CHAPTER II. IS WOMAN SUFFRAGE DEMOCRATIC?
CHAPTER III. WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC
CHAPTER IV. WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND PHILANTHROPY
CHAPTER V. WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE LAWS
CHAPTER VI. WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE TRADES
CHAPTER VII. WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE PROFESSIONS
CHAPTER VIII. WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND EDUCATION
CHAPTER IX. WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE CHURCH
CHAPTER X. WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND SEX
CHAPTER XI. WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE HOME
CHAPTER XII. CONCLUSION
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.
The introduction to the "History of Woman Suffrage," published in 1881-85,
edited by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony and Matilda Joslyn
Gage, contains the following statement: "It is often asserted that, as
woman has always been man's slave, subject, inferior, dependent, under all
forms of government and religion, slavery must be her normal condition;
but that her condition is abnormal is proved by the marvellous change in
her character, from a toy in the Turkish harem, or a drudge in the German
fields, to a leader of thought in the literary circles of France, England,
and America."
I have made this quotation partly on account of its direct application to
the subject to be discussed, and partly to illustrate the contradictions
that seem to inhere in the arguments on which the claim to Woman Suffrage
is founded. If woman has become a leader of thought in the literary
circles of the most cultivated lands, she has not always been man's slave,
subject, inferior, dependent, under all forms of government and religion;
and, furthermore, it is not true that there has been such a marvellous
change in her character as is implied in this statement. Where man is a
bigot and a barbarian, there, alas! woman is still a harem toy; where man
is little more than a human clod, woman is to-day a drudge in the field;
where man has hewn the way to governmental and religious freedom, there
woman has become a leader of thought. The unity of race progress is
strikingly suggested by this fact. The method through which that unity is
maintained should unfold itself as we study the story of the sex
advancement of our time.
Progress is a magic word, and the Suffrage party has been fortunate in its
attempt to invoke the sorcery of the thought that it enfolds, and to blend
it with the claim of woman to share in the public duty of voting.
Possession of the elective franchise is a symbol of power in man's hand;
why should it not bear the same relation to woman's upward impulse and
action? Modern adherents ask, "Is not the next new force at hand in our
social evolution to come from the entrance of woman upon the political
arena?" The roots of these questions, and consequently of their answers,
lie as deep as the roots of being, and they cannot be laid bare by
superficial digging. But the laying bare of roots is not the only way, or
even the best way, to judge of the strength and beauty of a growth. We
look at the leaves, the flowers, and the fruit. "Movement" and "Progress"
are not synonymous terms. In evolution there is degeneration as well as
regeneration. Only the work that has been in accord with the highest
ideals of woman's nature is fitted to the environment of its advance, and
thus to survival and development. In order to learn whether Woman Suffrage
is in the line of advance, we must know whether the movement to obtain it
has thus far blended itself with those that have proved to be for woman's
progress and for the progress of government.
I am sure I need not emphasize the fact that, in studying some of the
principles that underlie the Suffrage movement, I am not impugning the
motives of the leaders. Nor need I dwell upon the fact that it is from the
good comradeship of men and women that has come to prevail under our free
conditions, that some women have hastily espoused a cause with which they
never have affiliated, because they supposed it to be fighting against
odds for the freedom of their sex.
The past fifty years have wrought more change in the conditions of life
than could many a Cathayan cycle. The growth of religious liberty,
enlargement of foreign and home missions, the Temperance movement, the
giant war waged for principle, are among the causes of this change. The
settlement of the great West, the opening of professions and trades to
woman consequent upon the loss of more than a half million of the nation's
most stalwart men, the mechanical inventions that have changed home and
trade conditions, the sudden advance of science, the expansion of mind and
of work that are fostered by the play of a free government,--all these
have tended to place man and woman, but especially woman, where something
like a new heaven and a new earth are in the distant vision.
To this change the Suffragists call attention, and say, "This is, in great
part, our work." In this little book I shall recount a few of the facts
that, in my opinion, go to prove that the Suffrage movement has had but
little part or lot in this matter. And because of these facts I believe
the principles on which the claim to suffrage is founded are those that
turn individuals and nations backward and not forward.
The first proof I shall mention is the latest one in time--it is the fact
of an Anti-Suffrage movement. In the political field alone are we being
formed into separate camps whose watchwords become more unlike as they
become more clearly understood. The fact that for the first time in our
history representatives of two great organizations of women are appealing
to courts and legislatures, each begging them to refuse the prayer of the
other, shows, as conclusively as a long argument could do, that this
matter of suffrage is something essentially distinct from the great series
of movements in which women thus far have advanced side by side. It is an
instinctive announcement of a belief that the demand for suffrage is not
progress; that it does array sex against sex; that woman, like man, can
advance only as the race advances; and that here lies the dividing line.
How absolute is that dividing line between woman's progress and woman
suffrage, we may realize when we consider what the result would be if we
could know to-morrow, beyond a peradventure, that woman never would vote
in the United States. Not one of her charities, great or small, would be
crippled. Not a woman's college would close its doors. Not a profession
would withhold its diploma from her; not a trade its recompense. Not a
single just law would be repealed, or a bad one framed, as a consequence.
Not a good book would be forfeited. Not a family would be less secure of
domestic happiness. Not a single hope would die which points to a time
when our cities will all be like those of the prophet's vision, "first
pure and then peaceable."
Among the forces that are universally considered progressive are: the
democratic idea in government, extinction of slavery, increase of
educational and industrial opportunities for woman, improvement in the
statute laws, and spread of religious freedom. The Woman-Suffrage movement
professed to champion these causes. That movement is now nearly fifty
years old, and has made a record by which its relation to them can be
judged. What is the verdict?