CATT, Carrie Chapman SPEECH, ARTICLE, BOOK FILE Article: "The Widow's Mite" THE WIDOW'S MITE. It is the ingenuity with which women are gaining their vote which has got the male sex going around in circles. When women can't get a new hat they take what they have in the house and make over an old one. When they can't afford capon they make hash out of yesterday's roast beef. Because this is the way woman has functioned for generations in her own home she goes right on functioning that way in the state. "Half a loaf better than no bread?" says she. "I'll take two slices of stale and toast them, thank you." And then she quickly spreads them with jam of her own conserving while man grumbles at her extravagance. But then he would have pitched those scraps of stale bread in the garbage can. The very latest thing in suffrage réchauffés, which was served hot in May, is municipal primary suffrage for the women of Atlanta, Ga. This is about the smallest kind of slice of man's loaf that has ever been offered women. But they are grasping it gladly and making the most of it. The grant was made by the city Democratic Executive Committee May 3rd. It gives white women the right to vote in white municipal primaries next fall. There are several interesting features of this grant. For one thing, it establishes the principle of woman suffrage in a part of the country which has before this been thought impregnable. It is not the first thin edge of the wedge, however, for that was driven in two years ago in 1917, when the town of Waycross, the county seat of Ware County, Georgia, gave white women a similar right to vote in white primaries. It was found that among the largest property owners of Waycross were many women who had been paying the same taxes as men, The Widow's Mite------2. but without a say in disbursing these taxes. The fight by Georgia women for the municipal vote began in 1915 when Atlanta was about to gain a new city charter. One alderman, Albert Johnson, at that time took pains to find out that there was nothing in the state constitution to prevent women from voting in city primaries, and that a slight change in the city's charter would be the only preliminary necessary to their inclusion in city primary elections. The greatest point gained for Georgia women now is their entrance into political partnership with men in the state capital, one of the most representative cities in the South. It follows a long inconspicuous fight of a few suffrage pioneers in Georgia who showed their faith in equal suffrage when, with courage and faith, they created a state-wide suffrage association and invited the National American Woman Suffrage Association to hold its annual convention in that city as long ago as 1895. Now, after many days, that faith has come to fruition. In the same week that Atlanta's victory was announced, the Associated Press cabled from Paris that Senator William J. Harris of Georgia has pledged support to the federal suffrage amendment. Senator Harris has taken the place of an old and bitter enemy of the woman's cause, Senator Thomas W. Hardwick. He represents the new South, facing forward and needing the help of its best women to help it climb. Naturally, suffrage leaders of Georgia see in all this a pledge of equality for women on a state-wide scale and that soon. Primary municipal suffrage is a variation in size only from the state primary suffrage adopted by two other Southern states, Arkansas and Texas. The Widow's Mite------3. All three are one-party states, therefore a vote at the primaries is almost as efficacious as would be full suffrage. They are outcomes of the ingenious plans of women to begin wherever they can get what western ranchmen call "toe hold" for such measure of suffrage as is within sight and from that climb up to the next ledge and the next, and so to the top. The initial step in getting votes for women in small sections, picking it up as it were crumb by crumb, was taken in Illinois, and without doubt Catherine Waugh McCulloch of Chicago is the mother of the "partial suffrage" idea. Probably no male lawyer would have made so much out of the scraps of electoral privilege left out of the catalogue of male prerogatives in the constitution of Illinois. The achievement of partial suffrage in nine states in 1919 marks the impetus given to the movement by Mrs. McCulloch. "When you can't get roast beef, try baked beans and never let on to your neighbors that you are not satisfied" is the feminine policy as old as the Eden Tree. Twenty-six years ago when Colorado was getting full suffrage Mrs. McCulloch of the firm of McCulloch and McCulloch — the other McCulloch being her husband — was searching the law to see what extensions of the suffrage might be feasible for the women of her state, selecting such crumbs of freedom as were not ticketed for male users only. In the summer of 1913, twenty years later, the present partial suffrage bill passed the Illinois Legislature. It was added the fulfillment of that dream of presidential suffrage for women which Henry Blackwell had advocated before every national convention time out of mind. Mr. Blackwell's idea was based upon the express permission of the Federal Constitution that "each state shall appoint, in such manner The Widow's Mite-----4. as the Legislature thereof may direct a number of electors" for the President of the United States. The enactment of the Illinois partial suffrage law gave women the right to vote for Presidential Electors, State Boards of Equalization, clerk of the Appellate Court, County Collector, county surveyor, board of assessors, board of review, sanitary district trustees and all municipal offices except Justices of the Peace. This potpourri of officials for whom women may vote shows a cross section of the constitution of the State of Illinois. With a skillful scalpel, Mrs. McCulloch cut around all offices not created by the State Constitution and therefore not sacrosanct to the male voter. Two other forms of suffrage have been thriftily garnered by astute women, ready to make the best of what they can get. One was state-wide municipal suffrage, as in Vermont where the Legislature subsequently granted women the presidential vote — although it was vetoed by the Governor. Municipal suffrage in Vermont gives women the right to vote on equal terms with men in town meetings, the most democratic unit of government in the United States. The other form is municipal suffrage in charter cities. This ranges from the vote at city elections in such big home rule cities as Columbus, Ohio, to the same right in small charter towns in Florida. The latest town in Florida to gain this answers to the name of the Italian premier. As the ballot was won for women at the time of the Fiume incident, when suffragists greeted each other by saying: "Have you heard about Orlando?" it was hard to guess whether they were talking international politics or very local Florida politics. Fellsmere, Florida, began the design of polka-dotting Florida [*?????ite-------5.*] with specks of freedom in 1915. After that Aurantia, Clearwater, Deland, Delray, Florence Villa — where Dr Shaw winters — Moore Haven, Orange City and West Palm Beach had gained municipal freedom before 1919. Of course, this survey jumps over the longer and slower crumb pecking process which began in 1838 when a vote on school questions was granted in Kentucky to widows with children of school age. This was literally the "widow's mite" and out of it has grown the presidential vote to more than half the women of the United States, and all of it has been won inch by inch with infinite patience, with untiring zeal and with a sense of the humor of the situation on the part of women which proves them the only sex that can really see a joke. Transcribed and reviewed by volunteers participating in the By The People project at crowd.loc.gov.