SUFFRAGE SNAPSHOTS
_By_
IDA HUSTED HARPER
_Have a smile with me_
WASHINGTON, D. C.
1915
------------------------------------------------------------------------
These random paragraphs are a few of many which
have appeared in _Judge_ to express the lighter
side of the so-called “woman question.” This
centers in the suffrage movement but woman’s
quest of the vote is not a joke. It means a
great deal of hard work, many anxious hours,
some keen disappointments, yet those who are
not in the thick of the fray will never know
the good times they have missed. Flashes of
fun have been scattered all along the way like
flecks of sunshine on a shaded path. It will
seem very dull for a little while after the vote
is won and women get their rights, but they
will soon be able to make things lively again
and contribute as always to the gayety of the
nation.
Copyright, 1915
BY IDA HUSTED HARPER
Original matter copyrighted by _The Leslie-Judge Publishing Co._ and
used in its present form by their courtesy.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Miss Jane Addams in her suffrage speeches insists that men have nothing
to fear, for the women will vote right. That very fact gives some of
them everything to fear.
* * * * *
Edison says, “the movement for woman suffrage is just plain morals.”
Maybe that’s the trouble—they’re too plain. Dress them up fashionably
and see if the lady “antis” won’t accept them.
* * * * *
A new Chicago policewoman has qualified as one of the best shots on the
force, 92 out of 100. Does she vote because she is such a good shot or
can she shoot so well because she is a voter? What is the connection
between shooting and voting anyway?
* * * * *
Annie Riley Hale, a prominent “anti,” says that women want the suffrage
in order to establish polygamy throughout the United States. If she can
prove it will have that effect the women can take a rest and the men
will carry on their campaign for them.
* * * * *
It looks as if one recall, one defeat and then another election had
started wings on Mayor Hi Gill, of Seattle. After the tragic close of
his first term his chief of police and alleged partner in sinful
practices was sent to prison. The women gave Hi another chance and now
he has appointed as chief of police the ministers’ candidate for mayor
and is trying to live up to his chief’s standard. Meanwhile the women
are standing by with their spectacles on and a recall petition handy.
* * * * *
If Mr. Bryan writes the next Democratic platform it is safe to wager
there will be one plank in it which he flatly refused to put in the last
one.
* * * * *
Why don’t the “antis” get a sewing society somewhere to pass a
resolution against woman suffrage? It is growing terribly monotonous to
have all the women’s organizations in the country declaring in favor.
* * * * *
It is said the Ohio Board of Administration is appalled at the number of
imbeciles in the State. We thought there must be quite a lot of them
when 528,295 votes were cast against the woman-suffrage amendment
recently.
* * * * *
Women have voted for over twenty years in Colorado and twenty-one judges
of districts courts have sent letters to United States Senator Shafroth,
testifying that they never have known a case of divorce because of
political differences between husband and wife. Another anti-suffrage
bomb failed to explode!
* * * * *
Dear, dear, how times have changed! Once a woman was not considered a
person by law and a wife and husband were one and he was it. Now the
highest court in New York has decided that a wife is not only a person
and an individual in her own right but she is a family! “A childless
widow or a deserted wife without children is included in the term
family”—those are the very words. From nobody to a whole family—what an
evolution!
* * * * *
A Chicago girl swam two miles to shore from an overturned boat, dragging
her escort who couldn’t swim. Now the delicate question arises, Which
shall do the proposing?
* * * * *
The High Court of Great Britain has decided that a woman cannot practice
law because she is not a “person;” but she can be a Queen because a
Queen does not have to be a person—at least that is all anybody can make
out of the decision.
* * * * *
Mr. Hugh Fox, secretary of the United States Brewers’ Association,
assures the women that it will make no organized opposition to the
pending suffrage amendments. Maybe not—but there is something mightily
suggestive in that name.
* * * * *
“Tariff reform, fiscal policies, large international relations are
foreign to the consciousness of the average woman,” says Mrs. Dodge,
president of the anti-suffragists. Maybe so, but it seems as if she
might have sense enough to put a mark on a ballot opposite an eagle, a
star or a moose’s head.
* * * * *
A man was excused from serving as juror in a murder trial in New York
lately because his wife wouldn’t allow him to convict any one of murder.
Out in Oregon a juror was challenged the other day because his wife had
already been accepted and it would be impossible for him to give an
unbiased opinion. What makes people think that under equal suffrage
wives would all vote as their husbands do?
* * * * *
The women voters of Arizona have started in on so many reforms that the
men can almost feel their wings sprouting.
* * * * *
The president of the New York State “antis” says, “Suffrage is going,
not coming.” Well, it sure does seem to be going some these days.
* * * * *
It seems as if, when not only State courts but the United States
government itself forbids the use of aigrettes, women would give up
trying to wear them; but the Injun in ‘em dies hard.
* * * * *
A French naturalist has discovered that the female oyster is far more
palatable than the male. This is the case with all animals that are used
for food. It is a common remark about a woman that she looks good enough
to eat, but did anybody ever say that about a man?
* * * * *
It seems as if the suffragists have come not to bring peace but a sword
into the world. When Mrs. Chapman Catt, the international president, was
sailing across the Pacific homeward from her little trip to organize the
world for woman suffrage, all was calm and serene until she was called
on for a speech. “Before this,” said one of the men voyagers, “we were
all at peace with one another; but after that woman spoke, everybody was
fighting over the suffrage question.” This is a hint to hostesses: When
your guests seem bored to extinction, just get somebody to say woman
suffrage, and then watch the sparks fly!
* * * * *
It is said that in England whiskers are again to be the style. One thing
is certain—if they become the fashion in this country, our women will
set their faces against them!
* * * * *
The dress skirt this fall is to be narrower than ever, and a noted
tailor says the only question is, “Can a lady wear it?” Perhaps a lady
can, but a modest woman won’t.
* * * * *
And now they say President Wilson is about to reverse his position on
amending the Sherman anti-trust law. When he gets ready to back track on
the woman-suffrage question he will have no difficulty in establishing a
precedent.
* * * * *
In the debate in the North Carolina senate on a bill to permit women to
act as notaries public it was objected to because women write a
“vertical hand” and wear slit skirts. That shouldn’t disqualify them as
notaries, but it is as strong an argument against giving them the
suffrage as one often hears.
* * * * *
The New York City board of education dismissed a woman fireman from one
of the public schools, on the ground that it was not suitable work for a
woman. It’s all right for her to get up at home winter mornings and make
the fire but whenever there is a salary attached the work becomes
unwomanly. Strange that women cannot see these things without having to
be shown so often. There ought to be little sign-boards set up along
their path, saying, “Public salaries are only for voters.”
* * * * *
“Yeast,” a new suffrage play, is just being tried out. It is sure to
cause a rise among the “antis.”
* * * * *
A bill is before Congress to annex the North Pole as United States
territory. Bet it comes in with a Votes for Women flag on the end of it.
* * * * *
If the suffragists and the “antis” don’t quit writing letters to members
of Congress the latter will raise the rate of postage instead of
lowering it.
* * * * *
Recent census reports show that 86.7 of all persons over twenty-five
marry. That is quite enough—the other 13.3 are needed to show the
married what they escaped.
* * * * *
The woman-suffrage question in this country has been settled. The
Colonel did it in his whirlwind tour of New York’s East Side. “How about
votes for women?” called out the unscareable Maud Malone. “Madam,” said
Mr. Roosevelt, “I have asked that you women be allowed to vote to
determine whether or not you shall vote.” Just that; he never told whom
he had asked, but the mere fact that he had asked was enough. All the
women have to do now is to keep still and wait till somebody “allows”
them to vote whether they want to vote. If one over one-half of the
twenty-four millions says “yes,” then they can all go right out and
vote. But if one over one-half says “no,” then the 11,999,999 that want
to can’t. Beautiful plan—so simple, so statesmanlike! But it seems to
lack provision for a recall and a new deal.
* * * * *
Two women card sharps on a big ocean liner are said to have relieved a
number of the male voyagers of all their ready cash. Another flagrant
instance of woman’s usurping an occupation that rightfully belongs to
man!
* * * * *
Vice-President Marshall can’t do anything for woman suffrage because his
wife doesn’t believe in it. That might be a sufficient excuse for Mr.
Marshall as an individual but it is rather thin for the Vice-President
of the United States.
* * * * *
“Bachelors are much more likely to become insane than married men,” is
the decision of the Massachusetts Mental Hygiene Conference. Yes, the
mere fact that they choose to remain bachelors shows a mental twist.
* * * * *
A New York paper sagely remarks, “Under any system we shall not get a
government of cherubs until we become cherubs ourselves.” That’s too
long ahead. Men have always told women they were angels, so why not
begin with woman suffrage as the first step?
* * * * *
“All the blessed creatures have to do,” said Representative Adamson, of
Georgia, in his speech, “is to intimate in a gentle way, in their
charming tones and pleasing manner to the lords of creation that they
wish to have the privilege of voting.” How much that reminds one of
Heflin, of Alabama—it’s so different!
* * * * *
“Women of New Jersey,” said ex-Assemblyman Matthews at the legislative
hearing, “if you want to improve the conditions of public life, I beg
you to keep on being women.” As they felt that conditions very much
needed improving, and for various other reasons, they adopted a
resolution to keep on being women.
* * * * *
For the fourth year in succession a woman has won the prize of $1,250
offered by an English publishing house for the best first novel. It is
bad enough that there are a million more women than men over there,
without having them add to the offense by such performances as this.
They’ll never get the vote.
* * * * *
The president of the Pennsylvania Anti-Suffrage Society asks its members
to “write to all the United States Senators, except those from the
suffrage States, and tell them that the great, silent majority of women
do not want the vote.” She was very kind to omit those gentlemen—they
might laugh themselves to death.
* * * * *
The Anti-Suffrage Association claims the credit for defeating the
appointment of a Woman Suffrage Committee in the lower house of
Congress. The only question voted on in the Democratic caucus was that
“woman suffrage is a State and not a Federal question,” but this will
not disturb the complacence of the “antis.” They will simply claim that
they originated the doctrine of State’s rights.
* * * * *
The Texas preacher who asked all the women of his congregation on Easter
Sunday to take off their hats had St. Paul beaten to a frazzle.
* * * * *
The “antis” are failing to scare the suffragists by warning them that
they will get the worst of it when they “rouse the brute force in men.”
As long as they are gradually getting everything they ask for they will
never believe that men are brutes.
* * * * *
Englishmen are howling because, under the new income-tax law, the wife
can find out how much property the husband has. But didn’t she know
already, as he promised at the altar, “With all my worldly goods I thee
endow”?
* * * * *
There seems to be some anxiety lest the new women internes at Bellevue
Hospital may not be able to jump on a speeding ambulance. Some
encouragement is given by the news from Vassar that one girl has just
thrown a basketball seventy-five feet and another has “smashed the
broad-jump record” with a jump of over nine feet. Give the new internes
a chance.
* * * * *
A man in the audience of State Senator Helen Robinson, of Colorado,
called out that as there was only one woman and thirty-four men in the
Senate, this showed it was a place for men. She answered that as there
were eighty-seven women and eight hundred men in the State penitentiary,
this evidently showed the same thing. Doesn’t she know that men won’t
love her if she talks like that?
* * * * *
Why are there so many more widows than widowers? Because a man finds
marriage such a nice institution that he gets right back into it, while
a woman—well, she doesn’t.
* * * * *
Ex-Speaker Cannon says that as women can now vote in Illinois it is a
good time for handsome men to run for office, and that is why he ran.
But Illinois women can’t vote for Congressmen and that is why he was
elected.
* * * * *
The women of Alaska, at the first election since they were enfranchised,
elected an entire non-partisan ticket. It is no wonder the old party
machines put on speed and try to run over a woman-suffrage amendment.
* * * * *
According to the latest medical discovery, love causes an intoxication
of the nerve centers which may lead to insanity. That is probably why
people who are in love are said to be crazy about each other—their nerve
centers are on a spree. Cynics might call marriage a jag cure.
* * * * *
The anti-suffragists say that the suffrage movement is driving women
away from marriage and “the feminist movement is turning marriage into a
trade for alimony,” and yet that the two movements are one and the same.
But how can a woman make an alimony bargain if she has not been married?
It really seems as if those “antis” had set out to prove the charge that
the feminine mind is incapable of logic.
* * * * *
If the anti-suffragists would observe their Golden Rule, that “a woman’s
place is at home,” it would not be half so easy for those other women to
get the ballot.
* * * * *
Outside of the South only two States voted solidly against the woman
suffrage amendment in the lower house of Congress—Vermont and Delaware.
Please excuse them, they’re such little ones.
* * * * *
Virginia suffragists have discovered that in 1829 her women petitioned a
constitutional convention for the franchise. That was only eighty-six
years ago, and petitions from women are seldom acted upon in so short a
time as that.
* * * * *
At the legislative hearing in Massachusetts, the other day, one of the
opponents said she did not believe women ought to vote but thought
one-half the Legislature should be composed of women. Just as her sister
“antis” always have done, she keeps one eye on the offices.
* * * * *
During the recent registration in San Francisco, automobiles were
provided for the women, while the men were left to walk, and they rent
the air with their protests. In Washington a jury composed of men and
women had to go to the country to inspect some property. The women were
sent in automobiles and the men in wagons, and their anger could be
heard for miles. As the young woman wrote to her sweetheart, “The
trubble with you is you are jellus.”
* * * * *
Possibly women as well as men may be at their best when fifty, but they
will never give anybody a chance to prove it on them.
* * * * *
Representative J. Hampton Moore, of Philadelphia, is quoted as saying it
will be 20 years before Congress hears any more about prohibition or
woman suffrage. That 0 must be a printer’s mistake, and even the 2 is
fifty per cent. too much.
* * * * *
Indiana women have formed a council to work with the Legislature “for
the uplift of women and children.” Wouldn’t it be of greater benefit to
the State if they would work for the uplift of the legislators?
* * * * *
Anti-suffragists are censuring Senator Helen Ring Robinson, of Colorado,
because she is in the East lecturing instead of at home legislating. But
she can’t unless the Governor calls a special session, as the
Legislature does not meet this year. Those anti-suffrage objections are
such funny little boomerangs!
* * * * *
New Zealand has just been celebrating the twenty-first year of its
equal-suffrage law. To be sure that country is some distance off, but it
seems as if we should have heard of the wrecked homes, ruined families,
declining birth rate, feminized men and general reign of socialism,
polygamy and other things which the “antis” declare will follow woman
suffrage. If they will then they have done it, so let us have a bill of
particulars from New Zealand.
* * * * *
A Chicago lawyer secured a big alimony for his client on the argument
that a man who marries a handsome woman must dress her in a style
befitting her beauty. This ought to put the plain woman several laps
ahead in the matrimonial race—but it won’t.
* * * * *
If the colonel feels a little disheartened at the lapses in the
Progressive party while he was away revising the map of South America,
he can cheer up at the boom in votes for women. There will be more than
twice as many of them in 1916 as when he set out to round them up two
years ago.
* * * * *
The Supreme Court of the District of Columbia has decided that after a
wife has left her husband’s bed and board she may establish her own
domicile wherever she pleases. That is an improvement on the old law,
which did not allow her any place to sleep and eat legally without her
husband’s permission.
* * * * *
Mrs. John Martin, a leader of the “antis,” said recently, in a public
address in New York, “If they dare attempt to force the ballot on us
here in the East, they will find that we are the daughters of the heroes
who fought and bled at Concord and Lexington, who starved at Valley
Forge!” Seems as if we had heard somewhere that those heroes did all
that for the specific purpose of obtaining the ballot. “Descendants” is
a very suitable word to apply to their daughters.
* * * * *
It was a woman who solved the “Million Dollar Mystery” and received the
$10,000 prize; but that isn’t the worst of it—she hasn’t any husband to
take care of the money for her.
* * * * *
The Anti-Suffrage Society forbids its members to say, “Woman suffrage is
coming!” That’s right—it shows a lack of originality to use the same
slogan as the suffragists and how can they expect to raise money for a
campaign against a sure thing?
* * * * *
A rich New Yorker, who has just died, left his fortune for his daughters
in the hands of masculine executors because he doubted women’s wisdom in
business. How did he happen to have so much confidence in men’s honesty
in business?
* * * * *
Speaker Clark is no “neutral” when it comes to woman suffrage. During
the House debate the other day the officers of the Suffrage Association
were invited to occupy his bench in the gallery and have luncheon in his
rooms at the Capitol. Give him the Iron Cross.
* * * * *
A man in Chicago has written a booklet against woman suffrage, in which
he relates that when he was a small boy he and his sister were attacked
by wolves, which his mother drove off with a gun. “If she had been a
suffragette,” he says, “she would probably have been away from home that
night attending a political meeting and Sister Lucy and I would have
been eaten alive.” Sister Lucy might have been a loss to the world.
* * * * *
A wife has recently laughed herself to death at one of her husband’s
jokes. At least there is the consolation that she never will have to
listen to any more of them.
* * * * *
The anti-suffragists say that “feminism and the family are inherently
and irrevocably incompatible.” When we find out what that means we are
going to get mad about it.
* * * * *
Professor Hugo Münsterberg, of Harvard University, after years of
careful research has decided that women form their opinions and
judgments just as rapidly and accurately as men. Thanks for that small
concession, kind sir! It is so unexpected!
* * * * *
The women anti-suffragists have just held their first convention, while
the suffragists have had them by the hundreds. Now let the antis get up
one parade and match it against the more than a thousand suffrage
parades on May 2d, to prove that “the vast majority of women do not want
to vote.”
* * * * *
A speaker at the annual convention of the National Municipal Leagues
takes President Wilson to task because his “History of the American
People” scarcely mentions women. Why single out the President’s for what
is common to all histories? The women ought to get even by writing
histories themselves and leaving out the men. That is almost though not
quite the case in the history of woman suffrage, but the men are
mentioned whenever they vote it down.
* * * * *
“The cause of equal suffrage is so one with civilization and humanity
that I wonder any civilized man can be against it,” is the latest
utterance of William Dean Howells on the question. He was careful not to
say “civilized woman,” because he did not want to hurt the feelings of
the Anti-Suffrage Association.
* * * * *
The president of the Arizona Federation of Women’s Clubs said, in a
recent speech, “It requires courage to be a good statesman and only
nerve to be a good politician.” To apply this formula to suffrage—it
requires only nerve to be a good anti-suffragist, but one really has to
wonder where they get enough of it.
* * * * *
A six-foot woman who has recently been appointed purser on a Hudson
River boat is opposed to suffrage because she does not feel equal to the
burden and she thinks it would tend to make women take men’s jobs away
from them. Her picture in the papers should be labeled “The Typical
Anti-Suffragist, an Unconscious Humorist.”
* * * * *
One member of the lower House of Congress obtained unanimous consent
that another member’s eulogy on his dog should be printed in the
Congressional Record. Worse stuff probably has gone into that Record;
but if two women members of the Legislature in some of those Western
States had been guilty of this performance wouldn’t the country have
rung with their unfitness for office?
* * * * *
The reformers say that when woman is economically independent she will
be free to do the “proposing.” Perhaps then she won’t want to.
* * * * *
A man has started to walk with a donkey from Maine to Oregon on an
election bet. The photographers should label their pictures, “Find the
man.”
* * * * *
Great Britain has solved the race-suicide problem. Hereafter the
parents, where either is insured, will get thirty shillings for each new
baby. What a simple solution! What a magnificent recompense! The little
island won’t hold the infants.
* * * * *
The judge of the Chicago Domestic Relations Court gives six reasons for
the trouble in married life, and one of them is the interference of
mothers-in-law. If it were not for the other five reasons, there would
probably not be so much necessity for mothers-in-law to interfere.
* * * * *
The Anti-Suffrage Association is very desirous of adopting a color for
its very own, but thus far has found that all in the rainbow and out of
it have been pre-empted by the innumerable suffrage societies. The
“antis” over in England had just such a difficulty, but finally decided
on blue and black. Then they had made a button and on it placed the head
of a dear little chee-ild; but when the black and blue infant made its
appearance, it was received by the suffragists with such screams of
laughter and proffers of sympathy that it suddenly vanished and was
never seen again.
* * * * *
In Denmark the men police are going on a strike, because the new women
police are to have a higher salary than men get when they begin. There
is nothing strange about this news, except that Denmark should pay women
such salaries.
* * * * *
A woman office-holder who is getting a $4,500 salary says: “No, I am not
a suffragist. Why should I want to vote? Men have always been mighty
good to me.” Prosperity sometimes does affect people that way—makes them
so nearsighted they can’t see what is happening to their neighbors.
* * * * *
There doesn’t seem to be any particular reason why four or five women
should have been guests of honor at the annual banquet of the Police
Lieutenants’ Benevolent Association, but they just sat up there and
sang, “We’re here because we’re here.” And that isn’t the worst of
it—they’re going to be everywhere else and the men who don’t like it
will have to go to the edge of the earth and jump off.
* * * * *
The president of the New York Press Club in talking lately to a woman’s
society on suffrage said: “Keep within the sex line. I and the men
behind me will never forgive you if you step outside of that line!” Is
it anything like the bread line? And how are women to know if they fail
to toe the mark exactly? They are as far now from what was originally
considered the “sex line” as if it was the equator and they were at the
poles and yet the men seem to have forgiven them.
* * * * *
If the New York women keep on rolling up that big suffrage fund the men
will feel it their bounden duty to take over the management of the
amendment campaign.
* * * * *
A New Jersey woman has been obliged to get a divorce because her husband
was so “inordinately fond of dress” that he spent all his earnings on
his clothes. Vanity and foolishness know no sex.
* * * * *
New York State has 101.2 men to every 100 women. That extra one and
two-tenths of a man ought to make it entirely possible to give a vote to
women without fear of changing the style of sex domination.
* * * * *
Some of the men are angry because the women said they are going to ride
in the Washington suffrage parade with an imbecile, an insane person and
a convict. The men say that the only time a woman should keep such
company is on election day.
* * * * *
With an amendment for full suffrage pending in a certain State, the
opponents believe in nipping any voting tendencies in the bud; so the
district attorney announces that any woman giving a tea party to induce
other women to come out and register for the school election, at which
women can vote, will be prosecuted under the corrupt practices act. Of
course then he will prosecute the ward bosses who round up the men in
the back rooms of saloons to arrange for their registering and voting.
Or is it only drinking tea that is a corrupt practice?
* * * * *
In Missouri there are 141 unmarried men to 100 unmarried women. It seems
as if every woman there ought to be able to get a husband, but perhaps
some of them are particular.
* * * * *
Some of those husbands who stay out late nights are surprised that the
suffragists find it necessary to have so many classes for training
inexperienced speakers.
* * * * *
Winston Churchill mispronounced a Greek word in the House of Commons
lately, to the consternation of its members. Imagine the commotion in
the House of Representatives at Washington if a member should make a
mistake in his Greek!
* * * * *
“Our only problem now,” says the national anti-suffrage president, “is,
Can we make the negative majority large enough to keep the voters from
having to vote on it again for twenty-five years?” No use to waste any
time and money figuring on that problem. The answer is, It can’t be
done.
* * * * *
One of the New York Supreme Court justices, in adjourning a case against
a woman recently, said, “My sex has been deceiving the other sex since
the day of Adam.” There has always been a suspicion that in that little
transaction in the Garden of Eden it was Adam himself who was deceived.
Since then possibly the men have been trying to get even, but it looks
nowadays as if the women were beginning to claim their share from the
tree of knowledge, and deceiving them was not quite so easy.
* * * * *
The only “perfect woman” has been found at Cornell University. To find
perfect ladies visit a bargain counter.
* * * * *
A noted astrologer has seen in the stars victories for woman suffrage in
many States. The “antis” see stars every time there is a new victory;
but when they pick themselves up they never make any forecast of the
future.
* * * * *
Cuban women are organizing for the suffrage and a flourishing society
already exists in Hawaii. Truly the anti-suffragists are kept so busy
these days trying to stem the tide they are obliged to forget that a
woman’s place is at home.
* * * * *
The candidates on the primary-election tickets in New York all had
numbers opposite their names, so that voters who couldn’t read or
remember carried the numbers of their choice into the polling booth and
copied them on the ballot. It almost seems as if women might have
intelligence enough to perform a feat like that.
* * * * *
A tablet has been discovered in Babylonia, recording that the first
world was created by a woman, and the male gods, growing tired of it,
wiped it out by a flood and created another. There is a nice thing about
this record—it has no account of Eve’s eating the apple and bringing sin
into the new creation. This removes one charge against woman and puts it
up to man to account for the large amount of wickedness that has crept
into his world.
* * * * *
That English anti-suffrage mother had no right to feel insulted when her
“militant” daughter sent her a post-card with the one word “doormat”
written on it. Wasn’t it the English writer, Dinah Mulock, who said
women ought to be satisfied to be doormats in their husband’s home?
* * * * *
There seems to be some mild excitement over the question whether a woman
should be allowed to write “Mrs.” before her name when she is really
“Miss.” The chief effect would be on the men, who are much more chesty
before the unmarried women that believe them to be heroes than before
the married, who know they are not.
* * * * *
A Philadelphia clergyman says that “women’s clubs are the instruments of
the devil.” With several million women enrolled in them, His Satanic
Majesty should have a large working force; but it’s odd that every one
of them seems to be trying to improve something or somebody. Maybe the
minister meant to say men’s clubs.
* * * * *
The Business Women’s League of Nashville, with three hundred members,
has united with the Equal Suffrage League to move on the Legislature.
Apparently they have never heard from the lady “antis” what a hindrance
the ballot will be to the working woman but it is not yet too late for
the “antis” to save her from “impending doom,” in the classic language
of their president.
* * * * *
The anti-suffrage women are boasting of the cooperation they receive
from men. Sure—they are playing the game for the men!
* * * * *
Secretary Lane, of the Interior Department, says there will be no Indian
man without the suffrage when he goes out of office. The surprising
thing is that previous administrations have allowed a male of any sort
to escape having it thrust upon him.
* * * * *
The wizard of Hoboken announces that the zodiacal sign of Sagittarius
signifies that woman suffrage will be successful. Yes, all signs point
that way; but is there anything in the zodiac to indicate when?
* * * * *
Why is it that as soon as women get the suffrage in any State they are
called upon to clean up the cities and purify politics? As men have
always been held to be so much better qualified to vote than women, the
latter ought to find every city a Spotless Town and the political
atmosphere too rarefied to breathe in safety.
* * * * *
The college girls all marry, according to recent statistics. They have
to pass laws in many States to prevent school teachers from marrying.
You can hardly keep a trained nurse single until her patient gets well.
Stenographers go like hot cakes. The only girls that seem to have
trouble in getting married are the old fashioned, womanly kind that do
the sweetly domestic acts in the seclusion of the home.
* * * * *
At the big dinner given in New York for the Men and Religion Forward
Movement the dean of Yale Theological School said: “The Church must have
men because men are militant.” Go to: isn’t it militancy that is ruining
the Women and Suffrage Forward Movement?
* * * * *
Ex-President Eliot, of Harvard, anti-suffragist, says, “Women are better
adapted to work for the human beings of the future than men are.” Yes,
and as there wouldn’t be any human beings of the future if it were not
for women it almost seems as if they were of enough importance to have a
vote.
* * * * *
Why should the advocates of woman suffrage be criticised for trying to
defeat members of Congress who are opposed to it when all of the parties
do their best to prevent the election of their opponents? If the
suffragists did not try to keep their enemies out of Congress they
wouldn’t have political sense enough to vote.
* * * * *
The corporation counsel of the District of Columbia has ruled that the
new eight-hour law for women applies to those who do mechanical work in
a newspaper office, but not to those who do brain work. He probably
considers that those big, forty-page papers are a greater strain on
hands than brains, and it sure does seem like that when you try to read
them.
* * * * *
“As for me, I defy you women. Come and meet me on the stump.” Such were
the brave words of a New York alderman, and from that moment Ajax
defying the lightning was simply not in it.
* * * * *
All over the country ministers are giving sermons in favor of woman
suffrage. Why don’t the “antis” get some of them to preach against it?
Surely a few can be found who would dare to do it!
* * * * *
Mrs. John Martin, opposed to a vote because it will turn women from
matrimony, says that “soon the only women to marry will be the infirm
and the idiotic.” The anti-suffragists will continue to be eligible,
won’t they?
* * * * *
Ex-President Eliot has come to the front again to declare that there
wasn’t any Garden of Eden or Adam or Eve. All right. Then Eve didn’t eat
the apple and bring sin into the world; therefore that objection to
giving the ballot to the women of the United States is null and void.
* * * * *
Just at the psychical moment when the _Alienist and Neurologist_, a St.
Louis publication, devoted several pages to prove that the “cave man is
the type women adore” and that “the bigger the brute, the more a woman
clings to him,” a New York wife took a 200-pound husband by the ear and
led him to the police station, and one the same size in Chicago had his
wife arrested for cruel and inhuman treatment. It looks as if the women
themselves were trying the role of the cave man.
* * * * *
Have a Father’s Day, by all means, if any of them feel slighted; but
wouldn’t a “night” be more appropriate?
* * * * *
They say that a stenographer is the only woman to whom a man can dictate
these days. Is that the reason so many men marry their stenographers?
* * * * *
The New York suffragists are hunting for some means of moving Senators
Root and O’Gorman to favor their amendment. They might try an
earthquake.
* * * * *
The manager of a large school for the athletic training of girls says he
has a number of pupils who can “heave a weight one hundred and eighty
feet.” It almost seems that if women can do that they ought to have the
physical strength to heave a ballot into a box.
* * * * *
The anti-suffrage ladies mourned over the women’s peace parade because
it showed such a “thirst for publicity.” Yes; those timid, shrinking
creatures themselves wouldn’t do a thing except parade up and down the
streets wearing a big American Beauty rose to attract attention to their
being “antis;” open headquarters in conspicuous places, call mass
meetings and orate from the platform, besiege Congress and Legislatures,
attend political conventions and go before the committees and send their
representatives all over the country to conduct a publicity campaign
against the suffragists. Oh, yes, they’re “shrinking” all right—getting
smaller every day.
* * * * *
“If women go into politics, who will do their work?” wail the “antis.”
The men can do it, as they’ve already taken most of it away from the
home.
* * * * *
How could anybody wish the poor congressmen a Happy New Year when they
had to begin it by voting on woman suffrage?
* * * * *
The churches and the social-uplift societies seem to have almost as much
trouble in stopping the tango as the government does in putting an end
to the snake dances among the Indians.
* * * * *
That new woman fire inspector in New York reported in one week
thirty-seven violations of the law. The next thing she knows she will
lose her job.
* * * * *
A hen at the Agricultural College of Oregon has laid 283 eggs this year,
while the roosters stood around and crowed; and a cow in Michigan has
given 18,733 pounds of milk, while the—but why specialize in order to
prove the superior value of “the female of the species?”
* * * * *
Miss Julia Lathrop, head of the National Children’s Bureau, says, “The
anti-suffragists are like the hypnotized chickens which balk at a chalk
line when there is nothing beyond.” Yes, and after the ballot is
actually given to women they are just like chickens when some corn is
dropped the other side of the chalk line.
* * * * *
French annuity companies have discovered that women live twenty years
longer than men, and now they propose to give women a choice of dying
young or having their premiums raised.
* * * * *
“If my mother-in-law comes to heaven, I’ll leave,” wrote a New Orleans
man, just before he committed suicide. Doubtless she will speed the
parting guest.
* * * * *
It is too bad that members of the European nobility cannot come over
here to hunt grizzly bears without being accused of seeking a rich wife,
but perhaps it is because their graces and lordships have so long
considered American heiresses as game.
* * * * *
Chicago women say that when they had to go to the City Hall before they
got the ballot the officials there were polite but now they are cordial.
In other words women without a vote are tolerated; with it, they are
welcomed. Unfortunately many women don’t know the difference.
* * * * *
Morrison I. Swift, lecturing on the “Humanist Forum,” whatever that may
be, says, “Women are amazingly incompetent to bring up children, have no
special aptitude for it and it is doubtful whether they have any real
liking for it.” So? Well, perhaps men had better try their hand at it
for a while; but any woman who ever left father in charge for a few
hours and remembers the general chaos she found on her return has her
doubts as to man’s aptitude along this line.
* * * * *
“Woman’s closer relation to the machinery of government is inexpedient,”
says the chairman of the New York anti-suffrage press committee. Well,
if she takes out an accident policy she might run the risk of watching
to see that it doesn’t slip so many cogs.
* * * * *
An army of suffragists have just ended a 400-mile walk from Edinburgh to
present a suffrage petition to Prime Minister Asquith. The suffragette
way is quicker—they just wrap it around a stone and throw it through his
window. Both branches of the movement seem to have proved that they
possess the physical strength to cast a ballot.
* * * * *
The health commissioner of New York is determined that all the
restaurants and hotel dining-rooms shall display signs telling how much
benzoate of soda and similar stuff there is in the pastry. It is often
asked why men make so much better cooks than women but no such signs
were ever necessary on the pies that mother used to make.
* * * * *
Irvin Cobb told them at the Kentucky dinner that “the reason woman
suffrage is not a success in his State is that woman can never be man’s
equal because she is always his superior.” That remark has a sort of
“befo’ the wah” flavor. Women accept man’s word that they are much his
superior but when they get the ballot they will try to improve his
status.
* * * * *
A “mere man” complains in a Chicago paper that “men have dwindled in
importance in the eyes of women.” Don’t worry! They are just as
important as ever in their own eyes.
* * * * *
The pugilists of California are so mad because prize fights are
prohibited that they are going to move out of the State to spite the
women who did it.
* * * * *
The Los Angeles woman police officer who is touring the Eastern States
gives as one great advantage of woman suffrage that men no longer have
to go down town to talk politics. A good many men would consider that an
argument against it.
* * * * *
The secretary of state for New York is willing to concede a good deal to
women, but insists on the “physical superiority” of men. Then how do all
life insurance statistics happen to show that women live to a much
greater age than men?
* * * * *
Dr. Forbes Ross, an eminent English physician, has discovered that in
two thousand years the men will have degenerated into gorillas. The
women can save the race, he says, but not if they insist on the vote.
The women will probably answer that they will take the vote now and run
the risk of the gorillas two thousand years hence. And, when one comes
to think of it, after the treatment the suffragists in England have
received from some of the present generation of men, gorillas would have
no terrors for them!
* * * * *
Another English doctor heard from! This one deprecates the present style
of dress because “it does away with the mystery in women, which is
greatly against their own interests.” Let the doctor calm himself—woman
will always be enough of a mystery to keep the men busy guessing.
* * * * *
A Florida woman writes to the National Suffrage Association for
permission to organize a troop of cavalry women, arm them with light
rifles and send them to the Legislature to get a suffrage bill. The
Southern women have been rather slow to get started but when they do
they will go on horseback where the Northern women have gone on foot.
* * * * *
The chivalry of medieval times was of poor quality compared with the
brand they have in Kansas. A man out there was too chivalrous to stand
as candidate for an office when he found his opponent was a woman. This
is a vast improvement on going to war with your lady’s handkerchief on
the point of your spear.
* * * * *
On the adjournment of Congress, when the men who had been fighting each
other for months and using language that had to be expunged from the
_Record_ fell on one another’s necks and wept and sang “Blest be the tie
that binds”—it was then the women in the gallery realized that their sex
is far too emotional and hysterical ever to make the laws for the
nation.
* * * * *
Alexander Graham Bell says in his letter on eugenics, “Always remember
that you are marrying a family, not a person.” Alas, yes; and if you
forget it you are very apt to be reminded of it afterward.
* * * * *
Now that President Wilson has received Colonel Harvey and Colonel
Watterson with open arms he ought to be ready to do the Abraham act with
the suffragists.
* * * * *
It cost $11.40 a piece to register voters in Greater New York for the
spring election. Will those who are clamoring for a referendum of the
suffrage question to women themselves at a special election please state
who will foot the bill?
* * * * *
Dr. Mary Walker is greatly disgusted with the suffragists for making so
much fuss to obtain a right which is already guaranteed to them under
the Constitution. If she really believes this let her try to cast a vote
at the next election. There is always room in jail for one more.
* * * * *
The Anti-Suffrage Association has issued “The Woman’s Creed,” which
says, “I believe in making every effort to protect the good name of our
American men from the attacks of the suffragists.” Bless their soft,
little hearts! One would think from their literator that the suffragists
hadn’t any men of their own that they would fight to the last ditch for
if necessary. What the “antis” should do is to protect men from the
blandishments of the suffragists after their votes.
* * * * *
As man has only fourteen pockets in his clothes the tailors are now
putting in another, a secret one, where he can hide his money from his
wife. As it is only the size of a watch pocket she won’t grudge him the
contents; besides she will know where it is located almost as soon as he
does himself.
* * * * *
An “inspired” article says that there are signs of a revolt among the
wives in nearly all the royal families of Europe and that “it is because
the ideas of Mrs. Pankhurst have permeated the circles of royalty.” If
Mrs. Pankhurst had accomplished no more than this, she would deserve all
the honors her followers claim for her.
* * * * *
The president of a New York club said in her address to the City
Federation the other day, “You neglect culture and buzz around too much;
you should set aside ten minutes every day to meditate on something
refining and ennobling.” Like that speech, for instance; but isn’t ten
minutes a day an awful lot of time to spend on culture?
* * * * *
The 140,000 members of the Woman Suffrage Party in New York City are
balloting for their officers in the different districts. The
Anti-Suffrage State Society announces that it is increasing at the rate
of one thousand a month. This proves that in one hundred and forty
months it will catch up with the city party, provided the latter doesn’t
add any new members.
* * * * *
The most important thing in regard to the candidacy of that woman from
Kansas who is running for Congress is that it shows there is no
constitutional barrier to women members of Congress. All they have to do
is to get elected.
* * * * *
The anti-feminists have always related with great joy that it is the
female mosquito which does the biting, but scientists have now learned
that the reason the male of the species refrains is because he has
nothing to bite with.
* * * * *
At the next registration in Montana after women were enfranchised, there
was a sprinting match to see who would be enrolled first; but sad to
relate it was won by the two leaders of the anti-suffrage movement.
* * * * *
A fashion periodical offers a large salary to a young man who
understands the entire subject of a woman’s clothes and can edit a
woman’s magazine. As has been often remarked, women are invading men’s
domain and crowding them out of their legitimate work!
* * * * *
The first Anti-Suffrage Association in the United States or any other
country was organized in Massachusetts in 1884. It has labored
diligently ever since with the excellent result that both houses of the
Legislature have voted by immense majorities to submit the question to
the electors. If the “antis” will do their level best, it may pull
through at the polls.
* * * * *
Dr. Hugh Cabot, of Puritan Boston, says that “if women want men to
reform, they must cease to tempt them.” Maybe so, the poor things! but
how did they ever happen to be called “the stronger sex”?
* * * * *
The Guidon Anti-Suffrage Club of New York is devoting itself to a study
of the Bible. Nobody needs the consolations of religion quite so much
just now as the anti-suffragists.
* * * * *
That dull thud which was heard in the direction of Springfield, Ill.,
was Senator Shaw, of Decatur, being dropped from his committee
chairmanships because he presented a resolution to repeal the woman
suffrage law.
* * * * *
The wife of Congressman Taylor, of Colorado, says the women of that
State have found that it does not take as long to vote as it does to
match a piece of silk. It is to be hoped not or the worst fears of the
“antis” as to the neglect of the home and family would be more than
realized.
* * * * *
Sir Almoth Wright says that women ask for the suffrage because they
“have not been taught the defects and limitations of the feminine mind.”
This is not because Sir A. W. and men of his stripe haven’t wasted a
good deal of more or less valuable time pointing them out; but in
another chapter he says, “Failure to recognize that man is the master
lies at the root of the suffrage movement,” and to this the women plead
guilty when they can stop laughing.
* * * * *
The French courts have decided that a married woman may spend as much on
clothes as the rent of her home. If she lived in New York she could
dress like the Queen of Sheba.
* * * * *
The big council of the Chippewas in Wisconsin recently declared for
woman suffrage. The Indians know what it is to be without a vote; they
are not like the chesty white men, who never did a thing to earn one and
therefore don’t want to share it.
* * * * *