CATT, CArrie ChApMAN  SPEECH,ARTICLE, BOOK FILE Article: “What Right HAS 
                                                                WOMAN  to be Free from PoliticAl Duties?”

What Right Has Woman to Be 
Free From Political Duties?
[*Sem. Sept 16/1915*]
By Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt

ANTI-SUFFRAGISTS are demanding the right of freedom from a duty. 
They acknowledge that voting is not a privilege but a duty.  That 
if it is conferred they must accept it as such, but they wish to be saved 
from their duty.  Their posters in huge letters proclaim all over New York 
city this desire to escape the inconvenience of duty.  They say “woman’s 
right is the right to freedom from political duties.”
 
Who gave her this right? Women 
are members of the community, the 
society, the family into which they 
were born. How can they claim immunity 
from duty in any one of these 
positions and not the other two?  
As members of each they are responsible 
for the conditions of each. Otherwise 
they should give up their membership.  
Are these women who are
loudly proclaiming their unwillingness 
to discharge some of their duties willing 
to accept the alternative?

There have always been a few people 
everywhere claiming like exemption.  
There were women and men too 
in France in the days of Louis XVI. 
who claimed the right to be free from 
the duties of the social group. Aristocracy’s 
right is the right to have for 
itself and not share, said they. “If the 
people have no bread, let them eat 
cake,” said Marie Antoinette, munching 
hers. Then she bought a new 
necklace to proclaim her right of freedom 
from social responsibilities. The 
guillotine answered this claim of the 
right of the aristocracy to be free from 
its political duties.

There has been in every place and 
time a small fraction of the female 
population which has claimed woman’s 
right to be free from all disagreeable 
duties, to be tricked out and fed, 
to be dressed and ornamented at the 
cost of others. The trail of these 
women lies over every prison in the 
land, marking the men who have 
cheated and lied and forged and embezzled 
to give them freedom from 
duty. 

The group of men paralleling these 
women say that “Society owes them a 
living.” They claim that the human 
being’s right is the right of freedom 
from the duty of supporting himself. 
These men come to live on the bread 
line and the park bench. 

There is also a group of men voters--
not a small group either--which has 
claimed that the gentleman‘s right is 
the right of freedom from the mire of 
politics--the privilege of keeping himself 
unspotted from the polls. Their 
freedom from political duties has permitted 
“pork barrel politics” and “boss 
rule“ to take the place of democracy. 

Reduced to their common denominator, 
the generic name for all these 
people seeking immunity from duty, 
while profiting from the fulfillment of 
others’ devotion to duty is--grafter.  
They have all--in their several ways--
lived on the community whose burdens 
they have refused to share. They 
have been the load which society has 
carried on its back in its upward climb. 

There is no such thing as right 
of freedom from any duties, individual 
or social, domestic or political. By 
the antis’ own poster they condemn 
themselves.

Transcribed and reviewed by volunteers participating in the By The People project at crowd.loc.gov.