CATT, Carrie Chapman SPEECH, ARTICLE, BOOK FILE Article: "Women and the Presidency" Current Comment Page 1916 The National Sunday Magazine Section Carrie Chapman Catt Women and the Presidency By Carrie Chapman Catt President of the National Woman Suffrage Association Women may prove a deciding factor in the coming presidential election. This is a fact admitted by all who have familiarized themselves with the situation. Not only do women have a share in the determination of 91 electoral votes, but they are a virile force to be reckoned with in any campaign into which they throw themselves with vigor and enthusiasm. Republican women in 1888 organized a Republican Women's Auxiliary with Mrs. J. Ellen Foster as chairman. The women in this department joined in the campaign speaking all over the country, Mrs. Foster herself being the chief woman orator. From that time on the Republican Women's Auxiliary has been more or less a permanent factor in the presidential campaigns. The Democratic women organized locally about the same time in New York, Chicago and other cities, but did not have a national auxiliary woman's committee until 1912, at which time Mrs. J. Borden Harriman took the chairmanship. The main object of these committees heretofore has been to make appeals to the women voters in the West and to secure as many as possible of them in support of their respective parties, but since 1912 five states have granted full suffrage to their women and Illinois has granted the right to vote for presidential electors. It is good policy, therefore, for the great political parties to consider the woman's vote more seriously than has been the case heretofore, and both great parties have already made their plans to catch the woman's vote, if it is to be caught, by means fo well organized women's committees and special appeals made by women to women. The other day a man in an indignant letter to a New York newspaper announced that he should not vote for a certain candidate because he had come out for woman suffrage. The National American Woman Suffrage organization in 1875 caused a federal suffrage amendment to be introduced into Congress, and has supported that amendment ardently ever since but with the realization that not until there was a larger sentiment for the enfranchisement of women could the amendment be passed by Congress and ratified by three fourths of the states. The addition of six new suffrage states in the past four years, the near suffrage victories in other states which were not won, has given the amendment in Congress an importance it never had before. Women throughout the country are turning to that federal amendment for relief from their political disabilities as never before. There are two chief reasons. First, the women of the United States have seen the suffrage extended to the women of foreign lands one by one until now women vote in a large number of European and Asiatic countries, to say nothing of the great Commonwealths of Australia and New Zealand, which long ago gave the full suffrage to their women. Across our northern border women have some form of suffrage to throughout the whole of Canada, while in the three great provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Albert women have universal suffrage on the same terms as men. As this territory is nearly equal to all of the territory of the United States east of the Mississippi River, the gain is most significant. All these extensions of suffrage to women have been made by acts of Parliament and not by the submission of the question to the rank and file of voters. Consequently, as American women have seen the ballot given to their sisters all over the world--in Canada, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Finland, Norway, Denmark, Great Britian, Ireland, Sweden, Iceland--they have felt that the Republic of the United States is not giving them a square deal when it demands that the majority of the voters in a State must ratify a woman suffrage amendment before their women can vote. Second, when the question of woman suffrage has been submitted to the voters of States, suffragists have discovered that honest elections are rarely secured. As the Honorable Champ Clark said the other day in Washington, "There are good and intelligent people opposed to woman suffrage, but all the ignorant, illiterate and evil forces are solidly opposed." It is difficult to convince an illiterate man that women are intelligent enough to vote. It is difficult to convince the subnormal, the criminally inclined, that the virtues of women are assets worth having in a government, For these reasons women are turning to Congress with more and more determination to secure their enfranchisement through Congress and the legislatures upon the ground that it is more self-respecting to solicit the vote from men of the standing found in these bodies, rather than to appeal to the men of every class and kind found upon the street. The Federal Amendment, therefore, enters into the political campaign with an importance it never had before. All the presidential candidates of the minor parties have come out for the Federal Amendment. The Progressive Party endorsed it in their platform. The two dominant parties in their suffrage plans recommended that the question should be settled by the States, but neither declared against the Federal method. Mr. Charles E. Hughes, the Republican candidate, has openly declared for the Federal Amendment. Mr. Wilson, at this time, does not yet endorse it, but many Democrats in Congress have not only spoken and voted for it, but are earnest advocates of it. That many women who have the for vote for president will not vote for a party or candidate which does not espouse the federal amentment is well known. How this fact will affect the final results remains to be seen. The one thing of importance is that the suffrage army grows bigger and stronger and more determined every year. The planks in the platforms indicate that final victory lies just ahead. And what are women going to do with the vote when they get it? Doubtless the first effect will be upon the parties with which women affiliate. Within these parties they will determine the kind of candidates for office for which self-respecting, high-thinking women can afford to vote. Personally, I hope that the first great national result and the first great thing that women will stand for will be an elimination of corruption of every kind from American politics. When politicians of the old school are asked how and when bribery and graft were introduced into American politics, they invariably say that they came from Great Britain. Great Britain has cleaned out her augean stable and the women did it. In 1884 a Corrupt Practices Act was passed by the British Parliament. It came as a natural, spontaneous protest from the people of Great Britain against the most flagrant violation of decency in the elections of that country. The peculiar custom which had opened the way to corruption was the use of paid canvassers, The Corrupt Practices Act, therefore, forbade the use of paid canvassers. The political parties recognized that the practice must stop, but they were at their wit's end to know how to do their political work. The Tories were the first to discover a method. Since the world began unpaid work has been relegated to women and so the women were asked to do the canvassing. The Primrose League was organized forthwith and Duchesses and Ladies went out to do th work which the paid corruptors had done. The Liberals looksed on with contempt and spoke of gentle ladies as "she-hyenas". Then suddenly the Liberals saw a great light. "If the Tories can get the women to canvass for them, why can we not do so?" And forthwith the Woman's Liberal League was organized. When the women stepped into British politics through the front door, corruption departed through the back door. Our system is very different from that of Great Britain. Our corruption is not committed by paid canvassers, but when American women secure their vote corruption must depart. I personally believe that the first great campaign made by voting women will be to re-establish the sanctity of the ballot, to elevate our political campaigns from the mud and mire of control by money and conspiracy to a plane of argument, reason and persuasion. No other policy is consistent in a republic. If we must have kings, let them be seated upon a public throne and made responsible to the people for their acts. An invisible government is a menace to a free people, and against this situation the women of America will set their hand and seal. The best men of our country will lead the fight and women will support it. A new day for Democracy is about to be ushered in. Carrie Champman Catt How Can I Earn Some Money? How can I, a woman, absolutely without previous experience, earn the money so necessary to the welfare and happiness of myself and those I love? This is a question thousands of women are asking themselves every day. 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