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ANTI-SUFFRAGE
ESSAYS.
ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS
BY
MASSACHUSETTS WOMEN
WITH AN INTRODUCTION
BY
ERNEST BERNBAUM, Ph.D.
(Harvard University)
THE FORUM PUBLICATIONS
OF BOSTON
1916
Copyright, 1916, by
J. A. HAIEN
_All Rights Reserved_
_Gratefully Dedicated
to the 295,939 Massachusetts Men
Who, on Election Day, 1915
Endorsed the Anti-Suffrage Sentiments
of the Women of Massachusetts_
INTRODUCTION
THE ANTI-SUFFRAGE VICTORY IN MASSACHUSETTS
The essays in this little book are by anti-suffrage women who were
prominent speakers, writers, and organizers, in the campaign of 1915.
They voice sentiments which gained the largest measure of popular
support ever accorded in the history of Massachusetts politics.
The largest number of votes any political party polled in Massachusetts
before 1915 was 278,976. The anti-suffragists polled 295,939. Since 1896
there has been but one instance in which the voters gained a plurality
amounting to 110,000 votes. The anti-suffragists won by 133,447 votes.
Alton B. Parker's defeat by Theodore Roosevelt in 1904 is commonly
regarded as typifying political annihilation; but the suffragists in
1915 did not poll as many votes as Mr. Parker, and the anti-suffragists
polled 38,000 more than President Roosevelt at the height of his
popularity. Such outworn words as "overwhelming" and "landslide," which
have been regularly used to describe victories not half so great as
this, understate the actual extent of the anti-suffrage triumph. The
pronounced aversion which Massachusetts showed towards Horace Greeley in
the presidential campaign of 1872, and towards William J. Bryan in that
of 1896, scarcely exceeded that which she feels towards the suffragists
today.
The grounds of this aversion are so numerous that it is difficult to
determine which of the many causes of the anti-suffrage victory were the
most powerful. In my opinion, however, Massachusetts men defeated woman
suffrage chiefly because (1) they discovered that nine women out of ten
did not want to vote; (2) they knew that the creation of a large body of
stay-at-home voters would result in bad government; and (3) they grew
disgusted with the temperament, the notions, and the methods typical of
the few women who clamored for the vote.
For at least two generations suffragists have been spending a huge
amount of energy and money in spreading their doctrine. Contributions,
mainly drawn from a few rich women, have enabled them to send
professional speakers into every district of the state, to distribute
tons of "literature," to supply the press with a constant stream of
"news" written from their point of view, and in general to advertise
their claims in the most lavish way. A propaganda so subsidized would
have been successful decades ago if sound principles and common sense
were on its side. But to their consternation the suffragists found that
the vast majority of Massachusetts women turned a deaf ear to their
plausible appeals, and that their strongest opponents were those of
their own sex.
Suffragists continued to talk about what "we women" want. But men
presently began to see that these women had no right to pretend to
represent their sex. Even their own claims as to the number of women
supporting them showed that they represented only between 5% and 10% of
the women of Massachusetts. At least 90% of the women--either by open
opposition, or by a marked indifference to the subject--showed that they
did not believe in woman suffrage. It became obvious that no general
statement could be more emphatically true than that Massachusetts women
did not want to vote.
When this truth was insistently pressed upon the suffragists, they were
apt to call the indifferent women "unenlightened." This was felt to be
an insult rather than an explanation. The average Massachusetts man does
not think his mother, wife, and sister "unenlightened"--certainly not on
the suffrage question. She has heard and read the suffrage notions again
and again. He knows that if she felt that man was her oppressor, or that
the welfare of herself or her family would be increased by her
enfranchisement, she would say so. She is a sensible, observant woman,
who knows what she wants, does not hesitate to ask for it, and usually
gets it. But she was not asking for the ballot. It did not take her long
to see through the suffrage fallacy that "only those women would need to
vote who want to." She realized that the vote would mean an obligation
as well as a privilege, and that she could not honorably accept the
privilege without undertaking the obligation. Her life being already
crowded with duties that only she could discharge, she would not add to
them one that her husband, brother, or son can discharge at least as
well.
If any man wondered whether his personal inquiries among the women of
his acquaintance gave a sufficiently broad basis for the belief that
women did not want to vote, he became convinced of the fact when he
learned about the Drury bill of 1913. This bill would have given
Massachusetts women a chance to vote "Yes" or "No" on woman suffrage.
The proposal resulted in the amazing revelation that the suffragists
were afraid to let women vote on the question. They worked against the
bill because they knew that an official count would disclose how
pitiably small a fraction of women were on their side. They thought that
their little group, by noisy publicity, could be made to appear a
considerable number. But the men, when they discovered who opposed the
Drury bill, were not deceived. They saw that a small minority of women
was trying to induce them to coerce the great majority. They awoke to
the fact that the suffragist's demand was not that men should grant
women an expressed desire, but that men, contemptuously disregarding the
evident wishes of women, should force upon them a heavy responsibility.
The nature of that responsibility brings us to what seems to me the
second important cause for the suffrage defeat. Men--more than
politically inexperienced women,--know that good government depends upon
the willingness of the electorate to do its duty vigilantly and
regularly. The greatest good of the greatest number of classes
(including the women and children in each class) can be secured only
when a large proportion of the eligible voters vote. Those voters who
are led by bosses, or by selfish interests, go to the polls steadily.
Their influence can be offset only when the rest of the electorate goes
likewise. The results of elections in which a small proportion of the
eligible voters take part, are poor laws and incompetent or corrupt
government. The leading political issues--the tariff, trusts,
transportation, military and police force, taxation, finance, etc.--bear
directly upon the work of men in their trades and business, and under
male suffrage a fairly large proportion of the vote is cast. The
life-work of women removes them from contact with these political
questions, and the nature of most women is not attracted by the
contentious spirit in which political warfare is conducted. As long as
no more than 10% of the women took an interest in the woman suffrage
question itself, no man could reasonably expect them to be otherwise
than indifferent to the regular subjects of political conflict. To
impose political duties upon the sex against its will was simply to
create conditions that encouraged corrupt and feeble government. The
soundness of this principle was, furthermore, being demonstrated in
woman-suffrage territory, such cities as Seattle and such states as
Colorado showing that sooner or later a neglectful electorate leads to
the downfall of good government.
The third cause for the defeat of woman suffrage was the disgust which
the manners, methods, and unethical sentiments of the suffragists
aroused. This is not pleasant to dwell upon, but was too important an
influence in the campaign to leave unmentioned. The suffragists
professed to "occupy higher moral ground," to uplift politics, and to
elevate womanhood. The longer one observed their deeds and words, the
surer one became that they were not uplifting politics and that they
tended to disgrace women in men's eyes. The tone of politics can be
improved if the contestants will avoid false assertions and unnecessary
personal attacks. The suffragists said and did things which were, like
militancy, excusable only on the immoral ground that the end justifies
the means.
As an example of their disingenuous statements, the following may serve.
The National Woman Suffrage Association circulated a flyer entitled
"Twenty Facts About Woman Suffrage." "Fact No. 15," under the heading,
"How Women Vote," read: "Arizona, California, Colorado and Washington
are the only states in the Union which have eight-hour laws for working
women." Any unsuspecting reader would infer just what he was intended to
infer--namely, that it was woman suffrage that brought about all these
eight-hour laws, and that male suffrage had not brought about any of
them. A more nearly truthful heading for this "fact" would have been
"How Men Vote." The credit for passing the eight-hour law in California
and in Washington (also in Arizona so far as laundry workers are
concerned) belongs to legislatures elected by men alone. False
suggestions of this type no doubt gained many proselytes in parlor
meetings; but when they were made in the open forum of a public
campaign, their untruth was exposed, and the voters grew indignant that
women should thus have tried to mislead them. The suffragists only made
a bad matter worse by alleging that their anti-suffrage sisters were
given to misrepresentations and to every other crime in the political
calendar; for men thereupon concluded that if this initial participation
in politics had such a demoralizing effect on the women of each side, it
was best to keep both parties out of the arena altogether.
The suffragists' tendencies to make bitter personal attacks was
repeatedly shown. Not wishing to resurrect some of the venemous charges
brought against anti-suffrage women, I take leave to illustrate the
baseless characters of such attacks by one made against myself. In the
spring of 1915, I gave a series of lectures on the fundamental
principles of anti-suffrage. The audiences were gratifyingly large;
there was a demand for several repetitions of the lectures; and,
apparently, the suffragists felt that something must be done to destroy
my pernicious influence. Instead of answering my arguments, the
President of the Massachusetts Suffrage Association, Miss Alice Stone
Blackwell, wrote an editorial in her "Woman's Journal," saying:
"This young gentleman is a Dane, and he has been very fluent and
somewhat contemptuous in giving reasons why American women should not be
allowed to vote."
The statement was, as usual, spread broadcast through the suffrage
columns of the Massachusetts newspapers; and doubtless my opponents
indulged the hope that in the wave of national feeling which was then
beginning to rise, anybody thus branded as a foreigner would be badly
discredited. As a matter of fact, I was born in Brooklyn, N. Y. (If I
had chosen to imitate Miss Blackwell's method of controversy, I might
have retorted that my father, who was born in Denmark, but who came to
America in 1855, fought as a volunteer officer in the Navy of the United
States in the Civil War, at a time when Miss Blackwell's father was
engaged in a safer occupation.)
The repellant impression made upon men by the suffragists' misstatements
and personal abusiveness was deepened by their support of militancy and
feminism. As to the unethical character of the latter, Mrs. Foxcroft's
essay in this book presents startling and irrefutable testimony. As to
militancy, it may be said that this furnished the most glaring (though
not the only) evidence of the evil effect of political activity on
women. Much is usually made of the fact that Mrs. Pankhurst and her
accomplices in crime destroyed a large amount of valuable property.
But the greatest injury she and her American idolizers did was to lower
man's ideal of woman. They tried to make the virago a heroine. They did
not succeed; but the more Mrs. Pankhurst's apologists glorified her, the
more men were determined not to endorse a party that tempted women to
abandon real womanliness for mock masculinity.
ERNEST BERNBAUM
CAMBRIDGE, MASS.
_February, 1916_
N. B.--
To prevent misunderstanding, it should be said that though the following
essays represent in general the views of Massachusetts anti-suffragists,
the responsibility for the facts and opinions given in the various
essays rests with the individual writers alone.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
INTRODUCTION--ERNEST BERNBAUM ix
WHO THE MASSACHUSETTS ANTI-SUFFRAGISTS ARE 21
MRS. JOHN BALCH
ESSAY
I SUFFRAGE FALLACIES 24
MRS. A. J. GEORGE
II THE BALLOT AND THE WOMAN IN INDUSTRY 31
MRS. HENRY PRESTON WHITE
III A BUSINESS WOMAN'S VIEW OF SUFFRAGE 38
EDITH MELVIN
IV SOME PRACTICAL ASPECTS OF THE QUESTION 43
ELLEN MUDGE BURRILL
V HOW MASSACHUSETTS FOSTERS PUBLIC WELFARE 53
MONICA FOLEY
VI MASSACHUSETTS COMPARED WITH SUFFRAGE STATES 62
CATHERINE ROBINSON
VII WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND WAR 67
MRS. CHARLES P. STRONG
VIII WOMAN SUFFRAGE VS. WOMANLINESS 77
MRS. THOMAS ALLEN
IX ARE SUFFRAGISTS SINCERE REFORMERS 81
MRS. AUGUSTIN H. PARKER
X SUFFRAGE AND THE SCHOOL TEACHER 85
ELIZABETH JACKSON
XI SUFFRAGE AND THE SOCIAL WORKER 90
DOROTHY GODFREY WAYMAN
XII WOMAN SUFFRAGE A MENACE TO SOCIAL REFORM 98
MARGARET C. ROBINSON
XIII THE ANTI-SUFFRAGE IDEAL 118
MRS. HERBERT LYMAN
XIV THE TRUE FUNCTION OF THE NORMAL WOMAN 123
MRS. HORACE A. DAVIS
XV THE IMPERATIVE DEMAND UPON WOMEN IN THE HOME 128
MRS. CHARLES BURTON GULICK
XVI SUFFRAGE AND THE SEX PROBLEM 135
MRS. WILLIAM LOWELL PUTNAM
XVII SUFFRAGE A STEP TOWARD FEMINISM 141
LILY RICE FOXCROFT
IMPORTANT ANTI-SUFFRAGE PUBLICATIONS 153
ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS
WHO THE MASSACHUSETTS ANTI-SUFFRAGISTS ARE
MRS. JOHN BALCH
_Katharine Torbert Balch, wife of John Balch; Treasurer of the
Summer Industrial School of Milton; member of the Executive
Committee of the Milton Branch of the Civil Service Reform
Association; director of the Ely Club of New York City; member
of the Executive Committee of the special Preparedness Committee
appointed by Governor Walsh; President of the Massachusetts
Women's Anti-Suffrage Association._
_J. A. H._
In reply to oft-repeated calumnies about the membership and affiliations
of the Anti-Suffrage Association, I offer a plain statement of facts
which can be verified.
36,761 Massachusetts women, twenty-one years of age or over, are to-day
registered members of the Massachusetts Women's Anti-Suffrage
Association. They are not confined to one section of the state, but are
found distributed among no less than 443 cities, towns, and villages.
Each year the organization increases; and each year the members of the
137 state branches draw closer together in their opposition to suffrage
and their striving for the true progress of woman and of civilization.
These women are not of only one class or type. An examination of our
enrollment reveals among our members not only the very large group of
homemakers, but also authors, doctors, lawyers, teachers, librarians,
newspaper-writers, stenographers, social service workers, cooks,
housemaids, nurses, milliners, insurance agents, restaurant-keepers,
clerks, shopkeepers, private secretaries, dressmakers, seamstresses,
etc., etc. During the recent campaign, the co-operation, devotion, and
self-sacrifice of this body of women was inspiring. From the wage-earner
who endured systematic nagging, if not persecution, from suffragists, to
the woman of wealth who gave of her vitality to the breaking point,
daily came the evidences of immovable faith in the righteousness of
their cause.
Many of our leaders are prominent in public welfare activities. The late
Mrs. Charles D. Homans, one of the founders of our organization, was an
active and important member of the Massachusetts Prison Commission. Mrs.
James M. Codman, our beloved ex-President, has served twenty years on
the State Board of Charities, was one of the first women overseers of
the poor ever elected in this state, and has long been one of the
managers of a large private hospital. Miss Mary S. Ames, a former
President, is a member of the Executive Council (New England section) of
the National Civic Federation, Chairman of the Committee on Practical
Training for Girls, a Trustee of the Boston Home for Incurables, one of
the managers of the Women's Free Hospital, a director of the Brook House
Home for Working Girls, a member of the Easton Agricultural Vocational
Training Committee, a Trustee of Unity Church (Easton), and a member of
the Advisory Board of the Belgian Relief Committee. Mrs. Henry P.
Kidder, of our Executive Board, is President of the Woman's Educational
Association. Mrs. Robert S. Bradley, also of our Executive Board, is
Chairman of the Sanitation Department of the Women's Municipal League,
and has led in the fight for exterminating the typhoid fly. Were I to
continue to enumerate the characteristic activities of our anti-suffrage
women, I could fill pages with the record of their participation in
philanthropy, education, and all good works. The brief notes prefixed to
the essays in this book give additional evidence to the same effect.
I
SUFFRAGE FALLACIES
MRS. A. J. GEORGE
_Alice N. George, widow of Dr. Andrew J. George; graduated from
Wellesley in 1887; is President of the Brookline Branch of the
Ramabai Association; American Representative of the National Trust
(English) for the Preservation of Historic Places; a director
of the College Club; a member of the Research Committee of the
Educational and Industrial Union, of the Welfare Department of
the National Civic Federation of the Woman's Trade Union League,
of the American Society for Labor Legislation, etc., etc._
_J. A. H._
Woman suffrage must ultimately fail. It is based upon a fallacy, and no
fallacy has ever made a permanent conquest over mankind.
The fallacy of woman suffrage lies in the belief that there is in our
social order a definite sex division of interests, and that the security
of woman's interests depends upon her possession of the elective
franchise.
"The history of mankind," declared the founders of the suffrage
movement, "is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part
of man toward woman, having as the indirect object the establishment of
an absolute tyranny over her." "Man has endeavored in every way he
could," continues this arraignment of the fathers, husbands, and sons of
these self-styled _Mothers of the Revolution_, "to destroy her
confidence in her own powers, to lessen her self-respect and to make her
willing to lead a dependent and abject life."
On this false foundation was built the votes-for-women temple. How shall
it endure? The sexes do not stand in the position of master and slave,
of tyrant and victim. In a healthy state of society there is no rivalry
between men and women; they were created different, and in the economy
of life have different duties, but their interests are the common
interests of humanity. Women are not a class, they are a sex; and the
women of every social group are represented in a well-ordered
government, automatically and inevitably, by the men of that group. It
would be a fatal day for the race when women could obtain their rights
only by a victory wrested at the polls from reluctant men. These truths
are elementary and self-evident, yet all are negatived by the
votes-for-women movement.
That the vote is not an inalienable right is affirmed by Supreme Court
decisions, the practice of nations, and the dictates of common sense. No
state can enfranchise all its citizens, and since the stability of
government rests ultimately upon a relentless enforcement of law, the
maintenance of a sound fiscal policy, and such adjustment of the
delicate interweaving of international relations as makes for peace and
prosperity, it is right that the state should place the responsibility
of government upon those who are best equipped to perform its manifold
duties.
Woman's citizenship is as real as man's, and no reflection upon her
abilities is involved in the assertion that woman is not fitted for
government either by nature or by contact in daily experience with
affairs akin to government. She is weak along the lines where the
lawmaker must be strong. In all departments where the law is to be
applied and enforced, woman's nature forbids her entrance. The casting
of a ballot is the last step in a long process of political
organization; it is the signing of a contract to undertake vast
responsibilities, since it is the following of the ballot to its
conclusion which makes the body politic sound. Otherwise political power
without political responsibility threatens disaster to all.
Thus far we have made a few crude experiments in double suffrage, but
nowhere has _equal_ suffrage been tried. Equal suffrage implies a fair
field with favor to none--a field where woman, stripped of legal and
civil advantages, must take her place as man's rival in the struggle for
existence; for, in the long run, woman cannot have equal rights and
retain special privileges. If the average woman is to be a voter, she
must accept jury service and aid in the protection of life and property.
When the mob threatens, she must not shield herself behind her equal in
government. She must relinquish her rights and exemptions under the law
and in civil life, if she is to take her place as a responsible elector
and compete with man as the provider and governor of the race. Such
equality would be a brutal and retrogressive view of woman's rights. It
is impossible, and here we have the unanswerable answer to woman
suffrage theories.
No question of superiority or equality is involved in the opposition to
votes for women. The test of woman's worth is her ability to solve the
problems and do the work she must face as a woman if the race is not to
deteriorate and civilization perish. The woman's suffrage movement is an
imitation-of-man movement, and as such merits the condemnation of every
normal man and woman.
Doubtless we can live through a good deal of confusion, but it is not on
any lines of functional unfitness that life is to be fulfilled. Woman
must choose with discrimination those channels of activity wherein "what
she most highly values may be won." Are these values in the department
of government or in the equally essential departments of education,
society, and religion?
The attempt to interpret woman's service to the state in terms of
political activity is a false appraisal of the contribution she has
always made to the general welfare. All this agitation for the ballot
diverts attention from the only source from which permanent relief can
come, and fastens it upon the ballot box. It is by physical,
intellectual, and moral education that our citizenship is gradually
improved, and here woman's opportunities are supreme. If women are not
efficient in their own dominion, then in the name of common sense let
them be trained for efficiency in that dominion and not diffuse their
energies by dragging them through the devious paths of political
activity.
Equal suffrage is clearly impossible; double suffrage, tried under most
favorable conditions in sparsely settled western states has made no
original contribution to the problem of sound government. On the other
side of the ledger we find that the enfranchisement of women has
increased taxes, added greatly to the menace of an indifferent
electorate, and enlarged the bulk of unenforced and unenforceable laws.
Why does double suffrage, with its train of proved evils and its false
appraisal of woman's contribution to the general welfare, come knocking
at our doors? Not a natural right; a failure wherever tried; demanded by
a small minority in defiance of all principles of true democracy; what
excuse is there for it?
The confusion of social and personal rights with political, the
substitution of emotionalism for investigation and knowledge, the mania
for uplift by legislation, have widely advertised the suffrage
propaganda. The reforms for which the founders of the suffrage movement
declared women needed the vote have all been accomplished by the votes
of men. The vote has been withheld through the indifference and
opposition of women, for this is the only woman's movement which has
been met by the organized opposition of women.
Suffragists still demand the vote. Why? Perhaps the answer is found in
the cry of the younger suffragists: "We ask the vote as a means to an
end--that end being a complete social revolution!" When we realize that
this social revolution involves the economic, social, and sexual
independence of women, we know that Gladstone had the prophet's vision
when he called woman suffrage a "revolutionary" doctrine.
Woman suffrage is the political phase of feminism; the whole sweep of
the relation of the sexes must be revised if the woman's vote is to mean
anything more than two people doing what one does now. Merely to
duplicate the present vote is unsound economy. To re-enforce those who
clamor for individual rights is to strike at the family as the
self-governing unit upon which the state is built.
This is not a question of what some women want or do not want--it is
solely a question of how the average woman shall best contribute her
part to the general welfare. Anti-suffragists contend that the average
woman can serve best by remaining a non-partisan and working for the
common good outside the realms of political strife. To prove this
contention they point to what women have done without the ballot and
what they have failed to do with it.
Anti-suffragists are optimists. They are concerned at the attempt of an
organized, aggressive, well financed minority to force its will upon the
majority of women through a false interpretation of representative
democracy; but they know that a movement so false in its conception, so
false in its economy, so false in its reflections upon men and its
estimate of women, so utterly unnecessary and unnatural, cannot achieve
a permanent success.
II
THE BALLOT AND THE WOMAN IN INDUSTRY
MRS. HENRY PRESTON WHITE
_Sara C. White, wife of Henry Preston White; educated in the Emma
Willard School of Troy, New York; a member of the Auxiliary Board
of Directors of the Brookline Day Nursery; member of the Committee
on Ventilation of Public Conveyances (Woman's Municipal League);
With Miss Mabel Stedman of Brookline, Mrs. White started the model
moving-picture show in connection with the Brookline Friendly
Society. She is a well-known speaker for the anti-suffrage cause._
_J. A. H._
The argument that the woman in industry needs the ballot in order to
obtain fair wages and fair working conditions has undoubtedly made many
converts to the cause of woman suffrage. The sympathies of the average
man, who is ever solicitous for the welfare of women, go out especially
to the woman who must compete with men in the work-a-day world. And so,
when he is told that there are 8,000,000 such women in this country, and
that their lot would be much easier if they could vote, he is apt to
think it worth a trial anyway and to give his support, without further
consideration, to the "votes for women" movement.
Now, if it were true that there are 8,000,000 women in industry, and
that these must have the ballot in order to get fair treatment, it would
be a strong argument for woman suffrage--though by no means a conclusive
argument, since the fundamental question is the greatest good of the
greatest number, and not the greatest good of any class. But it is not
true that there are 8,000,000 women in industry, and a single sensible
reason has yet to be advanced for the contention that women in industry,
even if they numbered 8,000,000, could better their condition by
undertaking political methods.
There are in the United States, according to the last census, 8,075,772
females 10 years of age and over engaged in gainful occupations. Of
these, over 3,600,000 are employed in domestic and personal service,
where wage and working conditions are determined chiefly by women, and
in "agricultural pursuits," a classification including every female who
sells eggs or butter on the home farm. Approximately 4,000,000 of the
remaining gainfully occupied females work in store, factory, and shop,
and of these nearly 1,500,000 are under twenty-one.
Thus, instead of 8,000,000 women in industry who are alleged to "need
the ballot," we have only about 2,500,000 women of voting age employed
in industries that can reasonably be said to come within the category of
those properly subject to remedial labor legislation; and of these
women a very large percentage are aliens and would not be entitled to
use the ballot if woman suffrage were granted. By itself, of course,
this fact does not dispose of the argument that the industrial woman
needs the ballot, but it does reveal how comparatively few are the women
who could possibly try to improve their working conditions by means of
the vote, and how hopelessly outnumbered they would be if reduced to the
necessity of fighting for their rights at the ballot box.
The premise of the suffrage argument that the woman in industry needs
the ballot in order to get fair treatment is the assumption that she now
fails to get as fair treatment as is given the industrial man, and that
this is due to the fact that she has no vote. This arbitrary assumption
is without justification either in fact or reason. Every law placed upon
the statute-books of any state for the benefit of the working man is a
blanket law and covers men and women engaged in the same industry. All
the benefits that have accrued to the working man through legislation
are enjoyed equally by his sister in industry. In addition she has the
advantage of special protective laws which have been enacted simply
because she is a woman--because she is weaker physically than man and
because she is a potential mother and must be protected in the interest
of the race.
I am not arguing, of course, that the working woman has all the
protection she needs, but I am arguing that she is not unfairly treated
as compared with her industrial brother, who has the ballot, and that
whatever hardships she may now suffer are as likely to be removed
without woman suffrage as they are with it. If she is being unfairly
treated, I think it will be found that she is so treated in common with
all industrial workers--simply because she is a worker and not at all
because she is a woman.
And in taking this ground I am by no means forced to depend upon theory;
for, after all, the best answer to the dogma that the woman in industry
needs the ballot in order to obtain fair wages and fair working
conditions is the fact that in states where women have voted anywhere
from 4 to 46 years the laws for the working woman are no better than
they are in male suffrage states. Indeed, it is pretty generally agreed
that the states which have been first and most progressive in enacting
laws for the benefit of women and children in industry are states that
have refused to give women the vote.
It is quite true, as the suffragists so constantly tell us, that the
only states having eight-hour laws for women in industry are woman
suffrage states. But it is true, too, that the eight-hour laws of
California, Oregon, and Washington, of which so much is heard, are not
to be taken at their face value, since they do not cover the canning
industry, which is the chief industry in all those states. It is true,
also, that what is considered by experts the most advanced step in
protective legislation for women in industry, the prohibition of night
work, has been taken only in male suffrage states. In Massachusetts and
Nebraska the laws provide for a 54-hour week for women in industry,
provide for one day's rest in seven, and prohibit night work. Will any
one deny that these laws are infinitely better for women in industry
than the boasted eight-hour law of Colorado, under which it is
permissible for a woman to work nights and Sundays and 56 hours a week?
Now as to the question of "fair wages." The suffragists tell us that
women in industry are entitled to equal pay with men, and that this will
follow upon the heels of woman suffrage. Here again we have experience
to guide us, and we find upon investigation that in no state has the
ratio between men's and women's wages been affected by doubling the
electorate. Dr. Helen Sumner, who made a thorough investigation of this
point, says in her book entitled _Equal Suffrage:_ "Taking the public
employment as a whole, women in Colorado receive considerably less
remuneration than men. It is the old story of supply and demand in the
commercial world, and suffrage has probably nothing to do with the wages
of either men or women. The wages of men and women in all fields of
industry are governed by economic conditions."
By tables carefully compiled, Dr. Sumner shows that in Colorado, women
in private employment receive an average of only 47 per cent of the
average of men's wages, while in the United States as a whole the
average for women is 55.3 per cent of the average for men, and in
Massachusetts, where woman suffrage was recently defeated by nearly two
to one in the largest vote in the state's history, women receive 62
cents for every 100 cents paid to men in wages.
No one can deny, of course, that the wages of women in industry average
considerably lower than those of men. But the reasons for this are found
entirely outside of politics. The average girl is a transient in
industry, going into it as a temporary expedient to tide her over until
she attains her natural desire, which is to marry, settle down, and
raise a family. She is, therefore, not so good an investment for her
employer as the boy who works beside her, who has gone into the business
with the idea of making it his life work, and who has a stronger
incentive to make himself more valuable.
It must be remembered that employers of labor do not pay for men and
women, but for results. Samuel Gompers, an ardent suffragist, says women
get less because they ask for less. That is true in part. Women do ask
for less. One reason for this is that they look upon the job as
something temporary. Another reason is, very frequently, that they are
not entirely dependent on their own earnings, but are partly supported
in their parents' home. But in the majority of cases, the industrial
woman gets less than the industrial man because she is worth less, being
not only less experienced, but physically unable to compete with him on
a basis of absolute equality.
If the proof of the pudding is in the eating, the proof of woman
suffrage is in its operation; and, when we find that it has failed to
fulfill its promises where longest tried, it is hard to listen patiently
to pleas for its further extension. The vote has never raised the wages
or shortened the hours of men. It has never done it and can never do it
for women. The industrial woman can gain nothing by it. She will lose
much, as will other women.
III
A BUSINESS WOMAN'S VIEW OF SUFFRAGE
EDITH MELVIN
_Miss Edith Melvin, educated in the public and private schools of
Concord and by her father, James Melvin, who, by reason of service
in the Civil War was a totally helpless invalid confined to his
bed for many years before his death, when he left a widow and
an only child dependent upon themselves for support. After three
months as assistant to the advertising manager of a large medicine
producing company, she entered the law office of Judge Prescott
Keyes without business training other than in stenography and
typewriting. In this law office has had more than twenty years
practical business and legal experience, a position of ever
increasing responsibilities requiring steady and efficient study
and thought. Not a member of the Bar, never having applied for
admission because not believing in women becoming lawyers. Has
served as President of the Guild of the First Parish (Concord)
and Secretary of the South Middlesex Federation of Young People's
Religious Unions. Is an experienced public speaker. Has been an
officer and active member of Old Concord Chapter, D. A. R. For
many years a householder and taxpayer._
_J. A. H._
After more than two decades spent in active business life, I am of the
opinion that members of my sex do not need the ballot, and that it would
be a distinct and unnecessary encumbrance to them. For more than twenty
years, I regret to state, my life has been more that of a man than of a
woman. A home-supporter by the actual work of my hands and my brain,
rather than a home-maker; my life has been past amid the heat and
turmoil of business life, working shoulder to shoulder with men, pitting
my brain against the brains of men; and having no male relative to
represent me in the business of the government, a taxpayer "without
representation." That business life has been satisfactory to me in many
ways, I admit; but in order to wrest its satisfactions from the turmoil,
I have been forced to summon up the determination, the endurance, the
physical and mental labor, which by all the laws of nature belong not to
the "female of the species" but to the male. Its successes have been
apparent successes when considered as parallel with man's work in the
world, but failures when one considers that not for the sharp, insistent
contact of business life was woman created. I still feel no desire to
assist the male sex in the business of government, nor do I think I am
fitted so to do. I desire to be permitted to continue my present freedom
from political activities, and I am content to leave that part of life's
work in the hands of the sex which, to my mind, has managed it hitherto
exceedingly well.
I have never seen any point or place where the power to cast a ballot
would have been of the slightest help to me. For myself I should regard
the duties and responsibilities of thorough, well-informed, and faithful
participation year after year in political matters as a very great
misfortune; even more of a misfortune than the certainty of being mixed
up in the bitter strife, the falsifications, and publicity often
attendant upon political campaigns. Though my work has trained me to use
my mind in matters pertaining to law and to business, it would certainly
be incumbent upon me to make a thorough study of the theory and practice
of government before attempting to exercise the franchise. I feel sure
that the average business woman cannot make such a study or engage in
politics without interference not merely with her physical, but with her
mental business life, which should command her constant and best
attention.
Many women are now undertaking to engage in business, not as a
life-work, but as an incidental experience. It is true, however, that of
the many thousands of women so engaged, very, very few climb up the
ladder of success to the top rounds. It is the rare exception rather
than the rule for women to attain marked distinction, great wealth, or
fame in the business world. This is not caused by any unfairness of the
male sex, but by the nature, the physical and mental limitations, of the
members of the female sex. The trivialities of the afternoon tea are too
often present in the work of the wage-earning woman--too often she has
too slight a regard of her duty to return full value for the pecuniary
consideration she receives. The career of too many wage earning women is
now entirely haphazard, the result of necessity rather than
well-grounded choice. It is fair to assume that political matters would
receive the same degree of smattering knowledge and thought as is too
often received by the daily occupation into which many women drift.
It is much to be deplored that the trend of some modern young women is
more towards the commercial life in which her success is doubtful,
rather than toward the home-keeping, child-bearing, social, religious,
and philanthropic life for which she was physically and mentally
designed. These latter duties women faithfully and successfully perform
as their natural function, and through them they may rise to the
greatest distinction. Femininity should be cherished by the woman whom
circumstance or necessity drives into the wage-earning world, and she
can cherish it by retaining her hold on social, religious, and
charitable interests; but she cannot hope to do so if she attends
political meetings, serves on political committees, canvasses districts
for votes, watches at the polls, serves on juries, and debates political
questions or records and promises of political candidates. We have seen
the loss of femininity produced by the constant campaigning for
suffrage.
The instability of the female mind is beyond the comprehension of the
majority of men. The charm, the "sweet unreasonableness," the lack of
power of consecutive thought upon any intricate problem, which mark the
average woman are sometimes attractive and in personal or family
relations not without compensating advantages. In the business world,
however, these attributes are wholly detrimental. Business women might
possibly bring to political matters such training and experience as they
acquired, but to restrict the franchise to them would be to create a
class franchise. We must remember that suffrage would bring to the
electorate not merely the small number of business women, but the great
mass of women who have had little or no experience of life outside of
their homes.
In brief, then, the voting privilege granted to women, and particularly
to business women, would be a detriment to the women, and it would not
be of sufficient value to the government to outweigh the loss to them.
IV
SOME PRACTICAL ASPECTS OF THE QUESTION
ELLEN MUDGE BURRILL
_Miss Ellen Mudge Burrill, educated in the Lynn public schools,
graduated from the Lynn Classical High School; now in the employ
of the Commonwealth as Cashier in the Sergeant-at-Arms Department;
Supervisor in the First Universalist Sunday School of Lynn; a
member of the Council of the Lynn Historical Society; author of
the "State House Guide Book," "Essex Trust Company of Lynn" (the
successor of the Lynn Mechanics Bank,) "The Burrill Family of Lynn
During the Colonial and Provincial Periods," and of "Our Church
and the People Who Made Her," being a history of The First
Universalist Parish, Lynn._
_J. A. H._
If suffrage were a natural right, then women should have it, and at
once, but it is not like the right to have person and property
protected, which every man, woman and child already possesses. It is not
a natural right, but a means of government, and therefore a matter of
expediency. The question is, will government by the votes of men and
women together produce better results than by men alone? Suffrage means
more than casting a ballot; if it means anything effectual, it means
entering the field of politics. Had the proposed amendment been
ratified, it would have become the duty of all women to vote
systematically in all primary and regular elections. Would they have
done it in justifiable numbers?
Look at Public Document No. 43, giving the number of assessed polls and
registered voters for the Massachusetts State election of 1914:
_Assessed Polls_
1,019,063
_Registered Voters_
610,667
_Persons Voting_
466,360
Also for the City and Town elections of 1914:
_Assessed Polls, Male_
1,229,641
_Registered Voters, Male_
740,871
_Males Who Voted_
532,241
It is evident from these figures that a larger proportion of men should
fulfill their duty to the State. Government being one means to the end,
of making better conditions, the indifference of so many thousand is
beyond comprehension, and is a serious menace to the Commonwealth. It
was Governor Curtis Guild who said: "I base my anti-suffrage position on
the fact that our great failures in legislation are caused not so much
by a vicious element among the voters, as by abstention from voting and
emotional voting."
That granting the ballot to women would greatly increase the proportion
of those who neglect to vote, is clearly shown by the results of giving
women the school vote. In 1879 the Massachusetts Legislature, assuming
that women were peculiarly interested in school affairs, bestowed the
school franchise upon them. See how they have accepted that charge!
According to the United States Census of 1910, there were 1,074,485
women of voting age in this State. Of this number there are
approximately 622,000 eligible to register and vote for School
Committee. Here is the School vote for 1914:
_Women Who Registered_
101,439
_Women Who Voted_
45,820
Here is the school vote of the women for the city election in Lynn,
1914:
Approximate number of women of voting age in Lynn 18,000
Total registration 1,759
Number of women who voted 1,070
In a pamphlet entitled, "Women and the School Vote," Miss Alice Stone
Blackwell, trying to explain away the real meaning of the situation,
says:
"A woman's name, once placed on the register, is now kept there until
she dies, moves or marries. When a town or city shows a large
registration of women and a small vote, it means that on some occasion,
perhaps ten years ago, there was an exciting contest at the school
election, and many women registered and voted. When the contest was
over, many of the women ceased to vote, but their names stayed on the
register."
Her conclusion is that this is "the simple explanation of the lessened
proportion of women's votes to registration." But a more striking
conclusion must be drawn, namely, that it isn't enough to vote when
there is an exciting contest; that it is only well as far as it goes,
but it should be kept up. The State has a right to expect it. In view of
their actual record in the use of the school vote, I see no reason to
think that women would vote in sufficient numbers and with sufficient
regularity to improve politics or government.
The effect of woman suffrage upon the tax rate must also be considered.
If the good to be gained were to justify the expense, there would be
nothing to say; but if not, then we ought to pause to give certain facts
some thought. Take the expenses for the primary and state elections. The
total cost to the Commonwealth in 1914, merely for the preparation,
printing, and shipping of ballots, was $50,046.17 (Auditor's Report,
1914, page 240). I am informed that if women were given the ballot, a
conservative estimate would add 50% to this figure. If women become
candidates for public office, there would be the further expense of
handling the nomination papers. And these calculable expenses are only a
fraction of the total economic loss.
The City of Lynn has the second largest voting list in the state,
outside of Boston. The expense now, for the state and city election
machinery and assistants, is $9,000 a year, in round numbers. The
amendment would entail nearly double the expenditure. There are 53
cities and 320 towns in the state. Think it over before it is too late.
The financial side must enter into the problem some time; isn't the
present a good time?
The milk question was referred to several times in the recent campaign,
the suffragists implying that the Commonwealth was ignoring the need of
legislation and inspection. Here are some of the milk laws on our
statute books, that are administered by the State Department of Health:
The Revised Laws, Chapter 56, provide:
Penalties for the sale of adulterated, diseased, or skimmed milk.
Penalties for sale of milk not of good standard.
For the marking of skimmed milk.
For the marking of condensed milk.
Penalty for using counterfeit seal or tampering with sample.
Penalty for connivance or obstruction.
For the sending of results of analysis to dealer.
That inspectors must act on information and evidence.