Few questions have been so universally and intensely discussed as the
right and expediency of Woman Suffrage. Its opponents assert that the
true woman needs no governing authority conferred upon her by law. While
discussing this question one “gentleman” said “that the highest evidence
of respect that man could exhibit toward woman, and the noblest service
he could perform for her, were to vote =Nay= to the proposition that
would take from her the diadem of pearls, the talisman of faith, hope
and love, by which all other requests are won from men, and substitute
for it the iron crown of authority.”
The chief arguments brought forward against woman suffrage are: that the
majority of the women never desired it, because they were already
represented by their husbands, fathers and brothers; that there were
already too many voters, and that by admitting women to suffrage the
whole machinery and cost of voting would be doubled without changing the
result; that women would not have time to perform their political duties
without neglecting their higher duties at home; that women were too
emotional and sentimental to be entrusted with the ballot; that women
would cease to vote after the novelty had worn off; that the
introduction of women into political life would increase its bitterness,
and would abolish chivalry with its refining influence on men; that the
franchise, in a large majority of instances, would be exercised under
the influence of priests, parsons, and ministers, under the power of
religious prejudice, and that religious feuds would affect political
life much more than under present circumstances. And finally it has been
asserted that woman suffrage would place a new and terrible strain upon
family relations as the introduction of political disputes into domestic
life would lead to quarrels and divorce.
These arguments were answered in an editorial of the “New York American”
of October 6, 1912, as follows:
“The ballot is the weapon that men use in defending their rights. It is
the voice with which men express their opinions, their wishes, as to
law, in the more settled civilization where the ballot is the recognized
power. Little by little the mass of the people—that is to say, of the
men—have got the ballot. Originally there was no ballot. Savage tribes
held disorganized meetings, and shouted their opinions. The loudest
shouters won, and the man who could hit the hardest led the others.
Little by little the big man formed his own opinions, alone reached his
own decisions, and the others had nothing to say. The expression of
opinion was confined to one, or to a few leaders, gathered under a
chief, or, where religion ruled, opinion was controlled by the priests
in the old temples making up their minds what would be good =for them=,
and forcing their will on ignorant people. For many centuries the kings,
the nobles and the priests ruled—and the people had nothing to say. =Men
and women alike were without the vote.=
“Little by little, the men got the vote, and now, in civilized
countries, universal suffrage became the rule, =as regards men=. The
women were shut out because men always have had the idea that voting was
in some way connected with fighting. Their thoughts went back to the old
savage mob shouting its determination to attack and kill—leaving the
women at home. And the ignoring of women persists, although little by
little the voting power has been used, not to make war, =but to prevent
war=.
“Now, in every country calling itself civilized, the chief use of the
ballot is to express ideas of peace—justice. The ballot that was once
the expression of man’s fighting quality is now the expression of his
=better nature=, and for that reason it is time to give that ballot to
the better half of the human race, to the women that have civilized it.
“Supporters of women suffrage are, and for many years have been, the
best men in the country. Men that are unselfish, just, scorning
ridicule, and proud to vindicate the rights of their own mothers and
sisters, have long demanded votes for women. The women that have worked
and fought for the suffrage have been, beyond all comparison, the best
women of this and other countries. Humorists used to talk of
“short-haired women and long-haired men” as the advocates of woman
suffrage. That is a foolish and false division. The women with good
foreheads, earnest, gentle and dignified faces have been the advocates
of votes for women. The women with low foreheads, plastered with hair,
the women with their faces painted, the women with a hundred thoughts
for dress and no thought for anything else, have been the opponents of
women suffrage. And the men, brutal, conceited, looking upon woman as a
piece of property, created for man’s pleasure or for his service, have
been the men that opposed suffrage. Another class opposed to woman
suffrage is the most dangerous class of all. That is the class that
would keep in ignorance women, and men, too, if it could. Those that
prey upon the ignorance and superstition of women are anxious that women
shall know as little as possible. They do not want the women to vote,
=for voting means thinking, and thinking means freedom=. Wherever women
have voted they have bettered conditions.”—
Lecky in his valuable book “Democracy and Liberty” writes on page 547:
“It has been gravely alleged that the whole character of the female sex
would be revolutionized, or at least seriously impaired, if they were
brought by the suffrage into public life. There is perhaps no subject in
which exaggerations so enormous and so grotesque may be found in the
writings of considerable men. Considered in itself, the process of
voting is now merely that of marking once in several years a
ballot-paper in a quiet room, and it may be easily accomplished in five
minutes. And can it reasonably be said that the time or thought which an
average male elector bestows on the formation of his political opinions
is such as to interfere in any appreciable degree with the currents of
his thoughts, with the tendencies of his character or life? Men wrote on
this subject as if public life and interests formed the main occupation
of an ordinary voter. It is said that domestic life should be the one
sphere of woman. Very many women—especially those to whom the vote would
be conceded—have no domestic, or but few domestic duties to attend to,
and are compelled, if they are not wholly frivolous or wholly apathic,
to seek spheres of useful activity beyond their homes. Even a full
domestic life is scarcely more absorbing to a woman than professional
life to a man. Scarcely any woman is so engrossed in it that she cannot
bestow on public affairs an amount of time and intelligence equal to
that which is bestowed on it by thousands of masculine voters. Nothing
can be more fantastic than to argue as if electors were a select body,
mainly occupied with political studies and public interests.
“Women form a great section of the community, and they have many special
interests. The opening to them of employments, professions and
endowments; the regulation of their labor; questions of women’s property
and succession; the punishment of crimes against women; female
education; laws relating to marriage, guardianship, and divorce, may all
be cited; and in the great drink question they are even more interested
than men, for though they are the more sober sex, they are also the sex
which suffers most from the consequences of intemperance. With such a
catalogue of special interests it is impossible to say that they have
not a claim to representation.”—
Among the arguments in favor of woman suffrage the most important are
the following: As women are citizens of a Government =of= the people,
=by= the people, and =for= the people, and =as women are people=, who
wish to do their civic duty, it is unfair that they should be governed
by laws in the making of which they have no voice. As women are equally
concerned with men in good and bad government, and equally responsible
for civic righteousness, and as they must obey the laws just as men do,
they should vote equally with men.
If it is true that “taxation without representation is tyranny” then
tax-paying women who support the government by paying taxes, should have
the right to vote to elect such representatives, who protect them
against unjust taxation.
Working women need the ballot to regulate the conditions under which
they work. Millions of women are wage-earners and their health is often
endangered by bad working conditions and sweat-shop methods that can
only be remedied by legislation.
Business women need the ballot to secure for themselves a fair
opportunity in their business, and to protect themselves against adverse
legislation.
Mothers and housekeepers need the vote to regulate the moral and
sanitary conditions under which their families must live. Women are
forever told that their place is in the home. But what do men expect of
them in the home? Merely to stay there is not enough. They are a failure
unless they do certain things for the home. They must minister, as far
as their means allow, to the health and welfare, moral as well as
physical, of their family, and especially of the children. They, more
than anybody else, are held responsible for what becomes of the
children. Women are responsible for the cleanliness of the house, for
the wholesomeness of the food, for their children’s health and morals.
But mothers cannot control these things, if the neighbors are allowed to
live in filth, if dealers are permitted to sell poor or adulterated
food, if the plumbing in the house is unsanitary, if garbage accumulates
and the halls and stairs are left dirty. They can take every care to
avoid fire, but if the house has been badly built, if the fire-escapes
are insufficient or not fire-proof, they cannot guard their children
from the horrors of being maimed or killed by fire. They can open the
windows to give the children the air that we are told is so necessary.
But if the air is laden with infection and contagious diseases, they
cannot protect the children from this danger. They can send the children
out for air and exercise, but if the conditions that surround them in
the streets are immoral and degrading, they cannot protect them from
these influences. Women alone cannot make these things right. But the
City administration can do it. The administration is elected by the
people, to protect the interests of the people. As men hold women
responsible for the conditions under which the children live, the women
should have something to say about the city’s housekeeping, even if they
must introduce an occasional house-cleaning.
What enormous influence women are able to exert in vital questions has
been demonstrated in the =Temperance Movement=; which originated in the
United States. Since the beginning of the colonization of the Western
Hemisphere Americans have been heavy consumers of rum, whiskey, and
other intoxicating liquors. “Everybody drank, and on all occasions,”
says a writer who has left us a pen picture of these bibulous days.
Drunkenness and all the evils resulting from it increased with the
gradual development of the “saloon” and the habit of “treating,” two
institutions peculiar to America and almost unknown in Europe.
For generations the women were the greatest sufferers from the
intemperance of the men, because many husbands came home besotted, their
faculties benumbed to an unconsciousness of their own degradation, with
wages gone, and employment forfeited. The purer and gentler the wife in
such case, the more intense her suffering. So it was but natural, that
when the first “=Anti-Spirits Association=” was formed in 1808 in
Greenfield, Saratoga County, New York, several women should join it. The
movement made rapid progress, and in 1826 the “=American Temperance
Society=” was founded. In 1829 and 1830 similar associations were
started in Ireland and England; and in 1846 the first “=World’s
Temperance Convention=” was held at London. In 1873 women became a real
force in the field when the women inhabitants of Hillsborough, a small
town in Ohio, started what became known as “The Women’s Crusade.”
Frances E. Willard, one of its principal leaders, described the
proceedings in the following graphic manner: “Usually the women came in
a long procession from their rendezvous at some church, where they had
held a morning prayer meeting. Marching two and two in a column, they
entered the saloon with kind faces, and the sweet songs of church and
home upon their lips, while some Madonna-like leader with the Gospel in
her looks, took her stand beside the bar and gently asked if she might
read God’s word and offer prayer. After that the ladies seated
themselves, took their knitting or embroidery, and watched the men who
patronized the saloons. While some of them cursed the women openly, and
some quietly slunk out of sight, others began to sign the pledge these
women brought with them. In the meantime one of the ladies pleaded with
the proprietor to give up his business. Many of these liquor dealers
surrendered and then followed stirring scenes, and amid songs and the
ringing of the church bells the contents of barrels and bottles were
gurgling into the gutter, while the whole town assembled to rejoice in
this new fashion of exorcising the evil spirits.
“Not everywhere the ladies met with success. In Cincinnati such a
procession of women, including the wives of leading pastors, were
arrested and locked up in jail; at other places dogs were set on the
crusaders, or they were smoked out, or had the hose turned on them.”
The movement, wholly emotional, and in many cases hysterical, spread
throughout the country like a prairie fire. In 1874 it led to the
organization of “=The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union=,” and, in
1883, to the founding of “=The World’s Women’s Temperance Union=,” the
members of which wear a white ribbon and have the motto: “Woman will
bless and brighten every place she enters, and she will enter every
place.”
Since the founding of this world’s union the movement has extended over
many countries and has branched out into a multitude of organizations.
Their influence has been widely felt in legislatures, and in all
elections in which laws have been voted upon for the regulation of the
production and sale of liquors.—
Another question in which women are deeply concerned is that of
=Child-labor=, the reckless exploitation of children in the interest of
industry. Evidences that in England the dreadful abuses, committed by
unscrupulous mine- and factory-owners, as described in a former chapter,
have continued to the present times, were submitted to the International
Women’s Congress, held in 1899 in London. It was reported that at that
time 144,026 children below the age of 12 years were employed in
workshops, mines, factories and warehouses. Of these children 131 had
not yet reached the age of 7 years; 1120 were under 8; 4211 under 9;
11,027 under 10, and 122,131 under 11 years of age. Miss Montessori, the
Italian delegate to the Congress, described the hard work of the
children employed in the sulphur mines of Sicily. As they have to carry
heavy loads on their shoulders through low gangways and over steep
ladders and stairways, they are compelled to walk in a stooped position,
and therefore in time become deformed and crippled.
In the United States the question of child-labor is likewise a matter of
deep concern to men as well as to women. As every State has its own
Legislature, there exists a varied assortment of child-labor laws. Ten
or fifteen years ago several states had none whatever. Others prohibited
the employment of children under ten years, while still others had an
age limit of twelve or fourteen years. The same diversity prevailed in
regard to the hours of labor. Some states had no legislation in this
direction, while others forbade any child to work longer than ten hours
daily.
During the year 1890 there was a total of 860,786 children between the
ages of ten and fifteen years at work in various occupations in the
United States. A report of the Bureau of Mines of Pennsylvania for 1901
stated 24,023 of the employees of the anthracite coal mines in
Pennsylvania were children.
In 1918 investigators of the children’s bureau of the Department of
Labor reported that the number of minors employed in factories, mines
and quarries has increased at a rapid rate since the U. S. Supreme
Court, on June 5th, 1918, nullified the child-labor act of 1916 as
unconstitutional. Not only are a greatly increased number of children
employed, but they are kept at work longer hours than before. Since the
future of such children as well as the future of the country depend to a
very great extent upon what legislators do in regard to children, it is
obvious that women are deeply concerned in this question.—
The need of women’s participation in government and of an “occasional
house-cleaning” in the Legislatures as well as in the Municipal
Administrations becomes evident, when we realize that one of the most
revolting crimes is committed daily in our communities, quite often with
the silent protection of corrupt officials and politicians. We refer to
the =White Slave Trade=. As few people have any definite idea of its
extent and terrors, some authentic facts are here given, which, at the
same time, demonstrate men’s indifference as well as the urgent need of
woman’s interference for its suppression.
As everybody knows, the traffic in young girls for purposes of
prostitution is as old as humanity. It has flourished in all ages and in
all countries. But it was during the 19th Century that it found its
systematic organization and its most extensive development.
With alarming frequency, the papers report that some young woman or girl
is “missing,” having stepped out of her home on some household errand,
and from this moment having vanished as though swallowed by the earth.
Such was the case of Dorothy Arnold, who some years ago left her cosy
home in New York, to do some shopping in a department store. She never
returned and no trace of her was ever discovered. This particular case
attracted wide attention all over the United States, as Miss Arnold, a
beautiful girl of eighteen, was the daughter of wealthy parents, who
spent a fortune in desperate but futile attempts to recover their
child.—
Every year hundreds of similar cases occur in our country, some in San
Francisco, some in New York, Baltimore, St. Louis, Chicago and
elsewhere. If the exact number of such missing girls could be known, the
public might well be shocked; and horrified if it would know the sad lot
that befalls the majority of these unfortunate girls. Where efforts to
ascertain their fate have met with success, it was found that in ninety
out of a hundred cases such girls became victims of the most detestable
fiends on earth, human ghouls, who make fortunes by luring innocent and
inexperienced women into the most degrading slavery.
There were many events that favored the development of the white slave
trade. The discovery of gold in California and the construction of many
transcontinental railroads were followed by the opening of the rich
mining- and lumber-districts in the northwestern and western parts of
the United States, and in Canada. In more recent years came the opening
of the gold and diamond fields in South Africa, of the gold grounds in
Alaska, the construction of the Panama Canal and the great
transcontinental railroads through Siberia and Africa. All these great
undertakings attracted many thousands of men, who were ready to squander
their earnings in gambling, drinking and any other kind of dissipation.
Women, of course, stood at the head of things in demand. And as there
are always people eager to profit by catering to such passions, the
white slave trade assumed most threatening proportions.
To ensnare victims, the slave dealers insert enticing advertisements
offering profitable positions to waitresses, chambermaids, servants,
governesses, and other female help in hotels, boarding houses and
private families. They send their “procurers” or agents to the
dance-halls and cheap pleasure resorts, and to those industrial towns,
where large numbers of poorly paid young girls toil in mills and
factories. Here they approach their prey under all kinds of disguises
and pretenses. One especially ingenious procurer of New York has been
credited with gaining the acquaintance of young girls in the garb of a
priest. And George Kibbe Turner in an article “The Daughters of the
Poor” (published in 1910 in McClure’s Magazine) made the statement that
a gang of such fiends worked under the name “The New York Independent
Benevolent Association”!
However, the chief recruiting-grounds for the white slave trade are the
miserable Jewish Ghettos of Poland, Russia, Galicia, Hungary, Austria
and Roumania, where always numbers of degraded men can be found, ready
to sell their own kindred for any price offered. With the help of such
procurers four principal centers of the white slave trade were created:
Lemberg, London, Paris and New York, with branches in all parts of
America, Africa and Asia.
Of course such a villainous trade would not be possible without the
silent protection of corrupt officials and political machines, who share
in its enormous profits. Inside information on this subject was received
through the disclosures, made during the latter parts of the last
century about conditions in the mining and lumber regions of Michigan
and Wisconsin. In January, 1887, Representative Breen appeared before
the House Judiciary Committee of the legislature of Michigan and stated
the existence of a regular trade in young and innocent girls for
purposes of prostitution between Chicago, Duluth and other cities with
the mining and lumber districts south of Lake Superior. As he said that
the horrors of the camps into which these girls were lured beggared
description, several newspapers, among them the “Chicago Herald” and
“The New York World,” dispatched representatives, disguised as woodmen,
to those regions to investigate the truth of these statements. They
found that almost without exception the girls, kept in these camps, had
been secured under promise of respectable employment. The houses, in
which they were imprisoned, were surrounded by stockades twenty or
thirty feet in height, the one door guarded night and day by a man with
a rifle, while within were a number of bulldogs to prevent the girls
from escaping. In the largest of such lumber camps dens from twenty to
seventy-five girls were found.
On January 24, 1887, the “New York World” published the story of an
unfortunate girl, who had been lured by an advertisement to work in a
lumberman’s hotel in the North. Believing the position to be
respectable, she went there, but after her arrival at the place she was
taken to a rough two-story building surrounded by a slab fence twenty
feet high, within which was a cordon of bulldogs, thirteen in number,
chained to iron stakes driven into the ground. In this place she was
compelled, like all the other girls, of which there were always from
eleven to thirty, to drink and dance with the men of the mining and
lumber camps. They were not permitted to refuse any request of those
visitors. A complaint of any kind, even of sickness, meant a whipping,
frequently with a rawhide upon the naked body, sometimes with the butt
of a revolver. When the log drives were going on, there would be
hundreds of men there night and day, not human beings, but fiends.
“Oh, it was awful, awful!” cried the girl after her release. “I would
rather stay in prison until I die than go back there for one day. I
tried to escape three times and was caught. They unchained the dogs and
let them get so near me that I cried out in terror and begged them to
take the dogs away and I would go back. Then, of course, I was beaten. I
tried, too, to smuggle out notes to the Sheriff through visitors, but
they would take them to the proprietor instead, and he would pay for
them. Once I did get a note to the Deputy Sheriff at Florence,
Wisconsin, and he came and inquired. But the proprietor gave him $50,
and he went away. I was awfully beaten then. While I lived this life,
from March until September, two inmates died, both from brutal
treatment. They were as good as murdered. Nearly all the girls came
without knowing the character of the house, and first implored to get
away. The county officers came to the places to drink and dance with the
girls. They are controlled by a rich man in Iron Mountain, who owns
these houses and rents them for $100 a month.”
That the den keepers were always on good terms with the officials,
appears also from the following report of the “Chicago Herald” of April
17, 1892, in which attention is called to the continuance of the
horrible conditions in the mining- and lumber-camps. “Four years ago,
when “The Herald” exposed the pinery dens, Marinette was known as the
wickedest city in the country. It was the rendezvous of every species of
bad men. Thugs, thieves and gamblers practically held possession of the
town. Their influence was felt in all municipal affairs. Certain
officers of the law seemed in active sympathy with them, and it was
almost impossible to secure the arrest and conviction of men guilty of
infamous crimes. Dives of the vilest character ran open on the outskirts
of the town. Their inmates, recruited from all parts of the country by
the subtle arts of well known procurers, were kept in a state of abject
slavery. Iron balls and chains, suffocating cords and the whistling lash
were used on refractory girls and women. Bodies of ill-starred victims
were sometimes found in the woods, but the discovery was rarely followed
by investigation. The dive keepers were wealthy and knew how to ease the
conscience of any over-zealous officer.”
Another report states: “Many den-keepers wield a powerful influence in
the local elections; one of the worst of such, after paying the
constable $12 for the return of a girl who had tried to escape, beat her
with a revolver until tired and was then only prevented by a woodman
from turning loose a bulldog upon her; but such was his political
influence that he was elected justice of the peace the following
spring!”—
About the same time, at a session of the National Social Purity Congress
held in Baltimore, the following statement was made: “Of the 230,000
erring girls in this country, over half have been snared or sold into
their lives of shame. Their average life is five years. Forty-six
thousand are carted out to Potters Field every year. Over one hundred
American homes have to be desolated every day to recruit the ranks of
shame. Isn’t it time for somebody to try to save these girls from
falling into those dens of iniquity? Twenty million Christians can
rescue 230,000 erring girls, or surely the religion of Jesus Christ is a
failure.”
Terrible happenings, as for instance the murder of Ruth Cruger of New
York in 1917, and similar cases in February and March, 1919, have
disclosed that gangs of white slave traders still exist in America and
do a flourishing business. The prices paid to agents depend upon the
girl’s youth and beauty, ranging from $20 to $1000, and even more.
The enormous and thoroughly organized traffic in girl-children in
England was exposed by the revelations of the “Pall Mall Gazette,” which
roused the people to earnest efforts against this commerce and secured
the formation of the “Society for the Prevention of Traffic in English
Girls.” In giving details of this traffic the paper said:
“London, the great metropolis of Christian England, the largest city of
ancient and modern times, is acknowledged by statisticians and
sociologists to be the point where crime, vice, despair, and misery are
found in their deepest depth and greatest diversity. Not Babylon of old,
whose name is the synonym of all that is vile; not Rome, “Mother of
Harlots,” not Corinth, in whose temple a thousand girls were kept for
prostitution in service of God, not the most savage lands in all their
barbarity have ever shown a thousandth part of the human woe to be found
in the city of London, that culmination of modern Christian
civilization. The nameless crimes of Sodom and Gomorrah, the vileness of
ancient Greece, which garnered its most heroic men, its most profound
philosophers, are but amusements among young men of the highest rank in
England; West End, the home of rank and wealth, of university education,
being the central hell of this extended radius of vice.”
As in many countries priests and police departments have failed to stop
this heinous traffic in young girls, women must step in, and, by their
votes, must place such legislators and police commissioners in office,
that proper laws and their strict enforcement can be expected.
In Germany the “white slave trade” is practically unknown. For many
years two women associations have existed,—a Protestant and a
Catholic,—whose representatives, recognizable by distinct arm bands,
patrol all important railway stations, in order to furnish correct
information to incoming girls who are looking for positions, and to
escort them to the homes of the associations, where they may stay till
respectable places have been found for them.
It is obvious, that the problems connected with the temperance question,
child-labor and the white slave trade are of vital importance to every
woman and mother. Salvation must come through the woman’s ballot. They
must defend themselves and their children as men have done: by
co-operating in the elections, by controlling those that make the laws,
and by controlling those who are appointed to enforce them.
* * * * *
A few words may be said in regard to the claim that woman would cease to
vote “after the novelty of her new toy had worn off.” Statistics as well
as the testimony of competent observers confute this claim. In all
states where women enjoy full suffrage, they have shown themselves eager
to vote. In Idaho the Chief Justice and all the justices of the State
Supreme Court signed a statement that “the large vote cast by the women
establishes the fact that they take a lively interest.” In Wyoming,
Colorado and other full suffrage states it has been observed that 90 per
cent. of the women vote.
In Australia, in 1903, at the first national election in which women
took part, 359,315 women voted; in 1906, 431,033; in 1910, 601,946.
In New Zealand the number has increased at each triennial parliamentary
election. In 1893 90,290 women voted; in 1896, 108,793; in 1899,
119,550; in 1902, 138,565; in 1905, 175,046; in 1908, 190,114; in 1911,
221,858.
The following is a testimonial from Sir Joseph Ward, Prime Minister of
New Zealand, in regard to Woman Suffrage in practice:
Prime Minister’s Office,
Wellington, Oct. 17th, 1907.
Woman Suffrage exists in New Zealand because it dawned upon the minds of
thinking men that they were daily wasting an almost unlimited supply of
mental and moral force. From the time their baby hands had found support
and safety by holding the folds of their mother’s gowns, they had
trusted the happiness of their lives hourly to the common sense, the
purity and the sympathy of women. Strange to say, in one department of
life alone, and that perhaps the most important, viz.: the political,
had they denied the right of speech and of direct influence to women.
Men of different countries had for centuries preached and written of
evils which deformed their systems of Government and even tainted the
aspirations of statesmen for just laws within the state, and equitable
relations abroad. Nevertheless these men neglected, or refused to avail
themselves of the support and counsel of women’s hearts and women’s
brains, which they accepted on other matters. Indeed, they were ready to
listen to foolish arguments against the idea of women entering political
life; such as: women would lose their grace, modesty, and love of home
if they voted; since they could not be soldiers, they had no right to
control questions of peace and war.
In New Zealand we have not found that making a “pencil mark on a voting
paper” once in three years has resulted in any loss of grace or beauty
among our women, or even in neglect of home duties. On the contrary the
women’s vote has had a distinctly clarifying effect on the process of
elections. The old evil memories of election day, the ribaldry, the
fighting, have been succeeded by a decorous gravity befitting people
exercising their highest national privilege. When the contention, that
women should not be entitled to vote because they cannot bear arms, is
used by one whose mother could only make his life and citizenship
possible by passing through pain and danger greater than the average
soldier has to face, it becomes inconsistently ridiculous. Besides, many
men (clergymen, government officials, etc., etc.), are exempt from
actual military service, and that fact has never been used to deprive
them of a vote. The main argument, however, which weighed with us, was
that of right, of abstract right. If the foundation of government is the
consent of the governed, it appears monstrously unfair that one half of
the population should not be represented or have any share in it.
Therefore, after long and grave consideration, we gave our women an
equal right with men in deciding on the qualifications of candidates to
represent them in Parliament.
We have no reason to regret the decision. I feel confident that if any
great crisis in national morals should arise, the women’s vote would
press with irresistable weight in the direction of clean, honest and
efficient legislation. New Zealand has not repented having abolished set
disqualifications among those men and women who have unitedly helped to
build the foundations of a nation. I write as one who advocated the
extension of the franchise to women before my entry into Parliament
twenty years ago. I have always supported it in Parliament, and, while
closely watching its effect, have never seen any genuine cause for
believing that it has not worked for the good of the Dominion.
Similar testimonials have been given by the governors of all Western
States of the Union.
Governor Bryant B. Brooks of Wyoming said: “Nothing can be so far from
the truth as the idea that Woman Suffrage has the slightest tendency to
disrupt the home. Indeed it has the very opposite effect. As a result of
it politics is talked freely in the family circle, and political
questions are settled by intelligent discussion. This has a great and
good influence on the growing generation. The children grow up in an
atmosphere that encourages intelligent consideration and debate of
public problems, and are thus better equipped to deal with public
questions when they reach voting age.”
Governor Shafroth of Colorado said: “Our State has Woman Suffrage for
many years, and has found it of inestimable benefit to her people,” and
Governor James H. Brady of Idaho said: “Woman Suffrage has been an
unqualified success, not only in Idaho, but in all Western States
adopting the principle.”
[Illustration:
PREPARING BANDAGES.
]