AN ANTI-SUFFRAGE MEETING
Dr. Earl redoubled his attentions to Leonora, determined to give her no
just cause for complaint. The doubts that had beset him disappeared, for
no one could be more charming than Leonora, when she was permitted to
follow her own bent. Her mother also showed her gratification at his
devotion, and tried, with consummate tact, to wean him away from his
evident partiality for the suffrage cause. She gave him the best of the
tracts issued by the Anti-Suffrage Society; while he was waiting for his
offices to be fitted up, she took him to lectures and teas and
receptions where anti-suffrage sentiment abounded, and tried in various
ways to convince him of the superior social status of the "Anti" women.
The culmination was reached, however, when he escorted her and Leonora
to a meeting in a large theatre one afternoon. They were prominent
figures in one of the boxes nearest the stage, and Silvia Holland and
Carroll Renner, who were sitting well toward the rear of the parquet,
had ample opportunity to watch the effect of the meeting upon him.
Frank Earl, who had come in directly afterward and taken a seat just
back of them, leaned forward and talked while the crowd gathered. "Oh,
don't mind him," he said, when Miss Renner asked if that were not his
brother with the anti-suffrage leaders. "He can't help himself, but if
he doesn't go away from here ready to enlist under Miss Holland's banner
I miss my count. Even I should, were it not that I have seen the folly
of it all on its native heath. Don't make faces at me, Carroll, or
people will know you are a suffragette."
The theatre had been profusely decorated with flags, flowers and
bunting, and mottoes were festooned along the walls, one of which was
"God Bless Our Homes," and another, "Imbecile Children Will Be the
Product of Imbecile Voting Women."
Dr. Earl was much impressed with the audience, which, nevertheless,
seemed rather chilly and unresponsive. A dignity prevailed which either
could not or dared not give way to any decided demonstration, in marked
contradistinction to the enthusiasm which characterized the suffrage
meetings he had witnessed.
In addition to the bunting and the mottoes, there were a number of large
pictures, done in the style of the cartoonist. One of these showed a
colonial dame at her spinning-wheel, with the words "An American Lady of
Four Generations Ago" beneath it; beside it was the picture of a
masculine-looking woman, in a harem skirt, standing on a box at a street
corner, addressing other women similarly attired; this was called "The
American Suffragette." Another picture showed a nurse caring for the
sick and dying soldiers on one side, and on the other a suffragette
charging the police; this picture was labeled "Before and After Taking."
The meeting opened with a spirited address by the president of the
association, Mrs. Briglow-Jorliss, who was welcomed with a brief rustle
of well-bred applause, led by Frank Earl.
"Got to do it," he said, in answer to Carroll's reproachful look.
"You'll see; even Jack will catch on before the end of the meeting.
Always applaud these folks when they begin; maybe you can't when they
quit."
Mrs. Briglow-Jorliss told of the enormous gains recently made by the
"Antis" among the select people of the city, and passed off the suffrage
parade as merely a tatterdemalion host of the riff-raff of the city led
by a few notoriety seekers.
"You see, Miss Holland," Frank whispered, "what a good thing it is that
I came here; I never should have known that that parade wasn't one of
the finest assemblages of women in the world if I hadn't."
Silvia laughed in spite of herself, and the stout lady on the platform
went on piling up the indictment against her sex, and showing how
demoralizing the vote had proved to women; how the suffrage sentiment
was dying out in the West; how the "Antis" were organizing even in the
suffrage States to lift the curse from their kind; how much purer and
nobler politics would be without the influence of woman, and wound up
with a glowing peroration on behalf of the women who were fighting to
maintain the sanctity of the home and the elevation of the children.
Silvia gave an impatient ejaculation. "How can you take it so quietly,
Miss Renner?" she asked. "I confess it always stirs me up."
"It wouldn't if you had the ballot," said the smaller woman. "It's just
amusing, or tiresome, according to how well it is done. You women are
the worried and worrying Marthas; we are the Marys, who have chosen the
better part that shall not be taken away; we know it can't be, and this
is something like hearing people laboriously argue that the world is
flat with the sun revolving around it."
After the opening speech there were brief addresses by Dr. David Dearson
on the disastrous results to motherhood should women participate in the
active life of the nation; by the Reverend Jayson Yerkes on the Pauline
doctrine of the subserviency of the truly feminine woman; by Mrs.
Workman Werther on the decadence of feminine charm among women aping
men's interests in life, and Crawford Dorer, a labor leader, opposed the
movement because the natural timidity of woman would, he predicted, set
back all hope of militant progress for the workers of the world. The
"Antis" listened with a somewhat strained and puzzled attention, and a
group of working-women, out on strike, and sitting in the balcony, gave
an angry hiss, which was instantly suppressed. The last speaker, Mr.
Reuben Rice, was one of those wandering scribes who travel through the
West and write up suffrage from a Pullman-car window, and as he exposed
the weaknesses, the failures and the pitiful spectacle that voting women
make of themselves, he galvanized the audience into a semblance of real
life and interest.
Dr. Earl found the speeches entertaining if not enlightening, and after
the second, gave himself up to the silent enjoyment of collating the
arguments presented in juxtaposition. No sooner had one speaker
convinced his hearers that women would precipitate anarchy by their
radicalism than the next proved equally conclusively that an era of
dilettantism and millinery shop legislation would be the inevitable
result of woman suffrage; no sooner were they filled with the horror of
the degradation of politics by the class of women certain to participate
in it, than another speaker assured them that politics was already so
vile that any woman would be hopelessly contaminated who had anything to
do with the gangrenous growth, and yet another showed that women
wouldn't vote anyhow. It was all he could do to control the muscles of
his face when the Reverend Mr. Yerkes told them in one sentence of the
dissension that would rend families and in the next that married women
simply voted as their husbands dictated, and he could not repress a
smile when the doctor and the professor made it clear that if woman is
to reproduce the race she must not be expected to do anything else, only
to have Mrs. Werther show how woman must be free to take part in the
ennobling activities of the world, philanthropy, charity, etc., if she
is to "bring to motherhood that crown which is the glory of the race,"
and much more of the same sort. He heard the ancient argument about
bullets and ballots, and in the same breath his attention was called to
Semiramis conquering Assyria, the Amazons invading Asia, the triumph of
Sappho in song, Aspasia in the salon, Deborah among the Judges of
Israel, George Eliot in literature, and a host of others who had won
distinction.
The audience was told that it was entirely proper to agitate, cajole,
coax, beseech, threaten, bully and browbeat men into voting for
candidates and measures desired by the women; anything that stopped
short of blackmail and personal intimidation bore the hallmark of
refined femininity, but to take two minutes to accomplish results for
themselves by depositing a ballot on election day meant everlasting
damnation to all feminine traits! And Leonora patted her pretty little
hands, and looked up to Earl for approval, feeling that at last he must
see that Silvia and her cohorts were routed horse and foot.
When the attack upon Western women was well under way, and Mr. Rice, a
dapper little chap, looking like a freshman from high school, was
rolling out his arraignment of Denver women in particular as typical of
the nethermost depths to which the voting female may descend, Carroll
Renner wrote a few lines on a bit of paper, and gave it to one of the
ushers, and a few minutes later she had the satisfaction of watching the
portly Mrs. Briglow-Jorliss read it. When Mr. Rice had concluded his
diatribe, the lady stated in dulcet tones that Mr. Frank Earl was said
to be in the audience, and as he lived in Denver, and was known to have
strong views on this question, there was an urgent request that he
should come to the platform, that they might know from one who had long
witnessed with regret the deteriorating effects of woman suffrage that
nothing that they had heard was in any way exaggerated. She vouched for
Earl as one whom she had known since his boyhood, a member of one of the
most highly respected families in New York, and who had never failed to
reply when she had needed statistics from the field of woman's
dethronement.
There was a bustle and stir over the audience, and John Earl looked a
good deal startled, while Leonora was openly delighted. An excellent
speaker, and a trained debater, the occasion had no terrors for Frank
Earl. In fact, he confessed to himself as he made his way to the
platform, he had not had so much fun as he expected to enjoy in the next
fifteen minutes for many a long day. He was introduced with many rather
florid expressions, and began by stating his position calmly,
unmistakably, as opposed to the extension of the franchise to women. He
then made a few complimentary references to those ladies who nobly put
aside their own devotion to the home, the sphere they adorned so
admirably, in order to save their misguided suffrage sisters from the
evil effects of their mistaken zeal.
There were a good many suffragists and some suffragettes in that
anti-suffrage meeting, and Frank saw that the chilly audience had at
last thawed, melted, warmed up and was rapidly approaching the point
where it might reasonably be expected to boil over.
"I am unalterably against the extension of the franchise to women," he
repeated, and went on, "but my reasons for this opposition are concrete
and practical rather than abstract and theoretical, and are based upon
the experience I have gained from my residence in Colorado. I am also
opposed to it because it is all too evident that the suffrage should be
restricted rather than extended. The ballot should be the reward of
intelligence, education, and a comprehension of the great political
problems of the nation."
"Give us the truth," some one at the left of the parquet cried.
"I shall," he said, "and that necessitates correcting a few impressions
which seem to me at variance with the facts. If it were true that women
would not vote, or would vote as directed by the male members of their
families, I should not so much deprecate giving them the ballot; but
neither contention is true. Women do vote, and what is worse, they vote
in steadily increasing numbers. Out of seventy thousand votes cast at
the last election in my city a little less than half of them were cast
by women, and judging from the results, I must say that the men of their
families had very little influence with them. The possession of the
franchise has developed the secretive instinct among women; they no
longer confide their intentions to their doting husbands; they listen to
their words of wisdom and then--they vote the secret ballot as they
please."
There was a wave of laughter that swelled into a gleeful sort of shout
of mirth, but with an air of the most grieved surprise the speaker
turned wonderingly to Mrs. Briglow-Jorliss, who still beamed upon him,
though she was looking worried.
"But surely, Mr. Earl," she said, "when the disagreeable duty is thrust
upon them, the conservative women do what they can to protect the
interests of the State?"
He shook his head sadly.
"This is one of the most frightful discoveries we have made since women
began to vote. When Mr. Dorer speaks of the innate conservatism of women
he shows that he is not conversant with the woman movement. It is true
that there are a few intensely partisan women, who can be held by party
ties, but the rank and file observe no such allegiance. They read and
study, but in addition they go to the legislative halls, and there they
see that both parties make and break promises with equal facility, and
what is the result?"
"Well, what is it?" cried an impatient feminine voice.
"I hardly know how to break it to you," he said, "but the result is
revolt, revolt all along the line. Yes, ladies; women, lovely, refined,
gentle, educated women utterly refuse to be dictated to by political
leaders, and openly sneer at ward bosses. They can't be kept in line.
They no longer sing the sweet strains of 'The land of the free and the
home of the brave.' On the contrary, they raise the battle cry, 'Let
independence be our boast,' and in spite of the passionate pleas of
their natural leaders, they go on record for the most radical
legislation. Why, I'm told that nearly every so-called progressive law
enacted in my State has been passed by their continued efforts.
"They have no conception of the ideal of government laid down by
Hamilton; they will submit to neither checks nor balances, and would
subvert the whole scheme of representative government and replace it
with an out-and-out democracy. In accord with this mistaken view they
have adopted the initiative and referendum, carried it overwhelmingly,
three to one, in every county in the State, and I need not tell an
audience of intelligence that this is the most insidious form of attack
now being made upon the fundamental principles of our government."
By this time Silvia and all the suffragists in the audience were
applauding wildly, while Carroll Renner laughed till the tears ran down
her cheeks, and once more Frank turned a patient and puzzled countenance
to the presiding officer.
"I do not understand the applause, ladies," he said mildly, with a gleam
in his eyes that none but Carroll understood. "The thing I am telling
you is frightful. The enfranchisement of women means the end of the
Republic as it now is; it means the rejection of all theories that are
found wanting, and the putting out on the vast uncharted sea of
experiment; it means interference with those great business enterprises
that have built up, I had nearly said that 'make and preserve us a
nation'! It means a reckless disregard for property rights in the
sentimental desire to protect the individual, as if a nation could
become great and strong by individual effort alone, and without the
guiding and sustaining hands of statecraft and financial genius gripping
the rudder of the ship of state. They will not listen to the voice of
experience; they cannot be intimidated; they cannot be deceived for an
indefinite number of years; if the established order seems to them
unfair, unjust or illiberal, they have little respect for tradition when
it's results they're after."
"But if the anti-suffrage movement is growing as we have been told,
can't the anti-suffragists overcome those tendencies?" asked an old lady
on the platform.
Frank restated the question for the benefit of the audience, and then
answered with indescribable pathos, "I cannot conceal the truth from
you; improbable as it seems, when once this poison becomes virulent in
the body politic it spares none, and the very women who have battled
most nobly against this corroding innovation are apt to succumb to its
insidious influence; even the anti-suffragist, home-loving, God-fearing,
modest and retiring as is her nature, has developed a talent for
political intrigue that has led to the downfall of more than one of the
best laid plans of mice and men."
He tried to go on, but the audience was convulsed, not so much by what
he said as by his manner, and by the sudden turning of the tables after
the long tension had reached the snapping point. Still uncertain whether
to regard his as friend or foe, Mrs. Briglow-Jorliss, after rapping
vainly for order, was obliged to dismiss the meeting, and by some irony
of fate the orchestra played "Hail Columbia," and the suffragettes took
up the words and sung them with much unction, especially the lines--
"Let independence be our boast,
Ever mindful what it cost."