. Theirs is
the task of completing woman's social and political emancipation, and of
educating them to meet their newfound liberties. It is possible that
this present generation has a keener sense of rights than of duties; and
the young women of to-day must be led to realize that the delicate
adjustments still to be worked out require devotion equal to that of
the earlier generations, if the toll of wasted life is not to be
excessive.
What now is the relation of women to the range of political activity
described in the last chapter? Have they need of the protection which
government gives? Are they able to form political judgments? Have they
knowledge of the working of political machinery; or, lacking it, are
they prepared to obtain it? Are they able to make a wise selection of
people to represent them in political action? Have they need of the
training which participation in political life gives? Have they the
preliminary preparation to take up that training to advantage, and can
they undertake these duties without serious loss of qualities desirable
in women?
Women certainly have need of protection; each has a life dear to her,
and honor which is dearer to her than life. In this respect she has a
greater need than men. Most women, also, have property of some kind, and
we are increasingly recognizing their right to control this for
themselves; hence they need property protection the same as men. We do
not need to think of Mrs. Sage, Mrs. Harriman, Miss Gould or Mrs.
Green, in this connection, for in every community we now have many women
who are immediately responsible for large property interests which new
legislation might affect most seriously.
In matters of institutional regulation by government, women are at least
as vitally interested as men. In all that touches the family, marriage,
or divorce, women have more at stake than men; and there are as many
wives as husbands involved. The schools are also nearer to women than to
men; more girls than boys attend them; more women are teachers; and more
women than men are interested parents of school children. The church is
also more vital to women to-day than to men. On the side of industries,
it is clear that our 8,000,000 independent wage-earning women have a
desperate stake in all governmental action touching the regulation of
working conditions. In whatever concerns general sanitation, safe water,
and pure foods, all are equally interested who must breathe and eat to
live. Surely the need of women for political protection is quite as
great as that of men.
In the matter of forming political judgments, not even the wisest men
are beyond improvement. International affairs, monetary systems, the
best way of raising taxes, and similar problems, often divide the male
electorate pretty evenly into rival parties. Since both cannot be right,
a great deal of poor political thinking must be done by the present body
of voters. Meantime, women are showing their ability to deal
intelligently with all sorts of subjects in our educational
institutions, in business and in social life. Their judgments command
respect in every other field; and it is hard to see why they could not
apply their powers to political questions.
We must remember, too, that during these last years the field of
political life has been rapidly broadening, through the awakening of
social consciousness among the people. To concern one's self with
politics now is to be interested in good market facilities, in rapid
transit for cities, in recreation centers for children, in honest
labelling of food products, in reformation of criminals, in preventing
marriage among the unfit, and in a hundred similar matters. Here women
will doubtless bring us a strong addition to our political efficiency.
They have long been considered the natural directors of social life and,
in spite of being disfranchised, they mainly handle such matters at
present. Now that these subjects are being brought into the political
field, women should follow them there, as they have followed their
industries from the homes into the factories. There is no reason to
believe that their judgments will be less sound than those of their
brothers and husbands.
Of course, women's knowledge of means and methods is much less than that
of men in their own class. Not only have they not participated in
political life, but they have been steadily warned away from that
particular tree of knowledge. Yet the present generation of women has
gone through the same preliminary education in schools with its
brothers; and many women in high schools and colleges have made a more
extended study of political institutionalism. Still more important, more
than a million women have been educating themselves for some years in
this direction through voluntary associations of some kind; while in
most States they have had some political practice through limited
suffrage, and in a few States full experience.
In selecting representatives to carry out their will, women have certain
obvious defects of temperament and training. Having been brought up for
generations to judge men only as providers of sustenance and fathers of
children, they must at first find it difficult to consider candidates
impersonally. Still, their general morality and their standards of right
are probably superior to those of men, and they are more intolerant of
faults, and they find it harder to compromise on matters of character
than do men. One can hardly believe that 1,700 women could be found
among the respectable, church-going, American-born residents in any
county of America, who would sell their votes, year after year, as that
number of men voters has recently confessed to doing in Adams County,
Ohio. In fact, Judge Blair says: "There was one class of the population
which rebelled against the practice. It was the womanhood of Adams
County, which had never become reconciled to the custom, and whose
continual hostility has resulted finally, I hope, in its
abolishment."[46]
[46] Seventeen Hundred Rural Vote-Sellers, by A.Z. Blair, _McClure's
Magazine_, November, 1911.
Of the need of women for the training which participation in political
life gives there can be no doubt. Their lives have always been directly
dependent upon other individuals, and they are prone to think in small
details. Any training which extends the horizon of their interests and
enables them to deal more largely with these details will fit them
better for living in a world where industrial, business and social
changes are so rapidly merging details in larger wholes. Experience in
selecting candidates for public office would also do much to broaden
women's judgments of life, and would help to break down the pettiness
which sometimes characterizes their personal relations.
In the case of women, the community has a double reason for desiring
that they shall develop political judgments and become acquainted with
political methods. It is not only that they may share in the general
intelligence and carry their fair part of the political burdens; but
they have become the teachers, both in homes and schools, of the
oncoming generation of male voters. We no longer live in small
communities where children can see the simple processes of government
operating around them, but in a complex civilization where it must all
be interpreted to them, and mainly by women. Many boys who complete our
elementary schools never work a day under the direction of a man. In the
homes, busy fathers increasingly turn over the training of children to
their wives. How can these women train safe citizens for the future if
they do not understand the processes involved well enough to use them
themselves?
Meantime the old arguments against woman suffrage are too outworn to
need serious attention. In the past decades our civilization has become
so complex, with so many groups carrying on differentiated functions,
that even if we had not the millions of educated, property-owning,
wage-earning, voting women that now fill our public life, the old
arguments would still be obsolete. The issues of life are no longer
primarily military, and but a fraction of men voters is capable of
meeting modern requirements as policemen and soldiers; in time of
crisis, all men would be called into the reserves; but in such periods
women have always fought in the breach, from Carthage to Paris. Still,
in modern warfare, those who guard the rear and furnish supplies are as
necessary as those who go to the front.
It has also long been recognized that women who rear finest sons and
daughters must sometimes turn away from the cradle to refresh their
lives with the touch of other interests. It has also been demonstrated a
thousand times over that women do not incite the lawless element to riot
about the polls; but that, instead, their presence tends to remove the
polling-place from the saloon and make it safer for men to go there on
election-day. The plea that women would introduce a new element of sex
into politics, thereby confounding its real issues, is certainly not
well grounded. Sex has always played a great part in politics, as it has
in all the vital affairs of life. In the open competitions of education,
business or politics, sex ceases to be as significant as it is in the
drawing-room.
Nor do thoughtful people imagine to-day that if women participated in
political life they would suddenly bring about a reign of universal
peace and righteousness. It has taken many centuries for men to learn to
play the game of politics indifferently well as they do. The first
effect of woman's participation would probably be to lower the
efficiency of the electorate in some directions; but they are starting
much farther along than men began, and they would learn more rapidly
than men have learned.
It is often claimed that women do not want to vote; and, of course,
there are many who do not care to assume such arduous and often
difficult duties, if they can avoid it. The same holds true of many
intelligent, but selfish men who desire the advantages of good
government without its burdens. All such must be urged to do their duty
to the state. Those who have vision and a large sense of duty can be
trusted to do their fair part in caring for the public welfare. Those
who wish to enjoy the benefits of peace and settled government,
participating in the advantages of education, engaging in business, and
having their persons and property protected, without sharing the burdens
of government, should be forced to play their part.
If a woman should board a street-car to-day and, when asked for her
fare, should hide her face with womanly modesty and declare that she did
not wish to be involved in such public matters, but preferred that the
man swinging on the strap before her should pay, she would be informed
that all who use the cars must pay for their maintenance. Women in
America now have more than their share of education and leisure. If they
do not wish to pay their fair proportion of service, they should
withdraw from the high schools and colleges, from literature and music,
from offices and factories, and not crowd into places where they are
unwilling to play the game. The woman who leads the movement against
equal suffrage in England has made a fortune in the open market as a
writer, protected by the national copyrights; she maintains a house
where she is protected in person and property by the city of London, the
organization and administration of which calls for the constant
attention of all intelligent citizens; and yet she urges women to take
what they can get, but to refrain from doing their fair share of the
city and national housekeeping, lest they lose their feminine charm.
Surely those who profit by government should give their share of
service.
It is idle to claim that equal suffrage will make no change in women. It
will certainly accentuate the changes already made by higher education
and by a freer business life. Some loss there must inevitably be in any
such far-reaching change. We lost something of chivalry and of the
spirit of _noblesse oblige_ in the transition from feudalism to
democracy. In transferring causes of personal difference from the
dueling field to the courts of law, we lost a degree of poetic feeling
and tragic exaltation, of personal initiative and physical courage. So
when women passed from slavery to serfdom we lost something of male
dominance and of female submission. We shall lose something in the
present transition; but one must be content to lose Louis XIV and
Versailles if one thereby finds modern France; one must be satisfied to
lose an institution which gave us the tragically pathetic death of
Alexander Hamilton, if it increases human justice and saves fathers to
their families. We must even be content to lose the languishing and
weeping lady of chivalry, and the coquetting, crocheting and confiding
maiden of the eighteenth century if we gain in return fair minded
comrades in daily living, devoted partners in family life, and strong,
intelligent mothers for the coming generations. The sex instinct needs
no fostering; it has led us to our best developments in civilization;
and its work has only begun.
So far we have taken the popular position, and have discussed this
matter as though it were still in the period of debate. The fact is, it
long ago passed from the field of theory; it is now a condition. In six
of our States, women have now full participation in managing public
affairs. In Wyoming, since 1869; in Colorado, since 1893; in Idaho,
since 1896; in Washington, beginning in 1910; and in California, since
1911, women have been sharing the vote with men. In twenty-nine States
they have school suffrage, and in many places municipal suffrage.[47] In
newer parts of the world, like New Zealand and Australia, women have
complete suffrage, while in old countries, like Norway, Sweden and
Finland, they have essentially all the rights of men. In England, there
are 1,141 women on Boards of Guardians and 615 on Educational
Committees; and they are demanding full participation in all political
life. In Canada they have school and municipal suffrage. It is no longer
a time for argument; it is time for adjustment.
[47] BERTHA REMBAUGH, _The Political Status of Women in the United
States_, G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1912, gives complete information to date.
Meantime the results of woman's full participation in political life,
even where they have had the suffrage for some years, are difficult to
determine, because of the fact already pointed out that political life
in a modern democracy is so closely bound up with all the other life
about it. It is quite as difficult to estimate these effects as it would
be to estimate the effects of housekeeping or of woman's special
costume. And yet some results are clear enough to have a large bearing
on the extension of woman's suffrage in new localities.
In 1906, the Collegiate Equal Suffrage League engaged Miss Helen Sumner
to make a careful study of the actual working of equal suffrage in the
State of Colorado. Miss Sumner, aided by several assistants, spent
nearly two years in the investigation. She gathered and carefully
analyzed written answers to an extended set of questions from 1,200
representative men and women of Colorado, some opposing and some
favoring equal suffrage; and she and her assistants interviewed many
more. They also made a general study of industrial conditions and of
legislation for the State as a whole, and a detailed study of election
records and newspaper files for representative cities and counties. Her
report is a masterpiece of patient research and scientific
exposition.[48]
[48] HELEN L. SUMNER, _Equal Suffrage. The Results of an Investigation
Made in Colorado for the Collegiate Equal Suffrage League of New York
State._ New York: Harper & Bros., 1909.
Equal suffrage goes back to 1893 in Colorado; and while the influence of
women has been in no way revolutionary, this report shows that, on the
whole, political conditions have improved and woman's intelligence and
her general public spirit have increased with no appreciable loss in
distinctive feminine charm. One cannot help feeling as one reads this
report that it is what a disinterested observer would have to say about
the effect of woman's larger educational or industrial life since 1870.
In all democracies it is difficult to bring voters to the polls unless,
as in some Swiss cantons, they are fined for absence. In Colorado, Miss
Sumner shows that women cast about forty per cent. of the total vote in
the earlier years of their enfranchisement, though they were in a
minority of the total population.[49] In the work of the primaries they
were in a much smaller minority, except when some special problem or
candidate appealed to them. The more intelligent the community, the
larger the woman's vote; and it is largest of all in the best residence
districts of Denver, the capital city. The vote of American born women
is larger than that of foreigners; and while the prostitutes of Denver
have been voted in the interests of the party in power, public opinion
is steadily making this more difficult. In Idaho, all residents of the
red light district have been disfranchised by statute; and practically
they do not vote.
[49] Mr. LAWRENCE LEWIS, in the _Outlook_, for January 27, 1906,
analyzes the election returns for parts of Pueblo City and vicinity, and
he finds from 25 to 46 per cent. of the vote was cast by women, and the
proportion of women increased with the intelligence and _morale_ of the
precinct.
There is no appreciable tendency on the part of women to form a new
party, nor to favor their own sex. They are more inclined than men to
scratch the ticket and, as illustrated in the case of Judge Lindsey,
they sometimes rally efficiently around an independent candidate,
especially on a moral issue. On the whole, women vote with their
husbands, just as sons vote with their fathers; but the strength of the
family vote, as compared with the vote of unsettled people, is certainly
desirable.
Since the beginning of equal suffrage, Colorado has fully held her own
with other States in advanced legislation, especially in social and
educational lines. Women have suffered no insult at the polls, and on
the whole polling-places have improved; but how far this is due to
women's presence no one can say. Women have occasionally held
legislative and executive offices; but they have especially
distinguished themselves as State and county superintendents of schools.
When it comes to estimating the effect of voting on the women
themselves, it is still harder to form an opinion. A large majority of
those reporting to Miss Sumner think that women have become more
intelligent and more public-spirited, but some doubt it. Morally, they
have shown themselves less corrupt than men; but a considerable number
think women as a whole have suffered some deterioration. This is a
question bound up with our deepest feelings and our most conservative
ideals; and it is inevitable that some observers should find any change
for the worse. On the whole, belief in equal suffrage seems to have
increased in Colorado during the twelve years under survey. Probably the
results are much what they would be if one were to study a group of the
most intelligent and refined men in the same community.
During the summer of 1911, I spent a month in the State of Idaho; and as
I had long been interested in the problem of equal suffrage, both in
England and America, I seized eagerly on the opportunity to study its
practical workings at first hand. On the streets and in the tram-cars,
in hotel lobbies and in lecture halls, when dining out or when making a
call, few people escaped inquisition. I interviewed working men and
women, men of affairs, ranchers, sheep raisers and miners, doctors,
lawyers, teachers, ministers and practical politicians, both men and
women.
The thing that first impresses one who has been intimately in touch with
the excited and turbulent condition of mind among the English
suffragettes, and the sustained and often impassioned feeling of Eastern
suffrage leaders, is the absence of any burning interest in the subject
on the part of men or women in Idaho. In London or New York, a suffrage
inquirer would constantly strike "live wires;" in Idaho, every one is
insulated. The subject is no more an issue than civil service reform or
state versus national control of banking systems. Most people have even
forgotten the passage of the constitutional amendment conferring equal
suffrage, in 1896. Since then, men and women have gone on voting and
holding office until the woman's right has become as commonplace as, and
no more interesting or questionable than, the vote of any busy citizen
in New Jersey.
The first question that one raises, is naturally whether women do
actually vote and hold office in Idaho. To answer this question, there
is no body of statistics available. Every one, however, declares that
they pretty generally vote. On account of long distances in the country
side, they poll less votes than men, especially if the weather is bad.
Probably about three-quarters as many women as men go to the polls.
Often I met women who said that they did not care for the vote, and
sometimes one who said she thought women ought not to vote; but these
same women often added that since they had the responsibility they felt
it their duty to cast a ballot; and no woman told me that she did not
fulfil the obligation.
In the first legislature which met after the granting of equal suffrage,
that of 1898, three women were seated, Mrs. Hattie F. Noble, Clara L.
Cambell, and Mary A. Wright; Mrs. Wright afterward became chief clerk of
the House. In 1908, another woman, Mrs. Lottie J. McFadden, was
returned; but there was no woman in the last legislature, and so far as
I can learn, only these four have taken part in law-making. When asked
why, after the first ardor of emancipation, women have taken so little
part in legislation, most people said it was because they had found the
work and conditions surrounding it unsuited to them. It seems generally
agreed, however, that a woman could be elected to the legislature at any
time if she represented a cause which needed to be brought before the
people through that body.
Theorists have always insisted that equal suffrage would greatly improve
the material conditions which surround the polls on election day. One of
the prominent political leaders in Idaho, who has been intimately in
touch with conditions for a quarter of a century, said that of course
there had been great improvement in the last fifteen years. "Things
would have improved any way," he said, "but I am sure that the women
have had a large influence. No woman has ever been insulted at the polls
in Idaho and she runs no more danger of annoyance than she would in
buying her ticket at a railway window. Men are not always sober in
either place; but if a man made a remark to a woman that was not polite,
or used annoying language in her presence, he would be mobbed by the
men even in the roughest mining camp in the State." Doubtless women have
helped to break the connection between the saloon and the polling-place,
but no one claims that women have made voting into a drawing-room
ceremony. On the contrary, women are very persistent workers at the
polls, seeking to direct doubtful voters.
Advocates of equal suffrage have pretty generally held the belief that
if women were given the ballot their superior moral standards would lead
to a marked change in the handling of such problems as the liquor
traffic and the control of red light districts. Of woman's superior
moral standards there can be no doubt; of the actual effect of her vote
upon these questions there is a great deal of doubt. While I was in
Idaho, the question of local option came up before the voters of Salt
Lake City, in the neighboring equal suffrage State of Utah, and the
"wets" won by a vote of 14,775 to 9,162. Thousands of women must have
voted for license to bring about this result. In April, 1911, the
question of license or no license was voted on in Boisé. In this case
again the "wets" won by a considerable majority.
Take another case. For several years in Boisé, until 1909, the red light
district was segregated in two alleys in the heart of the city. In the
municipal election of that year this issue came fairly before the
voters, and the democratic nominee for mayor, who was pledged to break
up the system, was elected by a considerable majority, though the city
is strongly republican. This result was undoubtedly due to the women's
vote. After two years, the issue came up again; and the republican
nominee, who was opposed to the scattering policy though not pledged to
segregation, was elected; and this result must again have been due to
the woman's vote. Prominent women of the city told me that during the
two years when the scattering policy prevailed, the evil was very
conspicuous, and women going about alone felt far less comfortable than
under the older system.
There are two ways to explain the fact that, after fifteen years of
political experience, the women of Boisé voted in large numbers for
license and for a policy in handling the red light district which they
knew would mean a return to police control. In the first place, it may
be said that fifteen years of steady contact with political life had
blunted the sensibilities of women and dulled their moral feeling. On
the other hand, it may be held that practical experience, under the
steady pressure of responsibility, had made them realize the
difficulties involved in the handling of these great social problems and
had made them feel that a law which could command the support of public
opinion, even though it regulated these difficulties, was better than a
law which they might consider ideal, but which was incapable of
execution.
In Idaho, as in Colorado, the payment of women political workers seems
to have become a rather wide-spread abuse. Under the conditions of the
State, with many new settlers constantly arriving, it has long been
thought necessary to employ paid workers to register voters, get them
out on election-day and influence those who are uncertain. After 1896,
women were often hired to do this work, and were paid from three to five
dollars a day. With their weak sense of party affiliation, it is
claimed that they will work for the party that pays best. A candidate
with plenty of money may hire so many workers that it becomes a system
of wholesale bribery. It is universally conceded that this is an abuse,
and that many women look upon election service as a source of pin money
to a degree that is undesirable. Meantime, practical politicians assured
me that it was a system the women found in operation when they came in;
that far more men than women were paid; and that the abuse could be
corrected by proper legislation.
To summarize the matter, we may say that equal suffrage in Idaho has
simply accentuated the movement toward setting women free to live their
individual lives which general education and participation in industrial
life has already carried so far all over the country. Equal suffrage is
accepted there, as the higher education of women is accepted in
Massachusetts, and the results in the two cases have been much the same.
Surely these reports carry the matter beyond the experimental stage.
Conditions in Colorado and Idaho are not identical with those in the
East, but they are similar enough to make the experience of these States
amount to a demonstration. Meantime the new obligation resting on women
is profound. They must learn to "sweat their tempers and learn to know
their man." They must become students of public affairs and of
institutional life. Old issues are past; and equal suffrage will soon
prevail everywhere. Women, like men, have more "rights" in our modern
democracies than they can use. Woman's Rights are largely realized; from
now on we must front Woman's Duties.