BLACKWELL FAMILY ALICE STONE BLACKWELL Miscellany ScrapbooksINDEX - ALICE STONE BLACKWELL SCRAPBOOK C Addams, Jane - 18 Adams, John Quincy - 17 Allen, Rev. Frederick B. - American Federation of Labor - Endorsed Woman Suffrage - 27 American Library Association - ibid - 27 American Single Tax Conference - 27 American Woman Suffrage Association - Leaflet - 6 American Women Trade Unionists - 27 Andrews, Hon. N. L. - Wyoming - 6 Anti-Suffrage tract - 32 Anti-Suffrage Association - 11 Atlantic Monthly - 37 Australia, Reforms in - 1 Testimony from - 21 (Prof. McNaghton) Ballance, Mr. - New Zealand - 11 Barrows, Hon. Samuel June - 3 (Natl. Prison Commissioner) Barton, Clara - 18 Bates, Hon. John L. - 18 Beecher, Henry Ward - 17 Blackwell, Alice Stone - leaflet 11,12 (Equal Suffrage in New Zealand) Blackwell, Alice Stone - 10, 26, 37 Henry B. - 10, 26 Boller, Mary P Colorado - 8 Boston Herald, letter to editor - 28 Bradford, Mary C.c. (Colorado) - 19 Brent, Margaret - 25 Brooks, John Graham - 18 Phillips - 17 Brown, Judge (Wyo.) - 5 Hon. M.C. - U.S. Atty. Wyo. Territory - 6 Burleson, Rev. J. H. Wyo. -6 Campbell, Miss Jane - Pa. - 25 Campbell, Gov. John - Wyo. -5 Canterbury, Col. - New Zealand - 33 Carpenter, Mary - 17 Chicago Tribune - 28 Child, Lydia Maria - 17 Civic Federation of Denver, Colo. - 7.8 Clarke, Rev. James Freeman - 17 Clarkson, James S. - Iowa - 13, 16 (Leaflet) Cobbe, Frances Power, 17, 18 Collins, Hon. W.s. - Testimony from Wyo. - 21 Colorado - 23 Colorado campaign - 13-16 College - 33 Equal Suffrage Assn. 9, 19 Conine, Mrs. (Colo.) - 7 Cowie, Rev. Dr. William - Bishop of Auckland - 11 Craig, Miss Katherine L. - Colo. - 19 Crary, Rev, Dr. B. F. 6 Curtis, George William - 17 Deakin, Alfred - Australia - 31 Decker, Sarah Platt - 31, 33 Press, Genl. Fed, of Women's Clubs - Colo " Colo. State Board of Charities Denver Juvenile Court -31 Dole, Rev. Charles F. Letter to Boston Herald - 28 Ecob, Helen G. - Colorado - 8 Emerson, Ralph Waldo -17 Eminent Opinions on Women Suffrage - 17-18 (Leaflet) Equal Suffrage Act of New Zealand- 35 Ibid - leaflet by Alice Stone Blackwell - 11-12 see page 2 A for F-G Hale, Gen. Irving - 33 Leaflet - 19, 20 Gov. Hale of Wyoming - 5 Hall, Susan M. (Colo.) - 8 Harcourt, Sir William - 3 Hardy, Mrs. Jenncy C. Law - 1 Harris, Prof. William T. - 17 Harvey, Rev. W.C. - Wyoming -6 Higginson, Col. Thomas Wentworth -18 Hoar, Senator George F. 17 Hopkins, Johns University -19 Howe, Mrs. Julia Ward Equal Suffrage Leaflet "Mrs. Howe on Suffrage" - 5,6 " Woman and the Suffrage" - 30 Hoyt, Gov, - Wyo. - 5 Hunt, Ex-Gov. (Idaho) -33 Huxley - 17 Idaho Speaks - letter from Isaac N. Sullivan - 37, -39 International Bricklayers' and Stone Mason's Union - 27 Intl. Brotherhood of Bookbinders - 27 Intl. " of Teamsters - 27 " Cotton Spinners' Union - 20 27 Int. Council of Women -27 Iowa State Register - 13 Intl. Socialist Congress - 27 Intl. Typographical Union - 27 Intl. Woman Suffrage Alliance - 32 Interparliamentary Union - 32 Intl. Union Label League - 27 Iowa State University - 23 Alice Stone Black Well Scrapbook C- page 2 Fisher, Justice, Wyo. - 5.33 Foster, Mrs. J. Ellen-Colo. 15.16 Foulke, William Dudley-28 Fruits of Equal Suffrage, leaflet-32 Frye, Elizabeth-3 Gale, Senator A.H.- Iowa Legislature-23 Garrison, William Lloyd-17 General Federation of Women's Clubs-27 Goldman, Emma-28 Grenfeli, Mrs. Helen L. 32,33 Grote, Mrs. - 17 Alice Stone Blackwell Scrapbook C - page 3 Jameson, Mrs. - 17 Johns Hopkins University - 19 Jones, Hon. S. M.-Leaflet "Women and City Government" - 9 Mayor of Toledo, Ohio Kelly, Florence - 18 Kelly, Prof. Harry E Leaflet - 23 "Prof. Kelly on Colorado) Kingman, Hon. John W. - 5. 33 Kingsley, Charles - 18 Knights of Templars - 27 Ladies Battles, The-Atlantic Monthly article - 37 Ladies of the G.A.R.-27 Ladies of the Maccabees of the World - 27 Ladies of the Modern Maccabees - 27 Leaflets - 6,13,23 League of American Municipalities - 27 Lewis, Mrs. A. Lawrence - 32 Lincoln, Abraham - 17 Lindsey, Ben B. Judge - 19 Livermore, Mary A. - 17 Lister, Mrs. A. Watson - Australia - 31 Lloyd, Henry D. - 28 Long, John D. - Mass. - 18 Long, Margaret - leaflet - 19, 31 "Margaret Long on Colorado) Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth - 17 Lusk, Hon. Hugh H. -leafley- 26;29;34 MacNaghteon, Prod. R. E. - "More Testimony from Australia, 21 Married Women's Property Act, New Zealand - 35 Martineau, Harriet - 17 Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Assn. - 10 McQuaid, Bishop Bernard J. - 25 McSweeney, Rev. Edward (Maryland) 25 Meredith, Ellis O Colo. 3 Michigan State Fed. of Women's Clubs - 1 Mill, John Stuart Mills, Enos A. - Colo. 33 Moore, Rev. Wm. A. - Wyo. 6 Moran, Cardinal of Australia - 25 More Testimony from Colo. - leaflet -7-8 Mullen, Hon. W. E. Wyo. 33 Atty. General - leaflet 20-21 National Am. Woman Suffrage Assn. headquarters, 26 Leaflet - 26,32 National Assn. of Letter Carriers 27 Natl. Association of Spritualists of U.S. and Canada - 27 National Catholic Women's League - 27 Alice Stone Blackwell Scrapbook -C- page 4 Nation Congress of Mothers - 27 Natl. Convention of Universalists - 27 Natl. Council of Jewish Women - 27 Natl. Council of Women - 27 National Education Assn. - 27 National Finnish Temperance Society - 27 Natl. Free Baptist Woman's Missionary Society - 27 National Grange - 27 Natl. Municipal League - 27 Natl. Purity Conference - 27 National Women's Christian Temperance Union - 27 Natl. Women's Relief Corps - 27 Natl. Women'sSingle Tax League - 27 Native Daughters of the Golden West - 27 Nightingale, Florence - 17, 22 New York Observer, anti-suffrage editor - 6 New Zealand Council of Women - 31 Equal Suffrage in - 35,36; 4 New Zealand - 4, 11, 29, 33 "Prosperous New Zealand" - 29 New Zealand Reforms - 1, 2 Nurses' Assn.of the Pacific Coast - 27 O'Regan, Mr. P. J. - New Zealand - 12 Outlook, The -32 Julia Ward Howe article - 30 Palmer, Alice Freeman, 18 Park,Maud Wood - 19 Patterson, Miss Katherine A. G. - 8 Parker, Theodore - 17 Peace Congress - 27 Peavey, Mrs. - Colo. 7 Phelps, Elizabeth Stuart - 17 Philadelphia Woman Suffrage Assn. 25 Phillips, Wendell - 18, 28 Political Equality Series leaflets - 19,26 Populism, Colo. - 15 Progress- Organ of National American Woman Suffrage Assn. 1907 p. 26 Reed, Thomas B. 18 Rhoads, Mrs. - 15 Richie, Mrs. (Thackeray) 17 Rights of Free Speech - 28 (Chas. F. Dole letter to Editor) Russell, G. W. - New Zealand - 33 Alice Stone Blackwell Scrapbook C - page 5 Scully, Rev. Thomas - 25 Seawell, Molly Elliott, 37,39 Seddon, Rt. Hon. Richard J. - New Zealand - 2,11 Shafroth, John- Colo. - 33 Sheppard, Mrs. K. A. - New Zealand - 31 Slocum, Pres. of Colo. College - 33 Smith College - 19 Smith, Mrs. L. W. - Wyo. - 6 Socialist Party - 28 Some Catholic Opinions, leaflet - 25 Somerset, Lady Henry - 18 Somerville, Mrs. - 17 Spalding, Bishop John - 25 Springfield Republican - 29 State Federation of Labor - 27 (State branches) Stone, Lucy - 10 Stout, Lady - 35,37 Stout, Sir Robert - New Zealand - 35 Stowe, Harriet Beecher - 17 Sullivan, Isaac N. - 27-39 Swanwick, Miss Anna - 17 Testimony from Wyoming, leaflet - 20 Thayer, Gov. - Wyo. 5 Thomas, A. C. - Ore. - 20 Toronto Globe - 12 United Mine Workers of American - 27 United Teamsters of America - 27 United Textile Workers of America - 27 Upton, Harriet Taylor - 26 Utah - 32 Vaughn, Cardinal Archbishop - 25 Wadlin, Horace G. - 5 Waite, Gov. - Colo. - 15 Ward, Rt. Hon. Sir Joseph - 4 Welch, Minerva C. - Colo. - 19 Wells, B. Borrmann - 4 Wells, Julia V. - Colo. 19 Western Fed. of Miners - 27 Whittier, John G. - 17 Willard, Frances E. - 17 Wilson, Mrs. E. H. - Dakota 5 Woman and Suffrage - J.W.Howe - 30 Woman Suffrage Endorsed - leaflet - 28 Woman Suffrage in New Zealand - 4 Woman Suffrage in Wyoming, - leaflet - 5,6 Woman's Christian Temperance Union - 27 Woman's Franchise Assn. The - Tasmania - 21 Woman's Journal - 2,10,26 Alice Stone Blackwell Scrapbook, C- page 6. Women and Government- by Hon. S.M. Jones -leaflet- 9 Women Prison Inspectors- 3 Women Workers of the Middle West- 27 Women's Intl. Union Label League- 27 Women's National Council of Australia- 31 Women's Political Organizations in Melbourne- 1 World's W.C.T.U.- 27 Wright, Harriet G.R.- Colo.- 19 Wyoming,- 32 Wyoming Judges for Woman Suffrage- 5Reforms in Australia and New Zealand The Great New Zealand Premier Some Fruits of the Ballot Women and Prisons Woman Suffrage in New Zealand Woman Suffrage in Wyoming More Testimony from Colorado Mayor Golden Rule Jones Equal Suffrage in New Zealand, A.S.B. How Women Voted in Colorado, [Celar?]son Eminent Opinions (Mrs. Page's) Margaret Long on Colorado Gen. Irving Hale Testimony from Wyoming (Attorney General) Prof. Kelley on Suffrage Some Catholic Opinions. Luck on New Zealand [underscored] Women Suffrage Endorsed Landy Stout on New Zealand [underscored]. Equal Suffrage in New Zealand [underscored]. Idaho [underscored] Speaks. Women and the Suffrage. Julia W. Howe. W.D. Foulke on Free Speech [In a separate hand] Book-C [underscored twice] Dec 1905 [underscored][*1*] [*Dec. 9, 1905.*] REFORMS IN AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND. —— (Read by Mrs. Jenny C. Law-Hardy before the Michigan State Federation of Women's Clubs at its meeting in Kalamazoo.) Our Australian Commonwealth dates only from 1901, and I had therefore ample opportunity to attend the conventions and to hear the speeches of the most eminent men of Australia, for and against women's franchise. I was in New Zealand in 1893 when equal suffrage was granted, and was a member of the Women's Political Organization in Melbourne while they were striving for it; so that I may claim to have taken part in the fray. Women in Australia have always voted in municipal elections, so we can hardly claim that as one of our reforms. Also, all the railways, telephones, and telegraphs have always been State owned. They would no more hand over the main arteries of civilized life to private owners than they would the air or the ocean that surrounds them. These are run in the interest of the nation at large, not for the enrichment of the few. "Railways for service, not for profit," is the cry now, especially in New Zealand, where they reduce the fares whenever the profits increase, besides taking such precautions as reduce accidents to a minimum. The great social, political and industrial revolution began in New Zealand in 1890. That country can justly be described as the political laboratory of the world. It is about the size of England and Scotland, but is dwarfed by the immense size of its nearest neighbor, Australia, which is 2,000 square miles larger than the United States. In Australia we regard the New Zealanders as our own kith and kin. Though there is a friendly rivalry between us, we are proud of their progress, and though the ocean that separates us is one of the most stormy and dangerous in the world, yet many Australians spend the summer months amid the glaciers and fiords of that beauteous region, and the New Zealanders are fond of visiting the fashionable centers of Melbourne and Sydney. Hence the popular feeling in one place soon finds an echo in the other, and reforms tried and approved in one country are very apt to be copied, either partially or entirely, in the other. The great strike of 1890 paralyzed the trade of Australasia, and brought want and destitution to a land where they were previously unknown. In one way New Zealand was the hardest hit, as she suffered also from want of land; for, though the population was comparatively very small, the best land in the country had been seized by a few monopolists and wealthy corporations, who let it lie idle while waiting for other people's work and enterprise to make land values rise. Realizing that monopoly was crushing the prosperity of the country and that corruption was following in its wake, the farmers and the workingmen united at the polls. This was comparatively easy, as New Zealand, like Australia, has direct nominations, which do away with the party system to a great extent, and enable any voter to become a candidate. In the summer of 1890, John Ballance became the first liberal labor premier of New Zealand, and Richard Seddon became minister of public works,—the greatest living statesman of the British Empire, a man of indomitable energy, remarkable executive power, and incorruptible honesty. The new government came in with the avowed mission to check monopoly, stop the concentration of land-ownership, and turn the tide the other way; to secure just taxation, encourage industry, and use the power of the government in the interest of the mass of the people, instead of favoring a class of monopolists. The senate, being appointed for life, were to a man against the new ministry. To overcome this, the premier appointed twelve new senators, and introduced a bill limiting their term to seven years. And with the advent of Premier Balance the equal suffrage movement gained in strength. A bill to that effect had already been rejected twice, but now the government itself was fighting for it. Petitions signed by over 30,000 women were presented to parliament, and although John Ballance died, the bill was carried through by Richard Seddon, who followed Ballance as premier, and who has held that office ever since, longer than any other British premier, and who will hold it until he dies, unless he resigns. In September, 1893, the women of New Zealand, whites and Maories; became the equals of men before the law,—the first women in the world to receive the national franchise from one end of a country to the other. I may state here that the Maori women had always voted and spoken in their native councils. It would take too long to describe the benefits that full adult suffrage has brought to New Zealand. The proof of it is that, after watching the working of it intently, it was adopted by all the Australian States, one after the other, with the exception of Victoria, and in 1902 the new Commonwealth granted not only the right to vote, but to be elected as well, advancing a step further than New Zealand, so that there is now no political office in Australia that a woman may not hold. REFORMS DUE TO WOMAN SUFFRAGE. Directly due to woman's influence at the ballot are the following: 1. Age of consent raised from 14 to 16 years. 2. Strong law against houses of ill repute. 3. Appointment of women inspectors of factories, asylums and other institutions. 4. Laws against sweating and gambling. 5. Admission of women to the bar. 6. Divorce laws equalized for both sexes. 7. Testators' family maintenance act, by which the economic rights of wife and family are protected. 8. Infant life-protection act, to prevent baby-farming. 9. Amendments to the Industrial School act. 10. Slander of women act. 11. An act to provide legal separation without expense. 12. Servants' registry offices act. 13. Wives given municipal vote in virtue of their husbands' qualifications. 14. Old-age pensions to both sexes. 15. Technical schools established. 16. Factory acts, regulating wages, also health and interests of women employees. OLD-AGE PENSIONS. Perhaps the most far-reaching of these is the Old-Age Pensions act that has been passed in New Zealand and most of the Australian States. Every destitute man or woman over 65 years of age has a pension sufficient to exist upon. If they are infirm, the pension begins at 60. If a person has property, something is deducted, until, when his income reaches $260 annually, the pension ceases. The aim is to secure five dollars a week to every human being. Think of it—not an aged pauper in the land! All provided for, not by charity, but pensioned as war-scarred veterans, by a just and sympathetic government. Among other reforms, not directly due to women, but which would not have succeeded without their influence, are the truck act, forbidding workmen to be paid in goods or any way but in cash, except in places where stores cannot be obtained otherwise. ARBITRATION OF LABOR TROUBLES. Then there is industrial arbitration on demand of either disputant in a labor difficulty, which signifies the abolition of industrial war, through judicial decision, in place of strikes and lockouts. It is based on the assumption that there are three parties to every industrial trouble, labor, capital and the public. The public always wants arbitration; therefore, if one of the other parties desires it also, there is a majority of two to one in favor of peaceful settlement. It has proved so successful that there have been no strikes in New Zealand for nine years. If either side has a grievance, they do not cease work, but appeal to the court. No lawyers are allowed, because it is supposed to be their interest to prolong the dispute, while a quick settlement is in the interest of everybody else. Each side sends its ablest speakers, who state their case, and the judges decide more by equity than by the quibbles of the law, and make every effort to conciliate and to effect a compromise; at the same time their decisions are absolute and final. NO UNEMPLOYED. Government contracts in New Zealand are given directly to gangs of workmen, the government supplying its own material. This has resulted in public works being done much more efficiently and cheaply, besides abolishing the unemployed problem. OTHER REFORMS. The State also freezes the meat, which is the greatest industry in New Zealand, ships it to London, and pays the farmers the price received, less expenses. The State railways carry children free to school, and take the unemployed free to places where labor is required. At the time of the great drought they carried the starving stock free to available pasture grounds. New Zealand looks forward to a time when the man who lives one hundred miles from a port will be able to ship his produce just as cheaply as the man who lives only ten miles away. Whenever the railways make a profit, they reduce fares. LAND LAWS. But perhaps the reforms which have created the greatest sensation in the world have been the New Zealand land laws. The object is to break up large monopolies, and to give, if possible, every man or woman a chance to own his own piece of land. New Zealand levies taxes only on unimproved values. Improvements are exempt from taxation. And there is also an exemption of $2,500, where the estate does not exceed $7,500. If an aged or infirm person owns land or mortgages bringing less than $1,000, and the payment of taxes would be a hardship, the commissioner may remit them. A number of widows and orphans are excused under this clause. There is also the graduated land tax, which begins when the unimproved value reaches $25,000. It commences with fifty cents per $100, and reaches to eighty cents per $100 when the estate consists of one million dollars or more of unimproved value. This is in addition to the level-rate land tax, which [*2*] is forty cents per one hundred dollars. In other places big corporations pay at a lower rate than the poor man, but in New Zealand the rich pay at a higher rate than those of moderate means. A wealthy landowner may pay a graduated land tax sixteen times as high as a poorer man. And there is an absentee tax for those who reside outside the State. The Compulsory- Land-Resumption act enables the government to buy up large estates at the sum at which they are valued for taxation, with ten per cent, added, leaving the owner a fixed maximum, which varies according to the quality of the land. The lands thus acquired are divided, and cannot be disposed of by sale, but only on lease in perpetuity. The lease is five per cent. on the land value, and if at any time the lessee is unable to pay, the minister may remit a year's rent. In leasing, preference is given to the landless. Another reform is the referendum, which originated in Switzerland. It is the reference of a specific question to the people. All important questions are now decided in Australia by referendum. GOVERNMENT GUARANTEES TITLES. The Torrens system of titles registration was invented in South Australia by Sir T. Torrens. It does away with the abstract. The government guarantees your title, and one piece of parchment is all that is required to prove your ownership. This act has been copied in several American and European States. STATE INSURANCE AND STATE BANKS. State fire-insurance and life-insurance should find supporters here at the present time. It is infinitely cheaper, safer, and more just than private insurance. In New Zealand, a man's heirs are paid, whatever may have been his manner of death. No legal quibbles are resorted to. Even if no premium has been paid for years, as long as there is any residue left, the heirs receive it. Government State banks enable the State to borrow cheaply the money it needs for public improvements, at the same time offering small investors absolute security, and loaning small sums to farmers and others at four and one-half per cent., and also averting panics and tightness of money. The public trustee serves as executor, administrator, trustee agent, or attorney for decedents, or for those who are unable or unwilling to care for their estates themselves. Wills appointing him executor are examined free of charge at the trust office. He has much latitude given him, decides more by equity than law, and can even be influenced by his heart. Most of the property of the insane is administered by him. As I have mentioned before, Australia and New Zealand have direct nominations. Anyone wishing to become a candidate can do so on depositing $125 to $259, according to the State. In the Australian Commonwealth, the senators are elected directly, the same as the members of the House of Representatives, and it is only a question of time until all the State Legislative Councils, as we call the State Senates, will be elected in the same way. No senator is allowed to spend more than $1500 on his election, and a member of the House of Representatives is allowed to spend only $500. They are not permitted to hire cabs to take voters to the polls, and giving a voter a glass of whiskey is bribery and corruption. The candidate is responsible for the acts of his agents in this respect. The man who is elected, in Australia, really represents the choice of the majority of the people. It would be impossible for a minority to bring in their man. You may bribe a primary or a convention, but you cannot buy the people at large. No nation has advanced so far in the humanitarian and sociological path as has New Zealand, though Australia has done much. Though nations have cried, "Liberty, equality and fraternity," it has been reserved for the land of the Maori to make practical effort towards their realization, and that, not in the old time-honored way, through war, bloodshed, misery and desolation. It has been a glorious victory because it left no victims to bury, no vanquished to weep. ———— THE GREAT NEW ZEALAND PREMIER. ——— A cable from Melbourne announces the death of the Right Hon. Richard J. Seddon, P. C., the great Premier of New Zealand, on the steamship Oswestry Grange, when a few hours out from Sydney, on his way back to New Zealand. The readers of the Woman's Journal will honor the memory of the man who carried the Equal Suffrage Act in 1893, making New Zealand the first Equal Suffrage country in the world, and who was for 13 years the peerless leader of the Reform Government of the most advanced country in the world. Richard John Seddon was born in Lancashire, England, in 1845. He went to Australia in 1863, at the age of 18. Four years later, when the gold fever in New Zealand was at its height, he went there, and worked for years as a miner on the west coast. Gradually he entered public life. Passing up through Road Boards and Provincial Councils, the Board of Education and the Mayoralty of Kumara, he was elected a member of Parliament in 1879, and has remained one ever since. When the Liberal party came in with Premier Ballance in 1890, he became Minister of Public Works, and on Ballance's death in 1893 he succeeded him as Premier, which office he held until his death. Seddon was a born democrat, a man of incorruptible honesty, remarkable executive power, with a tremendous capacity for work, and a stern sense of justice. From his youth up he was always on the side of the oppressed. No honors or flattery from the powers that be could ever mar his judgment. Amid all the honor and glory that surrounded him in his later years he remained true to his country and his principles. He has refused titles and honors from the King of England, preferring to remain "Our Dick" of New Zealand to seeing his name in the Peerage Book beside ennobled brewers and others who qualified for the position by their money. As Premier of New Zealand and the greatest statesman in the British empire, he remained simple and unaffected. He never forgot his old friends of his "digger" days. On one occasion he visited a small country village. The local member of Parliament met the train and wanted him to come to his house, where a dinner was awaiting him. An old woman with an antiquated shawl and a huge umbrella, tied together with a string, who had known him as a miner, protested: "Dick ain't a-goin' with you. Dick's a-goin' with me, to have a cup of tea." And Dick went. No mitred saint or conquering general ever did as much for his land as Richard Seddon. The saint nursed the poor, and gave them charity; Seddon abolished poverty itself. The victorious warrior waded through oceans of blood for his country's glory; the Premier of New Zealand conquered injustice, monopoly, trusts, greed and strikes without the death of a single man. For thirteen years the uncrowned king of New Zealand, he has not caused the widowhood of one woman, or the tears of a single orphan. Yet, it is wrong to call him the uncrowned "king," for he would have scorned such a title. He ever warred against all who, through legalized theft, oppression, and monopoly, would have arrogated to themselves the appellation of wool, land or oil "kings." There are no millionaires in New Zealand. Supported by the brilliant, enthusiastic men who formed his cabinet, he accomplished reforms that had been called Utopian and visionary, amid the jeers of his detractors and the bitter warfare of the monopolists. New Zealand has established amongst other reforms: 1. Old age pensions for destitute men and women over 65. 2. Compulsory arbitration in strikes. 3. The Public Trustee, who acts for decedents and minors. 4. Government fire and life insurance. 5. Government freezing and packing houses for meat, insuring clean meat at uniform price and well-paid employees. 6. State-owned railways, telegraphs, telephones and coal mines. 7. A compulsory eight-hour working day. 8. No children allowed to work in factories or mines. 9. Graduated land tax and compulsory land resumption act. Political dishonesty is practically a thing of the past. Two months ago Premier Seddon was able to announce: "There is today not a pauper in New Zealand." Think of what those few words mean! Has ever any ruler, however great, been able to say as much? Yet it was but a fitting final speech for "Our Dick," who fought without rest for the extermination of poverty since he came to man's estate. The fight was waged and won in sixteen years. The great strike of 1890 nearly killed the trade of Australasia; 20,000 men left New Zealand in six months for want of work and land. The unemployed were parading the streets of the cities clamoring for work; wild talk of anarchy filled the air, and that degradation of man and womanhood— the soup kitchen—appeared. Realizing the dangers of monopoly, in sheer despair, the middle classes— farmers and workingmen—united at the polls, and the Ballance Ministry[*3*] [*June 23, 1906.*] came into power, pledged to "Equal Suffrage and Reform." When Ballance died in 1893, Seddon carried the bill which struck out of the Constitution of New Zealand. It was confidently predicted that the country had gone half-way to the dogs, and was now on the road to go there altogether. Every argument that is now used against Equal Suffrage in America was used there, and all the cheap witticisms were so strikingly similar that I sometimes feel as if I had gone back thirteen years. It was even said that women, being by nature conservative, and under the influence of teacher and preachers, would vote against the Seddon Ministry and on the conservative side. What has been the result? At the first election in which women voted, the opposition was practically wiped out; women were loyal to Seddon and the party which had given them the ballot, and from that day to this they have supported "Seddon and Reform." He was a great leader. Yet, without the support of the women's vote, it is doubtful that he could have carried the reforms which have made those faraway islands in the Pacific the nearest approach to paradise the world has yet seen. Far from clamoring for office, the women, which a fidelity rare in mankind, have fought for thirteen years, even unto his death, for the man who gave them justice. Seddon's last known words were to Premier Bent of Victoria, on his departure from Australia: "I am leaving tonight for God's own country. I hope Australia will become a similar Paradise." That New Zealand has become the most perfect land is due to Richard Seddon, the great men who worked with him, and, no less, to the nation which rose to the occasion, which deemed no effort too great to learn the truth, and which relentlessly turned the thieves and grafter out of office, and was willing to sacrifice much for justice's sake. Politics are clean or dirty according to the men who are in them. There is no higher calling that that of the honest, fearless statesman, for the weal and woe of thousands depends on him. Australia has copied New Zealand, and has given her women equal rights with men. Even here in America Seddon's influence is felt; for here, where we are still fighting for suffrage, reform and justice, who can call us visionary or seekers after the unattainable, when we can point to the land where women have voted for thirteen years, which is called even by its opponents the "Isle of Reform," and which its happy inhabitants name "The Ideal Republic"? Hence let the women of America give one grateful thought to the memory of Richard Seddon, who hailed them as his peers, who first gave them the opportunity to show what they could do, whose wealth and glory was his country's happiness, who gathered no riches for himself, whose dream was the brotherhood of men. Sir William Harcourt said once to him: "You have certainly found the secret of perpetual power." The secret was the love of a grateful, happy and prosperous people, the richest per capita in the world, who enshrined him in their hearts as "Our Dick." Jenny C. Law Hardy, Late Of Melbourne, Australia. Tecumseh, Mich., June 17, 1906. SOME FRUITS OF THE BALLOT. [*Dec. 9, 1905*] Ellis Meredith, of Denver, a Colorado woman much interested in humane work, and a brilliant newspaper writer says: "To my mind, the ballot is simply one of our many labor-saving inventions. It is the easier way. "In Colorado there are no children under 14 out of school; we have no child beggars or street musicians, and no child is abused or neglected for more than a few days at the longest. We have the strictest laws for the prevention of the mental, moral or physical abuse of children, of any country in the world, and the best enforced. We have the strongest compulsory school law, and the most enlightened laws concerning delinquent children, of any section, save where our laws have been copied. "In a recent prosecution under our law against indecent literature, pictures, etc., our District Attorney said that, in examining the statutes on this subject, he found ours the strictest in this country. "The ballot box is the national contribution box; but there are many citizens who make the same blunder the little girl did who was taken to church for the first time. After the plate had been passed, she whispered to her mother, 'I got a quarter. How much did you get?' Our idea seems to be not how much we shall put into our national life, but how much can we get out of it?" WOMEN AND PRISONS. [*Dec. 9, 1905.*] Hon. Samuel J. Barrows, National Prison Commissioner, is a strong advocate of women as prison-inspectors. He says: "Women have long developed their genius for housekeeping, and the cleanest prisons in the world are those which they keep. We have not yet begun to live up to the idea of Elizabeth Fry that every jail or prison where women are kept should be under charge of a woman. "We need in penology the help of women in doing what we know ought to be done, but also in finding out what ought to be done, and in solving knotty and unsettled questions." Commissioner Barrows adds: "In the field of penology, woman needs the ballot as she needs it in other field, not as an end but as a means—an instrument through which she can express her conviction, her conscience, her intelligence and sympathy. "Questions in philanthropy are more and more forcing themselves to the front in legislation. Women are obliged to journey to the Legislature at every session to instruct members and committees at legislative hearings. Some of these days, we shall think it absurd that women who are capable of instructing men how to vote should not be allowed to vote themselves." [*4*] [*Woman's Journal June 8, 1907.*] WOMAN SUFFRAGE IN NEW ZEALAND. "In my opinion, the results of enfranchising the women of New Zealand have been wholly beneficial." The Rt. Hon. Sir Joseph George Ward, K. C. M. G., Premier of New Zealand, spoke deliberately and with conviction. I had sought him out at the Hotel Cecil, and, despite his multifarious engagements, he was kind enough to spare time to touch on the burning question of woman suffrage. Sir Joseph has keen brown eyes, a strong, kindly face, and a certain air of self-reliant strength and resolution behind his diplomatic, tactful exterior. He laughed cheerfully when I asked him how it was the women of New Zealand have secured that for which we in England were striving so earnestly. "New Zealand," he said, "has solved many problems which are vexing the spirits of the wise people here. You see, women with us had for years taken an active interest in local affairs; indeed, the very atmosphere of the country seems to encourage cooperation between the sexes, and it was an easy step to complete enfranchisement. "It must have been nearly 14 years ago,—oh, yes, in September, 1893— that the Houses of Parliament of New Zealand passed the bill conferring the franchise on women. I was myself in the House when the measure became law. Of course, there had been opposition. In every communist there are fearful spirits who see danger in innovations; but the ladies, availing themselves of a favorable political conjunction, secured the necessary support, and gained what I believe to be by right unquestionably theirs, the power to influence directly the legislation of the country in which their homes are." "They tell us here," I said, "that politics is outside the sphere of women. Will you not let us know whether the women of New Zealand have proved themselves incapable of appreciating political issues?" "By no means," was the answer, "The State is but a large home and the problems in managing its affairs are much the same as those encountered in the household. They differ rather in degree in nature, and our women have shown themselves keenly alive to political issues, and have exhibited common sense at least equal to that of men." "Has the possession of the vote produced any antagonism between the sexes?" "I have certainly observed none," said Sir Joseph, smiling. "Indeed, there are some who tell us that it is useful to provide, in this way, intelligent topics for men and women to talk about apart from their own private affairs. It enlarges their mental horizon, and inculcates tolerance. The statement that the power to vote renders a woman less attractive or less companionable is utter nonsense. Human nature is not so easily affected. A good point which has especially struck me in the behavior of women in their relation to politics is the absence of wrangling and bitterness. Altogether we take our politics more good-naturedly in New Zealand, possibly owing to there being so many apparently divergent interests. This is indirectly but not remotely due to political rights being the common property of the whole community, without invidious distinctions of class or sex." "And has New Zealand become accustomed to the idea of woman suffrage?" "A proposal to establish a sex line in politics would now be laughed at, and to the majority of the people of New Zealand the disenfranchisement of one-half of the population because they are women would appear as ridiculous as arbitrarily to withhold votes from a section of the men,—say those with red hair. "Yes, most decidedly the women care for the vote and use it. You will find particulars here which are conclusive on this point." And with this Sir Joseph handed me the New Zealand Official Year Book. "You will see that in 1893, when women were enfranchised, 83 per cent. of those entitled to vote went to the polls, whereas less than 70 per cent. of the men voted. It appears, however, that this awoke the men to a sense of their duty, and the percentage of male votes has consistently risen, until at the last election, in 1905, approximately the same percentage of male and female votes went to the polls." "Do women push any pet reforms?" "I cannot say," replied Sir Joseph, "that they have shown great activity in initiating special legislation. Indeed, they appear rather to constitute themselves an examining board, and their influence is undoubtedly felt in all legislation. It is a sane, healthy influence, which makes for purity in politics, and, while mainly democratic in spirit and devoted to the protection of public interests rather than private privilege, it is a balancing force." "Then you do not find evidence of hysteria in politics?" "No, our women are not unduly swayed by emotion in politics. In fact, I should say they show considerable political acumen." "Tell you friends," Sir Joseph said, when at parting I pressed for a message to the suffragists of England, "tell your friends to keep up their courage. Political enfranchisement came to the women of New Zealand with dramatic suddenness, and in fact they secured it by a majority of only two votes." "And now?" "Now, if the question were voted upon, it is doubtful whether in the whole House there would be two to oppose it." B. Borrmann Wells.[*5*] Woman Suffrage Leaflet. Published Fortnightly by the American Woman Suffrage Association, at 3 Park Street, Boston. Vol.II Entered at the Boston Post-Office as second class matter. No. 19 Subscription, 25 cts. per annum. MAY 1, 1889 Extra copies, 15 cts. per hundred. WOMAN SUFFRAGE IN WYOMING. In deciding whether the practical effects of any measure will be good or bad, an ounce of experiment is worth a ton of theory. In Wyoming, full suffrage was granted to women in 1869. Every Governor of Wyoming for the last eighteen years has testified strongly to its good results. Governors of Territories are appointed by the President, not elected by the people. They are not dependent on the women's votes, and hence their testimony is impartial. Governor Campbell was in office when the woman suffrage law was passed. Two years later he said, in his message to the Territorial Legislature: "There is upon our statute book 'an act granting to the women of Wyoming Territory the right of suffrage,' which has now been in force two years. It is simple justice to say that the women entering, for the first time in the history of the country, upon these new and untried duties, have conducted themselves in every respect with as much tact, sound judgment, and good sense, as men." Two years after that, he said in his message: "The experiment of granting to women a voice in the Government has now been tried for four years. I have heretofore taken occasion to express my views in regard to the wisdom and justice of this measure, and my conviction that its adoption has been attended only by good results. Two years more of observation of the practical working of the system have only served to deepen my conviction that what we, in this Territory, have done, has been well done; and that our system of impartial suffrage is an unqualified success." Gov. Thayer, who succeeded Campbell, said in his message: "Woman suffrage has now been in practical operation in our Territory for six years, and has, during the time, increased in popularity and in the confidence of the people. In my judgment, its results have been beneficial, and its influence favorable to the best interests of the community." Gov. Hoyt, who succeeded Thayer, said in his message in 1882: "Elsewhere, objectors persist in calling this honorable statute of ours 'an experiment.' We know it is not. Under it we have better laws, better officers, better institutions, better morals, and a higher social condition in general, than could otherwise exist. Not one of the predicted evils, such as loss of native delicacy and disturbance of home relations, has followed in its train." Gov. Hale, who succeeded Hoyt, expressed himself repeatedly to the same effect. Gov. Warren, who succeeded Hale, said in a letter to Horace G. Wadlin, Esq., of the Mass. House of Representatives, in 1885: "Our women consider much more carefully than our men the character of candidates, and both political parties have found themselves obliged to nominate their best men in order to obtain the support of the women. As a business man, as a city, country, and territorial officer, and now as Governor of Wyoming Territory, I have seen much of the workings of woman suffrage, but I have yet to hear of the first case of domestic discord growing out of it. Our women nearly all vote, and since in Wyoming, as elsewhere, the majority of women are good and not bad, the result is good and not evil." Hon. John K. Kingman, for four years a judge of the U. S. Supreme Court of Wyoming, says: "Woman suffrage was inaugurated in 1869 without much discussion, and without any general movement of men or women in its favor. At that time few women voted. At each election since, they have voted in larger numbers, and now nearly all go to the polls. Our women do not attend the caucuses in any considerable numbers, but they generally take an interest in the selection of candidates, and it is very common now, in considering the availability of an aspirant for office, to ask, 'How does he stand with the ladies?' Frequently the men set aside certain applicants for office, because their characters would not stand the criticism of women. The women manifest a great deal of independence in their preference for candidates, and have frequently defeated bad nominations. Our best and most cultivated women vote, and vote understandingly and independently, and they cannot be bought with whiskey, or blinded by party prejudice. They are making themselves felt at the polls, as they do everywhere else in society, by a quiet but effectual discountenancing of the bad, and a helping hand for the good and the true. We have had no trouble from the presence of bad women at the polls. It has been said that the delicate and cultured women would shrink away, and the bold and indelicate come to the front in public affairs. This we feared; but nothing of the kind has happened. I do not believe that suffrage causes women to neglect their domestic affairs. Certainly, such has not been the case in Wyoming, and I never heard a man complain that his wife was less interested in domestic economy because she had the right to vote, and took an interest in making the community respectable. The opposition to woman suffrage at first was pretty bitter. To-day I do not think you could get a dozen respectable men in any locality to oppose it." Judge Brown, of Laramie, Wyoming, wrote as follows to Mrs. E. H. Wilson, of Bismarck, Dakota, in 1883: "My prejudices were formerly all against woman suffrage, but they have gradually given way since it became an established fact in Wyoming. My observation, extending over a period of fifteen years, satisfies me of its entire justice and propriety. Impartial observation has also satisfied me that in the use of the ballot women exercise fully as good judgement as men, and in some particulars are more discriminating, as, for instance, on questions of morals." Ex-Chief Justice Fisher, of Cheyenne, Wyoming, wrote to the Daily New Era, of Lancaster, Pa., Dec. 11, 1883: "I wish I could show the people who are so wonderfully exercised on the subject of female [*6*] 2 WOMAN SUFFRAGE LEAFLET, no. 19. suffrage just how it works. The women watch the nominating conventions, and if the Republicans put a bad man on their ticket and the Democrats a good one, the Republican women do not hesitate a moment in scratching off the bad and substituting the good. It is just so with the Democrats. Hence we nearly always have a mixture of office-holders. I have seen the effects of female suffrage, and instead of being a means of encouragement to fraud and corruption, it tends greatly to purify elections." Hon. M. C. Brown, U. S. Attorney for Wyoming Territory, says: "Woman suffrage in Wyoming has accomplished much good, and has harmed no one." Hon. N. L. Andrews, Speaker of the House of Representatives of Wyoming (Democrat), said, in 1879: "I came to this Territory in the fall of 1871, with the strongest prejudice possible against woman suffrage, and decidedly opposed to it in all its features. Yet, willing to be fair and candid on the subject, I became a close observer of its practical results. I have for three successive sessions been honored by an election to the Legislature of the Territory and twice as Speaker of the House of Representatives, and my opportunities for seeing and judging of this matter have not been circumscribed; and I can now say that the more I have seen of it the less my objections have been realized, and the more it has commended itself to my judgment and good opinion. And now I frankly acknowledge that under all my observations it has worked well, and been productive of much good in our Territory, and no evil that I have been able to discern. The only wonder to me is why the States of the Union have not adopted it long ago. The women use the ballot with more independence and discrimination in regard to the qualifications of candidates than men do. If the ballot in the hand of woman compels political parties to place their best men in nomination, this, in and of itself, is a sufficient reason for sustaining woman suffrage." Mrs. L. W. Smith, Superintendent of Schools for Carbon County, Wyoming, says: "To vote does not require so much time that it interferes either with household duties or with other business. A woman is more apt to work for the individual than for party. If a candidate is not correct in character, the entire feminine vote is against him, irrespective of party. This fact renders it a necessity for each party to nominate good men, or their defeat is a foregone conclusion." The editor of the New York Observer is opposed to woman suffrage. He wanted some strong testimony against it, and wrote to a lady of his acquaintance in Wyoming, the wife of a U. S. Judge, and a leading member of the Presbyterian church, asking her to write an account of the practical workings of woman suffrage for his paper. She replied: "I came to Wyoming three years ago from Missouri, and brought with me fully the usual amount of conservatism; and I regarded with peculiar suspicion the idea of woman's entering the political arena. My observations have materially modified my views upon this subject. The women of Wyoming, and especially the better class, as highly prize and as generally exercise the right of suffrage as do the men. Almost every lady here is not only reconciled to, but highly gratified with, the practical results of woman suffrage. The only element that would desire its repeal are the vicious and corrupt, who fear its power, and are restless under the restraint it helps to impose. The women are less governed by party considerations than men, and both political parties have come to recognize the necessity of nominating their best men, or at least not nominating bad men, if they desire to succeed." Rev. Dr. B. F. Crary, presiding elder of the M. E. Churches of Northern Colorado and Wyoming, said: "The statement has been made and widely circulated, that at the late election in the Territory of Wyoming 'no women voted except those of the baser sort.' I am well acquainted in Wyoming, having charge of the Methodist churches of that Territory, and I know from many conversations held with women of the very highest character, from statements made to me by ministers, and by the highest officers of the Territory, and from my own personal associations with editors, lawyers, teachers, and business men, that all such statements about the women of Wyoming are utterly without foundation. The very best ladies of this Territory vote, and, as they generally vote on the right side of all questions the lies told to their detriment originate with men of the 'baser sort,' with defeated demagogues and disappointed strikers and the meanest kind of politicians, who hate the majority of the women because of their pure lives and independent ballots." Rev. J. H. Burlison, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Laramie City, says: "I think no one will say that woman suffrage has had any bad effect in our Territory. I have never heard of any woman who considered the right of suffrage a severe or crushing burden. The women seem to be glad of the chance to vote. They have suffered no loss of respect or consideration, and they are fully as intelligent and independent as men in the exercise of their right of suffrage." Rev. Wm. A. Moore, pastor of the African M. E. Church of Cheyenne, says: "No unpleasantness is caused in families by women's voting, so far as I know. They vote as intelligently and independently as men, and they make just as good wives, mothers, sisters, and daughters as before." Rev. W. C. Harvey, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Laramie, says: "I came to this city prejudiced against woman suffrage, but I have been thoroughly converted. It has had no bad results, and its good results have been incalculable." The advocates of woman suffrage have often publicly challenged its opponents to find two persons in all Wyoming Territory who will assert, over their own names and addresses, that woman suffrage there has had any bad results. The opponents have hitherto failed to respond. AMERICAN WOMAN SUFFRAGE ASSOCIATION. "The Woman's Journal;" a weekly paper devoted to Woman Suffrage. $2.50 a year, 3 months, on trial, 50 cts. To libraries and reading-rooms, half price. 28 different suffrage tracts (sample copies), postpaid, for 10 cts. Address "Woman's Journal," Boston, Mass[*7*] WOMAN SUFFRAGE LEAFLET. Published Bi-Monthly at the Office of The Woman's Journal, Boston, Mass. Vol. VI. Entered at the Boston Post-Office as second-class matter. No. 4. Subscription 25 centers per annum. JULY 1897. Extra copies, 15 cts. per 100, postpaid. More Testimony from Colorado. The Civic Federation of Denver, Col., which was chiefly instrumental in bringing about the recent victory of municipal reform in that city, has joined with the Colorado Equal Suffrage Association in putting forth the following statement, in reply to various absurd reports circulated of late regarding the results of woman suffrage in Colorado: We, the members of the Colorado Equal Suffrage Association and of the Civic Federation of Denver, having had our attention called to sensational and misleading reports in some Eastern journals concerning the result of impartial suffrage in our State, are impelled to issue a brief answering statement. Self-assertion being as unbecoming in associations as in individuals, we should accept in silence, as the inevitable due of innovators, the persecution of prejudiced critics, did their hostility affect ourselves alone; but when false statements are made the weapons with which to defeat the liberty of women in other States, a measure of authoritative self-assertion becomes necessary. We do not claim that phenomenal good has been secured by the vote of women. The tyranny of political machinery, made effective by long usage under the management of trained workers, cannot be overcome by the enthusiasm of raw recruits. We do claim that the women of Colorado have a vital part in the great movement that is everywhere seeking a better social order. The successful outcome of the late municipal election in Denver, occurring as it did three years after our enfranchisement, was the first triumph of an organized effort made by women to influence conventions and carry an election. The success is considered an earnest of future achievement through women's ballots in the interest of reform. Never before or since the establishment of impartial suffrage in our State has there been such concentrated effort in behalf of reform legislation. Bills relating to civil service, local option, indeterminate sentence, a new primary law, and improved election laws were all proposed and indorsed by organizations of women. The first Legislature of the new order passed a bill giving the wife equal rights with her husband in the possession of their children, and the bill raising to eighteen years the age of legal protection for girls. In our present House of Representatives the effort toward practical economic reform is illustrated in the careful work of the printing committee, which, under the chairmanship of Mrs. Conine, is found to have cost the State $2,000 less during the session lately adjourned than ever before. To the efficiency of Mrs. Peavy's administration of the office of State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Commissioner of School Lands, and State Librarian, fine testimony is given by the German element of our population which is usually opposed to the recognition of women as citizens of the Commonwealth. The Denver Herald, a journal published in the German tongue, says in one of its January issues: Mrs. Peavy showed a zeal in performing her official duties hitherto unknown in State officials. Of unimpeachable devotion to duty and great integrity, inspired and upheld by firmness and uprightness of character, she not only attended to the duty of overseeing the teaching in the schools, but insisted that the business of the boards to which she belonged should be handled in a proper manner. Often she was obliged to call the male members of the board to book when they wished to lay on the table measures demanding much time and attention, while in her school-lands commission work she prevented many a bad swindle by her energetic invitation, and always protected the poor people against the greed of the more powerful. Our readers know that we have never been in favor of women in politics, and are not to-day; nevertheless, if the women of the State can put such officers in the field as Mrs. Peavy, to whom we can point as an example of immovable official integrity, then the women will be most welcome comrades in the fight against the corruption that disgraces our republic. If the absurd and unfounded comments of the Eastern press in regard to the liability of Colorado women to the requirements of military service, and rumors of unwomanly violence of temper in important State conventions, be worthy of notice, it may be answered that the women of the Centennial State are as securely exempt from military duty as are the women living under the control of those States which still deny them the gentle but effective weapon of the ballot. Further, we answer that no representative convention has had such experience of wild disorder as has been announced by misinformed Eastern papers. In regard to the effect of universal suffrage in Colorado upon the temperance question, it is found that, although the ranks of the temperance party have not been largely recruited, for women as well as men are in doubt as to the wisdom of working for temperance through a distinct party, temperance legislation has been materially assisted. Three years ago, only three Colorado cities prohibited the sale of intoxicants. Now twenty-seven municipalities refuse to grant license for their sale. An interesting fact has lately been noted in regard to the relative dignity of the [*8*] 2 WOMAN SUFFRAGE LEAFLET two houses of our Legislature. The lower house outranks the Senate in the serious decorum of legislative deliberation. The few women who sit as members in the representative hall of our beautiful Colorado capitol seem unconsciously to impose upon its proceedings a greater regard for the amenities of speech and conduct that is observed in the upper house, where there are, as yet, no women to be considered. No less characteristic of Western chivalry is the improvement that woman's presence has made in the localities of primary meetings and polling-booths. In many precincts where formerly they were held in stables or drinking saloons, primaries are now convened in home parlors, and polling-booths are arranged in respectable buildings, and voting is [?riably] conducted with decorum. Since the success of the legislative referendum of 1893, the women of Colorado have evinced a remarkable interest in all things pertaining to general good. Because their opinions expressed through the ballot-box have due weight in bringing about actual results, they have felt it their duty to make themselves acquainted with the principles and methods of government. For this zealous obedience to duty they have been doubly rewarded in finding that their zeal has acted as a leaven whose power has been irresistible, as is proved by the fact that science of political economy has been more generally and seriously studied in Colorado during the last three years, by both men and women, than in all the previous history of the State. All this is a thrice-told tale, whose repetition, however, it seems necessary to continue until its gospel shall penetrate the dull ears of ancient prejudice and the obstinate deafness of those who will not hear. The same story is charmingly repeated by a bright Denver woman, who, in reply to solicitous inquiries of an Eastern friend, wrote: Whether our character has deteriorated by the use of the ballot, or whether an improvement is indicated by an increased interest in educational, social and civil questions, is not for us to say. This we may affirm: That, while we enjoy the self-respect that comes from recognized freedom, we are conscious of no deterioration in essential womanliness, and detect no diminution of courtesy on the part of our masculine friends. The vocation of housewife is no whit less honored than before the acknowledgement of our individuality as citizens, and we still love our husbands, children and home as always. Under the pressure of responsibility, we have a living interest in the moral and social issues of the day which we did not feel in the time of disfranchisement, when we had no incentive to study the principles involved and no part in correcting public evils. We believe that the sympathy and coöperation of men and women in the things that concern good government is an important step in the process of social evolution. It cannot be denied that the sentimental remonstrant is still among us, and that we have in our own State bitter enemies whose corrupt schemes women's votes have helped to defeat; neither, on the other hand, can it be denied that, after a three years' novitiate in the exercise of our duties as citizens, we find encouraging confirmation of our best hope of reform through the quite power of the ballot in our hands. Being now in the enjoyment of the first victory of our concentrated action in municipal interests, we have reason to believe that disadvantages of inexperience are already giving way before an intelligent insistence upon the use of upright political methods. It is evident that every year will find the Colorado woman a more efficient citizen; but she has learned the lesson of patience, and is now able to recognize that the errors of many generations can be overcome only by the slow process of ethical development, and that the mental and spiritual plane worthy of true humanity can soonest be reached through the concentrated and conscious effort of the best elements of society in every State. KATHERINE A. G. PATTERSON, President Colorado E. S. A. HELEN G. ECOB, Secretary. SUSAN M. HALL, President Civic Federation of Denver. MARY P. BOLLER, Secretary. May 13, 1897. The Woman’s Journal. A weekly paper, founded 1870, by Lucy Stone. Edltors, H. B. Blackwell, Alice Stone Blackwell. 3 Park Street, Boston, Mass. "The best source of information upon the woman question that I know."—Clara Barton. "The best woman's paper in the United States, or in the world."—Englishwoman's Review. "It is able, genial and irreproachable—an armory of weapons to all who are battling for the rights of humanity."—Mary A. Livermore. "It is an exceedingly bright paper, and, what is far better, a just one. Icould not do without it." — Marietta Holley (Josiah Allen's Wife). First year on trial to new subscribers, $1.50. Regular price. $2.50. To libraries and reading rooms, $1.25. TWENTY DOLLAR PREMIUM To any Suffrage Association or individual getting up a club of 25 new subscribers to the Woman's Journal at $1.50 each, the Woman's Journal will pay a cash premium of Twenty Dollars. Published at 3 Park Street, Boston, Mass. Sample copies free. The Woman's Column. Edited at 3 Park St. Boston, by Alice Stone Blackwell. Published weekly. 50c. a year. Woman Suffrage Tracts. Sample set of Woman Suffrage Leaflets (40 different kinds). postpaid for 10 cents. Address: Woman's Journal, 3 Park Street, Boston, Mass.[*9*] EQUAL SUFFRAGE LEAFLET. Published Bi-Monthly at the Office of The Woman's Journal, Boston, Mass. Vol. VII. Entered at the Boston Post-Office as second-class matter. No. 6. Subscription 25 centers per annum. JULY 1900. Extra copies, 15 cts. per 100, postpaid. Women and City Government. BY HON. S. M. JONES, MAYOR OF TOLEDO, OHIO What can woman do toward good city government? The first thing that woman as well as man can and must do is to get an intelligent conception of the purpose of government, why we want government, what we want to be governed for, and what a well-ordered government would do for us if we had one. This they must do if they propose to have any part in building the more orderly society of the future. It is hardly probable that the founders of this government had any but the most vague conception of equality when the Declaration of Independence was written, but I can see that any scheme that proposes to develop a just social and political order must be based on absolute equality. This thought has hardly gained a foothold even yet among the people of the United States. We glibly say that we believe in it; but, as a rule, our lives demonstrate that we have no conception of it. Indeed, when we think of equality in connection with government, our thoughts are mainly for equality among men. Men have thus far held all, or nearly all, the sinecures, as well as the offices where real service is performed, and, with the exception of a very few "progressive women," there are none, I am sure, who ever think that an absolutely essential first step towards liberty is the recognition of this principle of equality of the sexes. The few women who understand this principle are making their contribution to the cause of liberty by proclaiming it, but so complete and abject has been the servitude of women that only quite recently, indeed, has it become "respectable" for a woman to believe in such a heresy as I am setting forth. Even to-day "the woods are full" (particularly the fashionable woods) of women who pride themselves on their inequality, or better, inferiority; who freely say that they want to play the "clinging tendril to the sturdy oak" to their husbands; they want to "feel that they are cared for;" in short, they want to be regarded as a toy, or what is perhaps worse, a mistress. Although they do not say it in words, that is what the position of such women amounts to in the world. When the question is fairly put to them, I find no men who deny this proposition of the equality of the sexes, and the necessity for it in developing the democracy of sovereign equals. I frequently ask, Who but a blasphemer could say that his mother is inferior to himself? and no man has yet attempted to answer that question. Of course it is the economic condition of woman that makes her a slave, and so long as the profit-getting system continues, so long as it is considered right for men to make profit from the toil of their fellow men and women, so long as it is regarded as "good business" for a man to hire his labor in the cheapest market and sell his wares in the highest market, just so long, of course, there will be a system of slavery—"wage slavery" it is sometimes called. It is none the less a system of slavery than was the chattel slavery of forty years ago: it differs in degree; it is the same in kind. Neither men nor women can be free until they are first economically free, and they cannot be that until their brothers and sisters of the "superior breed" relinquish their right (?) to use flesh and blood merely as a profit-getting device. It will readily be seen that if we once admit that man is a slave in the present social and political order, woman is the slave of a slave, as she has been for centuries, and the greatest task to be performed in the emancipation of woman, in order to fit her to make her contribution to good government, is to get her to see her real social and spiritual condition. I think it is a very simple proposition, this idea that the man and woman must be equal, in order to produce a perfect society. Suppose we take a simple illustration in the family. No one would expect [*10*] 2 EQUAL SUFFRAGE LEAFLET. to develop an ideal family life where the mother was regarded as inferior to the father, where the children were taught to look upon the mother as an inferior being. In fact, spiritual equality must be admitted before there can be perfect cooperation, and as the perfect family cannot be produced, as the race cannot be propagated and perpetuated except by the equal cooperation of the father and mother, man and woman, so it follows, as the night the day, no scheme of government can ever be devised that will be a just government that does not take this principle into account and build upon it as a foundation stone. I fancy some of my readers will draw a long breath at this point and say: "Well, according to Jones, good government must be a long way off!" I frankly admit that I am not an advocate of any quick-acting specific to bring the world to righteousness, or rightness, but I am an optimist of optimists. I can see that the race has gone forward towards equality by leaps and bounds during the last half century; that the aesthetic, artistic, and patriotic sentiment has been awakened and developed more during that time than in all the centuries that preceded it, and so I am big with hope for the early years of the 20th century. I believe that there are a thousand influences at work to help forward the glorious movement of the race toward liberty and equality. The outlook is bright with promise for a better day for women as well as men, and it is to come about in the only way that it can come—through the development of the spiritual life of the woman, which is to lead her to take her place alongside of man as a complete and perfect equal, and to step out into actual, stormy life. Men are not responsible particularly for the limitations that are placed upon women under our government. In a certain sense, our government—municipal, State, and National—is as good as we deserve. We have as much liberty as we will use and we cannot get more except as we use, what we have. This is a law of nature and a law of God: "To him that hath shall be given," and the reason that women do not have more to do with the active work of government to-day is because they do not desire it. Ohio laws permit women to vote for members of the board of education; but the extent to which this privilege is used by the women indicates that they have yet much to do before they come to assume their share of the work of government. At the last election in Toledo, there were only 1,440 women registered to vote for members of the board of education; over against this there were 30,000 men. Thus it is seen that the inferior position of women politically is due to the lack of desire for a position of equality. This longing must be awakened in the woman heart, and the men and women, indeed, who have been born again, who have received the new light of the higher life, have resting upon them a great responsibility to properly and adequately present to the women of America their duty as equals, as co-workers together with God and with man in the great scheme that is eventually to bring forth the perfect woman, the perfect man, and the perfected democracy, the ideal nation. Whitman, with prophetic vision, has told us that this is "not the man's nation only, but the woman's nation, . . . the land of splendid mothers, daughters, sisters, wives. . . . The Idea of the women of America (extricated from this daze, this fossil and unhealthy air which hangs about the word lady), developed, raised to become the robust equals, workers, and, it may be, even practical and political deciders with the men—greater than man, we may admit, through their divine maternity, always their towering, emblematical attribute—but great at any rate as man in all departments; or rather, capable of being, so soon as they realize it, and can bring themselves to give up toys and fictions, and launch forth, as men do, amid real, independent, stormy life." Toledo, O., July 7, 1900. The Woman’s Journal. A weekly paper, founded 1870, by Lucy Stone. Editors. H. B. Blackwell, Alice Stone Blackwell. 3 Park Street, Boston , Mass "The best source of information upon the woman question that I know."—Clara Barton First year on trial to new subscribers, $1.50. Regular price, $2.50. ——— Woman Suffrage Tracts.—Sample set of Woman Suffrage Leaflets (40 different kinds), postpaid for 10 Cents. Address: Leaflet Department, Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association, 3 Park Street, Boston, Mass.[*11*] EQUAL SUFFRAGE LEAFLET. Published Bi-Monthly at the Office of The Woman's Journal, Boston, Mass. Vol. VII. Entered at the Boston Post-Office as second-class matter. No. 1. Subscription, 25 cents per annum. January, 1898. Extra copies, 15 cts. per 100, postpaid. Equal Suffrage in New Zealand By Alice Stone Blackwell. The Anti-Woman Suffrage Association is circulating a statement that the women of New Zealand vote for candidates of bad moral character. The opponents of equal suffrage in New Zealand complain of the women on exactly the opposite ground. An opponent writes to the Sydney Daily Telegraph: When the freshly enfranchised women of New Zealand flocked to the polls a year or two ago, and voted straight against every candidate whose record was not spotless, or who had been found out, it had to be admitted that, whatever could be said about it on other grounds, female suffrage was a sure and strong influence in favor of political respectability. It is now transpiring in a very forceful way that this wave of purity is going to fribble away the importance of many leading citizens, and prevent a number of deserving partisans from being rewarded for their fidelity. Respectability stalks unchecked through the land, breathing on men who have stood pretty well hitherto, and crumpling them up. This lament was called forth by protest from one of the women’s organizations in Wellington, New Zealand, against the appointment to office of a man of notoriously corrupt character. The correspondent of Sydney Telegraph continues: This sort of woman, who is invariably up in years, and no better than she should be in the manner of appearance, makes the mistake to confounding private affairs with public ones. If a man is, for example, an incomparable financier, and a country whose money affairs are terribly tangled can employ him, it shouldn’t matter to that country whether or not the financier once stole a horse, or was found in a hotel by the police after 11 o’clock. He is wanted to do financiering. In the same way, if the appointee who is objected to in Wellington can do the work he is engaged for, that is all the government is concerned about. This objector did not take into account the likelihood that a man who had once stolen a horse might steal the contents of a treasury. Apparently the practical common sense of women led them to think that honesty and good character were as necessary in choosing public servants as selecting servants for their own households. It is also asserted by the “Antis” that New Zealand women vote on the wrong side of moral questions. If they do, the fact does not seem to have come to the knowledge of the clergy, who might naturally be supposed to be interested in moral questions. At the recent Church Congress in Nottingham, England, the Most Rev. William Gordon Cowie, D. D., Bishop of Auckland and Primate of New Zealand, read a paper on the Colonial Clergy, in which he said: I am not a little proud of being a member of the governing body of a National University which was the first in the British Empire to confer degrees upon women. Our young New Zealand clergy who are graduates, having passed their B. A. and M. A. examinations at the same time with their sisters and cousins, would perhaps help their equals from Oxford and Cambridge to understand how the conferring of University degrees upon women would not necessarily enfeeble the virile constitution and customs of those Universities. Our young New Zealand clergy would also be able to show, from personal experience, how the conferring of the Parliamentary franchise on all our women of the age of twenty-one years had led to no harm or inconvenience, but that the men of New Zealand were wondering why the women of the colony had remained so long without the right to vote at Parliamentary elections. Equal suffrage in New Zealand has worked well enough to convert some prominent persons who were formerly opposed to it, notably the Premier and his wife. The Premier, Hon. H. J. Seddon, says equal suffrage has been “a complete success.” He continued: When the law was first passed, some of us were very doubtful of it. Some years ago I voted against women’s suffrage. But in 1893 the head of the Government, Mr. Ballance, pledged the Ministry, of whom I was one, to carry it through. Mr. Ballance became ill, the task of carrying through the bill fell on my shoulders, and although not over-convinced of its wisdom, I was in honor bound to see that it was passed. It has now been law sufficiently long to remove it from the experimental stage, and to show how it will affect the home life of our people. The best proof of its success may be found in the fact that there is not even a whispered suggestion of repealing it. It has come to stay. All the great English Colonies that are practically self-governing were invited to send representatives to the Queen’s Jubilee. [*12*] 2 EQUAL SUFFRAGE LEAFLET Mr. Seddon represented New Zealand, and his wife accompanied him. The London Woman’s Signal published the following interview with Mrs. Seddon: The Premier of New Zealand has been lodged for some weeks at the Hotel Cecil, with all the state of a foreign ambassador; an entire wing on the first floor is apportioned to him and his family and suite. Numerous liveried attendants decorate the antechambers, and as I entered I passed two State emissaries, one in civil uniform, and the other a high military officer in all the paraphernalia of his rank, going to an interview with Mr. Seddon. I had asked for my interview, however, with Mrs. Seddon, as I thought my readers would like to hear the opinion of so influential a lady upon the working of an institution with which she has personal concern. “How did women get the suffrage in New Zealand?” I asked her. “By the ordinary machinery: petitions, public meetings, and personal pressure upon Members of Parliament. The agitation for it began a good many years ago, then languished for awhile, and then became very earnest again. It was supported always by the Conservative, who were under the impression that women would vote mainly on their side, but this expectation has not been justified. It was a Liberal Ministry, with my husband at the head, that gave the franchise to women, and at the two elections that have since taken place, women have maintained the same government in power.” “Were you in favor of woman’s suffrage before it was obtained?” “No, I was opposed.” “Will you please tell me why?” “It was because I thought that women should not mix in anything so rough as contested elections used to be. I thought they were better out of the turmoil of politics, and that it would be unpleasant for them to be canvassed and to have to vote.” “Do you now believe, in the light of the experience, that is a good thing?” “Yes, most decidedly I do. There has been no disturbance and no unpleasantness of any sort connected with it, and it has done the women a great deal of good to take an interest in public affairs.” “Tell me about the ‘discord in families.’” “Oh, there is nothing in that at all. Our married women vote, and so do girls living at home, if over twenty-one, but we find that where the family life is at all what it ought to be, there is apt to be a family opinion. Of course, it is possible that sometimes the vote is given by husband and wife, or father and daughter, in different ways; but, as a rule, we find that families all work together.” “One thing more; has there been any attempt on the part of the priests or ministers of any denomination to manipulate the women’s vote? A good many so-called Liberal men here deny representations to women, and they are apt to give as their real reason their fear that women would be priest-ridden. Was anything like that found to be the case in New Zealand?” “Certainly not,” said Mrs. Seddon, emphatically. “In New Zealand we have perfect religious equality. There is no State Church. In the management of public affairs, although, of course, any minister would have his own personal influence with his friends, yet the public opinion of the women voters, as much as that of the men, would be at once roused against any attempt to introduce direct clerical interference with our secular affairs.” The Toronto Globe of July 17, 1897, published a letter from Mr. P. J. O’Regan, a member of the New Zealand Parliament. In regard to woman suffrage Mr. O’Regan wrote: Very few of the women here refrain from exercising their newly conferred rights. Even those formerly opposed to woman suffrage are now eager to record their votes. We have numerous women’s political societies, nearly all Liberal; and we have already had two annual sittings of the Woman’s National Council. Personally I am opposed to many things they advocate; but, as a supporter of womanhood suffrage, I am convinced that it has proved to be all that its friends expected here. No political meeting nowadays is a success without the usual quota of the gentler sex in attendance. Despite what was said by sarcastic opponents of the “fair franchise,” there is no record of domestic troubles in consequence of it. Mr. O’ Regan also says of the women voters that “the great majority of them are temperance advocates, “ although not all are prohibitionists. The estimated number in 1893 was 139,915. Of these, 109,461 registered, and 90,290 voted at the first election. Of the women who registered, 83 per cent. voted; of the men who registered, only 67 per cent. The latest news from Australia and New Zealand is of a movement to discourage gambling. In New Zealand, sweepstakes have been declared illegal, and a bill to legalize them was defeated on the avowed ground that the large associations of women, whose votes would be needed at the next elections, were against the bill. In South Australia, a bill has been introduced by the Premier in person to make sweepstakes illegal, and to forbid bets being made with minors of either sex. This movement is limited to New Zealand and South Australia, the only two of the Australasian colonies in which women have the Parliamentary vote. ———— The Woman’s Journal. A weekly paper, founded 1870, by Lucy Stone. Editors. H. B. Blackwell, Alice Stone Blackwell. ——— $2.50 per year. In clubs of six or more, $1.50. Trial subscriptions, 3 months for 25 cents. 3 Park Street, Boston , Mass. ——— Woman Suffrage Tracts. Sample set of Woman Suffrage Leaflets (40 different kinds), postpaid for 10 Cents. Address: Woman’s Journal, 3 Park Street, Boston, Mass.WOMAN SUFFRAGE LEAFLET. Published Bi-Monthly at the Office of The Woman's Journal, Boston, Mass. Vol. VI. No. 6. Entered at the Boston Post-Office as second-class matter. DECEMBER, 1894. Subscription, 25 cents per annum. Extra copies, 30 cts. per 100, postpaid. How Women Voted in Colorado. HON. JAMES S. CLARKSON, Assistant Postmaster-General under President Harrison, first president of the National Republican League of the United States, and editor for many years of the Iowa State Register, gives in that influential paper his personal observations of the working of woman suffrage at the recent election in Colorado, as follows: WOMAN SUFFRAGE IN COLORADO. A STUDY OF THE SCENES AND ACTS ON ELECTION DAY. DENVER. COL., NOV. 16, 1894. The many good women who read The Register and believe in woman suffrage, will be interested in knowing something of the details of the first election in Colorado in which women have had equal privileges of suffrage in all respects with the men. I was so much interested in it myself that I came to Denver purposely to spend election day and to visit the polls and see for myself the bearing of women as voters, the effect of their presence at the polls, their effect on the crowd, the effect of the crowd on them, the part they would take in the contest, and how they would appear and act while doing it. Some six weeks before, I had visited Denver and Colorado with the object of seeing the women in the activities of the campaign, their feeling of interest or indifference, their comprehension of public affairs and their duties as voters, the work they would attempt, the work they could properly do in the campaign, the stability and courage of their devotion to the party and principle, and the comparative intelligence of them, rank and file, intelligent and ignorant, good and bad, as compared with men. I had never known any reason why women, in the sense of abstract right or duty, should not vote as well as men. I had felt, in my judgment, passive resistance to woman suffrage only from fear that participation in public affairs might in some degree be hurtful to the delicacy and tenderness of refined womanhood; that it might make woman more assertive, more masculine, less feminine and therefore less lovable. Having seen them in September in the activities of a very exciting political campaign, one in which at least 90 per cent of all good and intelligent and refined women of this city and State were taking a part, not merely passively, but actively, and having spent the whole day Tuesday visiting the polls in this city, where probably thirty thousand women voted, and not only voted but bore their part in the party and public duties of the day, I am left to the frank and manly duty of saying that even this last feeling of fear as to woman suffrage on my part is gone; and that the highest minded man, however jealous and sheltering he may be of his wife, mother, or daughter, as against contact with any rude touch of the world, could not have found cause for objection at any of these polls Tuesday -- nor, so far as has been reported, at any polls in Colorado. It must be that women cast a majority of the votes polled in Denver Tuesday, for in four-fifths of the many voting places I visited the women voters were clearly in the majority. In the country districts it is reported that the women voted their maximum strength even more nearly than the women in the city. Instead of rough or vicious men, or even drunken men, treating women with disrespect, the presence of a single good woman at the polls seemed to make the whole crowd of men as respectful and quiet as at the theatre or church. For the credit of American men be it said that the presence of one woman or girl at the polls, the wife or daughter of the humblest mechanic, has as good an effect on the crowd as the presence of the grandest dame or the most fashionable belle. The difference in American and European deference to woman I have never seen so strikingly illustrated and proved as in these throngs of people at the polls of this excited and most serious election of Tuesday. The American woman is clearly as much of a queen at the polls, in her own bearing and the deference paid her, as in the drawing-room or at the opera. I feel more pride than ever in American manhood and American womanhood, since seeing these gatherings on Tuesday, where American men and women of all classes and conditions met in their own neighborhood to perform with duty and dignity the selection of their own rulers, and to give their approval to the principles to guide such officials when chosen. NO woman was less in dignity or sweetness of womanhood after such participation in public duties, and I do not believe there is a man of sensibility in Colorado to-day who does not love his wife, daughter, sister 2 WOMAN SUFFRAGE LEAFLET. or mother the more for the womanly and gracious manner in which she helped so loyally and so intelligently Tuesday in redeeming Colorado State and Denver city from misrule and the serious dangers of communism and disorder. Indeed, the redemption of Colorado is the victory of good women. They gave the early enthusiasm to the work. They gave the activity and the ardor and the resolute spirit to win to the Republican campaign. Still more, they largely made the efficient detail organization extending to every neighborhood and to every household and every voter; and it was their patient persistence and tireless effort that finally brought all people of conscience to the polls on election day. They perfected the registry lists, subdivided the list of voters, and enlisted the most effective workers, and brought the power of the tea party and the sewing bee and all the minor social functions to supersede and far outdo the always clumsy work of the traditional caucus. What woman puts her hand to do in a good cause, is sure to be done. Colorado and Denver proved this Tuesday. It was not only largely the women who had perfected the lists of voters by districts and precincts, but it was women who made up the neighborhood lists, and women who watched the voting lines and checked the voters present, and women who sent their own or their neighbor woman's carriage to bring in the laggard voters. I was up early in the morning to see the entrance of women into State and National politics -- an entrance in a critical State in a feverish time, and in a State already greatly injured by public officials with extreme ideas and not hesitating to enforce them in public affairs by extreme means. In National circles there was a fear that these emotional and hysterical issues, coming up in the prevailing hard times to offer false relief to people suffering under heavy burdens, would appeal to the sympathetic side of women and lead them, in their untrained zeal as voters, to carry their State still further in the wrong direction. It was feared that they would not carefully enough investigate the truth or falsity of the new ideas; that they would decide too hastily and act too impulsively, and thus get on the wrong side, more from the force of sympathy than intention. The gravest statesmen in the Nation, made sincerely anxious by the appearance of communism in an American State, with an incumbent governor espousing its dangerous theories, and boldly seeking re-election in their name to engraft them upon the policy of the State, feared that the new women voters might be captured through their sympathetic natures to this false doctrine of quack philanthropy. Other sober-sided statesmen feared that free trade and its sophistries might capture the women because some one had once characterized all women as born smugglers. But the women of Colorado, like all the women of America, have conscience and intelligence, and like all women everywhere, had, beside that, instinct, always so superior to man's reason. Instead of following the marsh-light either of communism or free trade, they quickly saw the evil of both, and led the men in having Colorado nobly and completely repudiated both. Indeed, in the early summer, when the men were wavering in the fight and growing nearly helpless, and when Republican leaders were flinching in the conflict, and some of them going over to the mob and the false prophets, the women rallied the line, gave new energy and greater courage to the party, and so toned up the wavering columns of Republicanism and good government in Colorado that new life and new courage were imparted, not only to this, but to all the States adjoining, all of which were infected also by the new heresies and threatened by the new dangers to government and society. Election morning, the women, instead of having no interest in politics, as had always been said, were first at the polls. From my window in the home of a friend I was visiting, I could see one voting place. The polls opened at 7 o'clock. By 6:30 twenty women and fourteen men were in the line waiting for the first chance to vote. All the time other voters kept rapidly coming, nearly every man coming with his wife, and the most of the men with two or more women, often the wife and daughter, frequently wife, daughter and mother. It was rare at this poll, or at any other, that women came together or without men, and during all the day I saw no woman approaching the polls alone. Instead, families seemed to come together, and the men seemed proud of bringing all their family of voting age to act with them in performing the most important duty of American citizenship. On Capitol Hill, the home of the thriftier classes of people, the families went in groups precisely as they go to church or theatre, and the women seemed as much at ease in this as in other places -- although I did not see a woman's face going to or coming from the polls that did not bear in it the new light of a new and smiling dignity. There was in every woman's face a token of new strength and larger self-reliance. I had the pleasure of going with a kinswoman to the polls, a woman of as much refinement and delicacy as any woman in civilization could possess, and there was nothing in it at all to jar her in the least, or to make me wish she was not a voter. There is more chance of a lady seeing or hearing something unpleasant in passing through a crowd to the average theatre or opera than there was in this lady or in any lady going to these voting places yesterday. Young women, who looked too young to vote, and who demurely protested, to the gallant challenge of some judge or clerk that they were not old enough for voters, that they were in fact more than old enough, young looking and beautiful matrons voting with their daughters beside them, silver-haired grand-WOMAN SUFFRAGE LEAFLET. 3 mothers, with the light in their faces of a new joy coming in old age to them, all mingled together agreeably, and made it an occasion of pleasure. All of them were as much ladies in this sovereign act of citizenship as in dispensing gracious hospitality in their own homes. One notable thing to a man experienced in politics was the fact that through the vigilance of the women the polls were crowded at the start and kept crowded until all the votes had been cast, with the result that eighty, and in some cases ninety-five per cent, of the votes were polled before noon. Perhaps the most significant and reassuring thing in women's part in the campaign and election was the fact that all the controlling leaders on the women's side were not the old woman suffrage war horses who have been talking for woman suffrage for long years, but the society women, or the more refined and popular women in the highest society of Denver, women who until recently never dreamed of entering politics. These women, led thereto by the disorder and lawlessness and danger engendered under the rule of Gov. Waite and Populism, began agitation and organization last winter and spring, and organized numerous social-political clubs, and held the meetings in their own homes for the non-partisan discussion and investigation of all the serious questions of government. The power and popularity of society were thus brought to the help of the Republican cause of law and order, and safety of life and property. Society women led. As the campaign proper came on, these society women, having gained experience and training from the series of these political or domestic lyceums held earlier in their own homes, naturally succeeded to the places assigned to women on the party's official campaign committees. In such places they had full play for the exercise of their personal influence and social power, and their influence quickly became the mightiest of all elements in the contest. The old-time agitators were superseded, and yet were borne along the resistless current under the momentum of the power of the leaders of the social, Christian and literary life of the city of Denver. Now, as the campaigns of the future are being organized, and the personnel of party committees determined upon, some of the old agitators are protesting against these belles and society leaders, or "the butterflies and flirts of fashionable Denver," as I heard one of the old timers characterize them yesterday, taking the places of honor and power, and retiring autumnal matrons and spinsters of the early conflict from leadership. But it will be undoubtedly be as true for the future as it has in this instance here, that woman suffrage, to be effective and popular, must be led by the women of the best homes in every community, or by women whose influence controls the fashions or forms the proprieties of society, and whose active kindness and systematic charity reaches out constantly to the elevation of all other homes and to the faithful care of the helpless and the poor. It was these women of the best homes that made the power of women dominant in Colorado on Tuesday, and that led to the redemption and vindication of the State from any appearance of communism or dishonor. For, undoubtedly, sixty per cent. of the vote cast in this State was made up of the votes of women. Opponents of equal suffrage will probably claim that it was the novelty of women's first chance to vote and the peculiar and alarming condition of unrest and danger existing here that led women to vote so generally at this election. If this be true, then is it all the more important that the women of society who control in the social life of the State and are themselves the life of its art, literature, humanity and good purposes, should lead and control hereafter as they have done here. In my judgment, women suffrage, if it is to vindicate its wisdom and benefit the cause of good government without taking anything from the tenderness or charm of women, must find its strength and constant salvation under the impetus and shelter of the best and most refined of women in all the noble and sweeter sense of womanhood. A conversation I heard incidentally to-day between Mrs. Foster, who has been the prophet and the leader prominent in this contest, and Mrs. Rhoads, the chairman of the women's county central committee, illustrated to me, as it will to everybody, the spirit that has guided the women in all political committee and election work. Mrs. Rhoads said: "I am just on my way to attend the meeting of all the party committees which is to arrange for the jubilee on Monday over the great victory. The men are proposing that the Republican women shall walk in the street procession. I shall protest against that. Such things are not for women. Ladies will keep within the bounds for ladies, in politics as in all other things. Therefore we shall not do any such thing as this. We will take part in the jubilee and attend it, going with our husbands, fathers and brothers, as we went to the polls, or as all ladies do to theatre, church, public fair. foot-ball games, or any public gathering. But we shall certainly do nothing in politics to make us subjects of ridicule, any more than we would in social life." These were words of wisdom and self-respecting womanhood, and of the new woman suffrage. It means that in public affairs the good women of this land will apply their power as they apply it in church and charity work, or in a manner which will make them still better and more admirable as women and ladies, rather than less. It was this sort of woman's power, made active in politics and coming forward to the help of good government last Tuesday, that gained the three greatest victories in a year of unexampled 4 WOMAN SUFFRAGE LEAFLET. victories, in the cities of New York, Chicago and Denver. It must be remembered, too, by the sceptical people in the East, who shall read of women voting in Colorado, and who may dismiss it all as being the action merely of women on the frontiers, that the people of this State are largely from the Eastern States themselves, and that the women here are as refined and accomplished and well educated as in any city or State in the East. Indeed, the choicest families of the Nation have contributed to this State, and also to Wyoming, their best of blood and culture - their younger people coming here looking for a chance in the world, and many and many thousand others sending their invalid members here to find in the sunshine and golden air of this altitude restoration to health. Thus the test of woman suffrage in Denver and Colorado and Wyoming is as complete and intelligent a test as it would be in Boston or Brooklyn, and as complete a test of the question of intelligence as voters, and of refinement as women. Good women are in the majority. Contrary to the popular theory of those who have always sneered at what they have called petticoat politics, the good women have voted in much larger proportion than the bad. Practically all the good women have voted, while less than ten per cent. of the others voted, or even desired to do so. In one precinct 150 women of the red, as the local phrase designates them here, were registered, and only twelve of them voted. The more refined circles of the great city of Denver have given effectual denial to the stock argument of the antis, that good women would not vote if they had the chance, and that they would be afraid to vote or incur the publicity of voting, even if they were enfranchised and personally desirous of voting. They and the other women of Colorado have also completely disposed of the other stock argument that women, if they should vote at all, would vote headlong and impulsively. For they were as deliberate here as the men, and as well posted on all the issues. They were not only fully informed on all public questions, but they furnished able speakers from their own ranks for the discussion of all issues. The people, and especially the women of Iowa, will be interested in knowing that Mrs. J. Ellen Foster, the splendid Republican and the splendid woman, came into the Colorado contest in March last, and has spent nearly all the time since in making public speeches, in exposing the fallacies and dangers of Populism, and in rallying and uniting the women of the State in favor of Republicanism and the cause of law and order. Indeed, Colorado in this election has left very little of good argument for its sincere opponents to urge against suffrage. So nearly all of everything having any good sense in it at all has been disproved here, that the opposition is left with very few weapons in their armory, and all of them weak. Of course, thousands, and even millions, of sincere people will move slowly from the conservatism of the ages, and will only come to it inch by inch, under the compulsion of State by State adopting woman suffrage. Those who are far away from these intelligent States which are giving the departure a fair and candid trial, and which are doing so fully conscious that the older States look upon it with distrust, will not be convinced of the truth as rapidly as those who have seen it in actual operation, and who have seen women becoming voters without losing any of their charm or loveliness as women. But it is coming everywhere. Of course there is left the old weather-beaten and anchor argument of all, that as governments are based on war power, and as women cannot possibly be a voter. It is the old cry that she who cannot be a soldier cannot be a voter. I fear for these opponents of the coming woman the reply, that she who passes through the Gethsemane of maternity to provide the world its soldiers, and who alone can provide them, atones fully for her own physical inability to be a soldier herself. She who bears soldiers need not bear arms. For my part, I believe that woman suffrage is inevitable in every American State; and that, as it comes, it will bring good to every State, to every city especially, and to the Nation. There is no wrong in government and no vice in city or town or society that is not afraid of good women, and that would not be in danger of its life if good women were voters. The profoundest problem in government is municipal government, and it will never be solved successfully until woman and her moral conscience and quick intelligence are brought to the help of its solution. I might add that the day here was filled with constant incidents of exceeding interest, too many to tell. The most striking thing of all, to me, was the act of the women in providing creches, or comfortable places equipped with competent nurses and suitable foods, for the care during the day of the babies and small children of such mothers as could not go to the polls unless some one took care of these little ones while doing it. These creches were provided by the Republican women, but were open to all, and they cared for the children of Democrat and Populist mothers as willingly and kindly as for those of Republican mothers. To blessed women, all babies are alike, and all mothers are sacred. Here is the mother instinct in politics softening into humanity. It will do the American Nation no harm to have this broader spirit and kinder heart in all its elections and among all its people. JAMES S. CLARKSON.Eminent Opinions on Woman Suffrage. In the administration of a State, neither a woman as a woman nor a man as a man has any special functions, but the gifts are equally diffused in both sexes. -- Plato. I go for all sharing the privileges of the government who assist in bearing its burdens, by no means excluding women. -- Abraham Lincoln. In the progress of civilization, woman suffrage is sure to come. -- Charles Sumner. We need the participation of woman in the ballot-box. It is idle to fear that she will meet with disrespect or insult at the polls. Let her walk up firmly and modestly to deposit her vote, and if any one ventures to molest her, the crowd will swallow him up as the whale swallowed Jonah. -- Henry Ward Beecher. If prayer and womanly influence are doing so much for God by indirect methods, how shall it be when that electric force is brought to bear through the battery of the ballot-box? -- Frances E. Willard. We used to ask for suffrage because women needed it as the means to larger opportunities. But the aspect of the woman question has changed. Women are now saying, as in the days of the war, "The country needs us." -- Mary A. Livermore. I believe in the admission of women to the full rights of citizenship and share in the government, on the express grounds that few women keep house so badly or with such wastefulness as Chancellors of the Exchequer keep the State, and womanly genius for organization supplied to the affairs of the nation would be extremely economical and beneficial. -- Theodore Parker. Any influence I may happen to have is gladly extended in favor of woman suffrage. -- Lydia Maria Child. Every year gives me greater faith in it, greater hope of its success, and a more earnest wish to use what influence I possess for its advancement. -- Louisa M. Alcott. Those who are ruled by law should have the power to say what shall be the laws and who the law-makers. Women are as much interested in legislation as men, and are entitled to representation. -- William Lloyd Garrison. I am in favor of woman suffrage. -- Phillips Brooks. With all my head, and with all my heart, I believe in woman suffrage. -- Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. It is very cheap wit that finds it so droll that a woman should vote... If the wants, the passions, the vices, are allowed a full vote, through the hands of a half-brutal, intemperate population, I think it but fair that the virtues, the aspirations, should be allowed a full voice as an offset, through the purest of the people. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson. We have driven our leading opponents from one position to another, until there is not a thoughtful opponent of woman suffrage to be found who is not obliged to deny the doctrine which is affirmed in our Declaration of Independence. -- George F. Hoar. The correct principle is that women are not only justified, but exhibit the most exalted virtue, when they enter on the concerns of their country, of humanity, and of their God. -- John Quincy Adams. Woman's suffrage is undoubtedly coming, and I for one expect a great deal of good to result from it. -- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. For over forty years I have not hesitated to declare my conviction that justice and fair dealing, and the democratic principles of our government, demand equal rights and privileges of citizenship, irrespective of sex. I have not been able to see any good reason for denying the ballot to women. -- J. G. Whittier. You ask my reasons for believing in women's suffrage. It seems to me almost self-evident, an axiom, that every house-holder and tax-payer ought to have a voice in the expenditure of the money we pay, including, as this does, interests the most vital to a human being. -- Florence Nightingale. To have a voice in choosing those by whom one is governed is a means of self-protection due to every one. Under whatever conditions, and within whatever limits, men are admitted to the suffrage, there is not a shadow of justification for not admitting women under the same. -- John Stuart Mill. Suppose, for the sake of argument, we accept the inequality of the sexes as one of nature's immutable laws; call it a fact that women are inferior to men in mind, morals and physique. Why should this settle or materially affect the subject of so-called Woman's Rights? Would not this very inferiority be a reason why every advantage should be given to the weaker sex, not only for its own good, but for the highest development of the race? -- Huxley. Just as woman in literature, both as authoress and as audience, has affected a radical reform, an elimination of the obscenity and harshness from literature and art, so woman in the State will avail to eliminate the rigors of law, and much of the corruption in politics that now prevails. -- Professor William T. Harris. If the principle on which we founded our government is true, that taxation must not be without representation, and if women hold property and are taxed, it follows that women should be represented in the State by their votes... I think the State can no more afford to dispense with the votes of women in its affairs than the family. -- Harriet Beecher Stowe. A woman may vote as a stock-holder upon a railroad from one end of the country to the other. But if she sells her stock and buys a house with the money, she has no voice in the laying out of the road before her door, which her house is taxed to keep and pay for. Why, in the name of good sense, if a responsible human being may vote upon specific industrial projects, may she not vote upon the industrial regulation of the State? -- George William Curtis. I leave it to others to speak of suffrage as a right or privilege; I speak of it as a duty... What right have you women to leave all this work of caring for the country with men? Is it not your country as well as theirs? Are not your children to live in it after you are gone? And are you not bound to contribute whatever faculty God has given you to make it and keep it a pure, safe and happy land? -- James Freeman Clarke. It is difficult to choose names when the list is so long, but it is right to mention among the distinguished women who have been with this movement from the outset, the names of Mrs. Somerville, Harriet Martineau, Florence Nightingale, MRs. Browning, Miss Anna Swanwick, Miss Cobbe, Mrs. Grote, Mrs. Richie (Thackeray), Mary Carpenter and Mrs. Jameson. -- Millicent Garrett Fawcett. I take it America never gave any better principle to the world than the safety of letting every human being have the power of protection in its own hands. I claim it for woman. The moment she has the ballot, I shall think the cause won. -- Wendell Phillips. One principal cause of the failure of so many magnificent schemes, social, political, religious, which have followed each other age after age, has been this: that in almost every case they have ignored the rights and powers of one-half the human race -- viz., women. I believe that politics will not go right, that society will not go right, that religion will not go right, that nothing human will ever go right, except in so far as woman goes right; and to make woman go right she must be put in her place, and she must have her rights. -- Charles Kingsley. Woman must be enfranchised. It is a mere question of time. She must be a slave or an equal; there is no middle ground. Admit, in the slightest degree, her right to property or education, and she must have the ballot to protect the one and use the other. And there are no objections to this, except such as would equally hold against the whole theory of republican government. -- T. W. Higginson. I think women are bound to seek the suffrage as a very great means of doing good. -- Frances Power Cobbe. When you were weak and I was strong, I toiled for you. Now you are strong and I am weak. Because of my work for you, I ask your aid. I ask the ballot for myself and my sex. As I stood by you, I pray you stand by me and mine. -- Clara Barton to the Soldiers. The mightiest intellects of the race, from Plato to the present time, have always given their assent to the fact that woman is not identically but equally endowed with man in intellectual capacity, and it is Wendell Phillips, I think, who has said and well said, that it is the second-rate men who doubt, perhaps because they fear a fair field. But we rest our claim on a fair principle which I believe is invulnerable -- that taxation and representation must be co-extensive, that rights and burdens must correspond with each other, and this is the fundamental principle of liberty. -- Lady Henry Somerset. Both for herself for the effect which her disfranchisement has upon her actual income, and for the sake of the government as it comes into beneficent contact or into ruinous collision with those who are dearer to her than life itself, does the wage-earning woman need the ballot. -- Florence Kelly. "No one who listens to the reasons given by the superior class for the continuance of any system of subjection can fail to be impressed with the noble disinterestedness of mankind. Hence, when it is proposed to give the women an opportunity to present their case to the various State Legislatures to demand equality of political rights, it is not surprising to find that the reasons on which the continuance of the inferiority of women is urged, are drawn almost entirely from a tender consideration of their own good. The anxiety felt lest they should thereby deteriorate would be an honor to human nature were it not a historical fact that the same sweet solicitude has been put up as a barrier against every progress which women have made since civilization began." -- Thomas B. Reed. You will find many a street in our Massachusetts towns, on which, of the adult residents, a majority are women owning property on which they are taxed for the municipal expenditures in which they have no voice. And yet in every such community the average intelligence and competency of the women is equal to that of the men. Some of the women don't know much. Some of the men don't know much. Some of the women would not vote if they could; and many of the men do not vote, although they can. Some of the women would vote as they were led or misled; and many of the men do the same thing. Most of the women would, if they were voters, exercise the suffrage with conscientiousness, understanding and advantage; and the men do no more. -- John D. Long. To no class of women is this subject of equal suffrage of such vital importance as to the working women. To them it becomes an industrial as well as a political question. -- Jane Adams. By nothing have we have been more deluded and blinded than by the traditional interpretation of what politics means. It is really something almost vulgarly commonplace, and very simple. People are everywhere finding out that their single strength is too weak. They have to group themselves, and make certain regulations for protection; and that is politics. We are finding out that our cities ought to be governed as great business corporations. Are women less concerned than men in having clean streets, decent sewers, untainted milk, good schools, charities properly administered, hospitals put on a proper footing? Yet we can not have to do with any of these things without taking part in politics, pure and simple. We are told it is unsafe to give suffrage to those who do not ask it. I deny that absolutely. Wagner, the head of the greatest University in the word, has paid a high tribute to Ferdinand Lasell; and what was Lasell's work? He went around for many years stinging the working classes into feeling that they wanted a vote. It is a commonplace that the laborers did not want it. Our great pessimists, who think life is rotten to the core, despise suffrage and women. Between the text of trust in the people, modified by prudence, as against distrust of the people, qualified by fear, which will you take? There is no doubt as to what brave and fair-minded men will answer. -- John Graham Brooks. Under a representative form of government the execution of all law rests upon public sentiment, and the public sentiment which counts is that which, is expressed at the polls. Though women now make their influence indirectly effective, that influence would be far more potent if it had fair expression. The execution of laws dealing with moral problems sorely misses the support of that half of the community which is most earnest and sensitive to plain questions of right and wrong. Men conduct the business of the country while women shape the home and family life of the people. Men see to it that the laws protect the rights of property, but the great interests of temperance, purity, the protection of the weak and the young are inadequately cared for. If it is said that nothing would be gained by an extension of the rights of suffrage to both sexes we need only to point to the fact that of the criminals of our land, there are nine men to every woman, and that in our churches there are two or three women to every man. Yet that half of our population who possess the greater moral earnestness have no representation at the polls. I believe in woman suffrage not so much because they desire to vote, as because we need their vote; not because it is their privilege but their duty. -- Rev. Frederick B. Allen. If we are going to have a perfect system of government, we must have in it the largest development of the conscience of the nation. That is what we need in public life to-day more than any other factor. We have ability, but we know that things are not run always just as we would like to have them. Bring this superior responsiveness of womanhood to the duties of life to bear on the government of the nation, and I believe we shall have added the one factor now wanting in our national, State and city governments. -- John L. Bates. The objections to the political woman and to the educated woman present some instructive analogies. Fifty years ago it was seriously believed that knowing the classics would ruin her morals, philosophy her religion, and mathematics her health; in general, a college education would take away her desire to be a good wife and mother. To protect a being so frail, the colleges were carefully closed against her. Now, with the approval of wise men, more girls than boys are preparing for college, and this in the public interest. It may be found in politics, as in education, that the higher duties of women will be assisted, not hindered, by intelligent discipline in the lower. -- Alice Freeman Palmer.19 Political Equality Series Vol. III Subscription Price 10c per Year. No. 9. Published monthly by the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Headquarters, Warren, O. MARGARET LONG ON COLORADO Margaret Long, a daughter of ex-Secretary of the Navy Long, a graduate of Smith College and of Johns Hopkins University, has lived for years in Colorado. She writes from Denver to Mrs. Maud Wood Park: Women have accomplished a noticeable count of good in the brief time they have had the suffrage. It seems impossible to me that anyone can live in Colorado long enough to get into touch with the life here, and not realize that women count for more in all the affairs of this State than they do where they have not the power the suffrage gives. More attention is paid to their wishes,and much greater weight given to their opinions and judgment. "The most noticeable effect which women have had in actual legislation is the advance along humane lines, in the greater protection given to children and to animals. The humane laws of Colorado surpass those of any other State or country. The child labor law of Colorado is the best in the world. There is a large constituency of women who are interested in these laws, and the Legislature has therefore passed them, where the Legislature of other States have failed to do so. The women have secured them because more attention is paid to their interests than to those of women who do not vote. The year before the right to vote was granted to women in this State, a bill to provide a State Industrial School for girls similar to the existing State Industrial School for boys, was defeated in the Legislature. Three years later, 1895, the bill was again introduced into the Legislature, and passed immediately. Judge Ben B. Lindsey has repeatedly stated that what he has accomplished in the juvenile court has been possible because the women have taken great interest in the work and have rendered him valuable assistance. Another interesting fact is that the candidates nominated for office are of a better character than those nominated before women voted. "Not even the active opponents of woman suffrage pretend that it has made affairs in Colorado any worse and no one can truthfully deny that there has been some improvement. "In answer to your question about the actual conditions in Colorado at the elections last fall, I enclose the resolutions passed by the Colorado Equal Suffrage Association, Dec. 7, 1906: "'Whereas, Various newspaper articles and utterances of irresponsible individuals, expressing the opinion that women candidates in Colorado are uniformly defeated, and that a bill is to be introduced in the next Legislature abolishing equal suffrage, have recently appeared: Therefore, be it "'Resolved, That the Colorado Equal Suffrage Association desires to condemn these utterances as unfounded in fact, the women who were defeated on November 6 failing of election only because the party to which they belonged went down to defeat. All the women candidates ran well up toward the head of the ticket. The elected State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Miss Katherine L. Craig, led her ticket. "In regard to the talked of abolishing of equal suffrage, the Association desires to express its conviction that such action is not contemplated save in the minds of a few disgruntled politicians and paragraphers in search of copy, Equal suffrage was granted by statute law, and ratified by referendum in 1893. Either years afterward, constitutional safeguards were thrown about the political rights of women by an amendment striking out the word 'male' from that clause of the fundamental law which prescribes the eligibility of voters. The amendment carried by a majority six times as large as that which originally conferred the right of suffrage upon the women of the State. "'Harriet G.R. Wright, President. "'Committee: Chairman, Minerva C. Welch (Mrs. A.M.) ; Julia V. Wells, Mary C.C. Bradford.'" "In addition to the above statement that Miss Katherine L. Craig led the Republican ticket. I will add that there were three women nominated for the Legislature on the Democratic ticket and one of these women led her ticket, receiving more votes in her district than did the Democratic candidate for governor. "The source of rumors in the papers about the effort to repeal woman suffrage in Colorado is usually to be found in some political boss, who has found on some occasion that women have interfered with his nefarious schemes, and so he wants to get rid of them. No one interested in good government finds the women in any way a hindrance, and they often find them a help." From the Woman's Journal of Feb. 9, 1907. Political Equality Series Vol. III Subscription Price 10c per Year. No. 8 Published monthly by the NATIONAL AMERICAN WOMAN SUFFRAGE ASSOCIATION, Headquarters, Warren, O. Gen. Hale on Colorado Women's Vote Gen. Irving Hale of Denver, while visiting Boston, gave the editor of the Woman's Journal an authorized interview on equal suffrage in Colorado, and it has been printed with his sanction. The questions and answers are as follows: "Do you find that the ignorant and unintelligent women vote more generally than the educated and intelligent?" "The largest majorities for woman suffrage were given in the most intelligent cities, and in the best precincts of each city, while the heavy majorities against it were in the precincts controlled by the debased and lawless classes, and the lowest grade of machine politicians, who rely on herding the depraved vote - showing that these elements dreaded the effect of woman suffrage, and realized the falsity of the argument that it would increase the immoral and controllable vote. "The result has demonstrated that their fear was well founded, and that this argument is diametrically opposed to actual results. "So far as I have been able to judge by observation of elections and analysis of returns, more women vote in the better districts than in the slums,and the proportion of refined and intelligent [next page] voters to the ignorant and depraved is larger among women than among men." "Do you find that equal suffrage leads women to neglect their homes?" "No. There is less danger of women neglecting their domestic duties on account of suffrage than for society, literary clubs or ping-pong." "Do differences of political opinion lead to family quarrels and divorces?" "I have heard of none. Any man who would quarrel with his wife for holding a different political opinion should be disfranchised, as he is incapable of appreciating the fundamental principles of our government." "Does it impair women's refinement to vote?" "Not if the right is exercised in a womanly manner, as it is by the great majority. "Are women treated with less respect socially, and has equal suffrage made men less chivalrous?" "No. Greater courtesy is shown a woman in Western than in Eastern cities; and while this condition existed before the extension of suffrage, and therefore cannot be attributed to it, it has certainly suffered no diminution." "Does women's lack of business experience lead them to vote foolishly on practical municipal questions?" "I have not observed any such result. In business questions with which they are not especially familiar, most women will naturally be guided to a considerable extent by the opinions of their male relatives; but, on the other hand, the right and duty of suffrage will cause them to investigate these subjects for themselves, and thus broaden their horizon.," "Are the laws less well enforced since women became voters, owing to the fact that women cannot fight? How is this particular objection rewarded in Colorado by men in general?" "As too ridiculous for serious comment. If all the men who cannot or do not fight should be disfranchised, the polls would be as lonesome as a sea-bathing resort in December." "Do their political duties take so much of women's time as to be felt as a severe burden?" "No more than with men. Each voter, whether man or woman, must regulate the time given to political thought and work according to his or her own inclination and opportunity." "Has the women's influence on the whole been for or against political corruption?" "Against, - but there is still room for improvement." "Do the women makes as good wives and mothers as before?" "I can see no difference." "Has equal suffrage had any bad results?" "I know of none." "Has it had any good results?" "The general effect has been decidedly beneficial. There has been no revolution. Women average about the same as men on most questions, - a little better on those involving morals. The extension of suffrage to women has exerted a good influence along the lines of making elections more orderly, leading women to take a more intelligent interest in public questions and thus broadening their minds; making it harder to secure the nomination and election of notoriously bad candidates; and making it easier to secure liberal appropriation for educational and humanitarian objects. Especially does it act as a governor on the political machines of all parties to regulate the character of nominees and platforms. "With us, women exert a great influence on public affairs. They do this everywhere;' but in our State they do it openly and legally, and it has done a great deal of good." Gen. Hale's father, ex-President Hale of the University of Denver, has expressed himself to the same effect. Political Equality Series Vol. III. Subscription Price 10c per Year. No. 7. Published monthly by the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Headquarters, Warren, O. TESTIMONY FROM WYOMING. A.C. Thomas of Jefferson, Ore., has received the following letter from the Attorney General of Wyoming: Friend Thomas: - I have your letter of the 5th inst. in which you ask me whether equal suffrage has been a success in Wyoming. I must confess that when I first settled in Wyoming I was greatly prejudiced against it. I regarded it as a sort of woman's rights "fad" and a nuisance. I reasoned that the average woman knew very little about politics and cared less, and that those women who would vote at all, would vote as the husband, father, brother, or other male member of the family voted, and that, while there would be more votes to count, the result would be about the same. I have observed the practical results of the system here, and have changed my mind. I am now convinced that woman suffrage is a rational principle and a benefit to the State,, for the following reasons: I. It stimulates interest and study, on the part of women, in public affairs. Questions of public interest are discussed in the home; more papers and magazines are read, and the interests of the State and the home are promoted. 2. As the mother, sister, or teacher of young boys, the influence of woman over the minds of the youth of the land, in the creation of wholesome ideals of citizenship, is very great, so that the more she knows about the obligations of citizenship, the more she is able to teach the boys; and early impressions remain with a man through life. 3. The vote of a woman is usually cast against a candidate for office who is known to be either incompetent, immoral or otherwise unfit for the place, and as a result the tendency is to nominate better men for office. 4. Political reforms are nearly always brought about by individuals and seldom by part organizations. The women usually vote for progressive candidates, and for the correction of abuses in politics, irrespective of party affiliations. 5. It operates as a check against the modern tendency of government by party, and in support of our traditional policy of government by the people. 6. It preserves better order at polling places during elections. In fact, disorder of any kind is an unheard of thing during elections in this State. And,finally, we permit men of foreign birth to become citizens and exercise the right of suffrage after five years' residence. Why should not a young American woman, who has received a course of instruction in our schools in civil government, political economy and constitutional history, and has lived in the United States 21 years,have the same chance to exercise the rights of citizenship? There is nothing dangerous about the experiment. It has improved, and is yet improving conditions in Wyoming. These are some of the reasons in favor of it. Now what are the reasons that may be urged against it? I know of none. Yours truly, W.E. MULLEN Cheyenne, Wyo. [*21*] [*Woman's Journal, July 20, 1907*] Hon. W. S. Collins, president of the Big Horn County Irrigation Company, says: "I have lived in Wyoming 21 years, and during all that period women have voted at all elections. I have often found new-comers adverse to women's voting. This soon wears off, and in a year or two husband and wife, brother and sister, father and mother and daughter and son go to the polls together the same as to any other meeting. There is nothing thought of it, no remarks made about it. "Women are no more corrupted by voting with their fathers, brothers and husbands than they are by going with them to any other kind of meeting. Women's influence for good is felt there, as it is in the home and around the fireside. The polls are arranged with full knowledge that women will go there to vote. Should any man attempt to locate a polling place where a woman should not go that man would have short shrift. "There is very little bribery here. The man who electioneers with whiskey is sure to be beaten, and it is not often attempted. Women almost invariably split their tickets. They vote for the men they deem the best, and it follows that all parties endeavor to put up their best men. Women everywhere are always in favor of law and order. It is owing to the women's vote that our young State, where the cow-boy still flourishes, has stringent laws against gambling. "Women here read of State affairs, notice what their Congressmen are doing at Washington, and go to political meetings. Does it unsex them? No. It is good to see intelligence flash from their eyes. "Bad women do vote, but they do not take much interest. They trouble good women no more at the polls than they do at the bargain-counter or the theater. "Women appear no more out of place at the polls than they do at a festival or fair. Citizens of Wyoming are proud that the Constitution of our State was the first for equal political rights." MORE TESTIMONY FROM AUSTRALIA. Prof. R. E. MacNaghten, of the McGill University, Montreal, who lived for some years in Australia, contributes to the Canadian Magazine for June an interesting article on woman suffrage in that continental federation. He says in part: At the Federal elections held throughout Australia last December, every adult woman was for the second time in the history of the Commonwealth enabled to exercise the privilege of the franchise. For Federal purposes the Commonwealth of Australia includes not only the whole continent of Australia, but also, the large and important island of Tasmania. Thus, throughout an enormous extent of territory, the political enfranchisement of women is already an accomplished fact; and this has added significance when we remember that Australia is the one continent in the world which is exclusively British in its civilization. A Magnificent Country. In this great and magnificent country it has been realized for the first time in the world's history that women have a distinct and important part to play in contributing to the welfare of the body politic. Even if Australia were a small and unimportant country, the fact would not be without significance; but when we remember the size, wealth, resources and progress of the Island-Continent, the precedent thus set may reasonably be expected to appeal to the world with added force and weight. A political organization of such extent and importance as the Commonwealth of Australia cannot be lightly regarded by other countries. Its vastness compels attention; and some idea of its relative capacities may be gathered from the fact that, were the rest of the habitable globe to be submerged beneath the ocean tomorrow, there is -- with the single exception of diamonds -- probably hardly any commodity now enjoyed by man that the Commonwealth of Australia could not still continue to produce and utilize. A Full Success. That the extension of the franchise to women has been a real success in Australia can hardly be disputed by any unprejudiced person; and sufficient time has passed since its first introduction to enable us to take a broad [?] dispassionate view of the case. [?] ty per cent. of the men of Australia, to whichever of the great populist[?] parties they belong, would, I believe, agree in stating that the concession of the vote to women has been a real benefit to the State; and it must be remembered that, though it is only four years since the Commonwealth of Australia adopted the principle, it had been in operation for at least a decade previously in the neighboring islands of New Zealand, and thence had been [?] by what was then the colony of [?] Australia; so that when the electors of the Commonwealth endorsed the enfranchisement of women, they were not committing themselves blindly or rashly to a new or untried experiment. It was the success of the principle in New Zealand which led to its adoption in South Australia; it was the success of the principle in South Australia which made it an almost necessary concomitant of the new constitution when the Commonwealth was inaugurated. Cast a Large Vote. It is sometimes said, as an argument against female suffrage, that "women do not really want the vote." What has happened to Australia since the granting of female franchise is a clear and striking disproof of that assertion, I admit, of course, that before the suffrage was granted to the women of Australia, there was no very manifest or outspoken indication of such a desire. But, on the other hand, that women, since the boon has been granted, have shown the fullest and most intelligent appreciation of their privileges, will hardly be denied by any one conversant with the actual facts of the case. In the towns, women vote, if anything, in greater proportional numbers than men. In the country, owing to the long distances which have to be traversed, and the fact that the farmer's wife is generally unable to leave her household duties, the case is somewhat different, though even there, so far as the villages are concerned, the women are exhibiting remarkable political acumen. Improved Methods. And not only are women, by going in great numbers to the polls, showing that they fully appreciate the privilege conferred on them; but they are also introducing new, and what must be regarded as more scientific, methods into political and electoral organization. Let me give an example to illustrate this fact. At the time when the Federal franchise was first conceded to woman voters I was residing in Tasmania. There was already in existence in Hobart an organization entitled "The Woman's Franchise Association," which had been originated with the purpose of securing female franchise. Though the original object had been largely attained, the association was not disbanded. On the contrary, its ablest and most cultured women of Southern Tasmania, immediately set to work to prove their utility in the coming election. In addition to other work they organized a series of weekly meetings, each of which they invited two or three of the Federal candidates to address. This was an entirely new departure. Formerly each candidate had merely addressed his own supporters in his own district. But the Women's Franchise Association introduced a new and, in my opinion, an incomparably better method. The comparative method is the one truly scientific method, and it was this which they for the first time utilized. The result was extraordinarily successful. Candidates were eager to be invited to address the Association, and the benefit gained by the enunciation of opposing views by different speakers at the same time, in the presence of an audience whose one avowed object was to ascertain the truth, was a real advance on anything which had been attempted before. This indeed appears to me a distinctive and salutary characteristic of the women's vote, that it above all things endeavors to ascertain and act on the merits of the case. And this point has attracted the attention of a recent writer in New South Wales, whose words I may quote: "For the first few years of their political enfranchisement their principal effort has been to educate themselves as a body in political ways. And their education is still going on; has, in fact, only begun. But the lines in which their influence is to be specially felt are gradually becoming clear. In the first place they have very largely declared themselves against privilege, against monopolies of all kinds, against the raising of the cost of living, by a protective tariff, in favor of individual liberty, and therefore against socialism, in favor of temperance, moral and physical cleanliness, and all that goes to build up a good national character. They are organizing throughout the States, and their power is already great." Benefits No Party. While thoroughly agreeing in the main with the writer of this extract, I do not think the implication that female suffrage is necessarily anti-socialistic in character is borne out by the facts of the case. Since the establishment of female franchise, the Labor party has made considerable progress in Australia, and the result of the last Federal election points still more clearly to the same tendency. The true view would rather seem to be that the access of the female vote makes no percentible difference in matters of cut-and-dried policy. If a Conservative Government be in power with male suffrage, it would gain approximately the same proportional addition of votes under female suffrage, and the same principle holds true in regard to a Liberal or to a Labor party. It is not because female suffrage gives any advantage to a particular political party (a view which cannot be substantiated by the actual results of the franchise in Australia), but rather because, in all matters, and especially in what I may term matters of social politics, the woman's vote has a purifying, elevating and ennobling influence, that the granting of female suffrage in Australia must be regarded as an unqualified success. Quality Not Quantity. In countries where the system has not been tried, there seems to be a sort of feeling that an unknown danger lies in suddenly doubling the number of voters. That feeling does not, I believe, in any way realize the true facts of the case. If I may express my meaning by a paradox, female suffrage does not have the effect of duplicating the voting power by the admission of a large body of voters of unknown calibre. The increase, being a mere proportional one, does not for practical purposes really make any numerical difference so far as quantity is concerned. If a thousand voters give their suffrages for a successful candidate under adult (including female) suffrage the quantitative result is really the same as if five hundred had voted for him under a principle of adult suffrage. The real difference is in the quality of the vote. And in this [*22*] regard there is a genuine and sensible difference, though it may be somewhat difficult to analyze or define. However incapable we may be of specifying the exact causes, most men will admit that the presence of a woman in the house makes all the difference between comfort and misery, and that what Matthew Arnold might have termed the "sweetness and light" of family life contrast in the most striking and obvious manner with the squalor of a bachelor's den. And the same subtle and almost indescribable element which pervades domestic life through the presence of woman, does also assuredly make its influence felt, when women take part in the political life of a nation. Not Bought With Beer. Nor would it be hard to find other reasons for the extension of this privilege to the female sex. The individual woman will probably exercise the suffrage with greater conscientiousness than the ordinary man. There still are quite a number of men whose political views are so hazy that a glass or two of beer will turn the scale. I remember being present at a cricket match in Australasia in which one of the candidates for a coming State election (whom we will call Mr. Z.) was playing. After luncheon one of the players came out of the booth, and said to a friend in tones of fervent gratitude and admiration: "Mr. Z. 'shouted' for the lot of us." To "shout," I should explain, is the Australian term for "to stand a drink." I have little doubt that, by the judicious expenditure of two or three dollars, Mr. Z. gained quite a number of votes. This incident happened before the days of female suffrage. Since its introduction the value of beer as an electioneering agent has very largely decreased, because any suspicion of the employment of such means would immediately cause a considerable body of the enfranchised voters to offer the most determined opposition to the guilty candidate, on conscientious grounds alone. Indeed, I feel quite positive from what I have actually seen that the Introduction of female franchise has considerably cheapened the cost of elections, owing to candidates being compelled (and very willingly compelled) to be more strict In their expenditure. Have Leisure to Study. Again while the admission of women to the franchise is already doing much to abolish the petty and sordid bribery of the public house, the same purifying Influence may reasonably be expected to be displayed In larger and more important directions. The growth and continued existence of such an organization as Tammany Hall may be ascribed to two causes: First, that the average male voter is too busy In the pursuit of a livelihood to be able to devote much or any time to the proper study of municipal politics; and secondly. that he Is not sufficiently endowed with the consciousness of civic responsibility to feel bound to spare the time. The thorough-going and conscientious manner In which the women of Australia have prepared and are still preparing themselves for the exercise of the franchise Is a sufficient proof that, so far as the latter of these two points is concerned, the advent of women voters Is bound to exercise a salutary influence. But the fact that the admission of enfranchised women must necessarily Include a class which Is largely a class of leisure, is an even more Important consideration. Of all busy men the wealthy man of affairs is the busiest. A thousand schemes, a thousand engagements, demand his constant attention. And thus it is precisely the man who in a new country is most required for the conduct of public and municipal affairs, who is least able or least inclined to spare the necessary time. But with his wife and his daughters the case is very different. They have leisure In abundance, and to such an extent that they are frequently tempted to devote “their all too numerous leisure hours” to empty and frivolous distractions. By such women as these, and by the wives and daughters of thousands of business and professional men, the time necessary for the proper study of political and social questions can be easily given; and the opportunity of useful work often proves extremely acceptable. And they can now come to the task equipped with all the necessary preparation. The higher education of women has already accomplished, in all English-speaking countries, so much that the women of the leisure classes are just as potentially capable of dealing with difficult social and political problems as men. And if [?] be more fitted for the adjustment [?] purely political questions (which [?] remains to be proved) it is hardly[?] questionable that women are peculiarly fitted to deal with all those social-political problems with which some question of domestic economy Is in anyway concerned, such as poor-law economy, hospital organization, the housing of the working clashes, and all those educational matters in which the problems of the household are produced[?] on a larger scale. Red Tape Set Aside. Moreover, for the consideration of all such problems women have one great advantage, in that they do not by pre-disposition attach the same importance to precedent and form. Even the ablest and most successful of men are inclined to bow down and worship before the altar of red-tape; and this routine tendency in the case of the average male often produces the most deplorable results. A striking concrete illustration of the inherent difference between the sexes in this regard is afforded by the advent of Florence Nightingale on the stage of the Crimean War, which I give in the words of Dr. Fitchett: "Into what Russell calls ‘the hell' of this great temple of pain and foulness moved the slight and delicate form of this English lady, with her band of nurses. Instantly a new intelligence, instinct with pity, aflame with energy, fertile with womanly invention, swept through the hospital. Clumsy male devices were dismissed, almost with a gesture, into space. Dirt became a crime, fresh air and clean linen, sweet food, and soft hands a piety. A great kitchen was organized which provided well-cooked food for a thousand men. Washing was a lost art in the hospital; but this band of women created, as with a breath, a great laundry. and a strange cleanliness crept along the walls and beds. Some stores had arrived from England, sick men were languishing for them: but routine required that they should be inspected by a board before being issued. The board, moving with heavy-footed slowness had not done its work, and the use of these stores was denied to the sick and dying soldiers. Florence Nightingale called a couple of orderlies, walked to the door, quietly ordered them to burst It open and the stores to be distributed. Between the needs of hundreds of sick men was the locked door, the symbol of red-tape."[*Apr 26 1906*] PROF. KELLY ON COLORADO. Prof. Harry. E. Kelly, formerly of the Iowa State University, now engaged in the practice of law in Denver, has addressed an open letter to State Senator A. H. Gale, of Iowa, giving his observations on equal suffrage. Prof. Kelly says in part: Since I left Iowa and came to Colorado, you have frequently requested me to state my opinion of women suffrage. I came here with very little interest in the subject, and perhaps with very little respect for it. Having resided in Colorado nearly seven years, and during that time having observed the political and social conditions here, I have rather unconsciously arrived at an opinion. The great value in woman suffrage consists in this, that it gives dynamic force to a fresh and vital interest in the State. Women are not much concerned with mere partisan politics; and experience in the States where woman suffrage is in force clearly shows that their interest cannot be aroused in mere partisan strife. But they are interested in the questions which we may call more distinctly social. Their interests center around questions affecting education, public cleanliness, public morality, civic beauty, charities and correction, public health, public libraries - and such subjects as more intimately affect home life, and conduce to the prosperity of the family. The great value in woman suffrage consists in this, that it gives dynamic force to a fresh and vital interest in the State. Women are not much concerned with mere partisan politics; and experience in the States where woman suffrage is in force clearly shows that their interest cannot be aroused in mere partisan strife. But they are interested in the questions which we may call more distinctly social. Their interests center around questions affecting education, public cleanliness, public morality, civic beauty, charities and correction, public health, public libraries - and such subjects as more intimately affect home life, and conduce to the prosperity of the family. I do not say that men are not interested in such subjects, for that would be untrue; but I do say that such an interest is fundamental in the intellectual activity of woman. Men lost sight of these important considerations in the mad scramble of partisan warfare for offices, but women will not see them obscured by anything. Therefore, when you permit women to vote, you bring into the service of the State a great part of the population with a primary interest in these vital subjects, which among men have always been obscured by other considerations and sacrificed in the turmoil of partisan strife. We get a more earnest attention to these great civilizing influences by permitting women to vote. Colorado has exemplified the truth of this. Women in this State (of course I am speaking of women as a class, and not of any individual), are not politicians, in the common meaning of the word; indeed, they are much less so than they were at the time of the adoption of woman suffrage. They are not primarily interested in filling the offices with particular individuals, or with particular partisans, as men are, and they are not office- seekers themselves; but they have shown here an increasing interest, and a powerful influence, in promoting the various kinds of social measures. Indeed, it has been charged that they show too little interest in the mere filling of offices; but I cannot see the force of such a criticism, if they improve the State by their influence elsewhere exerted. Somebody will say that this sort of improvement may be accomplished by women without the suffrage; but this is not true. The Iowa politician ignores a delegation of women whom he disregards with impunity; but the Colorado politician endeavors to satisfy their demands, because, if spurned, they can and will use their power, and therefore they must have respectful treatment. Their power to protect and enforce their interests and demands gives them their usefulness to the State. Politicians in Colorado do not speak disparagingly of woman suffrage; and in convention assembled they have a care that the votes of women shall not be alienated. The fact that women vote insures good nominations, an advocacy of laudable measures, and a respectful attitude toward subjects in which women are interested. One of the arguments against woman suffrage was that it would create discord in the family, because husband and wife would vote different tickets, and on that account would fall into partisan disputes, which would wreck the peace of home life. In the same breath it was asserted, paradoxically, that woman suffrage would have the effect merely of increasing the number of votes, without changing the result, because women would vote as did their husbands, fathers or brothers. It was further urged that women would enter politics as a vocation and neglect their family duties. It was also declared that woman suffrage would change the character of women and render them bold, brazen and masculine. Experience with woman suffrage has proved that such arguments are worse than baseless. Colorado has never heard of a case of family discord that was even alleged to have originated in woman suffrage. It is probably true that the members of a family are inclined to stand together upon political questions, much as they are upon religious questions; but my experience would indicate that this fact broadens the family interest in public affairs, because women, disregarding the mere scramble for office, direct the family interest along the line of social questions, in addition to the interest in partisan politics. So I would say that, while woman suffrage increases the number of votes, it gives us an increased breadth of public interest in social welfare. Neither has woman suffrage rendered politics attractive to women as a vocation, not has it had any other effect on their character than to multiply their social interests, and widen their intellectual horizon. Their right to vote has not made them less dutiful as mothers and wives. If any woman in Colorado is bold and brazen, she is not so on account of woman suffrage. In fact, women of that character may be found even in Iowa. And effeminate men are scattered around over the globe, irrespective of the extent or character of the suffrage. It is contended that women do not wish to vote. This may be true, doubtless is, of a few woman who have no property interests, and are not concerned in any employment outside of very agreeable family relations, and who are not inclined toward much intellectual activity. And practically the same may be said of men of a corresponding class, by many of whom the right to vote is not looked upon as worth using. But the great class of women who are under the necessity of having some concern about their livelihood, and who have, as a great majority of the strong, active, thinking women of this country have, a really heartfelt interest in the social welfare, sincerely desire to vote. If you consult simply the desire of women, you will find the charge that they do not want the suffrage to be baseless. And, whether they want it or not, if by extending it to them you can raise up a new and powerful interest in the most vital concerns within the State, you should not hesitate to place upon them the duty of contributing what they can to the social welfare, even though they might accept the obligation with heavy hearts. The right to vote is not a public amusement to be enjoyed as a privilege; it is rather the citizen's conscientious labor for the State. If by voting we determined merely what individuals, as such, should hold office, the task might be handed over to the office-seekers themselves, with no harm to the people. It is said that, if the suffrage is extended to women, the moral women will not vote, and that the immoral women will vote as the police desire. If this is true, the objection may be obviated by selecting better policemen. Certainly the bad characters of the police should not be permitted to disqualify women for voting. I have personally labored in registering voters in two of the wards in Denver, and I can remember having seen only one woman who refused to be registered on the ground that she did not want to vote. Many men refused upon that ground. The women in Colorado vote solidly when there is anything in a campaign that appeals to their interest; and in all elections their vote is large. Among them, of course, there are some bad women, just as among men there are some bad men, and evil persons, male as well as female, generally find reasons for voting. But I apprehend that nobody has any scheme by which the suffrage can be so restricted as to exclude persons who are evil-minded. The rain must fall on the just as well as the unjust. There is not a city in the world where the vote of evil women could be of enough consequence to be worthy of serious consideration in a controversy like this. Do not mislead yourself into thinking that you dislike woman suffrage because you would not like to see your wife going to the polls, as you say, amid surroundings so disgusting to refined woman." That is only moonshine, for under woman suffrage, as we have seen in Colorado, the voting booths are placed in most respectable and acceptable quarters, largely in private houses, with surroundings that offer no opportunity for criticism. Within the limits of a letter it is impossible to do more than express an opinion. It would be instructive to enumerate and examine at length the things accomplished in this State through woman suffrage, but that is impracticable here. Suffice it to say that, measured even by its deeds, woman suffrage has proved its right to exist as the permanent policy of Colorado. - Reprinted from The Woman's Journal of April 21, 1906.[*25*] POLITICAL EQUALITY LEAFLETS Published monthly at Warren, Ohio, by the NATIONAL AMERICAN WOMAN SUFFRAGE ASSOCIATION Some Catholic Opinions Cardinal Moran of Australia, in his official organ, the Catholic Press, of Sydney, says: "What does voting mean to a woman? Does she sacrifice any dignity by going to the poll? The woman who votes only avails herself of a rightful privilege that democracy has gained for her. No longer a mere household chattel, she is recognized as man's fellow worker and helpmate, and credited with public spirit and intelligence. As a mother, she has a special interest in the legislation of her country, for upon it depends the welfare of her children. She knows what is good for them just as much as the father, and the unselfishness of maternity should make her interest even keener. She should deem it one of the grandest privileges of her sex that she can now help to choose the men who will make the laws under which her children must live, and exert her purer influence upon the political atmosphere of her time. How can she sacrifice any dignity by putting on her bonnet and walking down to the polling booth? Woman think nothing of transacting ordinary commercial business, of working alongside men, of playing their part in the practical business of life. They do not mind going to the box office of a theater to [*1*] [*2*] purchase tickets for the play. There is very little difference between doing that and putting their vote in a ballot box. The man about the booths show them every courtesy, the officials are anxious to make things easy for them, and the whole business of voting does not occupy more than five minutes. The woman who thinks she is making herself unwomanly by voting is a silly creature." Rev. Thomas Scully, of Cambridgeport, said at a legislative hearing on woman suffrage in Massachusetts: "There are no duties or obligations attached to our American franchise that women are not capable of performing. For citizenship they possess all the patriotism, virtue and intelligence that the law requires, and a great deal more. "Who, especially, are the women who demand for themselves and their sex this political equality? From my own observation, they are those whose standards of intelligence, morality and social position are the very highest. They are foremost in every good work for God and country, to help the orphan and widow, to aid the poor and comfort the sick. You will find such noble women, wives, mothers, daughters, in all our cities and towns, united and unceasing in their efforts for temperance, public decency and morality. I believe that the door of political freedom and equality, at which they are knocking louder and louder, should be opened to them. And why? In order that their special knowledge and practical experience in [*3*] regard to their own sex and in regard to children may influence legislation for the physical, moral and social protection of girls, rich as well as poor, and for guarding the child's natural home from evils that carry with them criminal poverty and disease. "I know of no argument for refusing the suffrage to women that is not equally applicable to men. We are away behind other countries in this. These women have certain political rights, with results so satisfactory that many of the leading men in Church and State are now willing to grant them full citizenship. Cardinal Archbishop Vaughn has publicly stated that he is for it. Among the most learned ecclesiastics of our own country, not a few are pronounced in its favor. Educated men and women of the Catholic laity are everywhere now to be found favorably disposed toward it. It pleases me to say that Miss Jane Campbell, a Catholic, is president of the Philadelphia Woman Suffrage Association, the largest local suffrage society in the country. Again, something to be very proud of is the fact that the first woman on this side of the Atlantic who demanded the right to vote was a Catholic - Margaret Brent of Maryland, on Jan. 21, 1747. "The opposition to female suffrage is a matter of course. All great social and political reforms, as well as religious ones, have always been resisted by prejudices, customs, and the old cry, 'Inopportune.' So it is with this. It is a battle - reason and justice opposed by senseless fears and selfish motives. The cause [*4*] is just. It may be defeated today, but never conquered, and tomorrow it will be victorious." It fills me with joy when I think of the many changes that will be brought about when women have the right of suffrage. They will defy the politicians, and vote as any Christian man should and would vote if he had the moral courage.—Bishop Bernard J. McQuaid. I hope that women will consent to vote, as they do in England, for public officers. For the life of me I never could see that Blanche of Castile, or Matilda of Canossa, or Victoria Guelph were less exemplary as women for their being all their lives mixed in politics; and I think that a great onward step in the progress of mankind will be made when every adult person shall take an active part in the government of our contry. —Rev. Edward McSweeney, Mt. St. Mary's, Md. There is also the question of woman suffrage. The experiment will be made, whatever our theories and prejudices may be. Women are the most religious, the most moral, and the most sober portion of the American people, and it is not easy to understand why their influence in public life is dreaded.—Bishop John Lancaster Spalding. [*26*] Subscribe For PROGRESS Official Organ N. A. W. S. A. Edited by Harriet Taylor Upton, and published monthly at National Headquarters, Warren, Ohio. PRICE 25 CENTS PER YEAR. Send 10c to National Headquarters for sample set of Political Equality leaflets. For suffrage news, read Woman's Journal, 3 Park St., Boston, Mass., edited weekly by Henry B. Blackwell and Alice Stone Blackwell; 3 months on trial, 25 cents; one year, $1.50. Political Equality Series Vol. III. Subscription Price 10c per Year. No. 5. Published monthly by the NATIONAL AMERICAN WOMAN SUFFRAGE ASSOCIATION. Headquarters, Warren, O. FAMILY SUFFRAGE IN NEW ZEALAND Hon. Hugh H. Lusk, an ex-member of the New Zealand Parliament, traveling in America for his health, spoke as follows in an address at the May festival of the New England Woman Suffrage Association. "Up to 1877, we had no idea of giving woman suffrage in New Zealand. "It was done, not by argument, but by experiment. I had a little to do with the first experiment, which was the extension of suffrage to a small class of women. "By the Education Act of 1877, the householders of each district were empowered to elect a committee of seven of their number to have charge of the schools of the district. I had much to do with this Act. While the bill was in committee, another member suggested to me that it would be a good thing to leave out the word 'male' before 'householder'. "I saw no objection, and moved it. This was the first thin end of the big wedge by which full suffrage has been given to all the women in New Zealand. "The women got the school vote, and used it. They did not say, 'Oh dear, no, it wouldn't be proper!' They went to the polls and voted for the best men. They took so much interest that at the next election some women were elected to the school boards, and they showed so much aptitude for this sort of work that when, in 1882, the license question came up, it was proposed that women ratepayers, as well as men ratepayers, should help choose the board of commissioners in each district who control the issuing of licenses. "This met with great objection. We were told that now indeed we should utterly destroy the character of the ladies, for all the worst element would be brought in contact with them, and would make things very unpleasant for them. We said, 'We don't believe the men of New Zealand are as bad as you think, and, if they are, they are not to be trusted to vote alone for these boards of license commissioners.' The women were given the license vote. To the surprise and disappointment of their opponents, they voted well, and met with no trouble, and certainly they greatly improved the licensing boards. "Then we felt that we could go a little further, and gave the women the right to vote at municipal elections and to serve on municipal boards. I know one woman who acted for two years as mayor (not mayoress) of a very prosperous little town, and did as well as any mayor could have done. "I have always said what I thought, and in some cases have said it till I was in danger of being pelted off the platform. This is one minor reason why I believe in woman suffrage. No one is pelted now. "Women attend all the political meetings, and it has done an immense deal of good. When men congregate by themselves, they get excited and sometimes misbehave. Women perhaps do the same. It is not good for women, either, to be alone. "It seemed queer at first to find half the benches at a political meeting occupied by ladies; but when the men have got accustomed to it, they do not like the other thing. "When they found that they could take their wives and daughters to these meetings, and afterwards take them home and talk about it, it was the beginning of a new life for the family, a life of ideas and interests in common, and a unison of thought. "The influence of equal suffrage has been rather against the milliners and dressmakers; there is not so much time for criticising one's neighbors' bonnets and cloaks. Gossip cannot be cured in any way so well as by taking an interest in public affairs. "The family is the foundation of the State. We find that equal suffrage is the greatest family bond and tie, the greatest strengthener of family life. Under equal suffrage, the family is taking the place of the individual. People are coming to vote as families. The persons whom they approve when they talk them over in the family are those whom they vote for when they go to the polls. "The members of a family generally vote alike, though it is impossible to swear to this, as the ballot is absolutely secret. But we see in it the changed character of the men who are elected. The men who are successful now are not just the same sort that were successful before. Character is more regarded than cleverness. It is asked about every candidate, 'Has he a good record? Is he above suspicion, an honorable man, a useful citizen, pure of any suspicion of complicity with corrupt politics?' That is the man who, under the combined suffrage of men and women, gets the largest number of votes and is elected. This is the greatest benefit that comes from suffrage. "I do not deify suffrage. There might be a state of things in which universal suffrage would become the worst of tyrannies; but with both men and women voting, there is little danger of this. I see in New York the grievous results of half- universal suffrage; but I believe these would be swept away by the other half." - Reprinted from the Woman's Journal of Aug. 17, 1907. [*27*] [*1*] Political Equality Series VOL. IV. Subscription Price 10c per Year. No. 8 Published monthly by the NATIONAL AMERICAN WOMAN SUFFRAGE ASSOCIATION. Headquarters. Warren. O. Woman Suffrage Endorsed The American Federation of Labor, at its 1908 Convention at Denver, adopted the following: WHEREAS, The economic platform of the American Federation of Labor adopted by the Minneapolis Convention and re-affirmed and amended by the Norfolk Convention, among other planks in its platform, affirms its belief in "Woman suffrage co-equal with man suffrage; and WHEREAS, In the annual report of the last National Convention of the American Federation of Labor, it was expressly stated that it was the "much-abused trade union movement which stands for the recognition of the rights, political, social, moral and industrial, of women;" therefore, be it RESOLVED, That this, the Twenty-eighth Annual Convention of the American Federation of Labor, does now re-affirm this platform and expresses its belief in the need of full political equality for all women. That this political equality is as necessary to their economic independence as it is for their brothers in all branches of labor, and we pledge the affiliated unions of the land to earnestly work for this political freedom. State Federations of Labor of California, Connecticut, Colorado, Iowa, Indiana, Illinois, Kansas, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Maine, Michigan, [*2*] New Hampshire, Ohio, Oregon, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and West Virginia have officially declared for woman suffrage. ——— The National Grange has several times officially endorsed woman suffrage, its 1906 resolution reading: RESOLVED, That the National Grange, standing as it does for the equality of men and women in the home, church and Grange, expresses itself in favor of equality in citizenship. State Granges of California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Michigan, New York, New Jersey, Oregon, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Washington have endorsed the action of the National body. ——— The National Association of Letter Carriers have endorsed woman suffrage in the following resolution: WHEREAS, This country has attained its high standing among the nations by the development of its government on the principles of American independence; therefore RESOLVED, That the next step of progress demands the application of these principles to women by extending to them the right of suffrage on equal terms with men; and we urge the necessary charges in our laws and constitutions to secure this right to them. State Letter Carriers' Associations, following the example of the National body, are Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Washington. [*3*] Other National organizations which have adopted woman suffrage resolutions are: National Women's Single Tax League. World's W. C. T. U. (representing 50 countries and provinces.) National W. C. T. U. (500,000 members). National Association of Spiritualists of United States and Canada. National Convention of Universalists. Western Federation of Miners. United Mine Workers of America, (350,000 members). Supreme Commandery Knights of Temperance. American Single Tax Conference. International Cotton Spinners' Union. International Women's Union Label League. International Typographical Union. International Brotherhood of Bookbinders. International Brotherhood of Teamsters. International Socialist Congress. International Bricklayers' and Stone Masons' Union (70,000 members). United Teamsters of America. National Purity Conference. National Free Baptist Woman's Missionary Society. United Textile Workers of America. Ladies of the Modern Maccabees. Ladies of the Maccabees of the World (155,860 members). National Council of Women (1,500,000 members). Nurses' Association of the Pacific Coast. Native Daughters of the Golden West. Women Workers of the Middle West. [*4*] International Council of Women (representing 20 countries and upwards of 6,000,000 of women members). At simultaneous meetings held in Boston, New York and Chicago, The American Women Trade Unionists adopted woman suffrage resolutions, and the Women's International Union Label League includes woman suffrage in its revised constitution. Other National organizations which have taken action on some phase of the question or have received fraternal delegates from the Woman Suffrage Association are: American Library Association. The Socialist Party. National Educational Association. National Congress of Mothers. National Catholic Women's League. National Council of Jewish Women. National Finnish Temperance Society. National W. R. C. Ladies of the G. A. R. General Federation of Women's Clubs League of American Municipalities. National Municipal League. Peace Congress. Charities and Corrections. ——— Many other State organizations have taken action on the woman suffrage question. Included in these are W. C. T. U.'s, Teachers' Associations, Farmers' Institutes, Sons of Temperance, Dairy Workers, Federation of Women's Clubs, Prohibition Parties, State Fairs, W. R. C.'s, and G. A. R.'s Chautauquas, Congress of Mothers, Ministerial Associations, Y. P. S. C. E.'s, etc. A constantly increasing number of local trades unions are taking favorable action on this question. At least Five Hundred Organizations, other that woman suffrage societies officially endorsed woman suffrage in the years 1904 to 1908, inclusive. [*28*] [*March 28, [1909] 1908.*] EMMA GOLDMAN'S MEETINGS. Hon. William Dudley Foulke, whom no one can suspect of anarchistic opinions, writes the following vigorous and timely letter to the Chicago Tribune. "Do the police of Chicago realize the ultimate consequences of seizing Emma Goldman, taking her from the platform before she had uttered one seditious word, and forcibly preventing her from addressing an audience in that city? And do the people of Chicago realize the full meaning of acquiescence in this suppression of the right of free speech, involved in the failure to punish the officials who are responsible for it? The constitution of Illinois declares, "The free communication of thoughts and opinions is one of the invaluable rights of man; and every citizen may freely speak, write, and print, on any subject, being responsible for the abuse of that liberty." If in her speech she had instigated men to crime, she might properly have been arrested; but to stop her from speaking at all would appear to be a violation of the constitution, as well as of one of our most fundamental rights. I know the provocation was very strong. Emma Goldman is commonly believed to have been the instigator of the Haymarket riots, and the inspiration of the murder of McKinley and of the recent attempt upon the life of the Chief of Police. The principles of anarchy which she represents are held by most of us in supreme contempt. We do not believe that Miss Goldman was really responsible for any of these crimes; but if she were, and yet could not be legally proved guilty, the case would be the same, Mr. Foulke continues: It seems ridiculous even to dream that orderly society can exist without organized government, and when it is proposed to overthrow such government by assassination, the crime we most detest, the proposal naturally arouses our abhorrence. But no matter how wild the theory, every human being in this country has a right to advocate it by any argument, short of the direct instigation to crime. If Emma Goldman has been guilty of crimes in the past, let her be punished, but if crime cannot be proved, and she is still at liberty, part of that liberty is her right to address her fellow citizens, and by any argument to convince them of anything she chooses, short of the perpetration of crime. The right of free speech is elementary in a government like ours, and, not for her sake, but for our own, we must insist upon it. If the police (of Chicago) can say in advance that her theories are dangerous, and may drag her away before she utters them, they may say that of the things which you and I want to utter: they might have prevented Henry George from speaking on behalf of the single tax, because it would overthrow property rights; they might have prevented the advocates of the rate bill from urging their representatives to support it, because in their view it would subject private property to unreasonable government control. If the police can decide in regard to the propriety of what I intend to say, where is to be the limit of their arbitrary power? Such a precedent cannot be permanently maintained and America remain a free nation. The same methods were attempted in the South before the war to stifle the arguments against slavery. "Helper's Impending Crisis," a clear and logical demonstration of the impossibility of the perpetuation of slavery, was denounced and confiscated as an incendiary book, liable to encourage a bloody insurrection among the slaves. [?] public utterance of anti-slavery [?as] in the South was followed by a coat of tar-and-feathers or a lynching. The world was now passed beyond that stage, but the conduct of the Chicago police is far more dangerous, because it seeks through the ministers of law, and by the pretended authority of the law itself, to overthrow that necessary freedom of speech which the law guarantees. To prevent any one from speaking on behalf of anarchy is to give to the cause of anarchy the most formidable weapon it has ever possessed, (a weapon even more dangerous than the bullet of Czolgosz) for, if our people were once to say to the anarchist, "You have no other means for the propagation of your doctrines except assassination," they would give him the first real excuse for his detestable crimes. Last Spring I was in Russia, and conversed with one of the leaders of the party of the Constitutional Democrats, that party which has, more than any other, the sympathy of liberty-loving Americans. Political assassinations were then going on in Russia at the rate of 500 a month. Two of the most eminent members of the Duma belonging to this party had been already killed by the reactionaries, and this gentleman himself was marked out for secret murder; yet when a resolution was introduced into the Duma denouncing all political assassinations, he would not support it, but said: "So long as there is any other method of securing the redress of abuses, assassination is utterly unjustifiable and detestable; but when a free press and free speech are stifled and there is no other remedy, we will not be hypocritical enough to denounce it." I could not refrain from contrasting these terrible alternatives with the happy condition of my own country, where men could speak and write and convince their fellow-citizens, and finally secure relief by law. But the moment the police can say, "This man or this woman shall not speak," the government to that extent is actually Russianized. Then for the first time can the anarchist truly cry out upon the heels of his assassination, "I had no other remedy." Then for the first time the sympathy of really patriotic Americans will be accorded even to such as Emma Goldman, if her lips are closed by arbitrary power. What will Chicago do to repudiate this fatal precedent? ——— Wendell Phillips said: "The community which dares not protest its humblest and most hated member in the free utterance of his opinions, no matter how false or hateful, is only a gang of slaves." Henry D. Lloyd said: "Encroachments upon rights of free speech and free assemblage, which we have looked upon with indifference because they were for opinions which to us seemed false or hateful, we have suddenly found applied to ourselves. Here is repeated again for us the warning of which all the histories of liberty are but the record. The outposts of our rights are to be found in the maintenance of the rights of the least of our brethren. The more odious they, the more do we need to keep our lamp of vigilance trimmed and burning for their defense. It is through the weak gate of their uncared-for liberty that the despot will steal upon us." [*Boston Herald May 21, 1912*] THE RIGHTS OF FREE SPEECH. To the Editor of The Herald: I wonder whether any daily newspaper in Boston has made proper comment upon the incident at Wakefield on Sunday, May 12, as reported in your columns? Hurriedly as I was obliged to read it at the time, I had a sense of shock that such an attack upon the usual rights of American free speech could be made in a Massachusetts town! Not for anything unlawful actually uttered, but on suspicion and fear alone. The police of that town, we read, not only forbade a meeting arranged to be held in the Grand Army Hall, but went in to break up a peaceable meeting in a private house, and ordered speakers from Lawrence out of town under threat or arrest! Is it possible that this story of high-handed aggressiveness on the part of the servants of "law and order" was correct? What is an Anarchist but one who breaks the rules? If the friends of law will not keep the law how can they expect anyone to keep it? It is with reference to such things, I suppose, that it is sometimes said that "a blunder is worse than a crime." For this kind of blundering, however well meant, simply plays into the hands of those who are pleased to have excuse for breaking the law. Do you wish to make Anarchists? There can be no more effective way to do this than not to "play fair." Fortunately, the converse is true. You can take no way to disarm anarchy so effective as to be honorable and kindly to everyone. Must we learn all this over again in Massachusetts? The fact is that we almost forget how precious and costly and modern our rights of free speech are. It is only a short time since it was held to be crime in the world to say what a man thought in criticism of the prevailing government or religion. Both government and religion have become better for the exercise of this freedom. Just now there is a fire of criticism touching the prevalent industrial order. Let it have vent, or like confined steam, it will force a way out. Does anyone think that a free and open-minded discussion of existing industrial conditions will do any permanent harm? I for one wholly deprecate the unsocial and inhumane utterances of certain leaders of the Industrial Workers of the World. But I am not afraid of such ugly talk. I am only afraid of it in case it is driven into dark corners, or when the fear and suspicion of "good citizens" who will not heed the disease of which it is a symptom, lift the foolish or excited talkers upon the pedestal of martyrdom. Give them no chance to be martyrs, and they will do the least possible harm. Let us never suppose that they are a new and strange order of "supermen," but just ordinary men like ourselves. CHARLES F. DOLE. Jamaica Plain, May 19. PROSPEROUS NEW ZEALAND. Hon. Hugh H. Lusk, a former member of the New Zealand Parliament, has been contributing to the Springfield (Mass.) Sunday Republican a series of interesting articles on the institutions of that far-away land. In last Sunday's issue, he sums up the progress made since 1893. That was the year when New Zealand granted full suffrage to women. Mr. Lusk did not choose it for that reason; he wanted to show the growth of 15 years; but the fact makes his summary of more interest to suffragists, and it is certainly a remarkable showing. Mr. Lusk says: New Zealand stands today in the position of the most prosperous and progressive country in the world. The assertion will perhaps create a smile in America; yet it is true. There are only five banks of issue doing the ordinary commercial business of the country, having, of course, branches at every center throughout New Zealand; and the amount of money deposited in these banks was on an average during the last year more than $125,000,000. This money was used for carrying on the business of less than a million people; and was as nearly as possible double the sum required for the purpose of carrying on the business of nearly 650,000 people 15 years before. Fifteen years ago one person out of every five had a savings bank account standing in his or her name, of an average value of $136. Last year more than one out of every three persons had a savings bank account, and the average balance standing at the credit of these accounts was a little more than $352. In 1893 there were 1948 miles of railroads in operation, the receipts from which amounted that year to nearly $6,000,000. Last year 2474 miles were in operation, and the receipts from the traffic amounted as nearly as possible to $13,000,000. In 1893 there were 2,069,791 tele also a great success. About twenty-five leading men and women spoke -- university professors, lawyers, business men, editors, clergymen. When they got through, there was not a shred of support left for the opponents. Despite the fact that the hearing was on a rainy night, the rain pouring down, the House was packed, galleries and all. The press were very generous in the space given us all through, but not from any special goodness of heart, in my opinion (excepting the Evening News, whose editor is a strong suffragist), but because the cause is getting popular, and there were some very spicy items to record. A Surprise. Literature was placed on each desk every other day throughout the first weeks of the session. One Monday, we sprang a surprise on the members, and had large yellow "Votes for Women" posters all over the House to greet them. We were unable to get them up in the Senate. The Senate was the body that defeated us. A majority we got, but not a three-fifths vote. Admittedly, this Legislature was dominated by the brewers of the State. History of the Bill. The history of our bill is as follows: in the first day of the session, dozen persons whose estates are valued at from $100,000 to $500,000, not more than three or four of these exceeding the $100,000 limit. The great majority of the estates proved in court -- and the number is surprisingly large compared with the number of deaths recorded -- are valued at between $3000 and $15,000. Thus it will appear that the people of New Zealand are not rich. On the other hand, it is an unquestionable fact that, unlike almost any other civilized or uncivilized country that can be named, there is no class of the very poor, hardly any that would elsewhere be considered poor at all. There is work, and to spare, for everybody who is able to work; and when old age overtakes them and finds them unprovided for, the nation, at a cost of one dollar per head in each year, finds them a pension which places them beyond the risk of want. Michigan. From 45 to 64 the contrast is even more striking. The average for women of all ages is 20.1 per thousand, while that of women employed in gainful occupations ranges from 12 per thousand for mill and factory operatives, 10 for dressmakers and seamstresses, 14 for bookkeepers, clerks and copyists, with the appalling pitch of 53.4 for domestic servants. In short, every gainful occupation in which women is employed in the United States shows lower mortality than that of the total number of females for the same age period, with the single exception of domestic servants. The contrast between the women who work outside of the home and those who work for wages inside the home is positively appalling. The general average for the two classes is 3.3 per thousand at all ages and 17.1 per thousand for domestic servants. THE LITERARY DIGEST VOL. XXXI., No 12 Reprinted from The Outlook of April 3, 1909 WOMAN AND THE SUFFRAGE BY JULIA WARD HOWE WHEN the stripling David, having rashly undertaken to encounter the Philistine giant, found himself obliged to choose a weapon for the unequal fight, he dismissed the costly armament offered him by the king, and went back to the simple stone and sling with which he was familiar. Even in like manner will I, pledged just now to make a plain statement of the claims of woman to suffrage, trust myself to state the case as it appeared to me when, after a delay of some years, I finally gave it my adhesion. Having a quick and rather preponderating sense of the ridiculous, I had easily apprehended the humorous associations which would at first attach themselves to any change in the political status of women. It had once appeared to me answer enough to the new demand to ask the mothers what they proposed to do with their babies, with their husbands, that they should find time for the exercise of these very superfluous functions. While I still so spake and so thought, behold, a race of men became enfranchised by the appeal to arms. The conquest of their rights demanded the power to defend those rights, and this power the logic of history had placed in the ballot, whose object it is to secure to every person of sane and sound mind the availing expression of his political faith and individual will. I had by this time cast in my lot with those to whom the right of the Negro to every human function and privilege appeared a point to be maintained at all hazards. It had been determined that the slave should become a free man, and, further than this, that, in order to maintain his freedom, he must perform the offices of a free citizen. Two new thoughts now came to me in the shape of questions: Why was the vote so vital a condition of the freedom of an American citizen? And, if it was held to be so vital, why should every man possess it, and no woman? I did and do believe in equal civic rights for all human beings, without regard to race, subject only to such tests as may be applied impartially to all alike. But there seemed a special incongruity in putting this great mass of ignorant men into a position of political superiority to all women. The newly enfranchised men were generally illiterate and of rather low morality. Should they, simply on account of sex, be invested with a power and dignity withheld from women, who at that time were unquestionably better fitted to intervene in matters of government than men could be who for many generations had been bought and sold like cattle, men who would have the whole gamut of civilization to learn by heart before they could have any availing knowledge of what a vote should really mean? Here were ignorance and low life commissioned to lord it over the august company of the mothers. Here were the natural guardians of childhood debarred from the highest office in its defense. I felt that this could not be right; and when the foremost friends of the Negro showed themselves as the foremost champions of the political enfranchisement of women. I had no longer any hesitation in saying, This must be the keystone of the arch, whose absence leaves so sad and strange a gap in the construction of our political morality. Since then the questions of suffrage for women has passed out of the academic stage, and has become a matter of practical observation and experience in an ever-growing number of States and countries. Experience has shattered, like a house of cards, all the old predictions that it would destroy the home, subvert the foundations of society, and have a ruinous influence both on womanly delicacy Readers of THE LITERARY DIGEST are asked to mention the publication when writing to advertisers.4 WOMAN AND THE SUFFRAGE and on public affairs. During many years the opponents of woman suffrage have been diligently gathering all the adverse testimony that they could find. So far as appears by their published literature, they have not found, in all our enfranchised States put together, a dozen respectable men, residents of those States, who assert over their own names and addresses that it has had any ill effects. A few say that it has done no good, and call it a failure on that ground. But the mass of testimony on the other side is overwhelming. The fundamental argument for woman suffrage, of course, is its justice; and this would be enough were there no other. But a powerful argument can also be made for it from the standpoint of expediency. It has now been proved to demonstration, not only that woman suffrage has no bad results, but that it has certain definite good results. 1. It gives women a position of increased dignity and influence. On this point I will quote from five people whose word has weight in our own land and abroad. Dr. Margaret Long, daughter of the ex-Secretary of the Navy, who has resided for years in Denver, has written: "It seems impossible to me that any one can live in Colorado long enough to get into touch with the life here, and not realize that women count for more in all the affairs of this State than they do where they have not the power that the suffrage gives. More attention is paid to their wishes, and much greater weight given to their opinions and judgment." Mrs. Sarah Platt Decker, of Denver, ex-President of the General Federation of Women's Clubs, and also ex-President of the Colorado State Board of Charities, writes: "Under woman suffrage, there is a much more chivalrous devotion and respect on the part of men, who look upon their sisters not as playthings or as property, but as equals and fellow citizens." Mrs. K. A. Sheppard, President of the New Zealand Council of Women, says: "Since women have become electors, their views have become important and command respect. Men listen to and are influenced by the opinions of women to a far greater degree than was the case formerly. There is no longer heard the contemptuous 'What do women know of such matters?' And so out of the greater civil liberty enjoyed by women has come a perceptible rise in the moral and humanitarian tone of the community. A young New Zealander in his teens no longer regards his mother as belonging to a sex that must be kept within a prescribed sphere. That the lads and young men of a democracy should have their whole conception of the rights of humanity broadened and measured by truer standards is in itself an incalculable benefit." Mrs. A. Watson Lister, Secretary of the Woman's National Council of Australia, says: "One striking result of equal suffrage is that members of Parliament now consult us as to their bills, when these bear upon the interests of women. The author of the new divorce bill asked all the women's organizations to come together and hear him read it, and make criticisms and suggestions. I do not remember any such thing happening before, in all my years in Australia. When a naturalization bill was pending, one clause of which deprived Australian women of citizenship if they married aliens, a few women went privately to the Prime Minister and protested, and that clause was altered immediately. After we had worked for years with members of Parliament for various reforms, without avail because we had no votes, you cannot imagine the difference it makes." Ex-Premier Alfred Deakin, of the Commonwealth of Australia, says: "There is now a closer attention paid in Parliament to matters especially affecting the [feminine] sex or interesting them." 2. It leads to improvements in the laws. No one can speak more fitly of this than Judge Lindsey, of the Denver Juvenile Court. He writes: "We have in Colorado the most advanced laws of any State in the Union for the care and protection of the home and the children, the very foundation of the Republic. We owe this more to woman suffrage than to WOMAN AND THE SUFFRAGE 5 any one cause. It does not take any mother from her home duties to spend ten minutes in going to the polls, casting her vote, and returning to the bosom of her home; but during those ten minutes she wields a power which is doing more to protect that home, and all other homes, than any other power or influence in Colorado." Mrs. Helen L. Grenfell, of Denver, served three terms as State Superintendent of Public Instruction for Colorado, and highly esteemed by educators throughout the State. She introduced in Colorado the system of leasing instead of selling the lands set apart by the Government for the support of the public schools, thereby almost doubling the annual revenue available for education. Mrs. Grenfell was appointed by the Governor to represent Colorado at the Congress of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance at Amsterdam last summer. In her report to that Congress she enumerated a long list of improved laws obtained in Colorado since women were granted the ballot, and added: "Delegates of the Interparliamentary Union who visited different parts of the United States for the purpose of studying American institutions declared concerning our group of laws relating to child life in its various aspects of education, home, and labor, that 'they are the sanest, most humane, most progressive, most scientific laws relating to the child to be found on any statute-books in the world." Wyoming, many years ago, passed a law that women teachers in the public schools should receive the same pay as me when the work done is the same. The news that Utah had granted full suffrage to women was quickly followed by the announcement of the passage of a bill providing that women teachers should have equal pay with men when they held certificates of the same grade. The State Superintendent of Public Instruction for Colorado says: "There is no difference made in teachers' salaries on account of sex." Woman suffrage has also operated to take the schools out of politics. Mrs. Grenfell writes: "I have seen or heard of more party politics in school matters in one block in Albany, Buffalo, or Philadelphia than in the 103,928 square miles of Colorado soil." Since women attained the ballot, all the four equal suffrage States have raised the age of protection for girls to eighteen. In Idaho and Wyoming the repeal of the laws that formerly licensed gambling is universally ascribed to the women. The Colorado statutes against cruelty to animals and against obscene literature are said to be models of their kind. Within four years after equal suffrage was granted, the number of no-license towns in Colorado had more than quadrupled, and it has increased much more largely since. The organ of the brewers of Denver says that Colorado made a great mistake in giving the ballot to women. So far as I am aware, it is the only paper in Colorado which takes that ground. Under the title "Fruits of Equal Suffrage," the National American Woman Suffrage Association has published a partial list of the improved laws passed in the four enfranchised states with the aid of women's votes, giving chapter and verse for each. It fills nearly eight pages. 3. Women can bring their influence to bear on legislation more quickly and with less labor by the direct method than by the indirect. In Massachusetts the suffragists worked for fifty-five years before they succeeded in getting a law making mothers equal guardians of their minor children with the fathers. After half a century of effort by indirect influence, only twelve out of our forty-six States have taken similar action. In Colorado, when the women were enfranchised, the very next Legislature passed such a bill. 4. Equal suffrage often leads to the defeat of bad candidates. This is conceded even by Mr. A. Lawrence Lewis, whose article in The Outlook against woman suffrage in Colorado has been reprinted by the anti-suffragists as a tract. He says: "Since the extension of the franchise to women, political parties have learned the inadvisability of nominating for public offices drunkards, notorious libertines, gamblers, retail liquor dealers, and men WOMAN AND THE SUFFRAGE who engage in similar discredited occupations, because the women almost always vote them down." During the fifteen years since equal suffrage was granted no saloon-keeper has been elected to the Board of Aldermen in Denver. Before that it was very common. I quote again from Governor Shafroth, of Colorado "Women's presence in politics has introduced an independent element which compels better nominations." Ex-Chief Justice Fisher, of Wyoming, says: "If the Republicans nominate a bad man and the Democrats a good one, the Republican women do not hesitate a moment to 'scratch' the bad and substitute the good. It is just so with the Democrats." Ex-Governor Hunt, of Idaho: "The woman vote has compelled not only State conventions, but more particularly county conventions, of both parties to select the cleanest and best material for public office." And quoting once more fro Judge Lindsey, of Denver: "One of the greatest advantages from woman suffrage is the fear on the part o the machine politicians to nominate men of immoral character. While many bad men have been elected in spite of woman suffrage, they have not been elected because of woman suffrage. If the women alone had a vote, it would result in a class of men in public office whose character for morality, honesty, and courage would be of a much higher order." The recent re-election of Judge Lindsey by the mothers of Denver, against the opposition of both the political machines, is only a striking instance of what has happened in a multitude of less conspicuous cases in the various enfranchised States. 5. Equal suffrage broadens women's minds, and leads them to take a more intelligent interest in public affairs. President Slocum, of Colorado College, Enos A. Mills, the forestry expert, Mrs. Decker, and many others, bear witness to this. The Hon. W. E. Mullen, Attorney- General of Wyoming, who went there opposed to woman suffrage and has been converted, writes: "It stimulates interest and study, on the part of women, in public affairs. Questions of public interest are discussed in the home. As the mother, sister, or teacher of young boys, the influence of woman is very great. The more she knows about the obligations of citizenship, the more she is able to teach the boys." A leading book- seller of Denver says he sold more books on political economy in the first eight months after women were given the ballot than he had sold in fifteen years before. 6. It makes elections and political meetings more orderly. The Hon. John W. Kingman, of the Wyoming Supreme Court, says: "In caucus discussions the presence of a few ladies is worth a whole squad of police." 7. It makes it easier to secure liberal appropriations for educational and humanitarian purposes. In Colorado the schools are not scrimped for money, as they are in the older and richer States. So say Mrs. Grenfell, General Irving Hale, and others. 8. It opens to women important positions now closed to them because they are not electors. Throughout England, Scotland, Ireland, and a considerable part of Europe, a host of women are rendering admirable service to the community in offices from which women in America are still debarred. 9. It increases the number of women chosen to such offices as are already open to them. Thus, in Colorado women were eligible as county superintendents of schools before their enfranchisement; but when they obtained the ballot the number of women elected to those positions showed an immediate and large increase. 10. It raises the average of political honesty among the voters. Judge Lindsey says: "Ninety-nine per cent of our election frauds are committed by men." 11. It tends to modify a too exclusively commercial view of public affairs. G. W. Russell, Chairman of the Board of Governors of Canterbury College, New Zealand, writes: "Prior to women's franchise the distinctive feature of our politics was finance. Legislative proposals were regarded almost entirely from the point of view of (1) What would they cost? and (2) What would WOMAN AND THE SUFFRAGE 7 be their effect from a commercial standpoint? The woman's view is not pounds nor pence, but her home, her family. In order to win her vote, the politicians had to look at public matters from her point of view. Her ideal was not merely money, but happy homes, and a fair chance in life for her husband, her intended husband, and her present or prospective family." 12. Last, but not least, it binds the family more closely together. I say this with emphasis, though it is in direct opposition to an argument much brought forward by the opponents of woman suffrage. Let us give ear to words that are written, like the last, from a region where equal suffrage has been tried and proved. The Hon. Hugh H. Lusk, ex-member of the New Zealand Parliament, says: "We find that equal suffrage is the greatest family bond and tie, the greatest strengthener of family life. It seemed odd at first to find half the benches at a political meeting occupied by ladies; but when men have got accustomed to it they do not like the other thing. When they found that they could take their wives and daughters to these meetings, and afterwards go home with them and talk it over, it was often the beginning of a new life for the family - a life of ideas and interests in common, and of a unison of thought." It is related that the Japanese Government many years ago sent a commission to the United States to study the practical working of Christianity, with a view of introducing it into Japan as the State religion if the report of the commission proved favorable. The commission saw many evils rampant in America, and went home reporting that Christianity was a failure. The opponents of women suffrage argue in the same way. They find evils in the enfranchised States, and straightway draw the conclusion that woman suffrage is a failure. But it may be said with truth of woman suffrage, as of Christianity, that these evils exist not because of it, but in spite of it; and that it has already effected a number of distinct improvements, and is on the way to effect yet more. I have sat in the little chapel at Bethlehem in which tradition places the birth of the Saviour. It seemed fitting that it should be adorned with offerings of beautiful things. But while I mused there a voice seemed to say to me: "Look abroad! This divine child is a child no more. He was grown to be a man and a deliverer. Go out into the world! Find his footsteps and follow them. Work, as he did, for the redemption of mankind. Suffer as he did, if need be, derision and obloquy. Make your protest against tyranny, meanness, and injustice!" The weapon of Christian warfare is the ballot, which represents the peaceable assertion of conviction and will. Society everywhere is becoming converted to its use. Adopt it, O you women, with clean hands and a pure heart! Verify the best word written by the apostle - "In Christ Jesus there is neither bond nor free, neither male nor female, but a new creature," the harbinger of a new creation! Reprinted from The Outlook of April 3, 1909 [*165*] [*35*] EQUAL SUFFRAGE IN NEW ZEALAND "What the Franchise Has Done for the Women and Children of New Zealand," is the title of two noteworthy articles contributed by Lady Stout, wife of Sir Robert Stout, the Chief Justice of New Zealand, to The Englishwoman for May and June, 1910. Lady Stout says, in part: Some time ago I wrote a letter to the Times, showing that Women's Franchise in New Zealand has not had the disastrous effects that were predicted by its opponents. I should like, in this article, to show some of the good results to the community arising from the exercise of the vote by our women. No Revolution The suffrage caused no revolution, either political or domestic. Any movement which depends for its results upon the development of the sense of responsibility, and which has been the outcome of public opinion founded upon justice and good feeling, shows its effects not by revolution but by the gradual and certain improvement of the conditions it was organized to promote. Judged by this standard, women's suffrage in New Zealand has fulfilled all the expectations of its advocates, and won over its opponents. Women Almost All Vote The statement that women do not exercise the franchise is only applicable to a certain class who spend their time in amusement. Fortunately, there are few women of that class in New Zealand, as is proved by the fact that the proportion of women's vote to men's is 79 to 80, and that there are only 11,000 adults in the Dominion who are not on the roll. Laws Are Equal All our legislation is founded on the equality of the sexes. We have equal divorce laws, and in every case the judges or magistrates interpret the law so as to give the mother the custody of her children, except when her character is disreputable. Even in such circumstances, she has the right to see her children at stated times. Incurable insanity for ten years, imprisonment for seven, attempt to murder wife or children, desertion for five years, cruelty or unfaithfulness, are grounds for dissolving the marriage tie. Divorces Are Few The number of divorces in New Zealand is not large, though our fees are so reasonable that poor people are able to sue for divorce, and unfaithfulness alone is sufficient cause for divorce, in the case of both men and women. Our Separation and Maintenance Act is usually the remedy that is applied for in cases of domestic infelicity, and does not, so far as I am aware, lead to immorality. Laws Protect Women The Married Women's Property Act provides that women shall have absolute control over their property and wage-earnings, and they are protected from any interference of their husbands in business contracts. The Succession Act provides that, in case of a person dying intestate, the wife, children and family shall receive definite shares of the estate. The Testator's Family Maintenance Act gives the judge power to upset a will which does not allow a sufficient share of an estate to the testator's wife and family. Our Legitimation Act provides that, on the marriage of parents, children born out of wedlock can be legitimized. This Act became law in 1894. All offences against the person of women and children are very severely dealt with, and in criminal law a stepfather or adopting father is liable as a father. This Act has been found of great benefit in criminal prosecutions, as there was formerly an ecclesiastical but no criminal law to meet such cases. The age of protection for girls has been raised to sixteen years. Baby-Farming Prevented We have a very strict Infant Life Protection Act, which makes baby- farming almost impossible. All boarded-out children are under the supervision of nurses under the control of the Education Department, who are appointed by the Government. Our Industrial Schools and Farms for orphaned, destitute or criminal children are on the system of boarding out the children to suitable families. We have schools for mentally defective children, for the blind and also for deaf mutes—all under Government control and supervision. Homes conducted by religious bodies are all under Government Inspection. Education Free and Secular Primary education is free, compulsory and secular, and under the control of the State. All primary church schools are under Government Inspection and examination, but no grant is given by the State for denominational education. The Truant Act provides inspectors whose duty it is to see that no child is absent from school without an excuse of illness. We have no half-timers, and the women's societies and the press are urging the discontinuance of child-labor on farms, before and after school hours. The secular system of education has worked so well that all attempts to bring the schools under the control of different denominations have signally failed, which I think is proof that enfranchised women, at least, are not priest-ridden. The entire banishment of all religious tests for teachers and scholars has had a most wonderful effect in securing harmony amongst the members of all denominations in the Dominion. All religious bickering is now at an end, and all churches unite in forwarding the best interests of the community by joining forces in promoting social, temperance and industrial reforms. Our criminal statistics prove that there has been a great decrease in crime since the present education system came into force. Juvenile Courts We have special Children's Courts in which cases against children are heard in private. The magistrates have power to admonish the children and dismiss the cases at discretion. We have also a First Offenders' Probation Act, which gives any first offender the chance of retrieving his position by good behavior. Our judges and magistrates use the discretion of admonishing any offender who has been of good character, but has committed crime through drink, under the condition that he shall be brought up for sentence if found in a public house during a stated period. Women's Wages Rising In industrial and professional work women's wages are not absolutely equal to those paid to men, but the standard is gradually being raised. Our Teachers' Associations have agreed to equal pay for equal work. At a recent conference, a man proposed that women teachers should be on an absolute equality with men in appointments and salary. The absolute- equality motion was carried with regard to salaries, and almost carried with regard to appointments. I think the suffrage can be credited with the just and enlightened attitude of men in this instance. Sweating Abolished The Factory Laws in New Zealand make sweating in any industry impossible. Piece-work is forbidden, except under severe restrictions, and all wages paid to women as well as to men are "a living wage." The vote, again, has given the women power to regulate the conditions of their labor. Prison Conditions Good Conditions of prison life are very good, and are being further improved by strict classification and the substitution of reformatory for punitive methods. Lights in cells, abundant supply of hot water for baths, good prison libraries, out-of-door work, such as tree planting in camps, have all been adopted with good results. Women visitors to prisons and women inspectors safeguard the conditions for women. There are also women inspectors for our mental hospitals. The maternity homes are under the control of women doctors. Few Women Office-Holders We seem to be able to get any measures we want through our vote. We have, of course, the right to stand for any municipal office, but women seldom avail themselves of the opportunity. We are all so busy in our domestic life that we cannot find time for public duties that can be performed by men who are elected by our votes. There are, however, several women who fill such positions with benefit to the community. Municipal Referendum In municipal elections women have the same right to vote as men, and the wife or husband can vote on the other's qualification. All loans are submitted to a referendum, and electors can vote against any new scheme for drainage, waterworks, tramlines, etc. Men and women alike have always proved willing to rate themselves for the sake of the health and comfort of the citizens. Little Poverty, No Slums We have no great wealth and no extreme poverty. There is really no poverty except that which is due to drink or the illness of the breadwinner. We have no slums. An English lady who was taken round to our so-called slums one Saturday night exclaimed, "You should thank God for your slums!" Societies for Wife and Child Protection Instead of becoming addicted to masculine habits as a result of the suffrage, New Zealand women have developed a much higher standard of womanhood and the duties and obligations of womanhood. For a number of years we have had Societies for the Protection of Women and Children, the objects of which are to assist women and girls in trouble; secure maintenance and separation orders for wives and children or mothers; to prosecute in cases of cruelty or neglect of women and children. These societies have [*36*] honorary doctors and solicitors, who undertake to give advice and assistance in cases where their services are required. We are able to settle nearly all cases without having recourse to the courts. A little pressure brought to bear upon a man who neglects or ill-treats his wife and children usually has the effect of improving his behavior to his family. In no case has any branch of the society been accused of making mischief or unfairly prosecuting. In many cases the woman is found to be the delinquent, and then the secretary urges her to mend her ways. Men who have been left widowers very often come for advice as to the best method of providing for their motherless children. The fact of having such a society to appeal to has appealed many a poor down-trodden woman to regain her self-respect, and has had the effect of deterring men from misconduct. We have legal advice and legal help to draw upon whenever it becomes necessary to take cases into court. In the case of young girls, we find homes and protection for them in their time of need, and secure maintenance from the fathers of their children. Our society has been the means of securing amendments in the criminal law and in the Testator's Family Maintenance Act. We urged the children's courts, schools for imbecile children, nurses for boarded-out children and babies, and many other measures for the betterment of women and children. We have had bills sent to us from the Government, with requests for suggestions, in matters relating to our work. Free Kindergartens The Free Kindergarten Schools which were organized by women, have been so successfully managed as to secure a Government subsidy. Saving the Babies Another society which is the outcome of the new feeling of responsibility in women awakened by their rights of citizenship, is the Society for the Promotion of the Health of Women and Children. This was founded by Dr. Truby King, who appealed to women to organize and work to secure a decrease in infant mortality. Its objects are to train women and girls in intelligent motherhood and home-making, and to "save the babies." The Society is under the patronage of her Excellency, Lady Plunkett, who delivers lectures on the care and feeding of infants. There are branches in all our town and country districts, having under their guidance a "Plunkett" nurse, who gives advice and assistance to women of all classes in the feeding, clothing and management of their babies. The leading newspapers assist by inserting articles on "Our Babies," contributed by the society. It is a mutual-help and not a charitable-aid society, and has done splendid work during the short time it has been in existence, making the conditions of child-life better and brighter. The Ballot and the Birth Rate Some of the opponents of women's suffrage declare that the birth rate in New Zealand has decreased as a result of the franchise. I should like to show that such is not the case. Equal suffrage was granted in 1893. Lady Stout says that New Zealand's birth rate began to fall in 1880, and declined till 1899, since which time it has steadily risen. She continues: During the years between 1880 and 1899 there was a strong wave of revolt amongst women, enfranchised and unfranchised, all over the civilized world, against the birth of unhealthy and undesired children. New Zealand women, being thoughtful and intelligent, were affected by this movement; but now that they know they have a voice in furthering legislation for the benefit of their children, all young married women desire children, and mothers are nursing their babies themselves. Motherhood Has Become Intelligent Another reason for the decrease in the birth rate is that girls do not now marry so early as formerly. This has the effect of diminishing the birth rate; but, on the other hand, it increases the life and health of the mothers and children. In fact, statistics prove that motherhood has become intelligent and thoughtful, not merely instinctive. Not only is our birth rate increasing, but our rate of infant mortality is rapidly decreasing, while our women are making a united effort to decrease still further the waste of child life and the physical and mental pain and suffering it entails upon the mothers. The most marked and beneficial effect of the franchise in New Zealand is that the women are awakening to the responsibilities of motherhood, and consider their living children of more value to the State than those that are peopling the graveyard. Even if the birth rate was decreasing in New Zealand, this would be no argument to bring against the enfranchisement of women, as this state of things is taking place in France, Germany, Britain and America. One might as well attribute the decrease in the New Zealand birth rate to the Tarawera eruption, which took place about the time the decrease began, as attribute it to the franchise, which did not come into force until fourteen years after the decline. The birth rate of a country always tends to decline as the intelligence and education of the people advance, until the conditions of life have become so much improved that thoughtful parents feel assured of the future of their children. Though it is only sixteen years since women's franchise became law in New Zealand, the conditions of life for women and children have become so much improved that the birth rate is now steadily increasing again. In all probability the birth rate of other countries will also begin to show an upward tendency when women obtain the vote there, and can exercise more direct control over the social and economic conditions of life. Victoria Birth Rate Rising I have just received statistics showing the birth rate in Victoria as begun to go up for the first time since 1896. Infant mortality also shows a very marked decrease, being in 1909 only 70 per 1000, or fiver per cent. lower than in New Zealand, which has been hitherto the lowest in the world. The marriage rate in Victoria has also increased. As women's suffrage was only gained in 1909, one is tempted to attribute the increase in marriage and birth rates and the decrease in infant mortality to "Votes for Women," though the wisdom of the "Antis" may find another solution of the problem. Infant Death Rates Compared The following table shows the average death rates of infants under one year in ten years from 1896 to 1905 in the principal countries: Infant mortality per 1000 births, Hungary 215, Germany 190, France 149, England and Wales 147, Scotland 125, New Zealand 77. As New Zealand's birth rate is higher than that of England and Wales, and the infant mortality so much lower than any other country, I think even an "Anti" must acknowledge that the population rate has gained since the women were enfranchised. Though our infant mortality is the lowest in the world, we are making strenuous efforts to reduce it still further by discountenancing the use of patent foods, comforters, tubes for feeding bottles, and by urging the use of modified humanized milk in cases where natural feeding is impossible. Young People Robust Not only is the rate of infant mortality in New Zealand exceptionally low, but the children and young people compare favorably in development with those of the mother country. Dr. Purdy, our Health Officer, has just published anthropometrical measurements of the boys attending our high schools and colleges, which show that the average New Zealand boy is taller, heavier and bigger in every way than the boys of his age attending the great English public schools and colleges. Lady Stout describes the growth of no-license in New Zealand, her account of which was given in last week's Journal. She continues: Pioneer Mothers Honored The pioneer settles recognized that their wives were noble types of womanhood, who had unselfishly left home and civilization to help their husbands to reclaim the wilderness; that, but for the help of women, their task would have been well-nigh impossible. That is one reason, I believe, why the men of New Zealand have always treated women as their equals. They provided High Schools for the education of their daughters forty years ago, and the Universities, which were opened in 1871, made no restriction as to sex. Girls attended the same classes, and had the same privileges, as men. They could study for any profession, though the Parliament did not allow women to practise as barristers and solicitors until eighteen years ago. Sense of Responsibility Grows It is really very early days of the suffrage yet, as sixteen years does not mean a long period in the history of any country; yet even in that short time women who were thoughtless and indifferent to the vote have developed a new sense of responsibility, and now consider well the means by which they can improve the conditions of life for their children, and ensure the welfare of the Dominion by the intelligent exercise of their voting powers. Girl Scouts and Women's Ambulance Corps Not only local but Imperial interests have ben furthered by the women. T They are enthusiastic advocates of universal ambulance training for women. There are corps of girl scouts in New Zealand, and a mounted ambulance corps of women. Our New Zealand women recognize the 'claim' of Empire, and will always be ready to support any measure by which their homes and children will be protected from foreign invasion. Better Candidates Elected The women's vote has had a very beneficial effect on the morale of the members of our Legislature, and it is[*37*] now recognized that, no matter how clever a man may be, he has no chance of election unless his character as a husband and father can bear investigation. No woman will knowingly vote for a man of unprincipled or immoral character, as she knows that such men cannot have the interests of the country at heart, and that their influence in political as well as social life is baneful to the welfare of the home and the community. Improved Conditions for Women In every respect the women's vote has improved the conditions of life for women and children. It has secured equal facilities for women in professional, industrial and educational work; it has done much to secure temperance, social and economic reforms; it has raised the status of women and of motherhood, and awakened woman to her responsibilities as a rational human being; it has made her realize that there is a "white woman's" as well as a "white man's" burden, and in no way has it injured her comrade, man. Brings About True Comradeship The equality of the sexes has made possible true comradeship, which engenders mutual respect and ensures a strong, industrious and enterprising race, with high ideals of the duties of parenthood and citizenship, and of loyalty to the Dominion and the Empire. Anita P. Stout. THE WOMAN'S JOURNAL NOVEMBER 19, 1910 LADY STOUT ON NEW ZEALAND Lady Stout, wife of the Chief Justice of New Zealand, says in a letter to the London Times: "In New Zealand our marriage rate is the highest in all European or English-speaking countries; so the vote has evidently not made the women less winsome or desirable helpmates for men. The freedom and power of citizenship acquired by our women have evidently developed in them a higher standard of morality and sense of the dignity of womanhood. I feel sure that no one who understands the aims and aspirations of our women, or who realizes the part they have taken in promoting the welfare of the Dominion, but will agree with me that votes for women has been an unqualified success in New Zealand. Our infant mortality is only 75 per 1,000, against 138 per 1,000 in Britain." WOMAN'S JOURNAL NOVEMBER 12, 1910 IDAHO SPEAKS. Office of Chief Justice, Boise, Idaho. Oct. 29, 1910. Miss Alice Stone Blackwell, Editor Woman's Journal: Dear Madam:—Your letter of Sept. 8, containing extracts from an article by Molly Elliott Seawell, entitled "The Ladies' Battle," in the September (1910) Atlantic Monthly, received; but, owing to the press of official business, I have been unable to answer until the present time, and even now have time to reply to but few of the erroneous statements and misrepresentations contained in the article. It seems very strange that a magazine with the standing of the Atlantic Monthly would give space to an article containing not only an utter misconception of the legal principles applicable to women who have the right of suffrage, but so many erroneous statements and misrepresentations of the historical facts of the real condition of woman suffrage where it is now in actual operation. A true history of woman suffrage in Wyoming, where it has been in force for 41 years, and in Utah, Colorado and Idaho for many years, directly refutes every statement quoted from said article in your letter. I am unable to understand why an author would risk her reputation as a candid, fair-minded writer concerning the history of woman suffrage by making so many false statements and insinuations as are contained in that article. It is a libel on the good people of the States mentioned. It seems to me that nothing but ignorance, prejudice and a willful intention to misrepresent could have instigated such an article. In speaking of the noble women of this country who are at the head of the suffrage movement, the author of "The Ladies' Battle" says: "They have shown no grasp of the principles of government; few suffragists, perhaps, could explain, off-hand, why the House of Representatives has a Committee on Foreign Affairs, and the Senate a Committee on Foreign Relations." If the ability to answer those questions "off-hand" is a test of one's competency to discuss the suffrage movement, perhaps not one out of a thousand of the men of the country who vote, and vote intelligently, would be competent to discuss the question or to have any opinion in regard to it. After referring to Wyoming as a State of cowboys and cattle-ranges, and stating that Utah and Idaho are dominated by the Morgan Church, and that Colorado is the "most civilized" of those four States, she asserts that the suffrage experiment has not been entirely successful, and that "the near view of suffrage does not seem to help it." I would ask what she knows about a "near view" of woman suffrage? Her article clearly indicates that she knows absolutely nothing about its practical workings. While it has not solved all the problems of popular government, I maintain that it has been a successful experiment. In reply to her statement that the women have shown a general indifference to exercising their rights in States where limited suffrage prevails, I would sugest that male electors exhibit the same indifference in those States at such elections. In general elections it is different, and about 85 per cent. of the woman's vote was cast in this State at our last general election. In regard to the men and women in the four so-called "crude" States above mentioned being incapable of thoroughly understanding the suffrage question, I would say that many of the leading citizens of those States are university graduates and men and women of a high order of intellect and brain power. They are splendid, stalwart men and women, physically, mentally and morally, and will compare favorably with the men and women of any State in the Union. We have in Idaho as large a percentage of university men and women as in any State, and a less percentage of illiteracy than in most of the States. Our schools are as good as any in the country. The present census will show a less per cent. of illiteracy in Idaho than among the whites in the State of Virginia. Out of a total population (in round numbers) of 161,000, as shown by the census reports of 1900, the total illiteracy in Idaho, including Negroes, Chinese and Indians (and of the latter we have several thousand within our borders), there were but 2,936 illiterates; and in Virginia, according to the same census, with a population of 1,854,000, the illiterates number 113,353. As between the white population of Virginia and of Idaho, I am satisfied there is a less per cent. of illiteracy in Idaho than in Virginia. It is asserted that there are two basic principles opposed to woman suffrage, and a fling is made at the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Federal Constitution. She then contends that the Negro is not worthy of suffrage, and places the women on the same plane as the Negro, so far as suffrage is concerned. The two so-called basic principles are stated as follows: "First, no electorate has ever existed, or ever can exist, which cannot execute its own laws. "Second, no voter has ever claimed, or ever can claim, maintenance from another voter." Concerning the first so-called "basic principle," she states that the voter must have two qualifications: First, he must be physically able to fight his way to the polls, against opposition, if necessary; and next, he must be able to carry out by force the effect [*38*] of his ballot. Here she directly advocates mob law. Who ever heard of such monstrous propositions? Laws are made for the government of the people by orderly procedure, and prohibit mob violence, and protect the voter in casting his ballot, and provide for carrying the result of elections into effect by proper officers and not by the muscle of the voter. The idea that every legal voter must be able to fight his way to the polls to cast his ballot, and after he has done so possess the physical ability to enforce the effect of his ballot, is a proposition that would not stand the test in any civilized country, not even in the "crude" States of Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and Idaho, designated by the author as States controlled by rowdies, cowboys and violators of the law. That doctrine would make every elector a law unto himself. If this so-called basic principle were correct, it would no doubt disfranchise at least one-fourth of the male voters in the United States, as they are not physically able, nor are they inclined, to fight their way to the polls,—such as old men and invalids. The law protects the elector in his right, and he does not have to resort to mob violence either to cast his vote or to have it counted. The following prophecy made in that article is absolutely refuted by the history of woman suffrage in the four States mentioned: "The trouble would begin with the mere attempt of women to deposit their ballots. A dozen ruffians at a single polling place could prevent a hundred women from depositing a single ballot. There can be no doubt that this means would be used by the rougher elements, and that the polls would become scenes of preordained disorder and riot." No such thing has ever occurred in any of the suffrage States. Our elections are as orderly as elections held in any State of the Union. What would the good men at the polling place be doing while the ruffians were belaboring their mothers and wives, sisters and sweethearts, and preventing them from depositing their ballots as suggested? Are the good men all cravens and cowards? Not so in the West. Since the adoption of woman suffrage in Idaho fourteen years ago, several State and presidential elections have been held, and no rowdy or ruffian has ever interfered in any manner with women in their participation in such elections. If anything like that had occurred, the rowdy who attempted it would never attempt such an act again. The miners and stockmen of this State have an exalted opinion of their wives, their mothers, their sisters and sweethearts, and no (Continued on Page 198.) rowdy or any other person would dare attempt to interfere in any manner with the women of the State in casting their ballots. She states that "respectable women would have to face the class that is not respectable, a thing appalling to modest women," and suggests that respectable women might invoke the law, but the could not enforce it, but would be dependent upon that "moiety" of men who would be willing to assist them. Does the author know of a respectable man in her State who would not be willing to assist the legal authorities in the protection of women from the acts of the rowdy element? We do not have that kind of men in the Western States, and she has no right to insinuate that we have. The idea permeates her article that the good men of the nation would be powerless to enforce any legislation in regard to the suffrage of women, or to protect them from violence in case suffrage were given them. She refers to the conditions in the South and the Negro vote, and seems to infer that she would deplore woman suffrage as much as she does Negro suffrage. They are not parallel cases. We may concede that the Negro would have been better off without suffrage, but that concession would not be an argument against woman suffrage. The second so-called basic principle against woman suffrage which the author discusses, is to the effect that one voter cannot claim maintenance from another voter. Where in the common law or in any statute law in any of the States of this Union can she find such a principle? In some States, inhabitants of poor and almshouses are not permitted to vote; but that is not a case in point. She says the very moment a married woman claimed the right to vote, she would be deprived of any claim to support from her husband. There are no such laws in any of the four suffrage States mentioned, and no such law exists in any other State of this Union, nor is any such principle found in the common law. There are thousands of women in this country who have no husbands, who support themselves by their own labor, and the married working people of this nation number millions; and the wife does as much as the husband toward the support of the family. In this Western country we do not consider the wife a "dependent" or a "kept woman," nor is she such. In nearly all cases she does her part in the support and maintenance of herself and family. The author insinuates that as soon as a woman marries she becomes a dependent, —a mistaken idea, for history shows that the wives and mothers do their share of the bread-winning and maintenance of themselves and families, even though they do not go out and earn wages and enter into the ordinary vocations of the husbands. The wife who remains at home and attends to her household duties and raises her family is not a dependent in the eyes of the people of our Western States. Many women do more toward the support of themselves and families than do their husbands, although they are not wage-earners in the common acceptation of that term. The up-to-date, progressive women of today have more leisure time than did their grandmothers, who had to spin and weave and knit, and have more time in which to take an interest in outside matters, such as citizenship and good government, without neglecting their homes. Their leisure time can be more profitably spent in the study of the great economic and political questions of the day than in gossip and five-o'clock teas. With the right of suffrage, they will take a greater interest in such subjects than they would otherwise. Under the laws of this State as they exist at the present time, the property owned by the wife before marriage and that acquired afterward by gift, bequest or descent, or that which she may acquire with the proceeds of her separate property, remains her sole and separate property to the same extent and with the same effect as the property of a husband similarly acquired. Courtesy and dower are abolished in this State. Our statues provide that the wife must support the husband out of her separate property when he has not separate property and they have no community property, and he from infirmity is not able or competent to support himself. I suppose the author of the article in question would contend that the husband would be disfranchised in case the wife must support him, under the provisions of said section of our statute. Our statute specifically provides, upon the death of either spouse, how the property shall descend, and the courts of this State are not flooded with litigation, as suggested they would be incase woman suffrage should prevail. I have been on the supreme bench of this State for twenty years, if you will pardon a personal reference, and I do not believe there have been ten cases during that entire time presented to the Supreme Court of this State involving the property rights of married women. This fact of the history of litigation in this State refutes completely the statement that "the litigation which would result (from woman suffrage) would swamp ten times as many courts as exist in the United States today." This is only another of her extravagant statements[*39*] made without any fact whatsoever to support it. She says, "It would be necessary to wipe out most of the common law— 'The world's most copious fountain of human jurisprudence.' No lawyer or financier living would undertake to prophesy the result, except stupendous loss to women and a cataclysmal confusion and destruction of values." In Idaho we have already superseded most of the common law of England by statute. While "No lawyer or financier living would undertake to prophesy the result," it is not necessary for them to do so as we have made an actual test of woman suffrage in this State for fourteen years, and there has not been a "stupendous loss to women" nor any loss whatever, and no "confusion or destruction of values," but it has proven beneficial to the best interests of the State. And there is no doubt but that the results would be just as beneficial in the more thickly populated States of the Union. We recognize that to vote is a privilege and not an absolute right, and that it has been the policy of Congress not to allow those residing in Territories the right to vote for some of the Territorial and Congressional officers, and it is a wise provision that the residents of the District of Columbia are not permitted to vote. As a rule, the privilege is not granted on the basis of literacy or the ownership of property, and we recognize that constitutional right of the Legislature of a State to change the rule and base the right absolutely upon literacy or the ownership of property. The privilege of suffrage is so deeply rooted in the lives of the liberty-loving people of this country, it would be impossible to enact laws disenfranchising every one except the chivalry and aristocracy of the nation. I undertake to say that we have hundreds, aye, thousands of miners and stock-men in the State of Idaho who know more about the constitution of the United States, the common law and the rights and duties of citizenship, than do thousands of well-educated people in the East. As was remarked by a very intelligent and refined lady after spending a winter in a mining camp in Idaho, one does not realize how intelligent and well-read those miners are until you come into contact with the people of the villages and cities. It is suggested as an argument against woman suffrage that in Colorado, where shameful election frauds were perpetrated, certain hand-writing experts before the Congressional Committee testified that all of the bogus ballots had been filled in by four persons, one of them a woman. That is certainly appalling! One woman guilty of fraud to three men! But would the writer of that article suggest that frauds of the most shameful kind have not been perpetrated in other States in election matters where women do not vote? And is that an argument against woman suffrage? In regard to the bad women of the State voting and thus keeping away the decent women, Section 360 of our Election Laws (Revised Codes, 1909), provides that lewd and lascivious persons, both male and female, shall not be permitted to register as voters and to vote at any election in this State. The decent women of the State have no trouble along that line, as predicted by the author of said article. That specific disadvantage to woman suffrage does not exist in this State. The women of this State are held in high regard, and are the peers of any women in the United States so far as intelligence and virtue are concerned. I wish to reiterate that the four suffrage States in question are not governed by outlaws and rowdies, and the citizenship is equal to that of any State in the Union. Paraphrasing the last sentence in Miss Seawell's article, I believe that the most important factors in the State are the wives and mothers who make of their sons and daughters good citizens to govern and protect the State, and woman's suffrage is one of the greatest means to effect that end. You are at liberty to use this letter, or any part of it, in any manner that you may desire. Very respectfully yours, Isaac N. Sullivan, Chief Justice. WOMAN'S JOURNAL NOVEMBER 12, 1910