people seemed inflexibly determined not to rule.” Before this statement
is accepted give that half of the people a chance who have been trying
to get it since 1848.
* * * * *
Miss Ida Tarbell says, “I don’t take much interest in magazines for
women only, as I am incapable of differentiating women from the human
race.” It is only when it comes to having the right of individual
representation that Miss Tarbell would differentiate women from the rest
of the human race.
* * * * *
At the anti-suffrage headquarters opened in Washington at the time of
the parade they announced that during the first four days two thousand
persons registered. Some of the suffrage mathematicians figured out that
this would mean a registration of more than one person every minute for
eight hours of every day—a manifest absurdity. It seems sometimes as if
the sole object of the suffragists was to be disagreeable.
* * * * *
The Sir Almoth Wright who has recently written a book on woman suffrage
which can’t be mentioned in good society is the same individual who last
year put forth a treatise against taking a bath; but really he should
have allowed an exception after reading his book.
* * * * *
The “antis” say that when legislators favor woman suffrage because they
think the women will vote for them, they forget the women who don’t want
it and will vote against them to get even. True, and they don’t take
into account what a tremendous power these women are already with their
“indirect influence.”
* * * * *
The egg crop is said to be worth as much to the country financially as
the cotton crop and far more than the wheat crop, and women to be
responsible for nine-tenths of the poultry crop. It might also be said
that the hens are responsible for all of it but they don’t belong to the
sex that does the crowing.
* * * * *
What are the women coming to? A man jumps up in the midst of an eloquent
speech by the president of the National Suffrage Association and asks
her to marry him, and she answers that she would rather have a vote than
a husband! The time was when a woman would rather have a husband; but
then she never had had a chance to know the value of a vote.
* * * * *
According to the society notes our women will now have to wear gowns
made by American dressmakers: All right; it doesn’t matter who makes a
woman’s dress if only they will make enough of it.
* * * * *
Sensible women are terribly mortified sometimes as they look at the
fashion illustrations in the Sunday papers, but when they turn to the
next page and see the baseball pictures they feel that in the ridiculous
women have been outclassed.
* * * * *
Mrs. Havelock Ellis, an English woman lecturing in this country, advises
all women to refuse to kiss their husbands until they get the suffrage.
This would be somewhat risky, as getting the suffrage is a slow process
and meanwhile the husbands might go elsewhere for their kisses.
* * * * *
“Let us, oh, let us hold fast to monogamy!” wail the “antis.”
“Scientists believe it is the normal and natural relationship of
humans.” Then don’t be alarmed, for even woman suffrage cannot entirely
destroy what is natural and normal. One husband, one wife. All right.
Now let every “anti” catch a husband—if she can.
* * * * *
The leader of the suffrage forces in Chicago says that “to appeal to
American men’s sense of justice is all women have to do in order to
obtain fair dealing,” and the Indianapolis _News_ comments: “That’s the
way to get results—flatter the brutes!” Yes, the Michigan women recently
tried it and they got results all right.
* * * * *
No, the public has been too thoroughly hardened by the present styles in
women’s dress to be frightened at anything that may happen if hoop
skirts come in again.
* * * * *
Boston’s new mayor has dismissed all the women employes from the office,
on the ground that “it is not a fit place for women.” Probably he knows
what kind of a place it is going to be from now on.
* * * * *
In a temperance play running in New York the husband asks, “Where is my
wandering wife tonight?” The answer of course should be, “At a suffrage
meeting,” for women never neglect their homes for any other purpose.
* * * * *
A good many people always seem to be in doubt, along at inauguration
time, as to how the great Jefferson got up to the Capitol. It is to be
hoped the gentleman himself knew whether he was afoot or on horseback on
that auspicious occasion.
* * * * *
The anti-suffragists have issued a ton or so of literature to show that
the constitution of women can never endure the nervous strain of voting.
Now the presidents of the State medical associations in all the States
where women have been voting from two to forty-five years have signed a
statement that if anything has happened to their constitutions their
family physicians haven’t discovered it. The “antis” are playing in hard
luck—every time they start out a nice little theory it runs up against a
fact and is smashed to splinters.
* * * * *
Some time ago the women of Larned, Kan., met and resolved to use
horsewhips on the professional gamblers if they did not leave the town.
Now they have not exactly turned their spears into pruning hooks, but
they have exchanged their horsewhips for ballots, and when they tell the
gamblers to leave town they will gather up their outfit and go.
* * * * *
Some men are making an effort nowadays to scare women out of their
independence by letting them stand in the street cars; but the women
answer that they are better able to stand than many of the men they see
sitting down, and that, according to statistics, a woman has a good many
more years to ride on street cars than men have.
* * * * *
“We stand for an economic system which will enable every man to support
a family so that women need not go outside the home to work,” say the
Socialists. A good idea; but suppose some men wouldn’t use their
earnings that way, and some women would rather work outside and support
themselves than to do the same amount of work inside and have to be
supported?
* * * * *
“The action of the Federation of Clubs at their biennial, indorsing
woman suffrage,” says Mrs. Dodge, national president of the “antis,”
“was a clear case of gag rule in a packed convention.” Well, if the
suffragists could “pack” a convention to the extent of ninety-eight per
cent. and “gag” two thousand delegates they are certainly almost clever
enough to vote.
* * * * *
The woman who recently climbed to the top of Harvard Glacier in Alaska
is a strong suffragist. Seems as if it would have to be a cold day when
she was not able to go to the polls.
* * * * *
New York’s Alderman Quinn objects to woman suffrage because it would
make monkeys of the men. Don’t worry—a lot of them haven’t waited for
woman suffrage.
* * * * *
A young “efficiency expert” in Chicago tells his audiences that because
a woman’s heart is in matrimony she is and always will be a failure in
business. Give her a chance, son! Business is a matter of the head.
* * * * *
Under the English poor law medicine cannot be supplied to a sick wife
unless her husband makes application for it, and if he can’t or won’t
support her the almshouse will not receive her unless he will come
along. To understand the reason for the suffragette movement over there,
read the laws.
* * * * *
Those clever antis! What wonderful research work they are doing! Having
discovered that woman suffrage has led to polygamy in Wyoming, Colorado,
Idaho, Washington, Oregon, California, Arizona, Kansas, Nevada, Montana
and Illinois, they have now found, according to their official
statement, that it means “the deliberate return to savagery.” Alas, yes!
one can hear the war whoops even now—they sound like the suffragists
celebrating a victory!
* * * * *
Frenchmen often express great sympathy for the wife-ruled American
husband, but they can’t point to a case over here where wives have a
quarrel and then stand their husbands up to fight a duel in order to
settle it.
* * * * *
Congress treats women better than their forefathers did, for rather than
pay taxes they destroyed the women’s favorite beverage—tea—and held onto
rum; but Congress has taxed beer and whiskey to the limit and left the
women their soft drinks.
* * * * *
The New York _Tribune_ congratulates the country that the American woman
is not trying to be a man. The very idea! As if women, having almost
reached the top step, would deliberately turn around and tumble to the
bottom!
* * * * *
The-anti-suffragists have declared officially that they “recognize man
as the head of the nation’s household.” All right, he is welcome to sit
at the head of the table; but that doesn’t mean that the rest of the
family must not have anything to eat.
* * * * *
The Chicago _American_ allows the women to get out a “suffrage” edition
and they clean up a neat little profit of $15,000 for the “cause.” The
New York Hippodrome gives the suffragists a benefit performance and
their treasury can’t hold the profits. Seems as if we never hear of any
anti-suffrage special editions or theater benefits. Wouldn’t anybody buy
or go?
* * * * *
All the pilots and captains on the Panama Canal are now required to be
teetotalers. Pretty soon they will be forbidden to swear, and then
Colonel Goethals will have to get women to run his boats.
* * * * *
President John Adams is said to have declared that “politics are the
devil’s own,” but that was when “they” belonged entirely to the
masculine half of the population.
* * * * *
A London physical-culture professor has announced that it is possible
for every woman to have as perfect a figure as the Venus de Milo. If it
is to be so common as that, the most of them would prefer to look like
somebody else.
* * * * *
They do say that out in those Western States husband and wife frequently
vote the same ticket to avoid discord in the family, but it is not
always the ticket which the husband thought he was going to vote when
they began discussing the matter.
* * * * *
A number of States have enacted a law that men who are physically unable
to get to the polls may send their ballots by mail. This should dispose
of the objection that the franchise must not be given to women because
so much of the time they would not be well enough to go to the polling
place. Incidentally, if men are not able to get to the polls, they are
not able to fight, and therefore, if women must not be allowed to vote
because they cannot fight, then these incapacitated men should be
disfranchised.
* * * * *
The National Women’s Anti-Suffrage Association announces that it spent
less than $10,000 in the seven campaign States last fall. Why should it
waste even that much good money when the other branches of the
opposition were amply able to furnish hundreds of thousands and did so?
* * * * *
“Oh, suffragists, do you know that if you succeed the future men will be
one-sided mongrels in nature and education, having had two fathers and
no mother?” (Anti-suffrage document.) Good gracious! Just to think
they’ve got ‘em like that in those Western States, and the rest of the
country doesn’t even know it!
* * * * *
When the women of a certain church in Brooklyn ask for a voice in its
affairs they are told that St. Paul commanded women to keep silent in
the churches; but when they take up the calendar Sunday morning they
find a request from the deacons to take off their hats. They are now
insisting that Paul and the deacons come to an understanding.
* * * * *
Leaders of the anti-suffragists insist that women shall not be
enfranchised against their protest, but when all the big organizations
of women in the country are asking for it, who is making the protest?
What is the matter with that ninety per cent. the antis claim to
represent that they can’t speak up? Ninety per cent. can make a great
deal more noise than ten.
* * * * *
President Wilson said the last session of Congress accomplished so much
simply by “sawing wood.” He was careful not to add, “and saying
nothing.”
* * * * *
John Redmond and his followers want home rule for Ireland but they don’t
intend that those who rule the home shall have any part in it.
* * * * *
The entire State of Kansas is quarantined because of the foot-and-mouth
disease. This is the strongest argument against woman suffrage that the
“antis” have been able to find for a long time.
* * * * *
“Persons who try to stop the woman suffrage movement,” said a Chicago
elections commissioner, “are in the position of a man throwing himself
in front of a locomotive.” Well, they always expect that the bosses who
run the political machines will apply the brake.
* * * * *
The latest government report from New Zealand, where women have voted
twenty-one years, shows that, while the population has doubled in thirty
years, the number of men in prison has increased only from 631 to 853,
and the number of women prisoners has decreased from 94 to 64. It seems
from these figures that woman suffrage in New Zealand did not double the
criminal vote and did not produce a reign of anarchy and crime. Perhaps
it is only in the United States and in those of the States where it has
never been tried that it will have this effect. Still the “antis” should
bolster up their charge with a statistic or two.
* * * * *
The Keith and Proctor circuits forbid any burlesquing of the
suffragists. That’s right, and the anti-suffragists give their own
continuous vaudeville performances.
* * * * *
One little woman in the big Woolworth Building in New York manages the
electrical apparatus for running twenty-eight elevators—and yet some
people think a woman hasn’t nerve enough to drop a ballot in a box.
* * * * *
Gertrude Atherton says, “Women politicians will be just like men
politicians—no better, no worse.” We knew, of course, that they couldn’t
be any—well, we had hoped they might prove to be a little better.
* * * * *
“Young women,” said Representative Bowdle, of Cincinnati, in the
suffrage debate, “will beware of this movement, which positively
destroys all feminine charm and deters young men from marriage.” (Loud
applause by the sixty-seven married members from the twelve States where
women vote.)
* * * * *
Before and after taking was strikingly illustrated by the Missouri
Legislature in its action on the woman-suffrage amendment. The senate
adjourned to the assembly chamber to hear the women present their case.
The committee reported unanimously in favor. Both houses adopted the
report by large majorities. Then St. Louis suddenly got busy and the
Legislature rescinded its action! It heard its master’s voice!
* * * * *
By a new law voters in Nebraska can send their ballots through the mail
when necessary. This answers the question, Who will care for the baby
when mother votes? Mother will and Uncle Sam will deposit her ballot.
Anti-suffs knocked out again!
* * * * *
The doctors are now admonishing the women that if they keep on with the
present style of tight-fitting hats and headbands nothing can save them
from baldness. Women have been listening to this kind of prophecy for
several generations and yet have kept their hair on; but when they look
about they observe that nearly all the men are baldheaded.
* * * * *
Representatives of nearly all the organizations of women in Chicago are
demanding that places shall be given to women on the boards of
education, of parks and of libraries. How can they do it when they see
how splendidly all matters connected with the municipality are managed
by men? Women don’t seem to be showing that old-time admiration and
trust which used to be their greatest charm.
* * * * *
The Simple Life and Open Air Exposition in London is exhibiting the
Fully Furnished Man, who carries on his person all the necessities of
life except food. That is nothing to be proud of. All the other animals
have done this ever since they ceased to belong to the vegetable
kingdom. The only difficulty will be to keep this new kind of man out of
civilized society.
* * * * *
Why try to get acquainted with the people on Mars, when we have so
little time to give to those we know on earth?
* * * * *
It is charged that 46,000 men have deserted from the regular army during
the last ten years. Should women who are willing to fight but can’t be
disfranchised on that account, while men who can fight but won’t are
freely granted the vote?
* * * * *
One of the Western railroads has placed a woman in charge of its dining
car and the customary howl at women’s usurping the work of men is now in
order. To be sure having charge of a dining-room has always been
considered a woman’s business but that was only when there was no salary
attached.
* * * * *
“We must abolish everything that bears even the semblance of privilege,”
is the Wilson slogan. Thanks, Mr. President. Will you kindly get
yourself into a state of mind where you can see that the possession of
the suffrage by only one-half the people is about the most iniquitous
privilege that could exist?
* * * * *
Mrs. Dodge, president of the Anti-Suffrage Association, wants to go into
the fight against suffrage in the next presidential campaign with
500,000 women at her back. All right; she will need every one of them.
But what is to become of the half-million families while the wives and
mothers are marching on to victory behind Mrs. Dodge?
* * * * *
“Bustles” for women are to be the fashion this spring. Thanks for the
prospect of even that much relief to the helpless onlookers.
* * * * *
Mr. Croker’s Indian bride says she cannot be a “squaw” until she is a
mother. Oh, yes; first a squall then a squaw.
* * * * *
“The pay here,” said Mayor Curley, of Boston, in dismissing all the
women in his office, “is quite sufficient to maintain a man.” Then how
on earth did women ever happen to get the jobs?
* * * * *
“Behind the skirts of suffragism,” says an official statement of the
“antis,” “Mormonism goes to the polls, socialism marches red and rampant
on the streets, and feminism stalks and swaggers in our homes.” The
old-fashioned thing—to wear skirts so wide as all that!
* * * * *
The Alimony Club of divorced husbands in New York are howling loud and
long because the court has ruled that they must continue the payment of
alimony even though they are kept in prison and can’t earn a dollar.
Another crowd who are out of jail are rending the air because they have
to pay alimony just the same after their former spouses have wedded
again. The fair divorcees answer that since only men are considered
competent to make the laws or even to elect the lawmakers, they have no
right to kick against the results. Its awful the little respect women
show nowadays for the superior wisdom of men!
* * * * *
It is rather late in the day to warn women against being “jostled at the
polls.” That is about the only place where they would not get jostled.
* * * * *
Paris is tired of the tango. Public opinion caused it to be danced too
respectably. It may hold on awhile in the United States, we can stand a
considerable amount of respectability, but not too much when it becomes
unfashionable.
* * * * *
No, Ethelyn, Lu Lu Temple is not the name of a woman suffrage
headquarters. It is the rendezvous of an ancient and honorable body of
men in Philadelphia, where they think women are too frivolous to vote.
* * * * *
Arkansas has now been added to the list of “dry” States by action of its
Legislature and Wisconsin requires a health certificate from would-be
bridegrooms. No woman suffrage in either State. Really the men are
getting so good nowadays there will be nobody for women to reform when
they obtain the ballot.
* * * * *
The superintendent of public schools in Cincinnati will start “a six
months’ course of study for prospective brides,” and besides all the
usual housekeeping stunts they will be taught to calk a water pipe, put
up shelves, mend door knobs, etc. If he isn’t careful he will create a
prospect that will scare all the girls away from matrimony. Women can be
so many things nowadays besides carpenters and plumbers.
* * * * *
The New York _Tribune_ says, “Another ten years and the clinging vine
will be only a moist and tender memory.” What a fortunate thing for the
oak!
* * * * *
The sphygmograph is the invention of a woman doctor and the person who
wears it cannot tell a lie, even to his wife. Something of this sort was
bound to happen when women were permitted to enter the medical
profession.
* * * * *
“Feminism is the process of putting father out of business,” is a
specimen anti-suffrage epigram. If feminism means that able-bodied young
women shall earn their own living, perhaps father will have a chance to
get something ahead for his old age.
* * * * *
The Reno _Gazette_ in its fight against the suffrage amendment said that
when a straw vote of the women was taken in 1895 in Massachusetts, they
declared against enfranchisement 38 to 1. Suppose they did—what has that
to do with the women of Nevada in 1914? The fact is, however, that the
women voted in favor of it 25 to 1. Next!
* * * * *
And so the anti-suffrage ladies are going into the thick of the
congressional fray to help elect the men who will promise not to give
them a vote! It is now in order for them to get up a street parade and
then the suffragists won’t have a thing on them—they will have done
everything they were afraid they might have to do if enfranchised and
they haven’t got the ballot as a compensation for doing it. The joke is
on them.
* * * * *
The ancient question, “Could women voters work out their road tax?” has
been answered by two in Iowa. They did worse, for they won two out of
three prizes offered by the county for work on highways. It was all
right for them to do the work but very wrong for them to win the prizes.
* * * * *
“Women never could serve on the police force,” an anti-suffragist rushes
into print to declare. “Could frail woman withstand, year in and year
out, the severe climatic changes constantly occurring?” Well, several
million of her do, as they start out each morning to earn their daily
bread.
* * * * *
The “antis” are dreadfully vexed at the suffragists because of their
reported attempts to convert the women public-school teachers, the women
in the government departments, the women wage-earners and women in
divers other capacities. Putting it mildly they are like the schoolboy
who wrote, “To sum up Daniel Webster’s character—it is one which I do
not approve!”
* * * * *
Some awful things are promised in the season’s styles for man. They are
to be more expensive, which will require him to owe his tailor more than
ever. Evening trousers are to be very loose so that he can perpetrate
the tango and turkey trot without accident. For the rest of the day the
clothes are to be very tight so as to show the natural form, and this is
where the public will start a suffragette movement.
* * * * *
Do not criticise Mr. Bryan because he said nothing new in regard to
woman suffrage. Everything that could be said was said long ago but
until recently the political ears were very deaf and very long.
* * * * *
In Chicago, before the women took a hand, the disposal of the garbage
cost the city $4,000 a month; now it nets a profit of $2,000 a month,
and yet people wonder why the grafters are so dead set against votes for
women.
* * * * *
The various parties seem to be having a hard time with the “political
uplift.” Some day it will occur to them that until women lend a hand
they will be trying to lift themselves by their bootstraps.
* * * * *
They opened a big hotel in Los Angeles a few months ago for men only,
and already they announce that henceforth women also will be welcomed as
patrons. Funny, isn’t it, when hotels for women only are flourishing all
over the country, that the men couldn’t flock alone in a single one?
* * * * *
Before the last committee hearing on woman suffrage in Washington, Mrs.
Dodge, national president of the “antis,” announced that the members of
Congress had been sufficiently bored, so to speak, and her forces would
not appear. The love of the limelight was too strong, however, and there
they were in the center of the stage, singing the old, sweet song,
“Woman’s place is at home in the bosom of her family.”
* * * * *
The turkey trot and bunny hug have been replaced by the goose waddle,
which is really much more indicative of those who dance it.
* * * * *
“Love is a disease,” says a Chicago doctor, “called anaphylaxis—lack of
resistance.” This is merely a trick of the profession to increase the
number of their patients, but the Chicago girls dare them to try to cure
it.
* * * * *
A booth was built in New York City in a district where only three men
voted, yet members of the Legislature object to giving suffrage to women
because it would require more voting booths. Who helps to pay for those
the men use?
* * * * *