NAWSA Subject File Anti-Suffrage Literature Issued by the Massachusetts Association Opposed to the Further Extension of Suffrage to Women. Pamphlets and leaflets may be obtained from the Secretary, Room 615, Kensington Building, 687 Boylston Street, Boston, Mass. ----- Reprinted by permission from "The Outlook," Aug. 3, 1912. 1. Suffrage is not a natural right. It is not like the right, which every one possesses, to have his person and his property protected. The child in the cradle has a right to have his person and his property protected. The immigrant just landed has a right to have his person and his property protected. But when, if at all, the growing child shall vote; when, if at all, the newly- arrived immigrant shall vote, is to be determined by the community to which he belongs. It is a question to be determined by the community solely by a consideration of its effect upon the public welfare. 2. It is not the duty of women to take part in government. The prime function of government is to protect persons and property. They have a right still to claim that exemption. The great majority of them do claim that exemption. The fact that the rights of persons and property have been enormously increased by our complex civilization; that they include, for example, the right to education, to sanitary protection, and the like does not make it the duty of women to assume this burden from which in the past they have been exempt. 3. This burden cannot be put upon part of the women without putting it upon all the women. If the vicious, the ignorant, and the corrupt women my vote, it will become the duty of the virtuous, the intelligent, and the patriotic women to vote. If the law gives to all women the right to vote, it lays on all women the responsibility of voting. 4. Voting is only a part, and a small part, of government. If the duty of voting is laid upon women, the duty will also be laid upon them of taking an active part in the preliminaries necessary to voting, and in the consequences which result from voting. It will lay upon them the duty of acquainting themselves with political issues, of taking part in the political discussions, of sharing in the political campaigns; and it will also lay upon them the duty of seeing that the laws which they help to enact are enforced upon those who refuse to obey the laws. 5. At the present time the majority of women are either opposed to assuming or reluctant to assume this addition responsibility. To impose it upon them against their will is undemocratic and unjust. it is also inexpedient. To add to the thousands of indifferent voters, who are already a menace to our Government, many thousands more of indifferent voters is neither just to them nor to the community. 6. If the majority of the women wish to assume this burden and take a share in the government, it will be wise to enable them to do so, because it will be much better for the commonwealth to have women taking part in the government than to have them discontented because they are prevented from taking a part in the government. The Outlook, however, does not believe that there is any State in the Union in which, if the question were submitted to the women, a majority would vote that they wished to vote. It doubts whether a majority, even in the woman suffrage States would vote that they wished to vote if the question were submotted to them anew. If they register and vote, it is not because they wish to do so, but because the duty has been laid upon them and they cannot escape with a clear conscience. 7. Women can exert a greater influence upon the political life of the Nation, they can do more to promote those civic, social, and non-partisan reforms which are solely needed in the American community without the suffrage than with it. Democratic government is necessarily party government. It is of inestimable value to the community to have one-half o the community not identified with any party, and therefore able to unite in non-partisan efforts for the purification and elevation of political ideals in all the parties. 8. We are entirely unable to understand how any one can claim that women have a right to vote, and deny that they have a right to vote on the question whether they wish to vote or not. 15 MUNICIPAL SUFFRAGE FOR WOMEN--WHY? By Frank Foxcroft. I put the question in this form, because it is clear that, when so revolutionary a change is proposed as that of doubling the electorate in municipal affairs by giving the ballot to women, the burden of proof rests with those who advocate the change. They must be prepared to show that great advantages would accrue, either to women or to the community at large, from the change proposed. I am inclined to think that either would be sufficient. If they can show that women would derive great benefit from the use of the municipal ballot, the community would be willing to take some risk to bring about that result. if they can show that the community at large would gain greatly, the great mass of women, who now shirk from the responsibilities of the suffrage, would overcome their reluctance. But I submit that one or the other of these propositions must be clearly proved, before any legislature can be justified in enacting a law giving municipal suffrage to women. Touching the first proposition, what evidence is forthcoming? There is declamation in plenty; vague generalizations about the rights of women; a tedious reiteration of the misapplied principle that "taxation without representation is tyranny"; even, now and then, a faint echo of the generally abandoned claim that the suffrage is a natural right. But when it is asked precisely what are some of the wrongs under which women suffer in town and city government as at present conducted, at precisely what points the by-laws of towns or the ordinances of cities bear unjustly upon women as women, and in precisely what ways women are to gain from being permitted to vote at two and city elections, there is silence all along the line. No one yet, to my knowledge, has ever formulated a definite, concrete, reasonable statement of this kind. Until such a statement is made, and adequately supported by argument, the question why municipal suffrage should be extended to women -- so far as the interest of women themselves are concerned -- remains unanswered. But how about the interests of the community? In what particulars would cities and towns be benefited by the bestowal of the ballot on women? the question cannot be answered by contrasting the best and most intelligent women with the worst or least intelligent men. The ballot, if it is given to women, will be used by all sorts of women, just as it is now by all sorts of men; and if, as much be confessed with shame, it is usually more difficult to bring out and concentrate the votes of the best sort of men than those of the baser sort, somewhat the same difficulty may be anticipated with regard to women. The practical question is: Will the average woman vote more steadily, more intelligently, with a clearer knowledge of men and affairs, and with a wiser adaptation of means to ends than the average man? It will not serve to say that she will vote almost as steadily, intelligently, and wisely as the average man; or that, in course of time, after she has freed herself from the handicap 2 of inexperience, and has readjusted her other duties as to give herself ample time for this, she will vote just as steadily, intelligently, and wisely. If the community is to gain from the use of the ballot, the average woman must vote more steadily, intelligently, and wisely than the average man. Otherwise, at the best, the general average will be only what it was before. Here again what is needed is a definite and concrete statement. In precisely what particulars -- with reference to precisely what problems of municipal government -- are women likely to act more wisely than men? Here, for example, is a list of standing committees of the Boston Board of Alderman:-- Armories and military affairs. County accounts. Electric wires, Faneuil Hall and county buildings. Lamps. Licenses. Markets. Railroads. Public improvements, with subcommittees upon paving, sewers, bridges, ferries, sanitary regulations, street cleaning, and street watering. The list might be extended to include the special committees and joint standing committees,* but, as given, it fairly represents the practical matters which engage the attention of city governments. Will any advocate of municipal suffrage for women run his finger down the list and place it on those items regarding which the votes of women aldermen would be likely to be more intelligently and wisely given than those of men ! If this cannot be done, then the question as to the second proposition goes unanswered, just as the question relating to the first proposition did. In a word, it not only has not been shown that the municipal ballot in the hands of women would be a benefit to women, or a benefit to the community, but scarcely any attempt worth mentioning has been made to show it. Yet this is the really crucial and determining point. *The joint standing committees are these: Appropriations, art, assessing, auditing, baths, building, cemeteries, county clerk, city messenger, claims, clerk of committees, collecting, elections, engineering, finance, fire department, health department, hospitals, institutions, lamps, legislative matters, library, markets, music, ordinances, overseeing of the poor, parks, police, public buildings, public grounds, public lands, registry, schools and schoolhouses, statistics, streets, street laying out, treasury, vessels and ballast, water, weights and measures, wire department. The join special committees are these: Fourth of July, June Seventeenth, Labor Day, Mayor's address, Memorial Day, rules and order. The special committees are these: Inspection of prisons, rules and orders, and state aid. -------- Issued by the Massachusetts Association Opposed to the Further Extension of Suffrage to Women. Pamphlets and Leaflets may be obtained from the Secretary of the Association, Room 615, Kensington Building, 687 Boylston Street, Boston, Mass. Of What Benefit to Woman? -------- The First Question The question of woman suffrage cannot be treated with indifference -- it is a practical question. if women are to assume the duty of suffrage, they must either add it to their other duties or lay aside other duties to take up this new duty. Would either be a good thing for women or for the community at large? "Rights" is a word of much sound, but little meaning--since each one's rights stop where another's begin, if there be a conflict between them. We are to consider a question of rights, woman's rights, the suffragists call it, but let us look into it and we see a three-fold aspect: The rights demanded by the women who advocate suffrage; the rights of those women who oppose the movement; the rights of the community at large, the Commonwealth, the nation. What the Suffragists Claim The suffragists claim the franchise for women on the following grounds: -- First, That the right to vote is a natural and inherent one, of which they are so deprived. Second, That women are taxed but not represented, contrary to the principles of free government. Third, That society would gain by the participation of women in government, in that they would purify politics; the cause of temperance would be promoted by their vote; woman's voice would abolish war; the franchise would be to woman on educational factor. Fourth, That women are physically and intellectually as capable of the duties of the franchise as are men. Fifth, That the fact that a majority of women do not wish the franchise is no reason for depriving a minority of an inborn right. Suffrage not a Natural Right The first two proposals come under one head--justice; the rest under the second expediency; and so we will consider them. As to the justice of their claim to an inherent, natural right of which they are deprived, we answer that the right of suffrage is not inherent or in alienable. Suffrage cannot be the right of the individual, because it does not exist for the benefit of the individual, but for the benefit of the state itself.[*X*] A gift from nature must absolute and not contingent upon [*X That statement puts the cart before the horse for the state exists for the benefit of the individuals that compose it.*] [*X No document or assembly of human beings is infalable.*] 2 The state to prescribe qualifications, the possession of which shall be the test of right of enjoyment; and no restrictions of age or education could be put upon it, such as now exist. In prescribing limitations, the framers of the Constitution showed that they did not consider suffrage an inherent right. The article of the bill of rights which refers to inalienable rights has nothing whatsoever to say about suffrage. [*X*] The Ballot Needs Force Behind It The suffragists claim that women are taxed without representation. Those advancing this argument exhibit their entire lack of understanding of the theories of taxation and suffrage. We have founded our government on manhood suffrage not because our male citizens own more or less property, or any property at all, but because they are men; because behind the law must be the power of enforcing it. The insuperable objection to woman suffrage is fundamental and functional, and nature alone is responsible for it, since she has created man combatant and woman non-combatant. [* X Not so.*] The reason we have adopted as the basis of our political system the principle that the will of the majority must prevail over that of the minority is that we recognize, the fact that the majority can, if the minority rebel, compel them to acquiescence. Therefore, suffrage has been given to men, because they can back laws by force enough to compel respect and observance. Voting Has Nothing To Do With Taxation The possession of the ballot is in no sense dependent upon the fact that the voter pays taxes or owns property. A man who has no property has the same voice in voting as a millionaire. Property of a town, city, or state is justly liable for the current expenses of the government which protects such property. Woman's property receives exactly the same protection as man's, and she benefits as much thereby; there is therefore no injustice to her. A vote would not protect her property, since two women with no property interests could more than annul her vote by theirs. There is not a single interest of woman which is not shared by men. What is good for men—what protects their interests also protects woman's interests. [*Who has proved facts here given.*] The Question of Expediency Since women have not—for men have not—any natural right to vote, and cannot claim it on the ground of taxation without representation, it remains to be seen whether they can demand it on the ground of expediency. Will the franchise extended to women—first, benefit the whole community? second, gain definite benefits for women, which cannot be obtained in the existing order of things? The remonstrants to woman's suffrage cannot find [*X*] stated in all the suffragists' arguments one definite, certain benefit to result to either state or women. On what grounds of expediency to the suffragists [* X That's because they did not try.*] 3 demand the ballot? First, that society would gain because woman would reform politics. The cause of temperance would be promoted by their vote. Woman's voice would abolish war. Second, that women would gain since the ballot would be to them an educational factor, and that through the ballot the problem of woman's wages would be solved. Would Women Reform Politics? Would women reform politics? Let us see! In our country where manhood suffrage exists it follows that, if suffrage belongs to women at all, it belongs to all: suffrage must be given to all women or none, and such is the final proposition of the suffragists. If the franchise were granted to women in the United States all women of legal age, sound mind, and not disenfranchised for special causes (now applying to men) could vote; not only the intelligent and those unburdened by home and business duties, but all women without respect to character or intelligence. What Would Women Gain? We come to the question of the gain to woman personally. Is there anything to be gained which cannot be brought about with the existing franchise? The suffragists say: First, Women will be educated by the ballot. Second, The problem of woman's wages will be solved. In regard to their first claim we need only ask, Has the ballot proved of much educational value to men; then what are the probabilities as regards women? [*It has.*] As to Woman's Wages The problem of woman's wages! The ballot could not help the working girl the way the suffragists claim, since legislation affects the business of the country only in a general way, helping or hurting all the workers alike in any special industry. The question of wages is one of supply and demand! So the general wages of women will always depend greatly on the amount of skill acquired by the mass of them. What especially affects woman's wages is the temporary character of her work! 49 3/10 per cent. of female workers are under 25 years of age; 32 4/10 per cent. of female workers are under 21 years of age, as determined by government investigation. You see what this means, that the ranks are constantly being filled up with raw, untrained girls, while those who have attained to some degree of skill are constantly dropping out. The natural expectation of every normal girl should be that way sooner or later she will marry and leave her work; therefore, there is no incentive that men have to become highly skillful. The problem, therefore, resolves itself into this—how to regulate justly the distribution of wages between a sex which works throughout life and a sex which works wit only temporary expectations, 4 looking toward withdrawal in a few years from the labor market, and withdrawing to take with it its acquired skill, leaving only inexperience in its stead. The wiser of the suffragists acknowledge that the suffrage will not of itself solve the problem of wages, dependent as it is on other than political considerations. The Majority or the Minority There remains one argument for granting woman the suffrage, namely, that the fact that a majority of women do not wish to vote is no sufficient reason for depriving a minority of an inborn right. This argument contains the gist of the whole question, that is, wherein the demands of the suffragists and the anti-suffragists clash. We have shown their error in claiming the franchise as an inherent right, but even were we to grant that such a right existed, it would still be perfectly within the power of the State to deprive women of this right, if by granting it the general good would be imperiled. The State holds authority to deprive citizens of the right of property, of liberty, of life itself, if the common weal demand it. The family is the safeguard of the State, and the granting of the suffrage to women tends to weaken this mainstay of the nation by bringing into it elements of discord and disunion; therefore, the State would [*not*] be [more than] justified in denying women [even] an inherent right which might prove thus disastrous. [*discussion and interest better*] Why the Majority of Women do not Want the Ballot We contend that a majority of women believe that their inherent rights and privileges would suffer if the duty of voting were imposed upon them, for the following reasons: Because suffrage involves officeholding, which is inconsistent with the duties of most women; because they feel that their obvious duties and trusts - as sacred as any on earth - already demand their best efforts; because the duties cannot be relegated to others; because political equality will deprive woman of special privileges [*special privileges are denied men and corporations and should be denied to all*] hitherto accorded to her by law; because they hold that the suffrage would lessen rather than increase their influence for good. Suffrage involves office-holding. If women vote, they ought also to hold office, and assume the working duties incident to office. A system which tends to the dissolution of the home is more perilous to the general good than any other form of danger, and office-holding is, on the face of it, incompatible with woman's proper discharge of her duties as wife and mother. Many women there are, it is true, who are not wives and mothers; and, if women vote, there will be more of them, but laws are made for the average individual, and the average woman is occupied in her house with the cares of a wife, a mother, and a home-maker. The trusts of woman now are as sacred as any on earth, and man cannot relieve her of them. If, therefore, he demands of her participation in such duties, political or general, as his natural constitution 5 fits him for, while he cannot relieve her of those most necessary duties which nature demands of her, he commits toward her a monstrous injustice. This is what imposing the suffrage on women would amount to; for if woman may vote she must vote. It is a mere sophism to say that the simple dropping of a ballot is all that is required of her. If the suffrage is extended to women, they must accept it as a duty, bringing to bear on it the conscientious spirit which they bring to bear on their present life problems. Rights and Exemption Given by Massachusetts Law to Women and not to Men (1909). Under the Common Law and the Laws of the United States and of Massachusetts many rights and exemptions are given to women which are not given to men. Citizenship is acquired more easily by women than by men, as "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside" (U.S. Const. 14th Am.), and "Any woman who is now or may hereafter be married to a citizen of the United States and who might herself be lawfully naturalized shall be deemed a citizen." -U.S. Compiled Statutes, sec. 1994. Women are not obligated to do jury duty. - R.L. ch. 176, sec. I. Women are not allowed to do military duty. - Acts 1905, ch. 465, sec. 2. Women are not obliged to pay a poll tax. - R. L. ch. 12, sec. I. The property of a widow or of an unmarried woman above the age of twenty-one years to the amount of $500 is exempt from taxation provided her whole taxable estate does not exceed $1000. - R. L. ch. 12, sec. 5, cl. 9. Women, by residing in a city or town for five consecutive years, and married women if their husbands have settlements, will gain settlements, entitling them to support in case of need in such city or town, although they have paid no taxes. Men, on the other hand, must pay taxes three out of five consecutive years of residence in order to gain such settlement. - R. L. ch. 80, sec. 1, cls. 1 & 6. Women who are employees are exceptionally provided for an protected by the statutes regulating labor. - R. L. ch. 106, secs. 36-41; Acts 1904, ch. 397; Acts 1907, ch. 413; Acts 1908, ch. 645. In general the welfare of women and children has been increasingly regarded. - Acts 1905, ch. 251; Acts 1905, ch. 269; Acts 1904, ch. 397; Acts 1907, ch. 413; Acts 1907, ch. 367. Women are exempt from arrest in civil actions except for tort, but after judgement has been obtained against them they may be committed for contempt of court upon failure to pay. - R. L. ch. 168, sec. 3. Married women are exempted from punishment for many criminal and tortious acts committed by them in the presence of their husbands, there being "a presumption of law that acts done by the wife in the immediate presence of her husband are done by her under coercion. 6 from him." In the absence of evidence to rebut this presumption the husband is held and the wife excused. - 145 Mass. 307. A husband is bound to support his wife and children, and is liable for debts incurred by his wife in the purchase of necessaries. - 101 Mass. 78; 114 Mass. 424. See also R. L. Ch. 212, sec. 45 as amended by Acts 1905, ch. 307. During the pendency of a libel for divorce, the court may require the husband to pay into court an amount which will enable the wife to defend or maintain the libel, and may require him to pay the wife alimony during the pendency of the libel. - R.L. ch. 152, sec. 14. A justice of the Superior Court may, if he deems it advisable, appoint an attorney to investigate and report to the Court in relation to any suit for divorce or any suit to have a marriage declared void, and may direct such attorney or any other attorney to defend the suit. - Acts 1907, ch. 390. The rights of the husband and wife in relation to the control of their minor children have been made substantially equal, and now in any controversy between the parents relative to the final possession of the children, the welfare and happiness of the children shall determine their custody or possession. - R.L. ch. 152, sec. 28. A married woman may now hold both real and personal property free from the control and debts of her husband. - R.L. ch. 153, secs. 1 & 7. A married woman may now make contracts and sue and be sued, except that husband and wife cannot make contracts between themselves or sue each other. - R.L. ch. 154, sec. 2-6. A married woman may now carry on business on her own account. - R.L. ch. 153, sec. 10. The wife upon the decease of her husband may remain in his house for six months without being chargeable for rent. - R.L. ch. 140, sec. 1. The wife upon the decease of her husband may be given an allowance for necessaries out of his property. The amount of this allowance is fixed by the Probate Court according to her circumstances and condition in life, and is paid to her in preference to the payment of his debts. - R.L. ch. 140, sec. 2. Aside from these advantages to the wife, the rights of the surviving husband or wife in the property of the one who has deceased are now practically the same. If there is no will, or if the provisions of the will have been waived, the husband or wife, if there are issue surviving, will take one third of the personalty and realty; if there are no issue surviving, then the husband or wife will take $5000 and one half of the residue of the personalty and one half of the realty. - R.L. ch. 140, sec. 3. Woman's Influence Without the Ballot From this summary it will be seen that without the ballot women have obtained more than mere justice. [*while what they should have is justice*] We oppose the suffrage for women, because we feel that we have more influence without it. There is not a single subject in which 7 woman takes an intelligent interest in which she cannot exert an influence in the community proportionate to her character and ability. If the suffrage movement were to disband to-day and no woman ever vote, not a single great interest would suffer. None of woman's wide philanthropies would be harmed; women's colleges would be unaffected; the professions would continue to give diplomas to qualified women; tradesmen would still employ women; good laws would not be repealed, and bad laws would be no more likely to be framed; literature would not suffer; homes would be no less secure; woman's civic work would not cease. The influence of woman standing apart from the ballot is immeasurable. Men look to her then (knowing that she has no selfish, political interests to further) as the embodiment of all that is truest and noblest. She has influence with all parties alike; if a voter, she would have only the influence of her own party, even the women's vote being divided against itself. We believe that it is of vital importance that our sex should have no political ends to serve. In whatever tends to protect and elevate woman, to secure her rights in the true sense of the word, to open up to her new paths of usefulness, all true-hearted men will join with women. In such work there is no difference of purpose. Childhood is hers to influence and mold; and what greater power for good could there be given her? Let all true women, loyal citizens of our republic, look to the best performance of the private and public trusts which are naturally theirs, striving for no false "equality," since there is no question of comparison between men and their duties and women and theirs. They are not "like in like" but "like in difference," each supplementing the other, rising or falling, but always together. Printed by the Massachusetts Association Opposed to the Further Extension of Suffrage to Women Pamphlets and leaflets may be obtained from the Secretary. Room 615, Kensington Building, 687 Boylston Street, Boston, Mass. OF WHAT BENEFIT TO WOMAN? SHE IS FAR GREATER POWER WITHOUT SUFFRAGE. Reprinted from the Boston Sunday Herald. To the Editor of The Herald:- The question of woman suffrage can no longer be treated with indifference- it has already become a practical question. If women are to assume the duty of suffrage, they must either add it to their other duties or lay aside other duties to take up this new duty. Would either alternative be just to the women themselves and the community at large? It is for us to decide. Indifference is practically an influence in favor of the movement; we should seriously, in the light of a sacred duty, consider what the issue portends for ourselves and our fellow-beings. "Rights" is a word of much sound, but little meaning - since everybody's rights stop where another's commence, if there be a conflict between them. We are to consider a question of rights, woman's rights, the suffragists call it, but let us look into it and we see a threefold aspect: The rights demanded by the women who advocate suffrage; the rights of those women who oppose the movement; the rights of the community at large, the Commonwealth, the nation. We are to determine whether the claim of the first class to a natural, inherent right to vote, and its demand to exercise that right, are: First, just; second, expedient; that is, not in conflict, but in harmony, with the rights of the others. The suffragists claim the franchise for women on the following grounds:- First, That the right to vote is a natural and inherent one, of which they are deprived. Second, That women are taxed but not represented, contrary to the principles of free government. Third, That society would gain by the participation of women in government, in that they would purify politics; the cause of temperance would be promoted by their vote; woman's voice would abolish war; the franchise would be to woman an educational factor. Fourth, That a majority of women not wishing the franchise is no reason for depriving a minority of an inborn right. 2 Fifth, That women are physically and intellectually as capable of the duties of the franchise as are men. The first two proposals come under our first head - justice; the rest under the second - expediency; and so we will consider them. As to the justice of their claim to an inherent, natural right of which they are deprived, we answer that the right of suffrage is not inherent or inalienable. In all political history there is not one phrase which could be construed into meaning that men have the right of suffrage because they are human beings. Society does not exist by the consent of those who enter it. Our government was established long before the present generation existed; so the consent of the governed must be taken for granted (except as changes are made by constitutional methods) until a rebellion arises. A government exists to secure the safety and best welfare of all who look to it for protection. The assumption that suffrage is a natural right is anti-republican, since the very essence of republicanism is that power is a trust to be exercised for the common weal, and is forfeited when not so exercised, or when exercised for private or personal ends. To deny this is to imply that our government is a pure, unmitigated democracy, which may be interpreted in two ways - either as tantamount to no government, or as the absolute despotism of the ruling majority in all matters. This is not American republicanism certainly, since republicanism has always aimed to restrain the absolute power of majorities and protect minorities by constitutional provisions. Suffrage cannot be the right of the individual, because it does not exist for the benefit of the individual, but for the benefit of the state itself. "Unless a doctrine is susceptible of being given practical effect, it must be utterly without substance" (Cooley's Constitutional Law); and this doctrine of inherent right cannot be given practical effect, since this would imply that minors, insane, idiots, Indians, and Chinese (now wholly or partially restrained) would have a right to exercise the franchise. A gift from nature must be absolute, and not contingent upon the state to prescribe qualifications, the possessions of which shall be the test of right of enjoyment; and no restrictions of age or education could be put upon it, such as now exists. Liberty itself must come from law, and cannot, in any institutional sense, come from nature. Rights, in a legal sense, are born of restraints, by which every one may be protected in their enjoyment within prescribed limits. In prescribing limitations, the framers of the Constitution showed that they did not consider suffrage an inherent right. The article of the bill of rights which refers to inalienable rights has nothing whatever to say about suffrage. The suffragists claim that women are taxed without representation. Those advancing this argument exhibit their entire lack of understanding of the theories of taxation and suffrage, and prove that they, at least, are not yet ready to enter intelligently into politics. We have founded our government on manhood suffrage, not because our male citizens own more or less property, or any property at all, but because they are men; because behind the law must be the power of enforcing it. Without sufficient force to compel respect and observance, 3 laws would be dead letters. To make laws that cannot be enforced, is to bring a government into ridicule and contempt, and invite anarchy! The insuperable objection to woman suffrage is fundamental and functional, and nature alone is responsible for it, since she has created man combatant and woman non-combatant. The reason we have adopted as the basis of our political system that the will of the majority must prevail over that of the minority, is that we recognize the fact that the majority can, if the minority rebel, compel them to acquiescence. Therefore suffrage has been given to men, because they can back laws by force enough to compel respect and observance. It becomes thus a duty to be performed, not a privilege to be enjoyed, and women are exempt because of what it would entail; their present position in the state, as its mothers and educators of future citizens, being held as more than equivalent to any political service. The duty of voting is in no sense dependent - in this state at least - upon the fact that the voter pays taxes or owns property. A man who has no property has the same voice in voting as a millionaire! Property of a town, city, or state is justly liable for the current expenses of the government which protects such property, and thus increases and preserves its value. The only question the law asks is: "Is there property?" If so, it imposes a tax. The laws of taxation are general, and not particular, taxation being simply a compensation to the government for protection of property, that such property may have value. Woman's property receives exactly the same protection as man's and she benefits as much thereby; there is therefore no injustice to her. Minors are taxed without being able to vote, and there are more minors than voters. Men between eighteen and twenty-one could quite as justly as women consider themselves wronged, for they are by a large majority capable of voting intelligently; so also could those who are taxed upon property placed where they cannot vote. Women enjoy all the rights of citizens, protection of property, use of public institutions, roads, gas, postal facilities, etc. A vote would not protect her property, since two women with no property interests could more than annul her vote by theirs. There is not a single interest of women which is not shared by men. What is good for men - what protects their interests, also protects woman's. We may look to men to further what in their judgment seem the best interests of life and property, and in doing this they protect both man's and woman's interests because they are inseparable. Since women have not - for men have not - any natural right to vote, and cannot claim it on the ground of taxation without representation, it remains to be seen whether they can demand it on the ground of expediency. The pointing out of benefits always rests with those who demand a radical change in a system of government; not pointing out only, but proving. Will the franchise extended to women - first, benefit the whole community? second, gain definite benefits for women, which cannot be obtained in the existing order of things? The remonstrants to woman's suffrage cannot find stated in all the 4 suffragists' arguments one definite, certain benefit to result to either state or woman. On what grounds of expediency do the suffragists demand the ballot? First, that society would gain because woman would reform politics. The cause of temperance would be promoted by their vote. Woman's voice would abolish war. Second, that women would gain, since the ballot would be to them an educational factor. The problem of women's wages would be solved. Would women reform politics? Let us see! In our country it is not a question, as it is in England, of the relatively intelligent and responsible women being allowed a share in the government. England restricts the use of the ballot (by women) in municipal affairs to those who pay rates and taxes in their own names. In our country where manhood suffrage exists it follows that, if suffrage belongs to women at all, it belongs to all; suffrage must be given to all women or none, and such is the final proposition of the suffragists. If the franchise were granted to women in America, all women of legal age, sound mind, and not disfranchised for special causes (now applying to men) could vote; not only the intelligent and those unburdened by home and business duties, but all women without respect to race, character, or intelligence. We must not overlook or leave out the densely ignorant, the supinely indifferent, the trivial, the "occupied" women - out and out bad women (60,000 in New York city alone). The suffragists say, "Yes, that is true also of men; but it is surely evident that existing evils should not be added to simply because they exist, or that two unintelligent, bought, or corrupt votes are worse than one - on the simple ground of unnecessary outlay of means and energy, if nothing else. If the great mass of ignorant women's votes are added to the great mass of ignorant men's votes, there will be constant unwise demands for work, money, bread, leisure, in short, "all kinds of laws to favor all kinds of persons." Colonel Higginson (who makes no positive claimed for woman suffrage, save on the ground of natural right) acknowledges that "the ground taken that woman as woman would be sure to act on a higher plane than man as man, is now urged less than formerly, the very mistakes and excesses of the agitation itself having partially disproved it;" and again "while the sympathies of women are wholly on the side of right, it is by no means safe to assume that their mode of enforcing that sentiment will be equally judicious." As for temperance - there must be taken into consideration not only its advocates, and on the other hand those women who favor license through depravity (the most difficult class to deal with, vide kitchen bar-rooms in no-license cities), but the countless number of foreign-born women brought up where liquors are used, and not abused, who would feel themselves cramped in their liberties under a no-license law. "Woman's voice would abolish war." The Civil War was stimulated and encouraged by women in the North; and it is generally conceded that but for the women of the South it would have sooner ended. A suffragist is responsible for the statement that a mayor of a leading 5 southern city lays the survival of dueling anywhere in the South to the sustaining public sentiment of women. I cannot better sum up the illusive nature of the benefits proposed by the suffragists than in again quoting from Colonel Higginson. In an article devoted to "Too much prediction," he says: "I am persuaded that at present we indulge in too many bold anticipations!" We come to the question of the gain to woman personally. Is there anything to be gained which cannot be brought about with the existing franchise? The suffragists say : I. Women will be educated by the ballot. 2. The problem of woman's wages will be solved. In regard to their first claim we need only ask, Has the ballot proved of much educational value to men; then what are the probabilities as regards women? The problem of woman's wages! The ballot could not help the working girl in the way the suffragists claim, since legislation affects the business of the country only in a general way, helping or hurting all the workers alike in any special industry. The question of wages is one of supply and demand simply! So the general wages of women will always depend greatly on the amount of skill acquired by the mass of them. What especially affects woman's wages is temporary character of her work! The average age of working women is twenty-two years, as determined by the government investigation. You see what this means - that the ranks are constantly being filled up with raw, untrained girls, while those who have attained to some degree of skill are constantly dropping out. The natural expectation of every normal girl should be that sooner or later she will marry and leave her work; therefore, there is not that incentive that men have to become highly skillful; and the character of her work is, consequently, not so high, generally speaking, as men's, lacking, as it does, two factors, time and incentive, to develop great skill. Then, since the majority of women take up work with the intention - conscious or unconscious - of devoting only a part of their lives to it, they naturally gravitate to such work as can be most easily made a temporary occupation, and competition comes in to help complicate the wage question. The problem therefore resolves itself into this - how to regulate justly the distribution of wages between a sex which works throughout life and a sex which works with only temporary expectations, looking toward withdrawal in a few years from the labor market, and withdrawing to take with it its acquired skill, leaving only inexperience in its stead. The wiser of the suffragists acknowledge that the suffrage will not of itself solve the problem of wages, dependent as it is on other than political considerations. The wisest and best of our women are studying what can be done for the working girl. They hope that organization among workers, and the cooperation of all intelligent women may do much. Let all thoughtful women consider how they may best contribute their share, and, leaving the duties of political life to those whom they now burden, devote what of energy, time, and ability they have to the solution of this problem, which the ballot cannot help to solve. 6 We have left one argument for granting woman the suffrage, namely, that a majority of women not wishing to vote should not be a sufficient reason for depriving a minority of an inborn right. We have summed up the other arguments for the franchise and shown what is to be said in their refutation; but this last argument, it seems to me, contains the gist of the whole question, that is, wherein the demands of the suffragists and the anti-suffragists clash. We have shown their error in claiming the franchise as an inherent right, but even were we to grant that such a right existed, it would still be perfectly within the power of the State to deprive women of this right, if by granting it the general good would be imperiled. We know that the State holds authority to deprive citizens of the right of property, of liberty, of life itself, if the common weal demand it. The family is the safeguard of the State, and the granting of the suffrage to women tends to weaken this mainstay of the nation by bringing into it elements of discord and disunion; therefore the State would be more than justified in denying women even an inherent right which might prove thus disastrous. To the rest of the argument we answer that a majority of women believe that their inherent rights and privileges would suffer if the duty of voting were imposed upon them, for the following reasons: Because suffrage involves office-holding, which is inconsistent with the duties of most women; because they feel that their obvious duties and trusts - as sacred as any on earth - already demand their best efforts; because the duties cannot be relegated to others; because political equality will deprive woman of special privileges hitherto accorded to her by law; because they hold that the suffrage would lessen rather than increase their influence for good. Suffrage involves office-holding. If women vote, they ought also to hold office, and assume the working duties incident to office. A system which tends to the dissolution of the home is more perilous to the general good than any other form of danger, and office-holding is, on the face of it, incompatible with woman's proper discharge of her No theory of womanly life is good for anything which undertakes to leave out the cradle. We cannot ignore the fact that nature has imposed upon women the duty of bearing and rearing the race, and in so doing, has unfitted her (for a number of years at least) for holding political office. Many women there are, it is true, who are not wives and mothers; and, if women vote, there will be more of them. When political rewards are held out as the prices of services in public life, many women - and those of the brightest - will be tempted to forego marriage and motherhood for the stake of winning them. Well may we say with Mrs. Corbin: "Woe betide the land which offers its political trusts as premiums for childless women!" What will become of the morals of society when not to be married, not to be a mother, is the prerequisite for a woman's success in a chosen career? The trusts of woman now are as sacred as any on earth, and man cannot relieve her of them. If, therefore, he demands of her participation 7 in such duties, political or general, which his natural constitution fits him for, while he cannot relieve her of those most necessary duties which nature demands of her, he commits towards her a monstrous injustice. This is what imposing the suffrage on women would amount to; for if woman may vote she must vote. It is a mere sophism to say that the simple dropping of a ballot is all that is required of her. If the suffrage is extended to women, they must accept it as a duty, bringing to bear on it the conscientious spirit which they bring to bear on their present life problems. It would be well to consider, too, if they would be prepared to give up the special privileges which in Massachusetts they possess: - Unmarried woman and widows of small estate are exempt from taxation. Woman, and not men, are allowed to acquire a settlement without paying a tax. Husbands are compelled to support their wives, but wives (even when rich) are exempt from supporting their indigent husband. Men are liable for their wives' debts, but women are not made liable for their husbands'. Women are excused from jury duty. Woman is exempt, except in actions for tort, from arrest previous to judgement and execution. She has the advantage of man in regard to policies of life insurance. The husband is liable for criminal acts committed by his wife in his presence, yet no such counterbalancing liability exists for her. A father must support his children during their non-age, even when they have property of their own. A widowed mother is not under such obligation unless she have sufficient means, and her children have none of their own. Women can more easily than men acquire citizenship of the United States. Finally we oppose the suffrage for women, because we feel that we have more influence without it. There is not a single subject in which woman takes an intelligent interest in which she cannot exert an influence in the community proportionate to her character and ability. Without the ballot, women have obtained more than mere justice in Massachusetts. The number of women who want the ballot for itself is reduced to a mere handful when we take away those who are working for temperance, or other worthy causes. How much more would be gained by advocating these causes on their own merits! The influence of woman standing apart from the ballot is immeasurable. Men look to her then (knowing that she has no selfish, political interests to further) as the embodiment of all that is truest and noblest. She has influence with all parties alike; if a voter, she would have only the influence of her own party, even the woman's vote being divided against itself. We believe that it is of vital importance that our sex should have no political ends to serve! Our legislators have shown themselves ever ready to listen to women, and much has already been achieved by the intelligent influence 8 of women in the anti-slavery cause, the temperance cause, the improvement of public charities, and the reformation of criminals. It is of the utmost importance that charitable and educational administration be kept out of politics, and to woman is given this trust. In whatever tends to protect and elevate woman, to secure her rights in the true sense of the word, to open up to her new paths of usefulness, all true-hearted men will join with women! In such work there is no difference of purpose. Childhood is hers to influence and mold, and what greater power for good could there be given her? Let all true women, loyal citizens of our republic, look to the best performance of the trusts which are naturally theirs, striving for no false "equality" since there is no question of comparison between men and their duties and women and theirs. They are not "like in like" but "like in difference," each supplementing the other, rising or falling, but always together. MARY A. J. M'INTIRE. Printed by the Massachusetts Association opposed to Extension of Woman Suffrage. Pamphlets and leaflets may be obtained from the Secretary of the Association, MRS. ROBERT W. LORD, P.O. Box 2262, Boston. [*center gen’l p5 legal "privileges" of women in Mass. D*] Of What Benefit to Woman? The First Question The question of woman suffrage cannot be treated with indifference - it is a practical question. If women are to assume the duty of suffrage, they must add it their other duties or lay aside other duties to take up this new duty. Would either be a good thing for women or for the community at large? "Rights" is a word of much sound, but little meaning - since each one's rights stop where another's begin, if there is to be a conflict between them. We are to consider a question of rights, woman's rights, the suffragists call it, but let us look into it and we see a three-fold aspect: The rights demanded by the women who advocate suffrage; the rights of those women who oppose the movement; the rights of the community at large, the Commonwealth, the nation. What the Suffragists Claim The suffragists claim the franchise for women on the following grounds: - First, That the right to vote is a natural and inherent one, of which they are deprived. Second, That women are taxed but not represented, contrary to the principles of free government. Third, That society would gain by the participation of women in government, in that they would purify politics; the cause of temperance would be promoted by their vote; woman's voice would abolish war; the franchise would be to woman an educational factor. Fourth, That women are physically and intellectually as capable of the duties of the franchise as are men. Fifth, That the fact that a majority of women to not wish the franchise is no reason for depriving a minority of an inborn right. Suffrage not a Natural Right The first two proposals come under on head - justice; the rest under a second - expediency; and so we will consider them. As to the justice of their claim to an inherent, natural right of which they are deprived, we answer that the right of suffrage is not inherent or inalienable. Suffrage cannot be the right of the individual, because it does not exist for the benefit of the individual, but for the benefit of the state itself. A gift from nature must be absolute and not contingent upon [*undated*] 2 the state to prescribe qualifications, the possession of which shall be the test of right enjoyment; and no restrictions of age or education could be put upon it, such as now exist. In prescribing limitations, the framers of the Constitution showed that they did not consider suffrage an inherent right. The article of the bill of rights which refers to inalienable rights has nothing whatever to say about suffrage. The Ballot Needs Force Behind It The suffragists claim that women are taxed without representation. Those advancing this argument exhibit their entire lack of understanding of the theories of taxation and suffrage. We have founded our government on manhood suffrage, not because our male citizens own more or less property, or any property at all, but because they are men; because behind the law must be the power of enforcing it. The insuperable objection to woman suffrage is fundamental and functional, and nature alone is responsible for it, since she has created man combatant and woman non-combatant. The reason we have adopted as the basis of our political system the principle, that the will of the majority must prevail over that of the minority is that we recognize the fact that the majority can, if the minority rebel, compel them to acquiescence. Therefore, suffrage has been given to men, because they can back laws by force enough to compel respect and observance. Voting Has Nothing To Do With Taxation The possession of the ballot is in no sense dependent upon the fact that the voter pays taxes or owns property. A man who has no property has the same voice in voting as a millionaire. Property of a town, city, or state is justly liable for the current expenses of the government which protects such property. Women's property receives exactly the same protection as man's, and she benefits as much thereby; there is therefore no injustice to her. A vote would not protect her property, since two women with no property interests could more than annul her vote by theirs. There is not a single interest of woman which is not shared by men. What is good for men - what protects their interests also protects woman's interests. The Question of Expediency Since women have not - for men have not - any natural right to vote, and cannot claim it on the ground of taxation without representation, it remains to be seen whether they can demand it on the ground of expediency. Will the franchise extended to women - first, benefit the whole community? second, gain definite benefits for women, which cannot be obtained in the existing order of things? The remonstrants to woman's suffrage cannot find stated in all the suffragists' arguments one definite, certain benefit to result to either state or women. On what grounds of expediency do the suffragists 3 demand the ballot? First, that society would gain because woman would reform politics. The cause of temperance would be promoted by their vote. Woman's voice would abolish war. Second, that women would gain, since the ballot would be to them an educational factor, and that through the ballot the problem of woman's wages would be solved. Would Women Reform Politics? Would women reform politics? Let us see! In our country where manhood suffrage exists it follows that, if suffrage belongs to women at all, it belongs to all; suffrage must be given to women or none, and such is the final proposition of the suffragists. If the franchise were granted to women in the United States, all women of legal age, sound mind, and not disfranchised for special causes (now applying to men) could vote; not only the intelligent and those unburdened by home and business duties, but all women without respect to character or intelligence. What Would Women Gain? We come to the question of the gain to women personally. Is there anything to be gained which cannot be brought about with the existing franchise? The suffragists say: First, Women will be educated by the ballot. Second, The problem of woman's wages will be solved. In regard to their first claim we need only ask, Has the ballot proved of much educational value to men; then what are the probabilities as regards to women? As To Woman's Wages The problem of woman's wages! The ballot could not help the working girl in the way the suffragists claim, since legislation affects the business of the country only in a general way, helping or hurting all the workers alike in any special industry. The question of wages is one of supply and demand simply! So the general wages of women will always depend greatly on the amount of skill acquired by the mass of them. What especially affects woman's wages is the temporary character of her work! 49 3/10 per cent. of female workers are under 25 years of age; 32 4/10 per cent. of female workers are under 21 years of age, as determined by government investigation. You see what this means, that the ranks are constantly being filled up with raw, untrained girls, while those who have attained to some degree of skill are constantly dropping out. The natural expectation of every normal girl should be that sooner or later she will marry and leave her work; therefore; there is not that incentive that men have to become highly skillful. The problem, therefore, resolves itself into this - how to regulate justly the distribution of wages between a sex which works, throughout life and a sex which works with only temporary expectations, 4 looking toward withdrawal in a few years from the labor market, and withdrawing to take with it its acquired skill, leaving only inexperience in its stead. The wiser of the suffragists acknowledge that the suffrage will not of itself solve the problem of wages, dependent as it is on other than political considerations. The Majority or the Minority There remains one argument for granting woman the suffrage, namely, that the fact that a majority of women do not wish to vote is no sufficient reason for depriving a minority of an inborn right. This argument contains the gist of the whole question, that is, wherein the demands of the suffragists and the anti-suffragists clash. We have shown their error in claiming the franchise as an inherent right, but even were we to grant that such a right existed, it would still be perfectly within the power of the State to deprive women of this right, if by granting it the general good would be imperiled. The State holds authority to deprive citizens of the right of property, of liberty, of life itself, if the common weal demand it. The family is the safeguard of the State, and the granting of the suffrage to women tends to weaken this mainstay of the nation by bringing into it elements of discord and disunion; therefore, the State would be more than justified in denying women even an inherent right which might prove thus disastrous. Why the Majority of Women do not Want the Ballot We contend that a majority of women believe that their inherent rights and privileges would suffer if the duty of voting were imposed upon them, for the following reasons: Because suffrage involves office-holding, which is inconsistent with the duties of most women; because they feel that their obvious duties and trusts - as sacred as any on earth - already demand their best efforts; because the duties cannot be relegated to others; because political equality will deprive woman of special privileges hitherto accorded to her by law; because they hold that the suffrage would lessen rather than increase their influence for good. Suffrage involves office-holding. If women vote, they ought also to hold office, and assume the working duties incident to office. A system which tends to the dissolution of the home is more perilous to the general good than any other form of danger, and office-holding is, on the face of it, incompatible with woman's proper discharge of her duties as wife and mother. Many women there are, it is true, who are not wives and mothers' and, if women vote, there will be more of them, but laws are made for the average individual, and the average woman is occupied in her house with the cares of a wife, a mother, and a home-maker. The trusts of woman now are as sacred as any on earth, and man cannot relieve her of them. If, therefore, he demands of her participation in such duties, political or general, as his natural constitution 5 fits him for, while he cannot relieve her of those most necessary duties which nature demands of her, he commits toward her a monstrous injustice. This is what imposing the suffrage on women would amount to; for if woman may vote she must vote. It is a mere sophism to say that the simple dropping of a ballot is all that is required of her. If the suffrage is extended to women, they must accept it as a duty, bringing to bear on it the conscientious spirit which they bring to bear on their present life problems. Rights and Exemptions Given by Massachusetts Law to Women and not to Men (1909). Under the Common Law and the Laws of the United States and of Massachusetts many rights and exemptions are given to women which are not given to men. Citizenship is acquired more easily by women than by men as "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside" (U.S. Const. 14th Am.), and "Any woman who is now or may hereafter be married to a citizen of the United States and who might herself by lawfully naturalized shall be deemed a citizen." - U.S. Compiled Statutes, sec. 1994. Women are not obliged to do jury duty. - R.L. ch. 176. sec. I. Women are not allowed to do military duty. - Acts 1905, ch. 465, sec.2. Women are not obliged to pay a poll tax. - R.L. ch. 12, sec. 1. The property of a widow or of an unmarried woman above the age of twenty-one years to the amount of $500 is exempt from taxation provided her whole taxable estate does not exceed $1000. - R.L. ch. 12, sec. 5, CL. 9 Women, by residing in a city or town for five consecutive years, and married women if their husbands have settlements, will gain settlements, entitling them to support in case of need in such city or town, although they have paid no taxes. Men, on the other hand, must pay taxes three out of five consecutive years of residence in order to gain such settlement. - R.L. ch. 80, sec. 1, cls. 1 & 6. Women who are employees are exceptionally provided for and protected by the statutes regulating labor. - R.L. ch. 106, secs. 36-41; Acts 1904, ch. 397; Acts 1907, ch. 413; Acts 1908, ch. 645. In general the welfare of women and children has been increasingly regarded. - Acts 1905, ch. 251; Acts 1905, ch. 269; Acts 1904, ch. 397; Acts 1907, ch. 413; Acts 1907, ch. 367. Women are exempt from arrest in civil actions except for tort, but after judgment has been obtained against them they may be committed for contempt of court upon failure to pay. - R.L. ch. 168, sec.3. Married women are exempted from punishment for many criminal and tortious acts committed by them in the presence of their husbands, there being "a presumption of law that acts done by the wife in the immediate presence of her husband are done by her under coercion 6 from him." In the absence of evidence to rebut this presumption the husband is held and the wife excused. - 145 Mass. 307. A husband is bound to support his wife and children, and is liable for debts incurred by his wife in the purchase of necessaries. - 101 Mass. 78; 114 Mass. 424. See also R.L. ch. 212, sec. 45 as amended by Acts 1905, ch. 307. During the pendency of a libel for divorce, the court may require the husband to pay into court an amount which will enable the wife to defend or maintain the libel, and may require him to pay the wife alimony during the pendency of the libel. - R.L. ch. 152, sec. 14. A justice of the Superior Court may, if he deems it advisable, appoint an attorney to investigate and report to the Court in relation to any suit for divorce or any suit to have a marriage declared void, and may direct such attorney or any other attorney to defend the suit. - Acts 1907, ch. 390. The rights of the husband and wife in relation to the control of their minor children have been made substantially equal, and now in any controversy between the parents relative to the final possession of the children, the welfare and happiness of the children shall determine their custody or possession. - R.L. ch. 152, sec. 28. A married woman my now hold both real and personal property free from the control and debts of her husband. - R.L. ch. 153. secs. 1 & 7. A married woman may now make contracts and sue and be sued, except that husband and wife cannot make contracts between themselves or sue each other. - R.L. ch. 154, sec. 2-6. A married woman may now carry on business on her own account. -R.L. ch. 153, sec. 10. The wife upon the decease of her husband may remain in his house for six months without being chargeable for rent. - R.L. ch. 140, sec. 1. The wife upon the decease of her husband may be given an allowance for necessaries out of his property. The amount of this allowance is fixed by the Probate Court according to her circumstances and condition in life, and is paid to her in preference to the payment of his debts. - R.L. ch. 140, sec. 2. Aside from these advantages to the wife, the rights of the surviving husband or wife in the property of the one who has deceased are now practically the same. If there is no will, or if the provisions of the will have been waived, the husband or wife, if there are issue surviving, will take one third of the personalty and realty; if there are no issues surviving, then the husband or wife will take $5000 and one half of the residue of the personalty and one half of the realty. - R.L. ch. 140, sec. 3. See 201 Mass. 59. Woman's Influence Without the Ballot From this summary it will be seen that without the ballot women have obtained more than mere justice. We oppose the suffrage for women, because we feel that we have more influence without it. There is not a single subject in which [next page] 7 woman takes an intelligent interest in which she cannot exert an influence in the community proportionate to her character and ability. If the suffrage movement were to disband to-day and no woman ever vote, not a single great interest would suffer. None of woman's wide philanthropies would be harmed; women's colleges would be unaffected; the professions would continue to give diplomas to qualified women; tradesmen would still employ women; good laws would not be repealed and bad laws would be no more likely to be framed; literature would not suffer; homes would not be less secure; woman's civic work would not cease. The influence of woman standing apart from the ballot is immeasurable. Men look to her then (knowing that she has no selfish, political interests to further) as the embodiment of all that is truest and noblest. She has influence with all parties alike; if a voter, she would have only the influence of her own party, even the women's vote being divided against itself. We believe that it is of vital importance that our sex should have no political ends to serve. In whatever tends to protect and elevate woman, to secure her rights in the true sense of the word, to open up to her new paths of usefulness, all true-hearted men will join with women. In such work there is no difference of purpose. Childhood is hers to influence and mold; and what greater power for good could there be given her? Let all true women, loyal citizens of our republic, look to the best performance of the private and public trusts which are naturally theirs, striving for no false "equality," since there is no question of comparison between men and their duties and women and theirs. They are not "like in like" but "like in difference," each supplementing the other, rising or falling, but always together. Issued by the Massachusetts Association Opposed to the Further Extension of Suffrage to Women. Pamphlets and leaflets may be obtained from the Secretary, Room 615, Kensington Building, 687 Boylston Street, Boston, Mass. AN OPEN LETTER TO CLERGYMEN. DEAR SIR: The November Century prints a long article called, "The Militant Woman - and Women," in which the writer, an ardent feminist, says: "It was St. Paul who laid down the Christian ideal for women; nothing invented of man has ever had a more stultifying effect upon the character and morals of women and of men." This frank indictment of the Christian ideal of womanhood will cause many people to inquire with interest what is being offered in its place. That the ideals of the younger suffragists differ radically from those of an older generation has been clearly brought out in a recent article in Harper's Weekly by Winifred Harper Cooley, in which she comments with amusement on the dismay of the middle-aged suffragists at the radical utterances of the younger women in their ranks. She says these older women have not kept up with the times - that to them the vote is a fetish, which they want merely to prove their equality with man and to "demonstrate democracy"- but that the younger women consider the vote the merest tool, a means to an end, - that end being a complete social revolution. The older women are frightened, she says, lest the old unjust terms of opprobrium, "free love," "destruction of the family," etc., will injure the cause of suffrage, but she asks us to remember that the radicalism of to-day is the conservatism of to-morrow, and proceeds to set forth the beliefs of the younger suffragists. They believe that the day is rapidly approaching when "to be supported by a man in return for sexual privileges or mere general housekeeping or motherhood will be morally revolting to every self-respecting wife." They also demand a single standard of morality, but she hastens to add that this is not to be interpreted arbitrarily as meaning either a strictly puritanical standard or an objectionably loose one. The conservative women reformers think men should be hauled up to the standard which has always been set for women, but the other branch, claiming to have a broader knowledge of human nature, assets that it is impossible and perhaps undesirable to expect asceticism from all men and women. The majority of women, she explains, have been constrained to a monogamous existence, but monogamy has never existed among men, except in very rare cases! Miss Inez Milholland (ardent suffragist, and believer in Feminism, of which she says suffrage is only the "immediate political aspect") takes the same line of argument in an article in McClure's. She says that a large part of the suffragists are women of the old types, bred to another standard and naturally conservative, "but it will certainly not be long before the steady influx to the voting ranks of these millions of younger women whose impressions are being formed in the more alert, stirring air of to-day will bring the real issues more sharply before us; and it is to be assumed that the institutions most likely to be changed are the institutions in which the sex as a sex is most peculiarly and vitally interested; namely, the home and marriage itself." The following quotations from prominent suffragists and feminists will enable us to see what they wish these changes in home and marriage to be: Dora Marsden, A.B., in a pamphlet reprinted by the National Suffrage Association from The Freewoman, the best-known Feminist organ in England, says: "The Freewoman must produce within herself strength sufficient to provide for herself and for those of whom nature has made her the natural guardian, her children... She must be in a position to bear children if she wants them without soliciting maintenance from any man, whoever he may be. Many will say that this responsibility on the mother is too hard. What are the responsibilities of the father? Well, that is his business. Perhaps the State will have something to say to him!!!" Another writer in The Freewoman says: "For many reasons it may be argued that it is expedient for a couple to marry if they have children, but none of them worth discussion has an ethical basis...I certainly hope Freewomen will not enter upon the sex relationship for any such conscious purpose as that of reproduction; but rather that they will find in the passionate love between man and woman, even if it be transient, the only sanction for sex intimacy. To the healthy human being there is something repugnant in long-continued sexual relationship, with a person with whom one is in the constant and often jarring intimacy of daily life... The whole edifice of life marriage will at last fall to the ground." (The Freewoman, vol. 1., P. 153 et seq.) Fran Rosa Mayreder, the well-known German Feminist, believes that woman is most unjustly hampered in her progress toward equality with man by the "drag-chain of maternity." The most favorably placed woman, she says, "pays as the price of maternity nothing less than spiritual freedom; and the farther humanity advances toward higher forms, just so much must the female sex, for the sake of motherhood, remain behind." ("A Survey of the Woman Problem," by Rosa Mayreder.) Mrs. Walter M. Gallechan, in The English Review for Sept., 1913, says, "Under present economic conditions and the prejudice of social opinion, the penalties which women have to pay for any sexual relationship outside of marriage is too heavy... I believe if there were some open recognition of these partnerships outside of marriage, not necessarily permanent, with proper provision for the woman and her children, should there by any, a provision not dependent on the generosity of the man and made after the love which sanctioned the union had waned, but in the from of a contract before the relationship was entered upon, there would be many women ready to undertake such unions gladly; there would even be some women as well as some men, who would prefer them to the present marriage system that binds them permanently to one partner for life. It is also possible that such contracts might be made by those who were unsuitably mated, and yet did not wish entirely to sever the bond between them, with some other partner they could love. Such contracts would open up possibilities of happy partnerships to many." The same writer, in her book, "The Truth about Women," says, "Wherever women are in subjugation, there the idols of purity and chastity are set up." And again: "I believe that women will go a step further towards freedom than men have dared to go. I believe it will be men rather than women who will hold back from any open acknowledgment of irregular love. For the freedom of women to love them will entail the freeing of their women to love other men. This will be a very difficult thing for most men." In an article in the December Atlantic, W. L. George, the well-known writer on Feminism, says that "Suffrage is but part of the greater propaganda of Feminism;... the ultimate aim of Feminism with regard to marriage is the practical suppression of marriage and the institution of free alliance. It may be that thus only can woman develop her own personality." Miss Kathlyn Oliver in her play, "Her Side of the House," which sets forth the latest feminist doctrines, declares that "woman should have her fling" and sow her wild oats just as a man does. A suffragist, signing herself "A Girton Girl," wrote recently to an English periodical, "When all bachelor women and widows have the Parliamentary vote and the right to assist in the making of the nation's laws, one of its first influences will be to remove and destroy the artificial and arbitrary standard of monogamy, and to establish polygamy as the legal and proper right and custom of an advanced people." At a suffrage meeting in London one speaker stated that they did not ask greater sex restrictions for men; what they did ask for was a like freedom for themselves. (Reported in London Daily Mail.) At the Woman's Congress in Buda Pest last summer, according to the newspaper reports, Madam Veronee said, "I make no difference between legitimate and illegitimate motherhood" and the audience applauded and threw flowers at her feet. (Reported in the New York Post.) These instances could be multiplied indefinitely. Through them one sees the Feminist ideals emerging. Which do you prefer for the women of your family and your congregation - these or the old Christian ideal “which," according to the writer in The Century, "has had such a stultifying effect upon the character and morals of women and of men?" Now, it may be urged that these are extreme opinions, and that the great majority of women are untouched by them. That is true as yet, but these views are being preached in novels, in plays and in the magazines, and are being eagerly taken up by immature minds. It is a grave mistake to ignore the spread of these pernicious doctrines and to believe that if we take no notice of them they will disappear. Prepared by the Executive Committee of the Massachusetts Association Opposed to the Further Extension of Suffrage to Women. Issued by THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OPPOSED TO WOMAN SUFFRAGE 37 West 39th Street, New York City RIGHTS AND EXEMPTIONS GIVEN BY MASSACHUSETTS LAW TO WOMEN AND NOT TO MEN. Under the Common Law and the Laws of the United States and of Massachusetts many rights and exemptions are given to women which are not given to men. Citizenship is acquired more easily by women than by men, as "All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." - (U.S. Const. 14th Am.) and "Any woman who is now or may hereafter be married to a citizen of the United States and who might herself be lawfully naturalized shall be deemed a citizen." - U.S. Compiled Statutes, sec. 1994. Women are not obliged to do jury duty. - R.L. ch. 176, sec. 1. Women are not obliged to do military duty. - Acts 1905, ch. 465, sec. 2. Women are not obliged to pay a poll tax. - R.L. ch. 12, sec. 1. The property of a widow or of an unmarried woman above the age of twenty-one years to the amount of $500 is exempt from taxation provided her whole taxable estate does not exceed $1000. -R.L. ch. 12, sec. 5, cl. 9. Women, by residing in a city or town for five consecutive years, and married women if their husbands have settlements, will gain settlements, entitling them to support in case of need in such city or town, although they have paid no taxes. Men, on the other hand, must pay taxes three out of five consecutive years of residence in order to gain such settlement. - R.L. ch. 80, sec. I, cls. 1 & 6. Women who are employees are exceptionally provided for and protected by the statutes regulating labor. - R.L. ch. 106, secs. 36-41; Acts 1904, ch. 397; Acts 1907, ch. 413; Acts 1908, ch. 645. In general the welfare of women and children has been increasingly regarded. - Acts 1905, ch. 251; Acts 1905, ch. 269; Acts 1904, ch. 397; Acts 1907, ch. 413; Acts 1907, ch. 367. Women are exempt from arrest in civil actions except for tort, but after judgment has been obtained against them they may be committed for contempt of court upon failure to pay. - R.L. ch. 168, sec.3. Married women are exempted from punishment for many criminal and tortious acts committed by them in the presence of their husbands, there being "a presumption of law that acts done by the wife in the immediate presence of her husband are done by her under coercion from him." In the absence of evidence to * that is hard on the husband. rebut this presumption the husband is held and the wife excused. - 145 Mass. 307 * A husband is bound to support his wife and children, and is liable for debts incurred by his wife in the purchase of necessaries. - 101 Mass. 78; 114 Mass. 424. See also R.L. ch. 212, sec. 45, as amended by Acts 1905, ch. 307. During the pendency of a libel for divorce, the court may require the husband to pay into court an amount which will enable the wife to defend or maintain the libel, and may require him to pay the wife alimony during the pendency of the libel. - R.L. ch. 152, sec.14. A justice of the Superior Court may, if he deems it advisable, appoint an attorney to investigate and report to the Court in relation to any suit for divorce or any suit to have a marriage declared void, and my direct such attorney or any other attorney to defend the suit. -Acts 1907, ch. 390. The rights of the husband and wife in relation to the control of their minor children have been made substantially equal, and now in any controversy between the parents relative to the final possession of the children, the welfare and happiness of the children shall determine their custody or possession. - R.L. ch. 153, sec. 1 & 7. A married woman may now hold both real and personal property free from the control and debts of her husband. - R.L. ch. 153, sec. 1 & 7. A married woman may now make contracts and sue and be sued, except that husband and wife cannot make contracts between themselves or sue each other. - R.L. ch. 154, secs. 2-6. A married woman may now carry on business on her own account. - R.L. ch. 153, sec. 10. The wife upon the decease of her husband may be given an allowance for necessaries out of his property. The amount of this allowance is fixed by the Probate Court according to her circumstances and condition in life, and is paid to her in preference to the payment of his debts. - R.L. ch. 140, sec. 2. Aside from these advantages to the wife, the rights of the surviving husband or wife in the property of the one who has deceased are now practically the same. If there is no will, or if the provisions of the will have been waived, the husband or wife, if there are issue surviving, will take one third of the personalty and realty; if there are no issue surviving, then the husband or wife will take $5000 and one half of the residue of the personalty and one half of the realty. - R. L. ch. 140, sec.3. Printed by the Massachusetts Association Opposed to the Further Extension of Suffrage to Women. Pamphlets and leaflets may be obtained from the Secretary, Room 615, Kensington Building, 687 Boylston Street, Boston, Massachusetts. useful information showing progress and room for progress. [?? P 05 D 17] [Published in the WINCHESTER STAR March 26, 1915] REPLY TO MISS ELDER. Editor of the Star: - Miss Elder "sends a friendly challenge to Anti-Suffragists to match equal name against name of well-known social worker Anti against well-known social work Suffragist;" adding "the fact is that if one really knows what he is about the thing can't be done." I think Miss Elder is mistaken and that it is because she doesn't quite "know what she is about" that she is so sure. Her list of social workers who are Suffragists is as follows: Miss Jane Addams, Miss Julia Lathrop, Miss Katherine B. Davis, Miss Mary McDowell, Owen Lovejoy, Prof. Graham Taylor and Edward Devine. Miss Addams, it may be recalled, made her reputation by doing social settlement work in Chicago in the days when settlement work was a novelty and by writing books about it. Her work at Hull House is much more than offset by the work of the worldwide importance done by Miss Mabel Boardman, head of the American Red Cross; the flood sufferers in China and Ohio, the earthquake victims in Italy, the sick and suffering in all lands stricken by this terrible war are all beneficiaries of her work for humanity. No woman in America is doing work of broader scope. At the time when Miss Addams joined the Progressive party Miss Boardman was urged to act as Chairman of the Advisory Committee of Women of the Republican Party. Although a friend of Pres. Taft she refused because she believed that it would be an injury to work for her to be affiliated with a political party. Miss Lathrup, head of the Federal Children's Bureau comes next on the list. Miss Lathrop is a paid employee of the Government and her work consists largely in collecting data and statistics concerning child welfare. She can be matched with Miss Minnie Bronson, who as a special agent of the U.S. Bureau of Labor, investigated the labor conditions of women and children, and the great shirtwaist strike in New York. Miss Katherine B. Davis is Commissioner of Corrections, a well-paid exacting position in New York; Miss Davis, like Miss Addams, spends much time traveling about and speaking at suffrage meetings. Would a man holding her position be counted as a "social worker?" Mrs. Barclay Hazard of New York, Anti-Suffragist, is really a social worker, being the only woman member of the Executive Committee of the so-called Committee of Fourteen of the Vice Commission, as well as Chairman of the Board of Managers of the Florence Crittendon Mission, and a helper in the Woman's Night Court. Miss Mary McDowell comes next. She, too, is a social settlement worker in Chicago, and has helped in solving the garbage problem in that city. Against her we place Miss Emily P. Bissell of Delaware, one of the best known women in her state. She is secretary of the Delaware Anti- Tuberculosis Commission, President of the Delaware Red Cross, and chairman of the Social Service Committee of the Delaware Federation of Woman's Clubs. Her non-partisan influence has been successful several times in helping to put reform measures through the legislature when party feeling ran high. Against Owen Lovejoy of the National Child Labor Committee we place Mrs. Lillian Carpenter Streeter of New Hampshire, who is Chairman of the New Hampshire Children's Commission. This commission owes its existence to Mrs. Streeter's untiring efforts for the children of the state and it was stated in the Boston Herald of Feb. 28th, 1915, that nothing so important had come before New Hampshire since the Civil War. Mrs. Streeter is called the Jane Addams of New Hampshire. She is much less in the public eye than Miss Addams, but it must be remembered that Miss Addams' prominence is now due largely to her suffrage activities, as she is constantly journeying about the country, from Nevada to Tennessee and Massachusetts, making suffrage speeches. It is interesting to notice that Miss Addams is now almost never mentioned in connection with social work and it is really a question whether she should still be listed primarily as a social worker or a suffrage agitator; where's Mrs. Streeter, besides heading the Children's Commission of three members, is chairman of the Committee on Dependent Children, Secretary of the Concord District Nursing Association, and a working member of various other societies for social welfare. She started the New Hampshire State Federation of Woman's Clubs, of which she now holds the title of "Founder and Honorary President." Prof. Graham Taylor also of Chicago, comes next on Miss Elder's list. Against him we place Mrs. William Lowell Putnam of Boston. Mrs. Putnam is Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Massachusetts Milk Consumers' Association, Chairman of the Woman's Municipal League a Director of the American Association for the Study and Prevention of Infant Mortality, and a member of the National Pre-Natal Committee of this Association. Mrs. Putnam is at the head of the Committee on Pre-Natal work of the Woman's Municipal League, whose work is attracting scientific attention all over the world and is being copied in various countries. Its importance to women and to the next generation can hardly be over-estimated. Last on the list comes Mr. Edward Devine director of the School of Philanthropy. Against him we place Dr. J. Whitridge Williams, Dean of John Hopkins University and head of the department of Obstetrics. Dr. Williams is one of the foremost experts in the country and in building his model hospital for women and in training experts in the most scientific care of women in childbirth, he, too, is doing social work of an importance and value beyond estimation, whose benefits will be felt by women all over the country. For good measure I will add the names of 1. Lawrence Veiller, the greatest housing expert of the country. He is Executive Secretary of the National Housing Association, and is prominent in the Anti-Tuberculosis work in New York as well. 2. Mrs. Robert McVickar, President of the New York Consumer's League, and member of the Executive Council of the National Consumer's League which has done so much to improve the conditions under which woman wage-earners do their work. 3. Mrs. Edward T. Hewitt, President of the New York Woman's Municipal League with its remarkable record of civic and social work. She is also Vice-president of the Society for improving the condition of the blind. 4. Kate Douglas Wiggin (Mrs. Riggs), who formed the free kindergarten system in California and is first Vice-president of the Kindergarten Association of New York. 5. To close Mrs. Arthur M. Dodge, President of the National Association opposed to Woman Suffrage, who is President of the Federation of Day Nurseries a director of the Public Education Association, and Vice-President of the Legal Aid Society. She also started the New York Branch of the Needleswork Guild. The list could be continued indefinitely of the Anti-suffragists who are doing expert work for social welfare. Miss Elder asks at the end of her paper "Why are practically all the well-known social workers also active suffragists?" The answer is "they are not; but the social workers who advertise themselves the most, and are most advertised by excellent suffrage press agents, are suffragists." Many suffragists are under the impression that Colorado is the only state which has a children's court, because it is the only state whose Judge of the children's court (Judge Lindsey) goes all over the country lecturing on Suffrage, and being advertised as a man who has done such a wonderful work in the children's court. The fact is, more than twenty states have children's courts, many of them doing admirable work - all the more admirable because quietly done by men who stay on their job instead of touring the country and speaking in most of the states of the Union, as Judge Lindsey boasts that he has done, on suffrage. Mrs. Ferdinand F. French P 05 A 10 A REMONSTRANCE. AN ADDRESS BY MISS FRANCES J. DYER BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON ELECTION LAWS, AT THE STATE HOUSE, BOSTON, JANUARY 27, 1903. I appear before you this morning because I do not own property, because I do not pay taxes. I stand here as the representative of a large class of intelligent wage-earning women, who feel keenly that we should be discriminated against in the legislation proposed. Why should there be set up against us, who by force of circumstances are compelled to earn our living, the purely arbitrary and artificial distinction of property? Has the time come in this grand old commonwealth - a state I am proud to call mine by adoption - when intelligence, capacity, executive ability, fitness to deal with important measures which affect our homes, our schools, our churches - when these things count for nothing against wealth? Many of us who are wage-earners have gloried in the sense of independence from false and artificial barriers here in Massachusetts. We have not been ostracized socially, as women often are elsewhere when obliged to support themselves. A large majority of us are glad to live and work under the laws which you men make. We have the confidence, based upon our experience of your justice, that you have as sincere a desire to protect our interests as your own, because you believe with us that in our American society the interests of men and women are identical. Whatever militates against the welfare of one sex is detrimental to the other. For here, in our favored United States, men and women are regarded as equal. Now you, gentlemen, oppose class legislation of any sort for yourselves. You oppose it because it is undemocratic, contrary to the fundamental principles upon which a self-governing nation exists. Yet you are asked to grant to a mere handful of women (as compared with our whole number) a form of class legislation which you would not consider for a moment if a similar request came from men. By granting this request of a privileged class, you erect a barrier of caste feeling between the women who hold property and those of us who do not. This is not only undemocratic and un-American, but is a direct blow against the noblest ideals of manhood and womanhood. Already there are too many false ideas concerning what constitutes true success in the world. Already more than is good for us, money and political power are made the measure of a man's value to society. Shall we increase this false notion by placing on our statute books a law in favor of women of wealth, the most of whom, no doubt, inherit their riches from some man who toiled and sacrificed in their behalf? Shall the rest of us, who struggle for ourselves and yet manage (we humbly trust) to be useful and helpful members of society, be set apart as a class debarred from influence, because we do not possess houses and lands and stocks and a long bank account? Such distinctions are utterly repugnant to every right-minded American. The assumption that all the power in this world comes either from the possession of wealth or of political influence, is pernicious in the extreme. We do not wish in this free country to build up an aristocracy of wealth. We sometimes hear it said that such an aristocracy now exists. But, at least, we have not the shame of enacting laws to create and perpetuate an aristocracy resting on a foundation so alien to American ideals. What makes this proposed measure especially unfair to wage-earners is, that it asks for the creation of an artificial distinction between different classes of women such as does not exist between different classes of men. To be just and consistent, if the ballot is granted to women simply because they are tax-payers, the same restriction ought to control the ballot for men. A property qualification for one sex and not for the other can hardly be called an exponent of equal rights. And to ask that women tax-payers and no others be allowed to vote, is to make the accident of wealth, and not intelligence and character, the basis of political privileges. We further believe, gentlemen of the committee, that the proposed measure will be, in the phraseology of the suffragists themselves, only an entering wedge for granting universal suffrage to women. Therefore, we further object to it on this ground, for this would shift the basis of our government from the family as a unit to the individual. So fundamental and important a change as this we believe would prove inimical to the highest interests of the home. On this point, an editorial in the New York Times, last August (1902), says: - "That such a change would be in the interest of the extreme form of Socialism, there can be no doubt. Is it not time that American voters should consider seriously the question whether they are prepared to shift the Republic from the solid basis on which it was established by their forefathers, to the untried and visionary grounds proposed by the Social Democracy of Europe? It is to such a change that every measure in favor of giving political rights to women tends." Year in and year out, for a whole generation, Massachusetts has persistently refused to amend her constitution by eliminating the word "male." This repeated action by a State which is conspicuously fair and generous in its treatment of women - the State which insures the most favorable conditions for us wage-earners - is certainly most significant. I can only affirm in closing that something is wrong in our ideals, if we are not willing to trust out fathers, brothers, husbands, and sons with certain of our interests. As John Bright once said, "If the interests of women are not safe in the hands of their fathers and brothers, it is not the fault of our laws, but of our non-civilization. (It is worthy of remark that John Bright is one of several eminent men who, once having favored woman suffrage, afterwards changed his mind) . . . From my experience as a wage-earner for thirty years, and from observation in various positions which have given me a somewhat wide range of observation, I am ready to acknowledge the uniform kindness and courtesy of American men, their readiness to listen to every reasonable ap peal, to give generously and unselfishly the benefit of their wisdom and experience in matters which they are more competent to handle than we women are. . . . . . . . . . So, gentlemen of the committee, I beg you to continue to resist, as you have done year after year, this appeal of the few against the many, and especially this undemocratic demand for class legislation. "When the tumult and the shouting dies" it will become increasingly clear that the great silent majority of those of us who belong to the remonstrants more truly represent the noblest and safest ideals of government in free America. We appeal to your highest manhood, believing that you will safeguard our interests as sacredly as you do your own. Printed by the Massachusetts Association opposed to Extension of Woman Suffrage. Pamphlets and leaflets may be obtained from the Secretary of the Association, [Mrs. Robert W. Lord,] [P.O. Box, 2262, Boston.] ADDRESS THE SECRETARY, BROOKLINE, MASS. P. O. BOX 134. Reprinted from The Boston Sunday Globe, January 19, 1913. SMALL INTEREST TAKEN BY WOMEN Statistics On School Suffrage Lead to This Conclusion. Dr. Hartwell Analyzes the Votes of Women in State and City. Dr. Edward M. Hartwell, the city of Boston's statistician, has made a study of voting by women in Boston and in Massachusetts. Minute analysis of figures obtained from reliable sources and covering a long term of years have led to some interesting conclusions on this subject, among them being: Miss Curtis, newly elected to the Boston School Committee, has the men rather than her own sex, to thank for her victory. Women showed more interest than the men in this year's election in Boston, but not since 1894 have the voters shown such little interest in a city election. All in all the school suffrage is but lightly esteemed both by the women at large and those who are registered voters. By EDWARD M. HARTWELL. Analysis of the official returns of the vote for School Committee last Tuesday discloses the fact that Miss Curtis has the men to thank for her election—there were 49,389 votes case then, as follows: For Miss Curtis 27,241, for Mr. Harris 22,112, all others 36—Miss Curtis' majority over Mr. Harris 5129. If Miss Curtis received all the votes cast by women, viz., 4939 (an extremely improbable assumption), there would remain 22,302 votes cast for her by men, or a majority of 190 over her opponent. Despite their relative lack of interest in this year's election, the women showed more interest than the men, it must be said, since 44.4 per cent of the registered women voted, against 41.8 per cent for the men. So it was in 1912, when 51.8 per cent of the women registered voted and only 45.5 per cent of the men registered voted. Slight as the interest was in this year's election, when only 42 per cent of the men and women registered went to the polls, still the per cent of actual to possible vote was highest as regards the contest for School Committee. It was 40.1. On the question of license it was 40.1, against 38 on the Eight-Hour referendum and 34.3 in the election of Councilors. The truth is that not since 1894, when only 33.4 per cent of the voters took the trouble to vote at a special election on the question of incorporating the Elevated Railway, have the voters of Boston shown so little interest in a city election as in 1913. First Woman in Seven Years. For the seven years, 1906-1912, Boston had no woman on the School Committee. But Boston in this respect was not alone among the cities of Massachusetts. The latest available data are found in the Massachusetts Year Book, published in 1911. According to that publication it appears that in 1910 fully six-tenths of the cities and towns of Massachusetts had no woman on their School Board. Women are often found in the smaller towns. When the Boston School Committee was reorganized in 1876 out of 24 members elected three were women. In 1905, when authority was secured from the General Court to reduce the number of members from 24 to 5, there were two women on the board. This year, for the first time since 1905, there will be one. The eligibility of women for the School Committee was established by statute in 1874, but the first women members of the board owed their election to men, inasmuch as it was not till 1879 that the Legislature gave the right of voting for School Committee to every woman over 21 years of age, who was a citizen and had paid a State or County tax within two years, under the same qualifications as then applied to men with respect to residence, literacy and mental capacity. ——— Activity of Women Voters. This year's election was the thirty-fourth in which the women voters of Boston participated. In the 15 years, 1879-1893, they showed more interest in the election of School Committee than was the case in the 15 years, 1894-1908. In the first period the mean per cent of those who voted to those who were registered was 93.4: in the second period it was 63.7; while for the whole 30 years it was 71.6. For the four years 1910-1913 (there was no election in 1909), the corresponding per cent was 50.0. The maximum per cent of interest was shown in 1888, when 20,252 women registered, 19490, or 92.9 per cent. voted. The minimum per cent of interest—of actual to possible vote—was 34.8 in 1908, when 12,554 were registered and 4363 voted. The general characteristics of the activity of the women voters of Boston in the 30 years, 1879-1908, are disclosed in the following table: WOMEN'S VOTE AT BOSTON CITY ELECTIONS, 1879-1908. By Half Decades and Decades Average Average Mean Number Number Percent Decades Registered Voted Voted 1879-1888 . . . . . 2,942 2,759 93.8 1889-1898 . . . . . 9,630 7,646 79.4 1899-1908 . . . . 14,906 9,258 62.1 30 years . . . . . . . 9,159 6,554 71.6 The annual changes in registration, number voting and per cent of interest since 1899 are shown in the following table: WOMEN'S VOTE AT BOSTON CITY ELECTIONS, 1899-1912. Number Number Percent Year Registered Voted Voted 1899 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10,385 7,090 68.3 1900 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12,475 9,542 76.5 1901 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15,592 11,620 74.5 1902 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18,445 11,819 64.1 1903 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18,515 13,655 73.8 ——— ——— —— Totals, 5 years . . . . 75,410 53,726 71.2 Average, 5 years. . . 15,082 10,745 71.2 1904 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17,119 8,919 52.8 1905 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15,655 9,319 59.5 1906 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14,628 8595 58.8 1907 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13,691 7,655 55.9 1908 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12,554 4,363 34.8 ——— ——— —— Totals, 5 years . . . . 73,647 38,851 52.8 Average, 5 years. . . 14,729 7,770 52.8 1910 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11,912 6,483 54.4 1911 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11,269 5,530 49.1 *1912 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12,255 6,350 51.7 *1913 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11,127 4,939 44.4 ——— ——— —— Totals, 4 years . . . . 46,563 23,302 50.0 Average, 4 years. . . 11,640 5,825 50.0 *Hyde Park or Ward 26 included. Registration and Votes. The following statement shows for the period 1890-1909, by decades, the average number of women registered, and the average number who voted, and the mean per cent who voted and for 1910 and 1911, the number registered, the number who voted and the per cent who voted, in the State, the cities, the town, and in Boston: In State Av Number Av Number Mean Pc Decade Registered Voted Voted 1890-1899 . . . . . . 28,210 14,416 51.1 1900-1909 . . . . . . 44,834 16,785 37.4 ——— ——— —— 20 years . . . . . . 36,522 15,600 42.7 In 1910 . . . . . . . . . 44,877 12,600 28.1 In 1911 . . . . . . . . . 53,857 22,755 42.7 In Cities 1890-1899 . . . . . . 19,972 11,670 58.4 1900-1909 . . . . . . 30,138 13,621 45.2 ——— ——— —— 20 years . . . . . . 25,055 12,645 50.5 In 1910 . . . . . . . . . 27,418 9,052 33.3 In 1911 . . . . . . . . . 35,563 18,433 51.8 In Towns 1890-1899 . . . . . . 8,238 2,746 33.3 1900-1909 . . . . . . 14,732 3,164 21.5 ——— ——— —— 20 years . . . . . . 11,485 2,955 25.7 In 1910 . . . . . . . . . 17,459 3,548 20.3 In 1911 . . . . . . . . . 18,294 4,319 23.6 In Boston 1890-1899 . . . . . . 9,610 7,351 76.5 1900-1909 . . . . . . 15,059 9,198 61.1 ——— ——— —— 20 years . . . . . . 12,335 8,263 67.0 In 1910 . . . . . . . . . 11,912 6,483 54.4 In 1911 . . . . . . . . . 11,269 5,530 49.1 The most salient feature of the returns of women's votes in Massachusetts since 1890 is their fluctuating character. It is also clear that the women voters' interest in the election of school boards has declined in the same period. Interest Taken by Women The following table shows the average number of registered women voters, the average number of women who voted and the mean per cent of interest for the period 1890-1909 by half-decades: State Av Number Av Number Mean Pc Half Decade Registered Voted Voted 1890-1894 . . . . . . 19,849 14,433 72.7 1995-1899 . . . . . . 36,571 14,398 39.4 1900-1904 . . . . . . 43,954 18,299 41.6 1905-1909 . . . . . . 45,714 15,270 33.4 ——— ——— —— 20 years . . . . . . 36,522 15,600 42.7 Year 1910 . . . . . . . 44,877 12,600 28.1 year 1911 . . . . . . . 53,857 22,755 42.7 Cities 1890-1894 . . . . . . 15,587 12,362 79.3 1895-1899 . . . . . . 24,356 10,977 45.1 1900-1904 . . . . . . 30,533 15,416 50.5 1905-1909 . . . . . . 29,744 11,826 39.8 ——— ——— —— 20 years . . . . . . 25,055 12,645 50.5 In 1910 . . . . . . . . . 27,418 9,052 33.3 In 1911 . . . . . . . . . 35,563 18,433 51.8 Towns 1890-1894 . . . . . . 4,262 2,071 48.6 1895-1899 . . . . . . 12,214 3,421 28.0 1900-1904 . . . . . . 13,421 2,883 21.5 1905-1909 . . . . . . 16,043 3,444 21.5 ——— ——— —— 20 years . . . . . . . 11,485 2,955 25.7 In 1910 . . . . . . . . . . 17,459 3,548 20.3 In 1911 . . . . . . . . . . 18,294 4,319 23.6 Five Largest Cities in State 1890-1894 . . . . . . . . 12,419 10,318 83.1 1895-1899 . . . . . . . . 15,055 7,949 52.8 1900-1904 . . . . . . . . 20,930 12,763 61.0 1905-1909 . . . . . . . . 19,267 8,711 45.2 ——— ——— —— 20 years . . . . . . . . 16,918 9,935 58.7 Year 1910 . . . . . . . . . 16,879 6,535 38.7 Year 1911 . . . . . . . . . 23,637* 14,229 60.2 In Boston 1890-1894 . . . . . . . . 9,062 8,005 88.3 1895-1899 . . . . . . . . 10.157 6,696 65.9 1900-1904 . . . . . . . . 16,429 11,111 67.6 1905-1909 . . . . . . . . 13,688 7,285 53.2 ——— ——— —— 20 years . . . . . . 12,334 8,274 67.1 In 1910* . . . . . . . . . 11,912 6,483 54.4 In 1911 . . . . . . . . . 11,269 5,530 49.1 RELATION OF BOSTON TO THE STATE Average Registered Percent Boston State Boston to State 1890-1894 . . . . . . . . 19,849 9,062 45.7 1895-1899 . . . . . . . . 36,571 10,157 27.8 1900-1904 . . . . . . . . 43,954 16,429 37.4 1905-1909 . . . . . . . . 45,714 13,688 29.9 ——— ——— —— 20 years . . . . . . . . 36,522 12,334 33.8 Year 1910 . . . . . . . . . 44,877 11,269 25.1 Year 1911 . . . . . . . . . 53,587 12,255 22.8 Average Voted Percent Boston State Boston to State 1890-1894 . . . . . . . . 14,433 8,065 55.5 1895-1899 . . . . . . . . 14,398 6,696 46.5 1900-1904 . . . . . . . . 18,269 11,111 60.7 1905-1909 . . . . . . . . 15,270 7,285 47.7 ——— ——— —— 20 years . . . . . . . . 15,600 8,274 53.0 Year 1910 . . . . . . . . . 12,600 5,530 43.9 Year 1911 . . . . . . . . . 22,755 6,350 27.9 Languid Interest in Ballot. Analysis of the returns for 1910, which may be taken as a typical year, discloses some interesting and significant facts. The following statement shows the distribution of the women voters in the cities of Massachusetts in 1910: No. No. Pc City Registered Voted Voted Boston. . . . . . . . . . . . 11,269 5,530 49.1 Worcester. . . . . . . . . 635 57 9.1 Fall River. . . . . . . . . . 2,380 857 36.0 Lowell. . . . . . . . . . . . . 582 16 2.7 Cambridge. . . . . . . . . 2,012 75 3.7 ——— —— —— Five Cities 16,879 6,535 38.7 New Bedford. . . . . . . 321 60 18.7 Lynn. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 540 259 46.3 Springfield. . . . . . . . . . 307 78 25.4 Lawrence. . . . . . . . . . . 1 . . . . Somerville. . . . . . . . . . 543 56 10.3 Holyoke. . . . . . . . . . . 1,755 49 2.8 Brockton. . . . . . . . . . . . 222 43 19.4 Malden. . . . . . . . . . . . . 451 18 4.0 Haverhill. . . . . . . . . . . . 475 84 17.7 Salem. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124 4 3.2 Newton. . . . . . . . . . . . 621 43 6.9 Fitchburg. . . . . . . . . . . 1,041 236 22.7 Taunton. . . . . . . . . . . . 128 3 2.3 Everett. . . . . . . . . . . . . 375 117 31.2 Quincy. . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 3 7.0 Chelsea. . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 4 6.2 Pittsfield. . . . . . . . . . . . 141 15 10.6 Waltham. . . . . . . . . . . . 264 12 4.5 Chicopee. . . . . . . . . . . . 266 . . . . Gloucester. . . . . . . . . . . . 26 1 3.8 Medford. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173 71 41.0 North Adams. . . . . . . . . . 82 42 51.2 Northampton. . . . . . . . . . 329 59 17.9 Beverly. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 11 28.9 Melrose. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231 5 2.2 Woburn. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,673 1,071 64.0 Newburyport . . . . . . . . . . 8 1 12.5 Marlboro. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296 181 61.1 ——— —— —— Total 33 cities . . . . . . 27,418 9,052 33.0 A glance at the foregoing table in which the cities are arranged according to population, shows that the distribution of women voters in cities did not conform with the rank of the cities in respect to population, and was extremely irregular, and on the whole reflected a languid interest of the women voters in the exercise of their voting privilege. Irregularity of Distribution The great irregularity of the distribution of the women voters of Massachusetts in 1910 is strikingly brought out if we determine the number of municipalities in which no women voted and the number in which none registered. Analysis of the returns for 1910 shows that in 29.7 per cent of the municipalities of the State—in two cities and 103 towns having 3467 women registered—not a woman voted in that year. Besides the 105 municipalities just alluded to, there were 69 towns in which no woman either registered or voted. so it appears that out of 354 cities and towns that there were 147, or 49.2 per cent, in which no woman voted for School Committee in 1910. Among the 69 towns in which no women registered or voted in 1910 there were two which had upward of 10,000 inhabitants, Southbridge and Methuen. In Peabody and Weymouth, with over 15,000 and 12,000 inhabitants, respectively, no woman voted, although 41 were registered in the first-named town and 534 in the second. In Dedham with over 9000 inhabitants 55 women registered, none of whom voted. In Braintree with over 8000 inhabitants, but three were registered, none of whom voted. Northbridge in the same class had 18 registered women voters who did not vote. In two cities, Lawrence with one woman registered, and Chicopee with 266, no woman voted in 1910; while in Gloucester with 26 registered only one voted, and in Newburyport one voted when eight were registered. The results of the elections for School Committee in 1911 were much the same as in 1910, except there was a marked increase in the registration and the vote of the State due to unusual interest manifested in 1911— in certain cities—as is shown in the appended statement: 1910 Percent Cities Registered Voted Voted 31 . . . . . . . . . . 27,151 9,092 33.3 2 . . . . . . . . . . 267 0 . . . — ——— ——— —— 33 . . . . . . . . . . 27,418 9,092 33.0 Towns 149 . . . . . . . . . . 14,259 3,548 24.8 103 . . . . . . . . . . 3,200 0 . . . 69. . . . . . . . . . . 0 0 . . . — ——— ——— —— 321. . . . . . . . . . 17,459 3,548 20.3 State . . . . . . . . . 44,877 12,600 28.1 2 cities. . . . . 34 2 23 towns. . . . 760 23 — ——— ——— 25 cities, towns 794 25 1911 Percent Cities Registered Voted Voted 32. . . . . . . . . 35,226 18,288 51.9 1. . . . . . . . . 23 0 . . . — ——— ——— —— 33. . . . . . . . . 35,249 18,288 51.9 Towns 149. . . . . . . . . . 15,642 4,467 28.6 103 2,966 0 . . . 69 0 0 . . . — ——— ——— —— 321. . . . . . . . . . 18,608 4,467 24.0 State. . . . . . . . . 53,857 22,755 42.3 20 towns. . . . 651 20 — ——— ——— —— 20 towns. . . . 651 20 Ward 26 of Boston, with 314 registered and 148 voted in 1911, is included among the towns in 1910 and 1911. Outbursts of Interest. Occasionally an outburst of interest in School Board elections is shown by the women voters. One occurred in 1903, when the number of women registered in the State increased 2202, and their votes increased 3261 from 1902. This enhanced interest, however, was chiefly caused by an increase of 1516 in registration and of 1411 in the number of votes cast in Cambridge in 1903, as compared with 1902. The returns of local elections in 1911 reflect an even more marked outburst of interest. Thus, the registration of women voters in the State increased 8980 in 1911 from 1910 and the number voting increased 10,155. Analysis of the returns show that of the 8980 increase in registration 8145 occurred in the cities and 835 in the towns, and that of the increase of 10,155 in the votes cast 9384 is to be credited to the cities and 771 to the towns. The following statement of the registration and votes cast in 1911 and 1910 in the five most populous cities of the Commonwealth shows that while there was enhanced activity in 1911 among the women voters of Fall River and Lowell, comparative calm prevailed in Boston, Worcester and Cambridge: WOMEN'S VOTES IN FIVE PRINCIPAL CITIES, 1911 City No. Registered No. Voted Pc Voted 1 - *Boston . . . . 11,941 6,202 51.9 2 - Worcester . . . 599 24 4.0 3 - Fall River . . . .2,875 2,288 79.6 4 - Lowell . . . . . . 6,330 5,659 89.4 5 - Cambridge . . 1,892 56 3.0 Totals . . . . 23,637. 14,229 60.2 *Registration of 314, and 148 votes cast in Ward 26, are not included. The election occurred in 1912, but is classed with election of 1911 for comparison. WOMEN'S VOTES IN FIVE PRINCIPAL CITIES, 1910 City No. Registered No. Voted Pc Voted 1 - *Boston . . . . . .11,269 5,530 49.1 2 - Worcester . . . . . . . 635 24 9.0 3 - Fall River . . . . . . . 2,380 857 36.0 4 - Lowell . . . . . . . . . . . 582 16 2.7 5 - Cambridge . . . . . .2,013 75 3.7 Totals . . . . . . . 16,879 6,535 38.7 * The city election, although held in 1911, is comparable with city election of 1910 and is so classed. Recent Election Analyzed. Comparison of the returns of last Tuesday's election, with those of the previous 12 city elections in Boston in the period 1900-1912 (there was no city election in 1909), shows that the interest of the women voters in this year's election was extremely languid. The average number of women registered for the 12 preceding elections was 14,483, whereas the number registered in Wards 1-25 for the election of 1913 was 10, 860, or 3623 below the average for the period. Not since 1899, when registration was 10,385 has the registration of women in Boston been so low as in this year. Last Tuesday's vote by women in Wards 1-25, was 4887, or 8642 below the average for the 12 preceding elections. This year's vote is the smallest but one of its class since 1887 - the vote of 1908, viz., 4363, being the only other vote below 5000 since 1887. The maximum of votes cast by women in any year in the period 1900-1912, was 13,655 in 1903, in which year their maximal registration for the period fell, when it was 18, 515, or 7646 in excess of this year's registration. Furthermore, it is clear that the women voters of the city were less interested in this year's election than in that of last year. Both the absolute and relative numbers show this. In 1912, the total number of women registered in Boston, including Ward 26, was 12,255. In 1913 the number decreased by 1128, or 9.2 per cent, to 11,127. Similarly the number of votes cast in 1913, viz., 4939, fell 1411, or 22.2 per cent below 6350, the number of votes cast last year by women. Analysis of this year's returns by wards discloses the fact that in every one of the 26 wards fewer women registered and fewer voted than was the case in 1912. Curiously enough, both registration and votes cast in 1912 in Wards 1-25 showed an increase of 672 over 1911. In the same wards in 1913 there was a decrease of 1081 in registration and of 1315 in votes cast, as compared with 1912. In 1912 there was a total gain in registration of 819 over 1911 in 16 wards, while in eight wards the losses amounted to 147, and in one ward there was no change, yielding a new gain of 672. In respect to votes cast, 18 wards in 1912 gained 853 over 1911, and seven wards showed losses amounting to 191 - again there was a net gain of 672 for the year. In 1912 in the city (26 wards), 51.8 per cent of the registered women voted, but in 1913 the corresponding per cent was only 44.4 In 1911 the per cent of votes cast to registration in the city (25 wards) was 49.1 In 1913, for the same wards, it was 45 per cent. All in all, a survey of the returns of votes by women in Massachusetts and in Boston seems to warrant the conclusion that the school suffrage is but lightly esteemed, both by the women at large and the women who register. If the question of granting wider suffrage to women is again submitted to the people we shall see what we shall see. Issued by the Massachusetts Association Opposed to the Further Extension of Suffrage to Women. Pamphlets and leaflets may be obtained from the Secretary, Room 65, Kensington Building, 687 Boylston Street, Boston, Mass. 15 SMALL DEMAND FOR WOMEN'S BALLOT As Shown by School Vote of Massachusetts The Massachusetts Association Opposed to the Further Extension of Suffrage to Women, numbering nearly 19,000 women of voting age in Massachusetts, submit to proposition that an overwhelming majority of women in this state do not want, or ask for, the ballot. The women's well known attitude in this state for many years is here set forth by statistics that demonstrate the truth of the proposition beyond a possibility of question. There are 354 towns and cities in Massachusetts. The following table shows the number of towns and cities in which a negligible vote, or not vote at all, was cast in the local elections at intervals five years which we select as typical. The total vote, both yes and no, on Woman Suffrage in 1985 is given and the years 1911 and 1912 are added as of more recent interest. No Votes 1-10 Votes Total less than 50 Votes 1895 181 91 322 " (Suffrage) (43) (104) (286) 1900 167 106 323 1905 169 108 328 1910 174 103 322 1911 175 96 317 1912 159 88 304 It will be noted that the maximum interest of the women is represented in the figures of 1912, but even here the figures show that in 45% of the cities and towns of Massachusetts no women at all voted, and in 85% less than 50 women voted. A list of fifteen (15) cities in Massachusetts, well distributed geographically and of varied character of population and industry, is given here to show the almost entire absence of interest in those cities during a considerable period of time. With the exception of instances of spasmodic interest taken by the women in some local fight, the showing of these cities is typical of all the cities of the state. The number of women of voting age is given for 1895 and 1910 as shown by State and Federal Census returns. -------1985------- -------1910------- Cities Women of 1900 1905 Women of 1911 1912 Voting Age Vote Vote Vote Voting Age Vote Vote Vote Beverly 4037 51 12 4 5932 11 7 5 Boston 167017 9049 9542 9319 217888 5530 6350 4939 Chicopee 4838 23 106 111 6767 0 50 8 Fitchburg 7905 936 97 185 11277 236 141 308 Gloucester 7085 17 2 0 7184 1 0 1 Haverhill 10128 127 54 3 14577 84 85 105 Lawrence 16777 229 92 72 25423 0 4 0 Lynn 21067 454 219 73 29216 250 536 505 Melrose 4198 14 20 8 5586 5 8 39 Newton 10134 212 54 346 14626 43 30 162 Northampton 5714 146 5 30 6664 59 12 11 Pittsfield 6444 32 0 12 10195 15 46 34 Springfield 17462 288 25 57 29584 78 96 131 Waltham 7327 83 35 29 9905 12 32 38 Worcester 30548 285 98 58 44953 57 24 66 It should be noted that while the number of women of voting age has increased enormously, the actual vote in some instances has decreased in a greater ratio. This is true of Boston, where the number of women of voting age has increased more than 30% between 1895 and 1912, and the actual vote has decreased 45%. The aggregate woman's registration and vote in the 33 cities of Massachusetts combined, together with comparisons based thereon, are given in the following table of data. The number of women of voting age is not obtainable from the 1900 Census, and the percentages for that year are computed on the basis of the 1895 Census. The comparisons so made are, of course, more unfavorable to this argument than if the larger 1900 totals were used. Similarly, with the percentages computed for the years 1911 and 1912. Women Per Cent of Women Per Cent of of Voting Age Registered Voting Registered Women Voting 1985 535385 29364 16233 5.4 3.0 1900 24437 12278 4.5 2.2 1905 659093 31591 14221 4.7 2.1 1910 731405 27418 9052 3.7 1.2 1911 35563 18436 4.8 2.5 1912 48289 36749 6.6 5.0 Average 4.9 2.6 Similar to the above table is the following table of data covering the towns of Massachusetts, 321 in number. Women Per Cent of Women Per Cent of of Voting Age Registered Voting Registered Women Voting 1985 275936 6540 2441 2.3 .8 1900 13148 2443 4.7 .8 1905 319364 15215 3428 4.7 1.0 1910 343080 17459 3548 5.0 1.0 1911 18294 4319 5.3 1.2 1912 19510 5028 5.6 1.4 Average 4.6 1.0 Similar to the above tables is the following table of data covering the entire State of Massachusetts. Women Per Cent of Women Per Cent of of Voting Age Registered Voting Registered Women Voting 1985 811321 35904 18674 4.4 2.3 1900 37585 14721 4.6 1.8 1905 978457 46806 17649 4.7 1.8 1910 1074485 44877 12600 4.1 1.1 1911 53857 22755 5.0 2.1 1912 67799 41777 6.3 3.8 Average 4.8 2.1 The opportunity to vote for School Committee was given to the women of Massachusetts many years ago for the purpose, at least in part, of testing their interest in the Suffrage. Years of experience show an almost entire neglect of this opportunity that the above figures can only indicate. One of the favorite arguments of the Suffragists is that where the women have only the School Board to vote for they lack the incentive or encouragement to vote that would be offered if full Suffrage for women obtained. It is interesting, in view of this argument, to note that while about 5% of the women of the state register, less than half this number vote. Incidentally it is worth nothing that the ratio of performance to promise among the townswomen is far below that of women in cities. This may be attributed in part to the greater difficulty among the farmers’ wives of getting to the polls than exists for the city women. It points the argument of the hardship suffrage would impose, especially in rural districts, on those women who would feel bound to perform their political duties. The following table showing the ratio between women's registration and women's vote is presented to show that even among those women who do find the incentive and encouragement to register, that is among those women whose interest in politics is sufficient to induce them to register, the actual performance of the duty to vote is far below the promise implied in their registration. PER CENT OF VOTE TO REGISTRATION 33 cities 321 towns entire state 1895 55.2 37.3 52.0 1900 50.2 18.5 39.1 1905 45.0 22.5 37.7 1910 33.0 20.3 28.7 1911 51.8 23.6 42.2 1912 76.1 25.7 61.6 Average 51.8 24.6 43.5 It is often said by the Suffragists that woman's fine perception and instinctive judgment are needed in politics, and for this reason women should be given the ballot. We grant that women do possess powers of fine perception and true instinct, but it is a remarkable fact, as demonstrated by the figures which are shown above, that these qualities in women have not led them, as a whole, in Massachusetts at least, to seek active participation in political affairs. We repeat the proposition, with which we started, that an overwhelming majority of the women of this state do not want, or ask for, the ballot. We submit that with the women as indifferent to the ballot as the figures above indicate there is an unsustained burden of proof on those who argue that the women of Massachusetts desire to vote. Of course the greater question is not what the women desire, but what is expedient or wise with respect to the interests of the state as a whole; and there is a grave responsibility resting upon those members of the Legislature who, by their votes, would express their willingness to imperil the government of the Commonwealth by the enfranchisement of a great body of citizens who are indifferent, or hostile, to the imposition upon them of the duties of suffrage. Massachusetts Association Opposed to the Further Extension of Suffrage to Women, 687 Boylston Street, Boston Mass. Boston Transcript. 324 WASHINGTON STREET, BOSTON, MASS. FRIDAY, JANUARY 23, 1914 THE SOCIAL REVOLUTION That is Involved in the Feminist Movement as Seen by the Cambridge Woman -- The Free-Love Paganism That Is Poisoning Our Social Life Through Our Current Literature [Lily Rice Foxcroft in the Congregationalist] It was St. Paul who laid down the Christian ideal for women; nothing invented of man has ever had a more stultifying effect upon the character and morals of women and of men. The quotation is not from some blatant atheist, haranguing an insignificant group of followers in an out-of- the-way hall. It is from a defense of the English militants and of the feminist movement, which filled seven pages of the November number of that most conservative of American magazines, The Century. May I use it as a starting- point from which to explain frankly -- but, I hope, without exaggeration -- the grounds on which is based the deepening hostility of many earnest women to woman suffrage? Those of us who were watching the woman suffrage movement twenty-five years ago, with misgivings are finding our fears justified. "More than voting" is implied. A group of ardent leaders are saying so boldly. Mrs. Winifred Harper Cooley, in a two-page article on "The Younger Suffragists," in Harper's Weekly of Sept. 27, scoffs good-naturedly at the suffragists who "claim the vote as 'wives' and 'mothers,' as 'homemakers' and 'helpmeets,' " and at a public which applauds this attitude as "agreeably housewifely." The older women, she says, "have not kept ahead of the times," and she points with obvious approval to those others "who consider the vote the merest tool, a means to an end, that end being a complete social revolution." In this revolution one of the first steps is to be "the complete economic independence of women." Common as this phrase has become, I am convinced that many women must hear it without realizing its meaning. It means that not only unmarried women, but wives, shall actually earn their own living, with the very briefest possible "intervals for maternity," and shall feel their self-respect impaired if they do not. (A possible alternative is to have motherhood subsidized by the State, but of that we hear comparatively little.) "Many women believe it is absurd for an ablebodied woman to be supported by a man," says Mrs. Cooley. "Feminism," says Dora Marsden, in a leaflet which the National American Woman Suffrage Association publishes, "would hold that it is neither desirable nor necessary for women, when they are mothers, to leave their chosen, money-earning work for any length of time. The fact that they do so largely rests on tradition, which has to be worn down." Says Charlotte Perkins Gilman: "The woman should have as much to do in the home as the man -- no more . . . . Who, then, will take care of the sick baby? The nurse, of course. If the child is not seriously ill, the nurse is as good as the mother. If the child is seriously ill, the nurse is better." The loss to childhood from such a change in the home as would be involved in the mother's going out as a breadwinner is obvious. The loss to manhood is almost equally so. The bold and clear- sighted writer of The Century, already quoted, admits this with perfect candor. "If women are at a loss before the sight of their new world, men are to stand aghast before the crumbling walls of their old one. The keystone is falling. . . . . One of man's greatest spurs to action is taken from him, with no other incentive equally compelling to take its place." This feminist sees that her doctrine is revolutionary, but she believes the times demand a revolution. Most of us are not so pessimistic. What would be the effect on woman herself of such "independence"? I do not speak now of her physical, but of her moral endurance. Make maternity mostly a matter of "intervals," remove the close companionship of the child, the daily knitting of the tie between husband and wife by the thousand simple details of domestic life, and are we sure that woman's loyalty will stand the test? There are ominous changes, already, in women's standards. I do not mean conventional standards; I do not mean women's drinking and smoking; I mean more vital matters. A shrewd observer of modern tendencies said to me the other day, "The feminists would do away with prostitution by making all women unchaste." They were harsh words. But I had read the week before a review-copy of a book which is making its sale on the strength of its attack on "white slavery," and its heroine had insisted on her ideal as "love -- love in or out of marriage." Two years ago The Congregationalist characterized as "pagan" a brilliant novel whose heroine had prophesied, "The time will come when single women like me who work as men work will have the courage to love and bear children if they need -- and men will respect them." Such views have made rapid headway since. Will it be believed that an English magazine of fine literary quality, in which the work of Galsworthy and Arnold Bennett has often appeared, printed this fall an article by a woman pleading for a public sentiment in favor of irregular unions? "Women will go a step further toward freedom than men have dared to go," says Mrs. Walter Gallichan. "I believe that if there were some open recognition of these partnerships outside of marriage, not necessarily permanent, there would be many women who would be willing to undertake such unions gladly; there would even be some women, as I believe, who would prefer them to the present system that binds them permanently to one partner for life." Not "St. Paul's ideal," certainly! To many women these views seem so shocking that they cannot believe them to be widespread. I can only say that such women are leading "sheltered lives." Said a conspicuous sound feminist in an interview given to a Boston Sunday paper last year, "It is both cruel and foolish (eugenically and ethically) to prevent people from trying more than once to find their ideal comrade for race propagation." The fiction of the day is full of the disgusting experiences of young persons trying to find their ideal comrades. And an appalling number of these books bear marks of brilliant talent, utterly unconscious of moral standards, "pagan" in the fullest sense -- "studies of adolescence," many of them are. Illicit relations are entered on in the most casual way and dropped as casually, and yet glorified as marking new eras of "development." I know, of course, the answer made by thoughtful, conscientious suffragists who believe as strongly as I do in the integrity of the home, when facts like these are brought to their attention. "All suffragists are not feminists. All feminism is not of this extreme sort. Feminism is nothing but a theory, anyway." Each of us must judge from her own observation, but it should be observation, not merely of the lives of one's personal acquaintance, but of current thought and tendency. Many of us are convinced that an increasing and influential number of suffragists are feminists, that a great deal of feminism is of this extreme sort, and that it is a "theory" which, through channels direct and indirect, is poisoning our literature and our social life. Issued by the Massachusetts Association Opposed to the Further Extension of Suffrage to Women, 615 Kensington Building, Boston [*P 05 A3*] SOME OBJECTIONS TO MUNICIPAL SUFFRAGE FOR TAXPAYING WOMEN. BY FRANK FOXCROFT. The demand that municipal suffrage be given to taxpaying women is usually accompanied by the declaration that "taxation without representation is tyranny." But, as was remarked by the Rev. Dr. Lyman Abbott at the hearing before the committee on election laws of the Massachusetts Legislature of 1901, this declaration applied, when first uttered, and still applies, to communities, not to individuals. Nothing could have more surprised the founders of our institutions, who coined this watchword, than the idea that it would ever be used as a justification for woman suffrage. The worthies who sat in convention in Cambridge, in 1779, to frame a constitution for Massachusetts, were, most of them, active participants in the War of the Revolution. But not only did they never dream of giving the ballot to women taxpayers, but they shut out men taxpayers, unless they owned freehold estates within the Commonwealth producing an income of at least three pounds a year, or an estate of some sort of the value of at least sixty pounds. The first thing to be noticed in this proposition that the ballot be given to women property owners is that it discriminates against the vast majority of women, in favor of a comparatively small minority. Hitherto, the advocates of woman suffrage have professed to plead in the interest of woman wage-earners, of the great army of school-teachers, and of women in business or the professions. But what becomes of these classes under this proposition? They are to be discriminated against in favor of the few women who own property and are taxed upon it. Intelligence, capacity, executive ability, and fitness to deal with public affairs count for nothing: the one test applied is that of wealth. The petitioners for the ballot for taxpaying women ask the legislature to ignore the fundamental distinctions of function, training, education, and aptitude which are inherent in sex, and to set up the purely arbitrary distinction of property. A second objection to be noticed in this connection is that to give the ballot to taxpaying women would, in a considerable number of cases, double the voting strength in municipal affairs of a certain class of men. It is an open secret, or rather it is no secret at all, that many married women who are rated as taxpayers are such because their husbands have found it convenient, sometimes for reasons which would not bear the closest scrutiny, to deed over to their wives some portion of their property. The wife's ownership is nominal. The prime purpose which it serves is to keep the property affected out of the reach of the husband's creditors. It is aside from my purpose to condemn 2 this practice, which may often be justified by circumstances; but its wide prevalence is well known. To give the wife, in such cases, the municipal ballot would often be the same thing as giving the husband a plural vote; and that, all would recognize as undesirable and unjust. A third, and, ,as I think, conclusive objection to the proposal to give the municipal ballot to taxpaying women, is that it is based upon an idea which is fundamentally at variance with American institutions. What does the talk of the injustice of "taxation without representation" in this connection mean if not that property is entitled to vote, or that the owner of property is entitled to a vote because of such ownership? That is not the American idea. It is the British idea. In England the idea is carried so far that the owner of landed estates is entitled to vote in all the districts in which his estates are located; and the man who beat the record at the last parliamentary elections was one who, owning property in thirteen different parliamentary districts, so timed his schedule as to vote for thirteen members of Parliament. Such an arrangement as that may work in England, but it would not do in this country. With us, John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, or J. Pierpont Morgan has no more power at the polls than the humblest workman in his employ. In Massachusetts we got rid of the last vestige of the idea that there is a connection between ownership of property and the suffrage when, by the action of two successive legislatures and the vote of the people, we abolished the poll tax as a requisite for voting. The poll tax itself is retained, as a moderate and proper tribute which the citizen pays for the support of the government, but we no longer disenfranchise the man who fails to pay it. To carry out their idea to its logical conclusion, the petitioners for this legislation should insist that taxpayers be allowed to vote in all places where they pay taxes. It is to be noticed that their chief spokesman at the hearing of 1901 did this, declaring that if a person owned property in six towns, he should be privileged to vote in all of them, at least upon matters of local concern. But I think it will be long before any legislature subverts long-established institutions, and revives the discarded notion that the right to vote is connected with the ownership of property, by granting the prayer of these petitioners. Printed by the Massachusetts Association Opposed to the Further Extension of Suffrage to Women. Pamphlets and leaflets may be obtained from the Secretary, Room 615, Kensington Building, 687 Boylston Street, Boston, Mass. (Printed for the Massachusetts Association oppose to the Extension of Suffrage to Women.) SOME REMARKS ON THE PENDING PROPOSITIONS At the hearing before the Committee on Elections, February 24, 1897, on the petitions for Presidential Suffrage, Municipal Suffrage, and License Suffrage for Women, Mr. Frank Foxcroft, of Cambridge, spoke in substance as follows:-- Mr. Chairman, and Gentlemen of the Committee:-- The lady who opened this hearing for the petitioners for License Suffrage stated that the Legislature, to which it would be your duty to report, contains members whose votes upon this question are purchasable; but that there are no such gentlemen on this committee. That is a delicate compliment to the committee; but it seems to me an unwarranted reflection upon the Legislature. I prefer to believe, and I do believe, that not only the members of this committee, but the members of the Legislature intend to act upon such questions as this with a single eye to the public good. Of the three propositions before the committee, I shall not detain you with extended remarks upon the first, that for Presidential Suffrage for Women. This is a proposition which thus far has not found the slightest favor, even in the freak Legislatures of the West. Only last week the Kansas House refused to even discuss the suggestion. It is argued that under the constitutional provision that each State shall appoint Presidential electors in such manner as the Legislature thereof shall direct, it is entirely competent for the 2 Legislature to direct that they be elected in part by the votes of women. That may be. The constitutional provision is so broad that it might be possible for the Legislature to direct that the names of Presidential electors be drawn out of a hat. But it is not likely to do so. The framers of the Constitution assumed a certain degree of conservatism and prudence in legislators. The second proposition, that for Municipal Suffrage for Women, comes before the Legislature under unusual circumstances. In November, 1895, the male voters of Massachusetts, by a majority in round numbers of 100,000, voted that it was not expedient to grant municipal suffrage to women. The petitioners now ask this Legislature to override this clearly expressed decision. There are two arguments which might be used to sustain the appeal for municipal suffrage for women. It might be shown, first, that women need it, or, secondly, that the community needs it. Both would not be necessary. If it could be shown that women need it, it might be granted, even if there were no proof that the community would be better for it. Or if it could be shown that the community needed it, women might be asked to overcome any reluctance that they felt and to use the ballot as a duty due to the public. But I submit to you, gentlemen, that before municipal suffrage for women can be justified, one or the other of these claims must be made good, either that women need it, or that the community needs it. What is the evidence upon the first point? I give the women of Massachusetts credit for intelligence enough to know and to express any need which they feel. The referendum of 1895 gave them an opportunity to express themselves upon this point. The women of the State were invited to give their votes upon the question of the expediency of municipal suffrage for women. There were perhaps 3 575,000 women qualified to vote. The suffragists organized a campaign, raised money, distributed literature, and held meetings, and as the result of their exertions just 22,204 women went to the polls to say that they wanted the municipal suffrage. That is to say, about four in every hundred of the women of the State said that they wanted to vote at municipal elections. There is some quibbling about the position of the remaining ninety-six per cent. It is affirmed that they were merely "indifferent" to it. But if they had wanted the ballot, they would not have been "indifferent" to it; so that it comes to the same thing. Now as to the second point: Is there any evidence that the community needs the municipal ballot for women? I have listened to the arguments advanced to-day, and I have read much suffrage literature, but I have yet to find any advocate of suffrage for women who puts his finger upon any particular question of town or city government upon which the votes of women are needed. All towns and cities are not equally well governed; the same town or city is not equally well governed at all times; but taking them as a whole, for any considerable period of time, what question is there connected with their administration upon which there is reason to believe that the votes of women would be more wisely given than those of men? In what I have to say upon the third proposition, that for License Suffrage for Women, I am grieved to have to differ with the ladies of the Women's Christian Temperance Union, some of whom I am proud to number among my personal acquaintances. So far as that organization represents the interests expressed in its title I am fully in sympathy with it. But it as as a No-license man that I am opposed to giving license suffrage to women. And this not because I do not think that a majority of them would vote for No-license, but because, in my judgment, extending the ballot to them 4 upon this question would undermine the enforcement of the law. There are two classes of communities to be considered in this matter; those that are now carried for No-license, and those that are not now so carried, but that might be with the aid of the women's vote. I am from Cambridge, a city which has been carried eleven times against the saloons; and as a member of the No-license committee in sixteen campaigns, I am convinced that to give women license suffrage would be injurious to the No-license cause. There is a widespread impression that women, as a whole, are more emotional and less practical than men. I do not say that this is true; nor that, if it is true, it is not to the credit of women. But it is at least an impression sufficiently widespread to influence official action. Four fifths of the towns and cities of Massachusetts are already carried against the saloons. It is my belief that the situation there is better, with this result brought about by the vote of the men, than it would be if it were complicated by the addition of the women's vote. And what as to the other communities? I ask you, gentlemen, to consider what the situation would be in places where one electorate voted in the No-license system, and a different electorate, hostile to No-license, elected the officers whose duty it was to enforce the law. I am a strong believer in No-license; but I am not satisfied with nominal No-license. I want to see it thoroughly enforced; and it is because I believe that giving the License ballot to women would disturb and weaken the enforcement of the law that I oppose this proposition. Massachusetts Association Opposed to the Further Extension of Suffrage to Women Other Literature and information may be obtained from the Secretary of the Association, Room 615, Kensington Bldg., 687 Boylston St., Boston, Mass. 15 Some rights and exemptions given to women by Massachusetts Law November, 1912 SOME RIGHTS & EXEMPTIONS GIVEN WOMEN BY MASSACHUSETTS LAW. CITIZENSHIP WOMEN Acquires citizenship by marriage to a citizen though she herself may not be naturalized. She also has the rights of naturalization possessed by men. MEN To become naturalized aliens must prove a residence of five consecutive years in the United States. MILITARY DUTY WOMEN Exempt. MEN Liable. JURY DUTY WOMEN Exempt. MEN Liable. EMPLOYMENT WOMEN Careful supervision and regulation of hours of labor, and conditions of health and safety. MEN Less extensive provisions or none at all. TAXATION WOMEN The property of a widow or unmarried woman above age of 21 to the amount of $500, exempt from taxation, provided her whole taxable estate does not exceed $1000. Women are exempt from poll tax. MEN No corresponding exemption. ARREST WOMEN Women are exempt from arrest before judgment in civil actions arising out of contract. MEN No corresponding exemption. SUPPORT WOMEN Wife not bound to support husband, or minor children of independent means, or, during life of husband, minor children over sixteen years old. Wife jointly liable for debts for necessaries for herself and family to extent of $100, only, in each instance, provided debts are incurred with her knowledge or consent and provided she has property worth $2000. MEN Husband is bound under penalty of imprisonment to support his wife and minor children. They may pledge his credit, without liability to themselves, for necessaries appropriate to his station in life. DIVORCE WOMEN In addition to causes available to men non-support by husband is a cause for divorce. Court may also require husband to pay alimony during pendency of libel and costs of suit, even though wife brings it. MEN No corresponding provisions. DEATH OF HUSBAND OR WIFE WOMEN Widow may remain in husband's house six months, rent free; may also be given allowance for necessaries appropriate to station in life; both in preference to creditors. MEN No corresponding provisions. P 05 B 16 "The Successful Woman" AGNES EDWARDS (Reprinted from "Our Common Road" by permission of Houghton, Mifflin Company.) The mania for "doing things" gains more and more impetus as the days go by. Many a young girl - and the college graduate in particular - is apt to feel that her education has been wasted and that she is deteriorating unless she rushes into print, throws herself into a settlement class, takes a course of study, and does something definite to improve herself or the community. The modern woman feels it urgently incumbent upon her to be intelligent, energetic, and independent. She is conscientious and endeavors to be well informed upon every conceivable topic. And no one can deny that this is excellent. But meanwhile the woman who is too busy with household cares to be strenuously progressive or up-to-date gets a little discouraged, and the girl at home who has no particular talent eyes her cleverer acquaintances with mute envy. The women of to-day are, indeed, doing great things. In social and economic reforms they are foremost. In research work they are forging steadily ahead. Girls in the business world are making splendid headway, and women in professional fields are highly successful. But the fact remains that the women who really constitute the backbone of any country are not the few brilliant women in public life or the many working-women in business life. The women who are doing the greatest work of the country are those who have always done it. They are those women who, through their pure characters and their sweet influences, make their homes a center of happiness, who rear wholesome children, who make their fathers and brothers and husbands and mothers happier and better because of their presence. Not what she does, but what she is, makes the successful woman. It is not given to every woman to make a home or to contribute to a home: many thousands are forced into the world; some choose to go out. But the most fortunate women are those who are doing, not the spectacular things, but just those simple duties that are sometimes spoken of with weariness or even with half-contempt, but which should always be spoken of with reverence - woman's work. So much is said about the modern woman, with her well-trained mind and her many activities, that the old-fashioned woman sometimes feels quite useless and unnecessary. If she would only realize that more is not said about her because we accept her as we accept the blue sky, the sunshine, and all the kindly fruits of the world! The girl who goes down and labors with the poor and the destitute and the alien, and then writes a book about it, is doing good work and deserves the praise that comes to her. And the girl who lives in the village where she was born, helping where she can and scattering good cheer; the girl who is a restful influence in all this sea of unrest; the girl who is content to be sweet and does not join the mad scramble to be clever, is doing good work, too, and deserves the praise that usually does not come to her except indirectly. So many issues to be decided to-day! So many calls in every direction! Honors granted to women in every profession and in every field! Small wonder if the woman at home sometimes doubts if she is doing her part toward the world's progress. She need never doubt it. She can be sure that she is making the most fundamental contribution toward progress that any woman can make. But her reward does not come to her as it does to the woman in public life. It comes as Ruskin said happiness should come to all good women: "Her path is, indeed, strewn with flowers, but they spring behind her footsteps and not before them." Issued by the Massachusetts Association Opposed to the Further Extension of Suffrage to Women. Pamphlets and leaflets may be obtained from the Secretary, Room 615, Kensington Building, 687 Boylston Street, Boston, Mass. 15 [*1909 Law*] [*Mass A - opp & FE of S -to women*] [*Suffragist Anti Suff.*] [?05e2] Suffrage Statements Answered --- The Suffragists give the following reasons why Massachusetts women want the vote: I. They say: It is the line of progress---a natural step in the line of evolution. The Anti-Suffragists answer: The claim that woman suffrage is in the line of progress is a mistaken one. Evolution and civilization have led steadily toward differentiation of function between the sexes, not toward similarity. Suffrage purposes to set them at the same task, and demands that two people shall do the work of one; it is therefore retrogressive. 2. The Suffragists say: It is simple justice that in a democracy all citizens should have a voice in the government. Many women are taxpayers and all live under the laws. Many arguments against woman suffrage resolve themselves into arguments against democracy. The Anti-Suffragists reply: It is simple justice that in a democracy the majority should rule, and the great majority of women are opposed to suffrage. That the suffragists know this is shown by their unwillingness everywhere to have the question submitted to a referendum of the women. In regard to taxation, there is no connection in America between property and the vote. A man may own property and pay taxes in ten States without the right to vote in any one of them; and in the State where he does vote and where he can be called on for jury and militia duty he may pay not a cent of taxes. The arguments of suffragists that women did not help to make our laws and therefore ought not to have to be governed by them is a fallacy. If there were any logic in this argument we should have to make over all our laws every time a new citizen or immigrant came into the nation, or a new baby was born. A million times a year we should have to make over our laws. Massachusetts men who spend their vacations in Maine or New Hampshire would be free from obligation to obey the laws of those States, because they had had no voice in making them. 3. The Suffragists say: Men and women being unlike, the State needs the expression of their differing points of view. The Anti-Suffragists reply: Men and women being unlike it is foolish to insist that their relation to government should be the same. There are many effective methods for the expression of the feminine point of view besides the vote. Women's Clubs are responsible for more good laws than women voters. (OVER) 4. The Suffragists say: Women as home-makers and mothers need the ballot to obtain the proper sanitary and moral environment for their children. The Anti-Suffragist answer: Women as home-makers and mothers have not obtained better sanitary and moral conditions for their children in suffrage States than in non-suffrage States. In Colorado little girls of ten and boys of any age can carry on street trades, and Judge Lindsay is reported as saying that cases in his Juvenile Court on sex charges have multiplied 300 per cent. in the last few years. In Utah, a girl of twelve can carry on a boot-black’s trade. In Washington a child of ten, boy or girl, can beg, peddle or sing on the street, for gain, and child labor at night is prohibited in bake-shops only. These laws compare very unfavorably with those in many male suffrage States. 5. The Suffragists say: Women in gainful occupations outside the home need the ballot for their own protection. The Anti-Suffragists answer: As the laws for the protection of women in industry are better in male suffrage States than in woman suffrage States, wage-earning women cannot be said to need the ballot for their own protection. A considerable fraction of them are under twenty-one, and could not vote if the ballot was given to women. 6. The Suffragists say: Because women as a whole need the broadening and democratic interests. The Anti-Suffragists reply: The number of opportunities for women to have "broadening and democratic" interests are so innumerable that she cannot begin to exhaust them. The vote will add nothing to these opportunities. 7. The Suffragists say: We are confronted not by a theory, but by a fact. Women already have full suffrage in nine States and the territory of Alaska, and impartial testimony agrees that they exercise the right in the main wisely and to the benefit of the community. The Anti-Suffragists answer: It is true that women already have the vote in the most sparsely settled regions of this country where there are no large cities and where conditions are very unlike those in the great, thickly populated States of the Union. Utah has a population of about four to the square mile; Wyoming, which is one and one-half times as large as all New England, has a population about the size of Worcester, Mass. The whole nine suffrage States have a population much smaller than that of the State of New York. In several of these States Mormonism also has a strong hold, and populism and free silver have been popular causes. They are not models for Eastern States to follow. Impartial testimony is far from agreeing that suffrage even there is of benefit to the community. Its result is to weaken the electorate by increasing the proportion of boss-controlled and easily misled voters, and the proportion of stay-at-homes among the intelligent and respectable. --- Issued by the Massachusetts Association Opposed to the Further Extension of Suffrage to Women, 615 Kensington Building, Boston. 15 TAXPAYING SUFFRAGE LETTER FROM CHARLES R. SAUNDERS, ESQ., FOUR YEARS A MEMBER, AND THREE YEARS HOUSE CHAIRMAN, OF THE COMMITTEE ON ELECTION LAWS To the Counsel of the Massachusetts Association Opposed to the Further Extension of Suffrage to Women, on the occasion of a hearing before the Committee on Election Laws of the Massachusetts Legislature, in January, 1903. BOSTON, January 26, 1903. DEAR SIR: As you are aware, for fundamental and general reasons I consider all bills granting suffrage to women inexpedient in the highest degree. But I am very willing to state the special reasons why I am opposed to House Bill, No. 119, granting municipal suffrage to taxpaying women. The bill proposes to reestablish, for women, the tax qualification for men, stricken out of the Massachusetts Constitution in 1891 by 90,000 majority. Revolutions do not go backward. It has been settled once and for all in Massachusetts that it is the man, and not the house or the horse, that votes. But our woman-suffrage friends say, "Taxation without representation is tyranny." No phrase in political discussion is used so frequently with less comprehension of its real meaning. . When James Otis used those words before the Revolution, he used them with reference to the action of the British Parliament in imposing taxes upon the colonies without allowing anyone representing them to have a seat in Parliament and state their needs and participate in the law-making power. That is what Otis and Adams and Hancock meant by "taxation without representation," and such taxation as that was tyranny. But nothing was further from these men's minds than that every individual paying a tax should, in consequence of such 2 payment, have the right to vote. Why, these were the very men who, a few years later, framed the Constitution of Massachusetts, in which they declared that the representatives of the people ought to be chosen only by those male persons, twenty-one years of age, etc. That shows that our forefathers did not mean by "taxation without representation" what the suffragists would have us believe they meant, and it is grossly unfair to attempt to mislead people into the belief that that old rallying cry has any application to the woman suffrage question of to-day. The fact is that the payment of taxes and the right to vote have no connection whatever. The Boston Terminal Company, paying a tax of $218,000, is the heaviest taxpayer in Boston, but it has no vote. The largest individual taxpayer of Boston, paying a tax of $68,000, could not vote if he could not read and write. A man may own property in half a dozen places in the state, but he can vote in only one, the place of his residence. Minors are fully taxed on their property and so are aliens, but neither class can vote. This theory of the suffragists that taxation and voting go together would lead directly to the establishment of a government based on property, in which each person would be given votes in proportion to the tax he paid. The largest individual taxpayer mentioned above would have hundreds of times as many votes as I, and I, perhaps, would have several more than the man who sweeps my office. Such a doctrine militates directly against the rights and liberties of the individual as a member of the body politic. Massachusetts twelve years ago finally declared that the right to vote rests upon an entirely different foundation from the possession of property and the payment of a tax. Yours very truly, CHARLES R. SAUNDERS. [R?nd ?? S?lh???] THE WAGE-EARNING WOMAN AND THE STATE --- A REPLY TO MISSES GOLDMARK AND MRS. KELLEY Issued by The Massachusetts Association Opposed to the Further Extension of Suffrage to Women --- Pamphlets and leaflets may be obtained from the Secretary, Room 615, Kensington Building, 687 Boylston Street, Boston, Mass. THE WAGE-EARNING WOMAN AND THE STATE A Reply to Misses Goldmark and Mrs. Kelley A pamphlet has been issued recently by the National American Woman Suffrage Association, signed by Pauline Goldmark, Josephine Goldmark and Florence Kelley, which purports to be an answer to Miss Bronson's pamphlet entitled "The Wage-Earning Woman and the State." The gross and palpable errors it contains would make a reply undignified, were it not that the reputation of the signers for fairness and knowledge of the law, gives the criticism a weight which it does not deserve. In the pamphlet charges are made of misleading argument and mis-statement of facts. Of the truth of Miss Bronson's main contention, however, no denial is made; she is a tracked on minor or irrelevant points, but her conclusion stands unshaken. Miss Bronson shows: 1. That is suffrage states industrial laws are less favorable to wage-earning women than in non-suffrage states; and 2. That in all the male-suffrage states wage-earning women are better and more comprehensively safeguarded than wage-earning men; and concludes 3. That women have not improved industrial conditions for women by their votes. Half of the "reply" is devoted to showing that the four* suffrage states are behind the non-suffrage states in indus- *Women vote in Colorado, Idaho, Utah and Wyoming. Washington and California now (1912) have woman suffrage, but the laws of these States quoted herein were enacted by legislators chosen under male suffrage; these States are therefore included under non-suffrage States. 4 trial legislation because the number of women engaged in industry in the former is less than in the latter; the second half, to contradicting facts which have been vouched for by the Bureau of Commerce and Labor, and to showing that, because the number of men at work is greater than the number of women, men are better protected by law than women. It is remarkable how the argument of numbers is used to prove, first, that protection is unnecessary, and, second, that protection is an advantage. The first sentence of the criticism is wholly untrue; it says --- "The argument is wholly misleading because it ignores the fundamental differences in the industrial conditions of the suffrage and non-suffrage states." This is utterly false. On page 6 of "The Wage-Earning Women and the State," Miss Bronson says: "If we eliminate from this comparison the manufacturing states of the East, which, for obvious reasons, have the most and perhaps the best remedial laws for wage-earning women, and consider only those states which have practically similar conditions, we are able to determine more definitely what woman suffrage has accomplished for wage-earning women in the states where women have the franchise." Miss Bronson's comparison which follows, shows that three of the four states where women have voted from sixteen to forty-three years have no laws limiting the hours of labor for women, while the neighboring states of Oklahoma, South Dakota, North Dakota, Nebraska and Oregon --- where conditions of labor are practically the same as in the suffrage states --- regulate these hours by law. The critics, on page 2 of their pamphlet say: "No one can deny that factory legislation in the four suffrage states is less complete than in the more developed industrial states, . . . . but they have no such need." This is certainly intended to throw dust in the eyes of the reader, for the need is as great in the four suffrage states as in the western states above mentioned; and yet women by their votes have not secured the legislation that has been 5 enacted in neighboring male suffrage states of equal industrial development. This answers also the two pages of statistics which aim to show that in three eastern states there are over six hundred thousand females working in factories, and in the four suffrage states less than four thousand, as no comparison was made between these states. These statistics would be valueless except as proof of the statement that laws for the wage-earning woman have increased in accord with her increasing employment in the industrial world, and have increased without her enfranchisement. "No one can deny that factory legislation in the four suffrage states is less complete than in the more developed industrial states" --- a tacit acknowledgement that the states where most women are employed have the best labor laws --- but in these states no women vote. Again the critics repeat their mis-statement: "These fundamental differences between the suffrage and non- suffrage states are not even hinted at in this pamphlet." That this is false, reference to page 6 of "The Wage-Earning Woman and the State," as quoted above (page 4), shows. Next, they deny Miss Bronson's statement that sixteen states have passed laws protecting women from night work, and claim that only three states have passed such laws, i.e., Massachusetts, Nebraska, and Indiana; (these by the way, are male suffrage states). Nothing in their pamphlet shows more completely than this, the loose methods of investigation by these three critics. Evidently they have overlooked these facts: Bulletin 85 of the Bureau of Labor, page 653, gives the Missouri law prohibiting the employment of women in cities of five thousand inhabitants after ten o' clock at night; page 850, Report of Commissioner of Labor for 1907, gives a New Jersey law which specifically states the hours of the day during which women may be employed, eliminating night work; Wisconsin in 1910 passed a law similar to Connecticut's law regulating night work for women; South Carolina passed a law in 1910-1911 making it illegal to require night work 6 of women in mercantile establishments; and ten other states have passed laws applicable to very young women who are too old to be included under the child labor laws. Mrs. Kelley, herself, in the report of the National Child Labor Committee of 1911, says: "If we take down the receiver of a telephone in Cleveland or Cincinnati at night, it is not a young girl's voice that answers, any more than it would be in New Orleans. Louisiana and Ohio share, I believe, alone the honor due to their humane provision that all-night work shall not be done by young girls." Mrs. Kelley is wrong in limiting this provision to Louisiana and Ohio, for the same law is to be found in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, and several other states. But whether the number of states protecting woman from night work be six or sixteen, the fact remains that no such law exists in the suffrage states, while in the male suffrage state of Nebraska --- where conditions are similar to those in Colorado --- night work for women is prohibited by law. Surely this, at least, must have come under the notice of even these careless investigators. The last statement is the most specious of all:---"Working men have, by their vote, obtained very great advantages over women," and an attempt is made to prove this by citing the fact that the hours of labor in public employment have been limited to eight. The obvious error is that these eight-hour laws apply to women in public work as well as to men, and the fact that more men than women are thus employed does not alter the case. In Washington, D.C., the hours of work in public employment are limited to seven, the numbers of men and women employed are nearly equal, and neither can vote. As to the eight-hour law for men in mines, smelters, etc., the states which have passed such a law have also passed laws forbidding women to work in those occupations at all. But in addition to all these laws cited, applicable to both men and women, all the male suffrage states have passed other laws for the protection of women alone. 7 One of the most misleading statements made in the pamphlet of the National American Suffrage Association, and signed by Mesdames Goldmark and Kelley, is that Washington and California passed eight-hour laws because of woman suffrage. The eight-hour law of Washington was passed three months after woman suffrage came in, but it was passed by a legislature elected under male suffrage. The California legislature passed the eight-hour law for women nine months before woman suffrage was written into the Constitution of that state. If woman suffrage had failed, the law would still have existed. Moreover, the only woman who lobbied against the eight-hour law in California was the president of a suffrage organization in San Francisco. If the eight-hour laws of California and Washington were enacted because their legislators "saw that such legislation was not a matter of gallantry, etc.," it seems a little peculiar that woman suffrage has not improved the sight of law makers in Colorado, Wyoming and Idaho. In fact it looks as though woman suffrage had not yet obscured the vision of the law makers in California and Washington as it has in Colorado and the other suffrage states. It may be said in closing, that the authority for the facts in "The Wage-Earning Woman and the State" is the reports of the United States Bureau of Labor, presumably a higher authority than the authors of the so-called "reply." That the arguments of the critics are based upon a perversion of facts, becomes apparent by a reference to the sources referred to in Miss Bronson's original article and in this pamphlet. By such methods the "reply" in no wise disturbs Miss Bronson's contention that women have not improved industrial conditions for wage-earning women by the exercise of the franchise. July, 1912. MASSACHUSETTS ASSOCIATION OPPOSED TO THE FURTHER EXTENSION OF SUFFRAGE TO WOMEN 615 KENSINGTON BUILDING 687 BOYLSTON STREET, BOSTON We believe in Woman's RIGHTS. Primarily in her RIGHT to be exempt from the added burdens of government. The majority of the women of Massachusetts do not want to vote. They depend upon the men not to force suffrage upon them. 15 WHY I AM OPPOSED TO WOMAN SUFFRAGE BY JEANNETTE L. GILDER FOUNDER OF THE CRITIC WHY I AM OPPOSED TO WOMAN SUFFRAGE1 IT has been quite a shock to people who do not know me, but who thought they did, to find me opposed to woman's suffrage. Because I have been for so many years a working-woman, and because the profession I chose is, or was at the time I entered it, supposed to be entirely a man's profession, they thought I wanted all the privileges of men. But I don't. You could have counted the women journalists on the fingers of one hand at the time I entered the ranks. Nowadays you could not find fingers enough in a regiment to count them on. There are now certain branches of journalistic work that are almost entirely given over to women, and women not only edit mere departments of daily papers, but there are those who edit the Sunday editions of some of the biggest dailies. I am a great believer in the mental equality of the sexes, but I deny the physical equality. I believe in putting men's work and women's work of the same kind side by side, and judging them not as sex work, but simply as work. To have a "Woman's Building" at the World's Fair did not seem to me a compliment to the sex, but I believe some good reasons were advanced for it. Even some its staunchest advocates, however, doubt if there will ever be such another building at such another show. I do not believe in sex in literature or art. Every book should be compared with all other books of its kind, and so with every picture, statute, or musical composition. There are few trades or professions that I do not think women fairly well equipped for, or capable of being prepared for. I cannot say that I quite like the idea of a woman preacher, but that may be a mere prejudice; nor do I think that I would retain a woman lawyer. But this is neither here nor there. In politics I do not think that women have any place. The life is too public, too wearing, and too unfitted to the nature of women. It is bad enough for men - so bad, that some of the 1 Reprinted from Harper's Bazar, May 19, 1894. 3 best of them keep out of it; and it would be worse for women. Many of the women who are enthusiastic in the cause of suffrage seem to think that if they are once given the power to vote, every vexed question will be settled, every wrong righted. By dropping their ballots in the box they believe that they can set in motion the machinery of an earthly paradise. I wish I could think so. It is my opinion that it would let loose the wheels of purgatory. If the ballot were the end, that would be one thing, but it is only the beginning. It women vote they must hold office, they must attend primaries, they must sit on juries. We shall have women "heelers" and women "bosses;" there will be the "girls" of the Fourth Ward (when it comes to New York) as well as the "boys." What will become of home life, I should like to know, if the mother and the father both are at the "primary" or the convention? Who will look after the children? Hired mothers? But can every woman with political ambitions afford to pay for a "resident" or a "visiting" mother? And even if she can, will such a one take the place of the real mother? I think not. Cannot a woman find a sufficiently engrossing "sphere" in the very important work of training her children! If there are any sons among them, she can mould them into good citizens; if there are any daughters, she can guide their footsteps along any path they may choose, for all paths but the political are open to them. I do not think that to be a good housewife should be the end of aim of every woman's ambition, but I do think that it should be some part of it; for I am old-fashioned enough to be a pious believer in the influence of a mother's training upon her children. Read the life of any great man, and you will see how much of his greatness he owed to his mother. It seems to me that it is a bigger feather in a woman's cap - a brighter jewel in her crown - to be the mother of a George Washington than to be a member of Congress from the Thirty-second District. From the day Adam and Eve were created to the present year of grace men and women have been different in all important respects. They were made to fill different roles. It was intended by nature that men should work, and that women should share in the disposition and enjoyment of the fruits of their labor. Circumstances alter cases, and women are often - alas! too often - driven out into the world to make their own way. Would they 4 find it any easier if they had the ballot! Do men find it so easy to get work? If they do, why are there so many thousands of the clamoring unemployed? It is said that the laws are unfair to women. Then call the attention of the law-makers to the fact, and see how soon they will be amended. I think that men want to be fair to women, and a petition will work wonders with a Congressman. Will women always be fair to women? That is a serious question. They may on some points, but the question of chivalry never comes into consideration between women. It does between men and women, and the latter profit by it. I speak from experience when I say that I don't see how women can cultivate home life and enter the political arena. Circumstances forced me to go out into the world to earn my own bread and a part of that of others. When my mother was living, she made the home, and all went well. But after that, after marriages and deaths, a family of four small children came to me for a home. I don't mean for support, for they had a father living, but for a home. I had to take, as far as possible, the place of my sister, their mother. To do my duty by them and by my work was the most difficult task I ever undertook. I had to go to my office every day and leave them to the care of others. Sometimes the plan worked well, but oftener it worked ill --- very ill indeed. I had seven people doing, or attempting to do, what I and two others could have done had I been able to be at home and look after things myself. Suppose that politics had been added to my other cares? Suppose that I had had meetings to attend and candidates to elect, perhaps to be elected myself? What would have been the result? Ever direr disaster! We cannot worship God and Mammon; neither can we be politicians and women. It is against nature, against reason. Give woman everything she wants, but not the ballot. Open every field of learning, every avenue of industry to her, but keep her out of politics. The ballot cannot help her, but it can hurt her. She thinks it a simple piece of paper, but it is a bomb --- one that may go off in her own hands, and work a mischief that she little dreams of. Issued by the Massachusetts Association Opposed to the Further Extension of Suffrage to Women. Pamphlets and leaflets may be obtained from the Secretary, Room 615, Kensington Building, 687 Boylston Street, Boston, Mass. [*P 05 A 21*] WHY WOMEN DO NOT WISH THE SUFFRAGE BY REV. LYMAN ABBOTT, D. D. REPRINTED BY PERMISSION, FROM THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY, FOR THE MASSACHUSETTS ASSOCIATION OPPOSED TO THE FURTHER EXTENSION OF SUFFRAGE TO WOMEN WHY WOMEN DO NOT WISH THE SUFFRAGE. IN 1895 the women of Massachusetts were asked by the state whether they wished the suffrage. Of the 575,000 voting women in the state, only 22,204 cared for it enough to deposit in a ballot box an affirmative answer to this question. That is, in round numbers, less than four per cent wished to vote; about ninety-six per cent were opposed to woman suffrage or indifferent to it. That this expresses fairly well the average sentiment throughout the country can hardly be questioned. There may be some Western states in which the proportion of women, who, for one reason or another, desire the suffrage is somewhat larger ; on the other hand, there are Southern states in which it is even less. Certainly few men or women will doubt that at the present time an overwhelming majority of women are either reluctant to accept the ballot of indifferent to it. Why this indifference, this reluctance? This is the question which in this article I seek to answer. Briefly, I believe it is because woman feels, if she does not clearly see, that the question of woman suffrage is more than merely political ; that it concerns the nature and structure of society, –– the home, the church, the industrial organism, the state, the social fabric. And to a change which involves a revolution in all of these she interposes an inflexible though generally a silent opposition. It is for these silent women –– whose voices are not heard in conventions, who write no leaders, deliver no lectures, and visit no legislative assemblies –– that I speak ; it is their unspoken thought and feeling I wish to interpret. Open an acorn : in it we find the oak in all its parts, –– root, trunk, branches. Look into the home : in it we shall find the state, the church, the army, the industrial organization. As the oak is germinant in the acorn, so society is germinant in the family. Historically, the family is the first organization ; biologically it is the origin of all other organizations. Abraham builds an altar, and his wife and children and servants gather about it for the evening sacrifice : the family is the first church. The herds and flocks are driven daily to their feeding grounds by his sons and servants : the family is the first labor organization. He counsels, guides, directs, controls the children and servants ; the power of life and death is in his hands : the family is the first government. The brother is carried off in a raid by robber bands. Abraham arms and organizes his servants, pursues the robber bands, conquers and disperses them, and recovers the captive : the family is the first army. Moreover, it is out of the family that society grows. As the cell duplicates itself, and by reduplication the living organism grows, so the family duplicates itself, and by the reduplication of the family the social organism grows. The children of the family come to manhood, and marry the children of other families. Blood united them ; the necessities of warfare, offensive 2 Why Women do not Wish the Suffrage. offensive and defensive, unite them; and so the tribe comes into existence. For the united action of this tribe some rule, some authority is necessary; thus tribal, state, national government comes into existence. These families find it for their mutual advantage to engage in separate industries, and exchange the product of their labor: thus barter and trade and the whole industrial organization come into existence. These families thus united by marriage into one tribe, cemented by war in one army, bound together by the necessity of united action in one government, cooperating in one varied industry, find in themselves a common faith and common aspirations in a word, a common religion, and so the church comes into existence. Such, very briefly stated, is the development of society as we read it in the complicated history of the past. Historically the family is the first social organization. Organically it contains within itself all the elements of all future organization. Biologically, all future organization has grown out of it, by a process of duplication and interrelationship. In the family, therefore, we find all the elements of a later and more complicated social organization; in the family we may discover written legibly the laws which should determine the structure of society and should regulate its action; the family, rightly understood, will answer our often perplexing questions concerning social organization --- whether it is military, political, industrial, or religious. The first and most patent fact in the family is the difference in the sexes. Out of this difference in the family is created; in this difference the family finds its sweet and sacred bond. This difference is not merely physical and incidental. It is also psychical and essential. It inheres in the temperament; it is inbred in the very fibre of the soul; it differentiates the functions; it determines the relation between man and woman; it fixes their mutual service and their mutual obligations. Man is not woman in a different case. Woman is not man inhabiting temporarily a different kind of body. Man is not a rough-and-tumble woman. Woman is not a feeble and pliable man. This difference in the sexes is the first and fundamental fact in the family; it is therefore the first and fundamental fact in society, which is but a large family, growing out of and produced by the duplication and interrelationship of innumerable families. For it must ever be remembered that as the nature of the cell determines the nature of the organism which grows out of the cell, so the nature of the family determines the nature of society which grows out of the family. And the fundamental fact, without which there could be no family, is the temperamental, inherent, and therefore functional difference between the sexes. Because their functions are different, all talk of equality or non-equality is but idle words, without a meaning. Only things which have the same nature and fulfill the same function can be said to be superior to or equal with one another. Things which do not fulfill the same function are not thus comparable. For of two functions, each of which is essential to the life of the organism, neither can be said to be superior to the other. One branch may be equal or superior to another branch; but it cannot be said that the root is superior to the branch or the branch to the root. One eye may be superior to another eye, but the eye cannot be said to be superior to the ear, or the ear to the eye. Which is superior, a soldier or a carpenter? It depends upon whether we want a battle fought or a house built. Which is superior, Darwin's Origin of Species or Browning's Saul? This is like asking which is larger,---half an hour or half a yard. Gallantry will bow to woman and say, "You are superior." Egotism will look Why Women do not Wish the Suffrage. 3 with lordly air on woman and say, "You are inferior." But neither gallantry nor egotism will be rational. These twain are not identical. They do not duplicate each other. Man is not an inferior woman. Woman is not an inferior man. They are different in nature, in temperament, in function. We cannot destroy this difference if we would; we would not if we could. In preserving it lies the joy of the family; the peace, prosperity, and well-being of society. If man attempts woman's function, he will prove himself but an inferior woman. If woman attempts man's function, she will prove herself but an inferior man. Some masculine women there are; some feminine men there are. These are the monstrosities of Nature. She sometimes produces such monstrosities in other departments,---grotesque variations from and violations of the natural order,---not that we may follow them and attempt to reproduce them, but that we may see by contrast what Nature really is and rejoice the more in her. This distinction between the sexes---inherent, temperamental, functional---is universal and perpetual. It underlies the family, which could not exist if this difference did not exist. It is to be taken account of in all social problems, ---problems of industrial organization, religious organization, political organization. Should society ever forget it, it would forget the most fundamental fact in the social order, the fact on which is built the whole superstructure of society. It may not be altogether easy to determine the exact difference in function between the sexes; in minor details those functions may differ in differing civilizations. But speaking broadly, it may be said that the work of battle in all its forms, and all the work that is cognate thereto, belongs to man. Physically and psychically his is the sterner and the stronger sex. His muscles are more steel-like; his heart and his flesh are alike harder; he can give knocks without compunction and receive them without shrinking. In the family, therefore, his it is to go forth and fight the battle with Nature; to compel the reluctant ground to give her riches to his use. It is not for woman to hold the plough, or handle the hoe, or dig in the mine, or fell the forest. The war with Nature is not for her to wage. It is true that savage tribes impose this unfeminine task upon her; true that modern nations which have not yet fully emerged from barbarism continue to do so; true, also, that in the cruel industrial competitions of modern times there is, in some communities, a relapse into this barbarism. But whether it is the Indian squaw digging in the corn patch, or the German Frau holding the plough, or the American wife working the loom in her husband's place,---wherever man puts the toil that is battle and the battle that is toil upon the woman, the law of Nature, that is, the law of God, written in her constitution and in the constitution of the family, is set at naught. This is not to say that her toil is less than man's; but it is different. It may be easier to be the man with the hoe than the woman with the needle; it may be easier to handle the plough than to broil over the cook stove; but these tasks are not the same. The ceaseless toil of the field requires exhaustless energy; the continuous toil of the household requires exhaustless patience. Being a man, the exhaustless patience seems to me at once more difficult and more admirable than the exhaustless energy. But they are not the same. For like reason, it is not woman's function to fight against human foes who threaten the home. She is not called to be a soldier. She is not to be welcomed with the volunteers nor coerced into military service by the draft. It is in vain to recite the story of Joan of Arc; it is in vain to narrate the efforts of the Amazons. The instinct of humanity revolts against the employment of woman as a soldier on the battlefield. No civilized 4 Why Women do not Wish the Suffrage man would wish to lay this duty upon her; no civilized woman would wish to assume it. This is not to say that her courage is not as great as his. Greater is it in some sense, -- but it is different. For the Spartan mother to arm her son and send him forth with the injunction to come home bringing his shield or borne upon it, and then wait during the long and weary days to know which way he is to come, -- this requires, surely, a heroism not less than his: but it is not the same heroism; higher in some sense it is -- but it is not the same. In his courage are pride and combativeness and animal passion, sometimes well-nigh devilish passion; a strange joy in giving and receiving wounds, a music that grows inspiring in the singing of the bullets, an almost brutal indifference to the wounded and the dying all about him, which she could never get and remain woman. True to her woman's nature is Lady Macbeth's prayer, -- "Come, you spirits That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here." For until she had been unsexed, until she had ceased to be woman, she could not play the part which her destiny and her ambition assigned to her. For like reason society exempts woman from police functions She is not called to be sheriff or constable or night watchman. She bears no truncheon and wears no revolver. She answers not to the summons when peace officers call for the posse comitatus. She is not received into the National Guard when bloody riot fills the city with peril and alarms. Why not? Is she not the equal of man? is she not as loyal? as law abiding? as patriotic? as brave? Surely. All of these is she. But it is not her function to protect the state when foreign foes attack it; it is the function of the state to protect her. It is not her function to protect the persons and property of the community against riot; it is man’s function to protect her. Here at least the functional difference between the sexes is too plain to be denied, doubted, or ignored. Here at least no man or woman from the claim of equality of character jumps to the illogical conclusion that there is an identity of function. This much then seems clear to me, and I hope it is clear to the reader also: -- First, that the family is the basis of society, from which it grows. Second, that the basis of family, and therefore of society, is the difference between the sexes, -- a difference which is inherent, temperamental, functional. Third, that the military function, in all its forms and phases, belongs to man; that he has no right to thrust it upon woman or to ask her to share it with him; that it is his duty, and his exclusively, to do that battling with the elements which wrests livelihood from a reluctant or resisting Nature, and which is therefore the pre-requisite to all productive industry; and that battling with the enemies of society which compels them to respect its rights, and which is therefore the primary condition of government. For the object of government is the protection off person, property, and reputation from the foes which assail them. Government may do other things: it may carry the mails, run the express, own and operate the railroads; but its fundamental function is to furnish protection from open violence or secret fraud. If it adequately protects person, property, and reputation, it is a just government, though it do nothing else; if it fails to protect these primary rights, if the person is left to defend himself, his property, his reputation by his own strong arm, there is no government. The question, "Shall woman vote?" is really, in the last analysis, the question, "Ought woman to assume the responsibility for protecting person and property which has in the past been assumed by man as his duty alone?" It is because women see, what some so-called reformers have not seen, that the first and fundamental Why Women do not Wish the Suffrage 5 function of government is the protection of person and property, and because women do not think that they ought to assume this duty any more than they ought to assume that police and militia service which is involved in every act of legislature, that they do not wish to have the ballot thrust upon them. Let us not here make any mistake. Nothing is law which has not authority behind it; and there is no real authority where there is not power to compel obedience. It is this power to compel which distinguishes law from advice. Behind every law stands the sheriff, and behind the sheriff the militia, and behind the militia the whole military power of the Federal government. No legislature ever ought to enact a statute unless it is ready to pledge all the power of government-- local, state, and Federal -- to its enforcement, if the stature is disregarded. A ballot is not a mere expression of opinion; it is an act of the will; and behind this act of the will must be power to compel obedience. Women do not wish authority to compel the obedience of their husbands, sons, and brothers to their will. This fact that the ballot is explicitly an act of the will, and implicitly an expression of power or force, is indicated not only by the general function of government, but also by special illustrations. Politics is pacific war. A corrupt ring gets the control of New York city, or Minneapolis, or St. Louis, or Philadelphia, or perhaps of a state, as Delaware, Rhode Island, or Montana. The first duty of the citizens is to make war on this corrupt ring. The ballot is not merely an expression of opinion that this ring ought not to control; it is the resolve that it shall not control. A capitalistic trust gets, or tries to get, a monopoly which is perilous to commercial freedom; or a labor trust gets, or tries to get, a monopoly which is perilous to industrial freedom. A vote is not a protest against such control, -- it is not a mere opinion that it ought not to be allowed. It is a decree. The voter says, "We will not suffer this monopoly to continue." His vote means, in the one case, If you do not dissolve this capitalistic combination, in the other case, If you do not cease interference with the freedom of non-union labor, we will compel you to do so. If the vote does not mean this, it is nothing more than a resolution passed in a parlor meeting. The great elections are called, and not improperly called, campaigns. For they are more than a great debate. A debate is a clash of opinions. But an election is a clash of wills. One party says, "We will have Mr. Blaine President;" the other says, "We will have Mr. Cleveland President." Will sets itself against will in what is essentially a masculine encounter. And if the defeated will refuses to accept the decision, as it did when Mr. Lincoln was elected President, war is the necessary result. From such an encounter of wills woman instinctively shrinks. She shrinks from it exactly as she shrinks from the encounter of opposing wills on a battlefield, and for the same reason. She is glad to counsel; she is loath to command. She does not wish to arm herself, and, as a police or soldier, enforce her will on the community. Nor does she wish to register her will, and leave her son, her brother, or her husband to enforce it. If she can persuade them by womanly influence she will; but just in the measure in which she is womanly, she is unwilling to say to her son, to her brother, or to her husband, "I have decreed this; you must see that my decree is enforced on the reluctant or the resisting." She does not wish that he should act on her judgement against his own in obedience to her will; still less that he shall, in obedience to her will, compel others to act in violation both of their judgement and of his. And yet this is just what suffrage always may and sometimes must involve. The question, Shall woman 6 Why Women do not Wish the Suffrage. vote, if translated into actual and practical form, reads thus: Shall woman decide what are the rights of the citizen to be protected and what are the duties of the citizen to be enforced, and then are her son and her brother and her husband to go forth, armed, if need be, to enforce her decision? Is this where the functional line between the sexes is to be drawn? Are women to make the laws, and men to enforce them? Are women to decree, and men to execute? Is woman never to act as a private, but only as a commander-in-chief? Is this right? Is it right that one sex shall alone enforce authority, but the other sex determine when and how it shall be exercised? Is this expedient? Will it promote peace, order, prosperity? Is it practicable? Will it in fact be done? Suppose that in New York city the women should vote for prohibition and the men should vote against it; is it to be expected that the men would arm themselves to enforce against their fellow men a law which they themselves condemned as neither wise nor just? To ask these questions is to answer them. The functions of government cannot be thus divided. In a democratic community the duty of enforcing the law must devolve on those who determine what the law shall be that is to be enforced. It cannot be decreed by one class and enforced by another. It is inconceivable that it should be decreed by one sex and enforced by the other. This is the negative reason why woman does not wish the ballot: she does not wish to engage in that conflict of wills which is the essence of politics: she does not wish to assume the responsibility for protecting person and property which is the essence of the government. The affirmative reason is that she has other, and in some sense, more important work to do. It is more important than the work of government because it is the work for the protection of which governments are organized among men. Woman does not wish to turn aside from this higher work, which is itself the end of life, to devote herself to government, which exists only that this higher work may be done. Nor does she wish to divide her energies between the two. This higher work, which is itself the end of life, is Direct Ministry to Life. What are we in the world for? The family answers the question. We marry. Children are given to us to protect, govern, nurture, train. They grow to manhood, and in turn they marry, and to them in turn children are given to protect, govern, nurture, train. The first parents linger a few years that, as grand- parents, they may have the pleasure of the little children without the responsibility for them, and then they die. Their work on earth is done, and they go forward to we know not what work in a life to come. The end of life is the rearing and training of children. As the family is historically the first organization, as it is biologically the unit out of which all other social organisms are formed, so its protection and maintenance are the objects for which all other social organizations have been called into existence and are maintained. Struggle for others, as Professor Drummond has well shown, is an even more vital element in human progress than struggle for self; and in the family this struggle for others receives its first and finest illustration. Political economists have told us that self-interest is the mainspring of industry. It is not true. Love is the mainspring of industry. It is love for the home and the wife and the children that keeps all the busy wheels of industry revolving, that calls the factory hands early to the mill, that nerves the arm of the blacksmith working at his forge, that inspires the farmer at his plough and the merchant at his desk, that gives courage to the soldier and patience to the teacher. Erskine was asked how he dared, as an unknown barrister, face a hostile court and insist on his right to be heard. “I Why Women do not Wish the Suffrage. 7 felt my children," he replied, "tugging at my robe and saying, 'Here is your chance, father, to get us bread.'" It is this vision of the children, dependent on us, that inspires us all in the battle of life. It is for our homes and our children we maintain our churches. They are not spiritual restaurants where we pay for our own food passed over the counter to us by an attendant priest; they are the instrument, which some of us think God has created, others of us think man has devised, to help us endow our children and equip our homes for life. It is for our homes and our children we tax ourselves to maintain the public school; for our homes and our children we maintain government, that our loved ones may live in peace and safety, protected by law, while we, their natural protectors, are away earning the bread wherewith to feed them; for our homes and our children we fight when peace and safety are endangered, and government is assailed by foreign foe or domestic violence. Whether we cultivate a farm, or operate a factory, or manage a store, or build and conduct a railroad, or paint pictures, or write books, or preach sermons, or enact and enforce laws, - whatever we do, the end of our activity is the nurture and training of children in this primary school, which we call life, in preparation for some life, we know not what, hereafter. In this work of direct ministry to the individual, this work of character-building, which is the ultimate end of life, woman takes the first place. The higher the civilization the more clearly is her right to it recognized. She builds the home, and she keeps the home. She makes the home sanitary; she inspires it with the spirit of order, neatness, and peace; she broods it with her patient love, and teaches us to love by her loving. Her eye discerns beauty, her deft fingers create it, and to her the home is indebted for its artistic power to educate. If she has not the artistic sense, no purchased beauty, bought of a professional decorator, can supply the vacancy. She instills into the little child the love of truth and purity, the subtle sense of honor, the strong spirit of courage and high purpose. If her home duties do not absorb her time and energy, she seeks the field of charity or education, or accepts the invitation which these fields offer to her. She becomes a director in or a visitor to some of the innumerable charities in which life is ministered to the unfortunate, the feeble, the incompetent. If we accept Micah's definition of religion, To do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God, then we may say that, with rare exceptions, woman chooses to leave to man the sterner task of administering justice, and delights herself in the ministration of mercy. She does so because in these unpaid ministries of mercy, sometimes in institutions, sometimes in private and unorganized service, is the direct impartation of life which is her highest joy. If she has no home in which she can and does minister, she instinctively seeks the schoolroom as her field, and there, substituting for the mother, imparts life, and endows with intelligence, and equips with culture the children intrusted to her charge. If necessity drives her or ambition entices her to other fields, her womanly instinct still asserts itself. If she enters the law, it is generally to be a counselor rather than a combatant; if literature, her pen instinctively seeks the vital rather than the materialistic themes. She is a minister to life. And when mistakenly ambitious women would persuade her to leave this ministry for the woodman's axe, the farmer's plough, or the policeman's truncheon, she does not even entertain the proposition enough to discuss it. When she looks out of the window of her home or her school and sees the platoon of policemen on a run to quell a riot, or a fire engine dashing by to extinguish a fire, she has no wish to join them; the boy's eager request, 8 Why Women do not Wish the Suffrage. "May I go, mamma? May I go?" awakens no like desire in her. For in her subconscious self is the knowledge that she is doing the work which makes it worth while to quell riots and extinguish fires. She is more than content that her sons, her brothers, her husband shall protect the life to which she ministers, and shall determine how it can best be protected, if she is left to minister to it directly, in peace and safety. And she is right. If she were to go into politics, she would leave undone the work for which alone government exists, or she would distract her energies from that work, which she knows full well requires them all. Can she not do both? No! no more than man can. He cannot be at the same time in the market winning the bread, in the forum shaping the public policies, and in the home ministering to life. Nor can she. She must choose. She may give her time and thought and energy to building a state, and engaging in that warfare of wills which politics involves; or she may give her time and thought to the building of men, on whose education and training, church, state, industry, society, all depend. She has made her choice and made it wisely. Necessity, born of an imperfect industrial system, may drive a few thousand women into battle with Nature in bread-winning vocations; ambition may call a few women down and out form the higher vocation of character-building to participate in public debate before the footlights; the clamors of an ill-instructed conscience may force a few more to leave the congenial work of directly ministering to life, that they may undertake the more indirect ministry through village or city boards, state legislatures, and Federal Congress; but the great body of American women are true to themselves, to the nature God has given them, and to the service He has allotted to them, - the direct ministry to life, - and will neither be forced nor enticed from it by their restless, well-meaning, but mistaken sisters. Printed by the Massachusetts Association Opposed to the Further Extension of Suffrage to Women. Pamphlets and leaflets may be obtained from the Secretary of the Association, [Mrs. ROBERT W. LORD P.O. Box 2262, Boston.] ADDRESS THE SECRETARY BROOKLINE, MASS. P.O. BOX 134. The Vote of Massachusetts on Municipal Suffrage for Women at the State Election, November 5, 1895. OVER 100,000 MAJORITY AGAINST IT ON THE PART OF MEN. Every County and every Congressional, Councilor, Senatorial and Representative District votes "NO" on the Proposition. After twenty-five years of agitation by the suffragists, the question of municipal suffrage for women was brought to a test at the State election, November 5, 1895. The voters were asked their opinion, and gave a most emphatic reply. Never was there so full an expression of opinion upon any question submitted to the people of Massachusetts. The vote for governor at the State election was 328,121. The vote of the men upon municipal woman suffrage at the same election was 273,946. Over 83 per cent of those voting for governor voted upon this question, while in 1891 only 62 per cent of those voting for governor voted upon the constitutional amendment abolishing the poll tax as a prerequisite for voting, and in 1896 only 72 per cent of those voting for governor voted upon the constitutional amendment providing for biennial elections. Never has any question submitted to the people of Massachusetts received so overwhelming a defeat. The vote of the men was, "No" 186,976, "Yes" 86,970, a "No" majority of 100,006. The vote in 1889 on the prohibition amendment to the constitution was, "No" 133,085, "Yes" 86,459, a "No" majority of 46,626. The vote in 1896 on the biennial elections amendment was, "No" 161,263, "Yes" 115,505, a "No" majority of 45,758. So that the majority against woman suffrage in Massachusetts is more than twice as great as that against either prohibition or biennial elections. The vote of the women on the suffrage question, "Yes" 22,204, "No" 861, is as significant as that of the men. By the census of 1895 the number of men in Massachusetts qualified to register and vote was 560,802. The number of women qualified to register and vote on this question was at least 575,000. Of these more than 550,000 declined to vote, and less than four in a hundred voted "Yes." In other words, more than 96 per cent of women of the Commonwealth either prefer the present status of the suffrage or are wholly indifferent in the matter. In 48 towns not on woman voted "Yes," and in 137 other towns the women voting "Yes" numbered fifteen or less. As the vast majority of women opposed to the suffrage expressed their opinion by refusing to vote, the women's vote, for purposes of tabulation, has little value. In the following statement of votes, therefore, the votes of the men alone are considered. Massachusetts, at the time of the election, had 31 cities and 322 towns. Of the 31 cities, every one cast a large majority against woman suffrage. The vote of the cities was, "No" 120,657, "Yes" , 53,982, a "No" majority of 66,675, Many people have thought that the vote against woman suffrage was disproportionately heavy in the cities, but this is not so. The vote of the 322 towns was, "No" 66,319, "Yes" 32,988, a "No" majority of 33, 331. The cities of Massachusetts contain two-thirds of the population of the State, and, in an even distribution of sentiment, should therefore contribute two-thirds of the "No" majority. That is just what they did and the closeness of the figures to an exact two-thirds is remarkable. Of the 322 towns, 293 voted "No," 28 voted "Yes," and 1 was a tie. The 28 towns voting "Yes" were among the very smallest in the State, their vote averaging only "Yes" 51, "No" 42. Every County and every Congressional, Councilor, Senatorial and Representative district in the Commonwealth cast a majority against the proposition. Issued by the Massachusetts Association Opposed to the Further Extension of Suffrage to Women. Pamphlets and leaflets may be obtained from the Secretary, Room 615, Kensington Building 687 Boylston Street, Boston, Mass. (FIFTH EDITION. SEVENTEENTH THOUSAND) WOMAN'S RIGHTS IN AMERICA A RETROSPECT OF SIXTY YEARS 1848-1908 BY MRS. CAROLINE F. CORBIN REPRINTED BY COURTESY OF THE ILLINOIS ASSOCIATION OPPOSED TO THE EXTENSION OF SUFFRAGE TO WOMEN BY THE NEW YORK STATE ASSOCIATION OPPOSED TO WOMAN SUFFRAGE OFFICE: 29 WEST THIRTY-NINTH STREET, ROOM 819 NEW YORK CITY WOMAN'S RIGHTS IN AMERICA A RETROSPECT OF SIXTY YEARS 1848-1908 In July, 1848, just sixty years ago, the first call for a public meeting 'to consider the social, civil, and religious condition and rights of women," was issued by four women in the State of New York. This is usually considered the beginning of the Woman's Rights movement in America. It is not generally understood that the commencement of the work of securing legal property rights for women, antedated this call by twelve years; that it was commenced, not by women, but by men, was carried forward by men, and crowned with success through the labors of men. As early as 1836, Judge Hertell presented to the legislature of New York, a measure to secure property rights to married women. The bill had been drawn under the supervision of the Chief-Justice of the Supreme Court and one of the official revisers of statutes. It aroused much discussion, but failed to pass. It was advocated, however, by Paulina Wright Davis and Ernestine L. Rose, two women of that extreme type of so-called reformers, now known as socialists or anarchists; a type then represented in New York by a few noisy agitators who called themselves philanthropists. So unpopular was woman suffrage at that time, that it is more than probably that the advocacy of these women was partly responsible for the defeat of the bill. It served, however, to maker the fact that from the beginning of the woman movement there has always been two distinct forces at work - the calm evolutionary growth of sentiment in regard to the importance of woman as a factor in the social and civil development of the Christian state, and the fanatical, unreasoning, and destructive claims of those who would overturn the state altogether, and with it all the institutions of Christian civilization. The orderly and humane sentiment in favor of woman's rights, however, continued to process. It was manifested in efforts for the higher education of women under the leadership of such men and women as Horace Mann, Emma Willard, Mary Leon, and scores of other educators, less known but not less earnest in their activities. All these philanthropists plead for the 3 improvement of educational facilities for women, in order that they might be better prepared for their work as wives and mothers; especially that they might train the coming generation in mind and morals and social philosophy to be equal to their enhancing destiny as American citizens. They openly deprecated the idea of making politicians rights of women - woman suffragists, as they had begun to be called - urged the education of women along the same lines as those established for the education of men. They scorned women's seminaries and colleges, and demanded that the universities and professional colleges for men should be opened to women on equal terms, in order that women might become doctors, lawyers, preachers, and teachers of the higher branches of learning, equally with men. In the meantime, two men in the State of New York, impelled by the fact that each had a relative, the one a wife and the other a young daughter, who might in the event of their death or of financial disaster, be bereft of property which they held by personal inheritance, renewed the agitation for the legal rights of women, and in 1848, carried their bill through the legislature. There is ample evidence that these men were not influenced by women, in their endeavors, and that political rights for women were quite out of the scope of their purposes. About the same time, several other state legislatures were moved by similar considerations to take the same action - namely, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Texas, New Hampshire, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Iowa. In not one of these states had the cause of woman suffrage a shadow of influence, at that time. Such legislation sprang from a simple sense of justice on the part of the free men of America toward the women who are their partners or their heirs in the rights of a free country. Sixty years ago, for it will be noticed that he epoch was equally marked in the progress of the two movements in behalf of women, the country was poor, and especially in the Western States then being rapidly settled and just forming their institutions, the expedient of co-education seemed to promise a speedier advance in the education of women than could be attained in any other way. It thus happened that the two movements, which were in reality wholly separate in their origin and motive, seemed to coalesce, and a number of state universities and a few of private origin adopted co-education. The suffragists, with an assurance in which they have never been wanting, claimed this 4 as a great step in progress, and one wholly due to their exertions. Then, for a time, it seemed that the doctrine of the political rights of women was making a great advance; and when two or three states in the far west, whose population was scattered for the most part in newly-planted villages along the Rocky Mountains - under strong populist and Mormon influence - granted full suffrage to women, it really seemed as though the so-called emancipation of women loomed in the near future. But a new force was preparing to enter upon the field. For forty years the quiet, home-loving women of America had been silently but closely watching the course of events to see what was likely to be the outcome of all this agitation in behalf of woman. In that time, they had formed deep and decided convictions upon the subject. They could see in the demand for woman suffrage only an attempt to thrust upon them, in addition to their own most important and exhausting duties, those labors and responsibilities of which they had hitherto been relieved by the men of their households, under that specialization of the work of the two sexes which they believed to be of divine ordination. They were averse to public action, unaccustomed to conventions and platforms, but their moral sense was aroused, and for their conscientious convictions they were ready to make some painful sacrifices. The inception of this movement was nearly simultaneous though wholly unrelated, in the East and the West. Its first stirrings came to the surface in 1880-85. It commenced by quiet opposition, through petitions and personal please, to the suffrage bills which were introduced into legislatures, by remonstrances in the public press, and by the private circulation of literature to newspapers, legislators, libraries, and prominent men and women in the various states. Year by year, the movement grew. For the first decade, it was wholly unorganized, although there was a lively and cordial correspondence between the anti-suffragists in different parts of the country. But at the end of that time, associations and committees began to be formed, until at present in every state where the suffrage movement shows dangerous strength, a counter movement is quietly set on foot. Many thousands, of anti-suffrage documents are printed and distributed every year, and it is well known throughout the country that the women who direct the movement are of high character and standing, often including some of the ablest and most influential in their section of the country. As a result of this activity, the 5 suffrage movement has not gained a legislative victory of any importance during the last ten years, while its defeats are numbered by the hundreds. At the very beginning of the anti-suffrage movement, it attracted a considerable number of that class of women who had been prominent in philanthropic enterprises and had received government appointments upon the boards of educational and charitable bodies. These women called attention to the fact, that in their very responsible positions they enjoyed special privileges and advantages because they were not voters. [See "How Women May Best Serve the State," by Mrs. Barclay Hazard.] Most popular governments are conducted by political parties, and a keen rivalry exists between them. Every voter is intently scanned, and if he wishes any favor from the government it must be obtained through his party, and not by appeal to the country at large; and his request is sure to be antagonized by the opposing party, without reference to the justice or reasonableness of his claim. Time and again, such appeals for just and beneficial measures have been disregarded from party motives. But it was soon found that if such appeals came from the women interested, acting individually and from no political motive whatever, but simply in behalf of the public good, there was little difficulty in having them granted. Women have thus come to occupy an independent position above all parties - a position of which the right to vote would rob them immediately. These women, therefore, said at once, and time has only added emphasis to their statement, that women possess far more influence in the state for all moral and unselfish purposes, without the ballot, than they would have with it. It is only for purposes of selfish ambition, political intrigue, and noisy notoriety, that the ballot avails anything to woman. It may fairly be said that the practical experiments that have been made with woman suffrage have substantiated this statement. Women who are unselfishly devoted to the public good are gradually coming to form a third party, independent of all political parties, and wielding an influence above them all. In this way, they have an assured position of their own, while as party politicians they must rise or fall with the fortunes of their masculine co-workers. Co-education has also developed some unexpected results. From the point of view of economy, it is no doubt a success; but that there are embarrassing circumstances, arising from the social intercourse of youth of both sexes, without the restraints of home-life or parental care, is manifest from the earnest attempts at "segregation" in some of our largest institutions. Intellectually, also there has been found to be a serious difference between 6 the adaptability of girls and boys for certain courses of study. From classes in architecture, mining, engineering, civil or electrical, and others of similar scope, including those increasingly popular ones that involve advanced manual training, it has proved to be for the best good of all concerned, that girls should be excluded; while in many cases, courses in domestic science, hygiene, the chemical values of food, and cooking, and in some instances, the care and nursing of invalids and children, have been substituted. But, perhaps, the most important conclusion, established by this retrospect of sixty years, remains to be noted. It will easily be recalled that the year 1848 was that of the attempted socialistic revolution in Europe, which developed so formidable a power and came near rivaling the catastrophe of 1793, in importance. It is now well known and admitted that woman suffrage is not only a tenet of Socialism, but one of its fundamental principles; the one, indeed, that is most indispensable to its success, since any "revolution" that affects but one-half the race, must of necessity be futile - abortive. Absolute "equality" of all human beings is all that will satisfy the socialistic requirements. It was from this sentiment, so widely diffused in Europe in the middle of the last century that the woman-suffrage movement in America took its rise. Comparatively few Americans were aware of the fact, at the time of its inception. Still fewer realized that so vital was the connection between the offshoot and the parent stock, that no other means of opposing Socialism could be so effective as to combat and frustrate its efforts to achieve the industrial and political independence of women. In the opinion of many of the closest observers, the cause of woman suffrage would have been dead in America, long ago, if it had not been for the energetic support, open or covert, which it has received from the Socialistic propaganda. With Socialists, as we have said, the question of woman suffrage is of the deepest and most vital import It is indispensable to their schemes. It is for this reason that women are everywhere welcomed to their councils, made prominent upon their platforms, encouraged to take part in their secret intrigues, and indeed in their armed assaults. The main objects of Socialism, so far as women are concerned, is to revolutionize entirely her position in regard to all social and political life. A recent newspaper article puts the case very fairly thus: "It is a physiological fact that in justice to herself, her children, and to society at large, the child-bearing woman ought not to be compelled to labor for her own support. Her maternal duties constitute an insurmountable handicap in the labor market. "The present social order meets this condition of things by providing that the father of her children shall, through the institution of marriage, labor for her support and that of their children, he attending to the external duties of their united life, and she to the domestic affairs. If woman is to become industrially 7 independent of man, some other way of providing for her support during her child-bearing years must be devised. Socialism puts this responsibility upon the state, together with that of caring for the children. What then becomes of marriage and the home? Is there any escape from the conviction that the industrial and political independence of woman would be the wreck of our present domestic institutions?" It is precisely this end at which Socialism aims. This is the true significance of its outcry for "equality" between men and women, for "equal work" and "equal pay," without regard to those characteristics and conditions of sex that practically modify, to a great extent, the amount and character of service; the demand for free marriage, free divorce, and the removal of all legal or social restrictions upon the relations between men and women. Anti-suffrage women have not failed to take into the account, the embarrassments that have arisen from the changes that are going on in regard to the employment of women in those occupations which have hitherto been regarded as belonging exclusively to men. They believe these changes, adverse as they are to the wage-earning capacity of men, and therefore most inimical to the true interests of the home, are temporary, and that they will yield in time to the increasing sense of the importance and dignity of our domestic institutions, and those varied domestic needs which are now so hampered by lack of capable and efficient service. But whatever the remedy for these evils of a transitional state, they are firmly convinced that it does not lie in the direction of woman suffrage nor any other socialistic nostrum. Mrs. Cobden Sanderson, the English suffragist who has recently been advocating in America the violent methods employed by the extremists of her party in England, is reported as saying publicly on her return to her own country, that the anti- suffrage movement in America is having a most disastrous effect upon the suffrage cause, and that she could see little hope for suffrage in America, except through Socialism. But will not American women pause to reckon the price which they must pay to the Socialist propaganda for the so-called emancipation? That price is simply the wreck of the home, the abandonment of all their legal rights to its support and protection and the surrender of their children to the care of the state. This is the question which they face when they listen to the specious pleas and fallacious statements of the advocates of woman suffrage. NOTE TO THE SECOND EDITION. The following testimony taken from the History of Woman Suffrage by Mrs. E.C. Stanton, Miss S.B. Anthony and Mrs. M.J. Gage is a sufficient reply to those critics who have questioned the statement that the passage of the Woman's Property Bill by the N.Y. Legislature of 1848 was not the work of suffragists, but of men who were actuated 8 by motives of simple justice towards the women in their homes and who were in no way identified with the movement for woman suffrage. In Chap. IV, Vol. It is stated, that desiring to know who prompted the legislative action (Women's Property Bill), a letter of inquiry was addressed by Mrs. Gage to Hon. George Geddes. Evidently, therefore, neither of the three ladies engaged in the work had been the author of the bill, nor had known who was its author, nor who had conducted the enterprise. Mr. Geddes' reply to this is given in full, and is very specific. He says that Judge Fine, of St. Lawrence, a stately, conservative gentleman of the old schools, not a radical, nor a reformer, prompted by fear lest his wife, in the event of his death, might be deprived of her personal estate, originated the bill. That he, Mr. Geddes, having long cherished such a solicitude for his own young daughter, was glad to follow such a leader. "I believe," he says, "that the bill originated with Judge Fine, without any outside promptings. Mrs. Gage had inquired in her letter what debates preceded its passage. Mr. Geddes replies, "I know of no such debates." The passage of the bill was greatly facilitated - Mr. Geddes quotes the record - by Mr. Hardy, speaker of the assembly, who when asked the reason of his zeal, replied, "I have no other reason but that it is a good measure and ought to pass." There is no evidence from Mr. Geddes' long and carefully written letter that any woman had any hand in the passage of the bill. The men who are responsible for it belonged to the class of persons who advocated a sane and orderly improvement in the condition of woman but did not dream of urging for her, political rights. Equally strong and convincing evidence is furnished by the Massachusetts Association Opposed to the further Extension of Suffrage to Women, which we have not space to transcribe. The Illinois Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage OFFICERS President, Mrs. Caroline F. Corbin Vice-Presidents, Mrs. S.M. NIckerson Mrs. James M. Walker Mrs. R.J. Oglesby Mrs. T.B. Blackstone Mrs. Geo. W. Kretzinger....................................................Recording Secretary Miss J.C. Fairfield....................................................Treasurer EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE The Officers and, Mrs. B.F. Ayer Mrs. Francis Lackner Mrs. John de Koven Miss Larrabee Miss Mary Pomeroy Green Mrs. J.H. Roseboom Miss M.D. Hutchison Mrs. Orson Smith Mrs. R.N. Ishan Mrs. John C. Willing SECRETARY FOR LITERATURE Miss J.C. Fairfield 1523 Dearborn Avenue, Chicago THE REAL DANGER OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE SOCIALISM IN THE WAKE OF SUFFRAGE - THE RED BEHIND THE YELLOW (From The Remonstrance for July, 1913) The writer stood on Fifth Avenue one night last November watching the Woman's Suffrage parade. It moved past him a giddy, fluttering mass of yellow, its bands playing popular airs, while the marchers kept time with their yellow jack o'lanterns hoisted on sticks. Their faces were wreathed in smiles, and now and again they broke into song as this or that popular tune caught their fancy. It was a veritable fairyland of dancing yellow. Suddenly, the scene changed. The yellow was gone, and in its place was red, - red sashes, red banners, red hat-bands, red dresses. The light, gay music had died away, and there burst on the night air the solemn, stirring strains of the "Marseillaise," the famous revolutionary anthem. Men and women were marching past now, hundreds of them in close ranks, with firm, steady tread, determination written on their grim, set faces. All was red, red, red, and, as the writer gazed, stunned by the sudden, weird transformation, he saw displayed on their red banner the inscription, - EVERY SOCIALIST IS A WOMAN SUFFRAGIST. Behind that giddy body of yellow suffragists came the compact mass of red-clad Socialists. Just so in our whole nation today. Socialists are behind Woman Suffrage, and, if they should succeed in getting it, as the red suddenly flashed out in place of the yellow before the writer's eyes in the parade that November night, so will the Socialist Republic and the Co-operative Commonwealth burst forth close in the wake of Woman Suffrage. Do you realize what this would mean? Do you appreciate what Socialism stands for? In the Economic Revolution, the Socialists propose to do away with private productive property. The State will then own everything, and every one will work for the State for a living. The Socialists call our present marriage ceremony "useless and ridiculous," and they intend to substitute for it "a mutual understanding" that can be terminated by "quick, easy divorce at the will of either party." People will then "live like birds." In the place of our homes of today, they will give us our homes of today, they will give us one kitchen, one laundry, etc., for many so called families. They will even have state nurseries to take care of the children after they are a year old, while their mothers are out working for a living under the state. Karl Marx, the Father of Socialism, speaks thus of the family and home life in "The Communist Manifesto": "On what foundation is the present family based? On capital, on private gain. In its completely developed form, this family exists only among the bourgeoisie. But this state of things finds its complement in the practical absence of family among the proletarians (working class) and in public prostitution. The bourgeois family will vanish as a matter of course when its complement vanishes, and both will vanish with the vanishing of capital." Already the Woman's Suffrage Party of Cook County, Illinois, of which Mrs. Charlotte Rhodus is President, have officially declared that "the sanctity of marriage is meaningless." They have addressed an open letter to the Illinois Legislature which states: "Under the regime of sanctity, ninety per cent of the race have become weaklings. Under sanctity white slavery has grown to astonishing proportions. The Church should cease to enforce its designs by means of a civil law"; and this same organization has made "easy divorce" its slogan. The increasing Socialist vote in the suffrage states shows that the Socialists are right in identifying suffrage with socialism. And this is in pioneer communities, where Socialism makes a less powerful appeal than in the manufacturing districts and crowded cities of the East, where the Socialist gains would be even more rapid and startling, if women were given the vote. The Socialists have already opened naturalization bureaus in New York City for the purpose of making citizens of foreign-born women so they can vote for Socialism if they get the ballot. They are conducting an extensive campaign among women to educate them in Socialism. Miss Jessie Ashley, who was Treasurer last year of the National Woman Suffrage Association, discussing the question "Who are the White Slaves?" in the April number of "The Progressive Woman," a Socialist paper published in Chicago, says: "By its (Society's) falso standards of morality, its cruel mandates of 'virtue,' its harsh rules of ostracism for the girl who is not chaste, its wage system and its marriage system, and its system of male supremacy, it is itself the criminal. It holds its women, rich and poor alike, in sex slavery, and its working class men and women alike in wage slavery, and this the whole world over. Slaves, every woman of them today, whether prostitutes held unwillingly, or prostitutes gone willingly 'astray," whether submissive wife or rebellious virgin. Slaves every one, because there is no freedom of choice, but only a blind, cruel, stupid master, the social system, that without reason and without sympathy enslaves its womanhood." The Progressive Woman had this to say editorially: "Get SOMETHING DONE. Bring Socialism to the attention of women voters and suffragists. They are fighting for justice. And by fighting for justice they are fighting the capitalist system, which exists by injustice alone. ACT! MOVE! HUSTLE! for the realization of our slogan: A HALF MILLION SOCIALIST WOMEN VOTERS in 1916, and a 50 PER CENT. WOMAN MEMBERSHIP in the Socialist party." Daniel De Leon, one of the most prominent American Socialists, says: "All the facts, all the reasoning, focus into one conclusion. WOMAN SUFFRAGE must take its place as an INTEGRAL SPLINTER in the torch that lights the path of SOCIAL REVOLUTION." There is no getting away from the fact that Woman Suffrage and Socialism are indissolubly linked. It is a state of affairs recognized by every serious student of political and social conditions today. Socialist like Inez Milholland, Mrs. Harriet Stanton Blatch, Alice Stone Blackwell and Jessie Ashley are prominent leaders in the woman suffrage party. All Socialists favor Woman Suffrage because they know what it means to their cause. We are indeed threatened by a red peril in a yellow cloak. Where do YOU stand? Are YOU in favor of it? Do YOU care to see private property abolished? Do YOU agree with Miss Ashley that wifehood is slavery? Do YOU think that the marriage ceremony is "useless and ridiculous?" Do YOU wish to have it done away with for "a mutual understanding" to be broken at the will of either party? If you want these things, then work for Woman Suffrage with the Socialists. But, if you hold your family relations, your home, your religion, as sacred and inviolate, if you desire to preserve them for yourself and for your children for all time, then work with all your might against the companion, the handmaid, the forerunner of Socialism - Woman Suffrage. G.M. Issued by Mass. Association Opposed to the Further Extension of Suffrage to Women, 615 Kensington Building, Boston. [logo] 15 OPINIONS OF EMINENT PERSONS AGAINST WOMAN SUFFRAGE. DANIEL WEBSTER. "The rough contests of the political world are not suited to the dignity and the delicacy of your sex... It is by the promulgation of sound morals in the community, and more especially by the training and instruction of the young, that woman performs her part toward the preservation of a free government." REV. HORACE BUSHNELL, D.D. "Hitherto it has been an advantage to be going into battle on our suffrages with a full half...as a corps of reserve, left behind, so that we may fall back on this quiet element... and settle again our mental and moral equilibrium. Now it is proposed that we have no reserve any longer, that we go into our conflicts taking our women with us, all to be kept heating the same fire for weeks or months together. ...Let no man imagine... that our women are going into these encounters to be just as quiet, or as little moved as now, when they stay in the rear unexcited, letting us come back to them often and recover our reason. They are no more mitigators now, but instigators rather, sweltering in the same fierce heats and commotions, only more tempestuously stirred than we." Women's Suffrage; the Reform against Nature. FRANCIS PARKMAN. "It has been claimed as a right that woman should vote. It is no right, but a wrong, that a small number of women should impose on all the rest political duties which there is no call for their assuming, which they do not want to assume, and which, if duly discharged, would be a cruel and intolerable burden." MRS. CLARA T. LEONARD, Massachusetts Board of Health, Lunacy and Charity. "The best work that a woman can do for the purifying of politics is by her influence over men, by the wise training of her children, by a thorough knowledge and discussion of the needs of her community." REV. EDWARD EVERETT HALE, D.D. "I am now asked to confer the responsibility of suffrage upon women. This means, of course, that they are willing to accept all the responsibilities of public-spirited men. To which request I reply that I do not think they want to do these things, and second, that I do not think they would do them well." LE BARON R. BRIGGS, President of Radcliffe College. "As to public life, I am still so conservative as to hold that a political competition of both sexes is less likely to elevate men than to degrade women, and that the peculiar strength of refined and earnest womanhood is exercised in ways less public. I fear the loss of the best that is in woman, and, with it, the loss of a power that is hers and hers alone." JACOB A. RIIS. "I do not think the ballot will add to woman's real power which she exercises or can exercise now." CARL SCHURZ. "Is it not certain that so tremendous an addition to the voting force as the granting of unqualified woman suffrage would effect, would involve at least the possibility of a dangerous increase of those evils which the best thought of the country is at present painfully struggling to remedy?" MRS. KATE GANNETT WELLS. "In the present constitution of events, of facts, physiological, social, financials, moral, and political, it is expedient for government to grant universal female suffrage." CARDINAL GIBBONS. "If woman enters politics, she will be sure to carry away on her some of the mud and dirt of political contact." HON. MOSES HALLETT, United States District Judge for Colorado. "Our state has tried the female suffrage plan a sufficiently long time to form a fair idea of its workings. I am not prejudiced in any way, but honestly do not see where the experiment has proved of benefit...It has produced no special reforms and it has had no particular purifying effect upon politics. There is a growing tendency on the part of most of the better and more intelligent of the female voters of Colorado to cease exercising the ballot...If it were to be done over again, the people of Colorado would defeat woman suffrage by an overwhelming majority." HON. THOMAS F. BAYARD, Secretary of State. "There never was a greater mistake, there never was a falser fact stated than that the women of America need any protection further than the love borne to them by their fellow-countrymen. Do not imperil the advantages which they have; do not attempt in this hasty, ill-considered, shallow way to interfere with the relations which are founded upon the laws of Nature herself." MISS PHOEBE W. COUZINS, Lawyer, Missouri Commissioner for the World's Fair, and platform speaker for woman suffrage for 20 years. "I do not believe that women are constructed by nature for the rough and tumble fight of the political arena...Women are easily influenced. They do not stop to think of the consequences of their acts, and in their hands the ballot would become a most dangerous weapon...I am through forever with woman suffrage." ABRAM S. HEWITT. "After carefully considering all the arguments advanced by the advocated of woman suffrage...I do not think, from the organic difference between men and women, that it will ever be shown to be for the advantage of women that they should be forced to take part in political controversies. In fact, I think it would be a great misfortune to them, as well as to the human race." 2 HON. CHARLES J. BONAPARTE. "The suffrage is not a mere privilege. It is a public burden, and when it is proposed to make your mothers and sisters and other ladies of whom, perhaps, you may sometimes think, share this burden, the question is properly not whether women should be allowed to vote, but whether they should be obliged to vote." PROF. EDWARD D. COPE. "The first thing that strikes us in considering the woman suffrage movement is that it is a proposition to engage women once more in that 'struggle' from which civilization has enabled them in great measure to escape; and that its effect, if long continued and fairly tried, will be to check the development of woman as such, and to bring to bear on her influences of a kind different from those which have been hitherto active." MISS DOROTHEA L. DIX. "Distinctly and emphatically, Miss DIx believed in woman's keeping herself aloof and apart from anything savoring of ordinary political action...She must be the incarnation of a purely disinterested idea appealing to universal humanity, irrespective of party or sect." Life of Dorothea Lynde Dix, by Francis Tiffany. DR. S. WEIR MITCHELL. "The best of the higher evolution of mind will never be safely reached until the woman accepts the irrevocable decree which made her woman and not man. Something in between she cannot be." RICHARD H. DANA "The truth is, the ballot for women is not needed ...and if they were ever called upon to combine and work in antagonism to the men, which they must do if their vote is really needed, the evils of the conflict would strike at the very foundations of our social system." PROF. WILLIAM T. SEDGWICK. "Why should the great majority of women, who, as everybody knows, are either indifferent or opposed to woman suffrage, be forced to accept it against their will when there is no sound evidence that any material good is likely to accrue either to themselves or to the state?" BISHOP JOHN H. VINCENT, Founder of Chautauqua. "When about thirty years of age I accepted for a time the doctrine of woman suffrage, and publicly defended it. Years of wide and careful observation have convinced me that the demand for woman suffrage in America is without foundation in equity, and, if successful, must prove harmful to American society." MISS JEANNETTE L. GILDER, Founder of The Critic. "In politics I do not think that women have any place. Neither physically nor temperamentally are they strong enough for the fray. The life is too public, too wearing, and too unfitted to the nature of women. It is bad enough for men ...and it would be worse for women. I believe not only that the ballot in the hands of women would be a calamity, but I believe that it would prove a boomerang." 3 JOHN BOYLE O'REILLY. "Woman suffrage would be the constitutional degradation of women; it would be an appeal to the coarser strength of men; and I profoundly believe that it would result in social disorder and disrespect of law." GAIL HAMILTON (Miss Mary Abigail Dodge). "My earliest instinct and my latest judgment combine in maintaining that women have a right to claim exemption from political duty and responsibility, and that men have no right to lay the burden upon them. If the public work is ill done by men, the remedy is to do it better, not to shift the weight to shoulders already heavily laden, and whose task they do not propose in any respect to lighten." REV. JAMES M. BUCKLEY, D.D. "Should the duty of governing in the state be imposed upon women, all the members of society will suffer... The true woman needs no governing authority conferred upon her by law. In the present situation the highest evidence of respect that man can exhibit toward woman, and the noblest service he can perform for her, are to vote NAY to the proposition that would take from her the diadem of pearls, the talisman of faith, hope, and love, by which all other requests are won from men, and substitute for it the iron crown of authority." HON. HENRY B. BROWN, Ex-Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. "It is a mistake to suppose that either men or women have a natural right to vote. We are bound to distinguish between natural and political rights. They may be said to have a natural right to protection in their persons, their property and their opinions, but they have no natural right to govern or to participate in the government of others." REV. THEODORE L. CUYLER, D.D. "There is full scope for a woman's patience, power, purity and prayers without attempting to override that divine arrangement which never fitted her to be a soldier, a sailor, a civil engineer, a juryman, a magistrate, a policeman, a politician." HON. ELIHU ROOT, Secretary of State. "I am opposed to granting suffrage to women because I believe it would be a loss to women and an injury to the state, and to every man and woman in the state...I think so because suffrage implies not merely the casting of a ballot, but entering upon the field of political life; and politics is modified war. In politics there is struggle, strife, contention, bitterness, heart-burning, excitement, agitation - everything which is adverse to the true character of woman. In my judgment, this whole movement arises from a false conception of the duty and the right of men and women...It is a fatal mistake that these excellent women make when they conceive that the functions of men are superior to theirs and seek to usurp them." 4 JENNIE JUNE (Mrs. Jane C. Croly), "Mother of Clubs," Founder of the New York Sorosis, and President of the New York Women's Press Club. "The best way for women to approach politics is to let them entirely alone. In all the fifty years that in one way or another I have worked, I have never identified myself with suffrage nor politics." ROSSITER JOHNSON. "The most civilized portions of mankind have not yet outgrown the measurement of force for the ultimate settlement of every great question, and the unit of force is the man capable of bearing arms...The government set up, and the policy adopted, may not be the best possible; but, if a majority of the men stand behind them, we shall at least have stability, and that is the most necessary element in any government.... To make any party victorious at the polls by means of blank-cartridge ballots would only present an increased temptation to the numerical minority to assert itself as the military majority... If an election is carried by a preponderance of votes cast by women, who is to enforce the verdict? When a few such verdicts have been overturned, we shall find ourselves in a state of anarchy." THE ENGLISH REMONSTRANCE (Nineteenth Century, June, 1889). "To sum up: we would give the women their full share in the state of social effort and social mechanism; we look for their increasing activity in that higher state which rests on thought, conscience, and moral influence; but we protest against their admission to direct power in that state which does rest upon force - the state in its administrative, military, and financial aspects - where the physical capacity, the accumulated experience, and inherited training of men ought to prevail without the harassing interference of those who, though they may be partners of men in debate, can in these matters never be partners with them in action. Nothing can be further from our minds than to seek to depreciate the position or importance of women. It is because we are keenly alive to the enormous value of their special contribution to the community that we oppose what seems to us likely to endanger that contribution. We are convinced that the pursuit of a mere outward equality with men is for women not only vain but demoralizing. It leads to a total misconception of woman's true dignity and special mission. It tends to personal struggle and rivalry, where the only effort of both the great divisions of the human family should be to contribute the characteristic labor and the best gifts of each to the common stock." Mrs. Humphry Ward Mrs. George J. Goshen Mrs. Leslie Stephen Mrs. Frederic Harrison Mrs. Thomas H. Huxley Mrs. Matthew Arnold Mrs. William E. Forster Mrs. Max Muller Lady Frederic Cavendish Mrs. J. Richard Green Hon. Emily Lawless Mrs. Walter Bagehot and others 5 VICTORIA, Queen of England. "The Queen is most anxious to enlist every one who can speak or write to join in checking this mad, wicked folly of 'Woman's Rights,' with all its attendant horrors, on which her poor, feeble sex is bent, forgetting every sense of womanly feeling and propriety." JOHN BRIGHT. "When women are not safe under the charge or care of fathers, husbands, brothers, and sons, it is the fault of our non-civilization and not of our laws. As civilization founded on Christian principles advances, women will gain all that is right for them to have, though they are not seen contending in the strife of political parties. In my experience I have observed evil results to many women who have entered heartily into political conflict and discussion. I would save them from it." WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. "A permanent and vast difference has been impressed upon women and men respectively by the Maker of both. I for one am not prepared to say which of the two sexes has the higher and which has the lower province...I am not without fear, lest beginning with the state, we should eventually be found to have intruded into what is yet more fundamental and more sacred, the precinct of the family, and should dislocate, or seriously modify, the relations of domestic life." HERBERT SPENCER. Herbert Spencer, in Justice, maintains that there are fundamental reasons for keeping the spheres of the sexes distinct. He had formerly argued the matter "from the point of view of a general principle of individual rights," but he finds that this cannot be sustained, as he "discovers mental and emotional differences between the sexes which disqualify women for the burdens of government and the exercise of its functions." MRS. HUMPHRY WARD. "Women should not vote on questions in the solution of which they can never play a responsible part. Fancy a female general, a female admiral! Fancy a railroad run by women, roads built or mines worked by them! If there is this inevitable physical limitation to a woman's activity... is it just that she be given a vote on matters that involve these activities? The national government...is concerned in all of these things, and is maintained by the votes of the male portion of the population, which thus indirectly decides on the army, the navy, the railroads, and the scores of material interested in which women cannot by nature take an active part." GOLDWIN SMITH. "Political power has hitherto been exercised by the male sex; not because man has been a tyrannical usurper and has brutally thrust his weaker partner out of her rights, but in the course of nature because man alone could uphold government and enforce the law. Let the edifice of law be as moral and as intellectual as you will, its foundation is the force of the community, and the force of the community is male." 6 QUARTERLY REVIEW, Women at Oxford and Cambridge, October 1897. "Either sex is an appalling blunder, or else it must have been intended that each sex should have its own work to do, not merely in the physical economy of the race, but also in the social and intellectual world.... Woman, alike in body, mind, and character, 'is not lesser man, but other.' At the moment, many able women think that it is possible to follow masculine ideas in education, in habit, in practical life, and yet to be true to their own nature. In the long run this is impossible." Other notable persons who have remonstrated against woman suffrage are President Grover Cleveland, Mrs. Margaret Deland, President Arthur T. Hadley of Yale University, Miss Ida M. Tarbell, Bishop David H. Greer of New York, Miss Caroline Hazard, President of Wellesley College, Rev. Dr. Lymon Abbott, Miss Agnes Irwin, Dean of Radcliffe College, Charles Dudley Warner, Mrs. Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Felix Adler, Madame Louise Homer, President William DeWitt Hyde of Bowdoin College, Mrs. Kate Douglas Wiggin, Bishop William C. Doane, Mrs. Clara Louise Kellogg Strakoseh, Hon. Charles C. Nott, Chief Justice United States Court of Claims, Mrs. John Ware, Andrew S. Draper, New York State Commissioner of Education, Miss Carolyn Wells, Rev. Dr. Theodore T. Munger, Miss Mabel T. Boardman, Edward W. Bok, Mrs. Andrew Carnegie, Richard Watson Gilder, Mrs. Celia Thaxter, President Henry P. Hudson of the University of Chicago, Marion Harland (Mrs. Virginia Terhune), Governor Woodrow Wilson of New Jersey, Mrs. Schuyler Van Rensselaer, Bishop Arthur C. A. Hall of Vermont, Mrs. Grover Cleveland, Hon. Edgar Aldrich, United States District Judge for New Hampshire, Mrs. Mary Anderson de Navarro, Rev. Dr. Washington Gladden, Mrs. Rebecca Harding Davis, Winston Churchill, Mrs. Josephine Daskam Bacon, Rev. Dr. Charles H. Parkhurst, Miss Adeline Knapp, Prof. William K. Brooks of Johns Hopkins University, Mrs. Helen Watterson Moody, Octave Thanet (Miss Alice French), Mrs Adeline D. T. Whitney, James Bryce, William E. H. Lecky, Miss Octavia Hill, Frederic Harrison, John Ruskin, Sir E. Ray Lankester, Gilbert K. Chesterton, Rudyard Kipling and Lord Cromer, "Maker of Modern Egypt." Other prominent Massachusetts men who have expressed their opposition to woman suffrage are Governors Eben S. Draper, Curtis Guild, Jr., W. Murray Crane (now United States Senator), Roger Wolcott, William E. Russell, George D. Robinson and William Gaston, United States Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, President A. Lawrence Lowell of Harvard University, President Charles W. Eliot of Harvard University, President Franklin Carter of Williams College, President Mark Hopkins of Williams College, President George Harris of Amherst College, President Frederick W. Hamilton of Tufts College, President Henry Lefavour of Simmons College, President L. Clark Seelye of Smith College, President Albert P. Fitch of Andover Theological Seminary, Principal Alfred E. Stearns of Phillips Exeter Academy, Bishop William Lawrence, Archbishop William H. O'Connell, George G. Crocker, Congressman William C. Lovering, Prof. Charles Eliot Norton, Major Henry L. Higginson, John Fiske, James Ford Rhodes, Charles F. Donnelly, Judge 7 Francis C. Lowell, Charles Warren, Prof. Charles J. Bullock, Morgan Rotch, William D. Sohier, Rodney Wallace, Rev. Joshua P. Bodfish, Samuel J. Elder, Dr. Edward M. Hartwell, Arthur Lord, Charles T. Gallagher, Albert C. Houghton, William B. Plunkett, James M. Prendergast, John N. Cole, Henry L. Pierce, William F. Wharton, Solomon Lincoln, Henry M. Whitney, Rev. John O'Brien, Henry H. Sprague, T. Jefferson Coolidge, Thomas Russell, Prof. William B. Monro, Charles Francis Adams, Prof. Francis J. Child, Elisha Morgan, Jeremiah W. Coveney, Dr. J. Collins Warren, John R. Thayer, W. Lyman Underwood, Dr. Henry P. Walcott, Frederick P. Fish, Melvin O. Adams, James P. Munroe, Robert Winsor, Edwin F. Atkins, Theodore Lyman, John F. Fitzgerald, Dr. William L. Richardson, Walter Clifford, Timothy G. Spaulding, Robert Luce, John T. Burnett, Laurence Minot, John A. Sullivan, Moses Williams, Thomas L. Livermore, Robert M. Morse, Levi J. Gunn, Dr. Walter Channing, Francis H. Appleton, Thornton K. Lothrop, Judge William C. Loring, Charles F. Choate, Arthur H. Lowe, Prof. F. Spencer Baldwin, Dr. William J. Councilman, Frank Foxcroft, Rev. Octavia B. Frothingham, Prentiss Cummings, Prof. William W. Goodwin, Congressman Robert O. Harris, Prof. Paul H. Hanus, William A. Gaston, District Attorney Richard W. Irwin, Dr. Dudley A. Sargent, Frederic J. Stimson and many others. WOMAN SUFFRAGE IN COLORADO. "I have voted since 1893. I have been a delegate to the city and State conventions, and a member of the Republican State Committee from my county. I have been a deputy sheriff and a watcher at the polls. For twenty-three years I have been in the midst of the woman suffrage movement in Colorado. For years I believed in woman suffrage and have worked day in and day out for it. I now see my mistake and would abolish it to-morrow if I could. No law has been put on the statute book of Colorado for the benefit of women and children that has been put there by the women. The child labor law went through independently of the women's vote. The hours of working-women have not been shortened; the wages of school-teachers have not been raised; the type of men that got into office has not improved a bit. Frankly, the experiment is a failure. It has done Colorado no good. It has done woman no good. The best thing for both would be if to-morrow the ballot for women could be abolished." MRS. FRANCIS W. GODDARD, President of the Colonial Dames of Colorado DECEMBER, 1910. Printed by the Massachusetts Association Opposed to the Further Extension of Suffrage to Women. Pamphlets and leaflets may be obtained from the Secretary, Room 615, Kensington Building, 687 Boylston Street, Boston, Massachusetts. January, 1911 12 WOMAN SUFFRAGE A PAPER READ BY EX-JUSTICE BROWN Of the Supreme Court of the United States BEFORE The Ladies' Congressional Club of Washington, D.C. APRIL, 1910 ISSUED BY The Massachusetts Association Opposed to the Further Extension of Suffrage to Women Pamphlets and leaflets may be obtained from the Secretary, Room 615, Kensington Building, 687 Boylston Street, Boston, Mass. WOMAN SUFFRAGE. Whoever seeks to effect a radical change in legislation of long standing assumes the burden of showing that the existing law is iniquitous or unjust, and that the proposed change is reasonably calculated to remedy its defects. The very fact that certain fundamental principles have prevailed under all forms of government, from a time whence no historical tradition runs to the contrary, is strong evidence of their wisdom, and suggests a continuance of the policy expressed in the homely maxim of letting well enough alone. Experimental legislation is always unsafe, and frequently produces an effect directly contrary to that intended; or, if successful in suppressing the evils sought to be remedied, raises up others, totally unsuspected before, to take their place. Such statutes are, unfortunately, too common in this country, where the Legislatures are besought to remedy every fancied evil, from the right to vote to the length of ladies' had pins, or of sheets upon hotel beds. From time immemorial the power to govern has been devolved upon the male population. In the few instances in which, under a local law of succession, the crown has been worn by a woman, the governing power has usually rested with her male advisers, and the physical power always with her army and navy. While this power of governing has often, in obedience to long-established customs, been exercised oppressively, and has occasionally reduced women to a position little above that of slaves, I am not aware of any such complaint against legislation in this country; and, after all, the question of woman suffrage must be determined by the state of things existing in the country to which it is proposed to apply it. It is a mistake to suppose that either men or women have a natural right to vote. We are bound to distinguish between natural and political rights. They may be said to have a natural right to protection in their persons, their property and their opinions, but they 4 have no natural rights to govern or to participate in the government of others. This is purely a creation of local law, and the extent to which it is exercised depends upon the question whether the government is absolute, oligarchical or democratic. As well might the Czar of Russia claim a natural right to govern his subjects, as for the American citizen to claim a natural to govern others. At present the right exists in most countries, but it depends solely upon its constitution and laws. The laws of nearly, if not all, of the State of this Union are even more favorable to women than to men. They have full control of their own property, and may sell, convey or bequeath it to whomsoever they please; while in the conveyance of his own real estate, the husband must usually obtain the consent of his wife. Women are entitled to their own earnings and may dispose of them as they please, while the husband is bound to make use of his for the support of his wife and family. He is liable for the ante-nuptial debts of his wife, while no such obligation rests upon her for her husband's debts. Women are freely admitted to all trades, employments and professions to wish they are physically adapted. They are rapidly obtaining a monopoly of stenography, typewriting, telegraphy, telephony, and are competing successfully with men as saleswomen in the principal mercantile establishments, and as operatives in factories. The best schools and colleges are open to such of them as desire a higher education, until a new danger now threatens us of creating in them a distaste for manual labor, which has almost eliminated the native American girl from her natural vocation of housekeeping. Domestic service, which must be provided in every country, if social distinctions are to exist at all, is relegated to aliens and colored people, who are quick to see its advantage in higher wages, more comfortable quarters and better food, while the American girl sees in it only a financial social inferiority to her sisters, and ekes out a precarious existence by work assumed to be more befitting her dignity. Legislation has done its worst to make this state of affairs permanent, by excluding the Oriental races, upon whom the Pacific coast relied for its most intelligent and effective domestic labor. No such prejudice against manual labor exists among the male 5 population. Farmers' boys who go West and seek their fortunes are ready to turn their hands to anything that offers an immediate profit, knowing well that a faithful service in a humble position contains the best promise of promotion and ultimate wealth. That this is not a delusive hope is evidenced from the fact that many, if not the majority, of the wealthiest men in this country have risen from the ranks of manual labor. The only tangible complaint made against our laws at present seems to consist in the fact that women are taxed without being represented in the Legislature. This grievance, however, is more fancied than real, — a popular political war-cry, but to be applied with some regard to the actual facts. It is doubtless a safe proposition to assert that property owners should not be taxed without being represented. But this should be taken in connection with another principle, — that no system of taxation or of suffrage was ever devised that did not create individual instances of injustice. For example, in the matter of age, some line must be drawn between the voting and non-voting population. In American this has been uniformly fixed at the age of twenty-one, and yet all of us know of young men of twenty or less who are far better qualified to vote, by intelligence and the possession of property, than the great mass of those of twenty-one and upwards. But the line must be drawn, and arbitrarily drawn, somewhere, and the fact that certain boys may own millions in their own right has never been supposed to entitle them to vote, or that the denial of this right involved a violation of the principle of taxation without representation. A foreigner may possess a large fortune, and have been educated at a foreign university, but he can never vote until he has qualified by residence in this country for a certain time. The same remark may be made of the line drawn in the southern States between the white and colored population, — though no one would have the hardihood to deny that many colored men are superior in intelligence to some of their white brethren. Now the number of women possessing taxable property of their own is very small, — probably not exceeding one in twenty of the total number. While they are much fonder of money than men, they 6 have not the opportunity, and, except in rare cases, not the capacity for accumulation. Men love the acquirement of money for its own sake, much as a gambler loves to win at cards or stocks; but, after all, with a very indefinite idea of what they shall do with it. Beyond a certain amount it becomes a positive burden, and the possessor, as we know in many instances, is forced to give it away to get rid of it. Women, on the other hand, love money for itself, for the comforts and luxuries it will bring them. Men are the natural earners of money; women the natural spenders of it. Some men have an abnormal capacity for earning money, and I have heard it intimated that some women have an abnormal capacity for spending it. This division of earning and spending is a fortunate arrangement. If men had no women to spend their money, they would degenerate into a race of misers, with a capacity for accumulation, but with no capacity for enjoyment. Every one will recall an instance of this kind, where a multi-millionaire left an immense fortune to his wife simply because he did not know how to spend it. If women had no men to supply them with money, most of them would be reduced to the necessaries of life. Clearly those who are dependent upon their husbands for their support have no right to complain that they are taxed without representation, since, with a few possible exceptions, they have no independent property of their own subject to taxation. In the multitude of women who maintain themselves by their own exertions very few earn more than enough for their comfortable support. The residue, who have inherited taxable property from their husbands or relatives, are so few in number as to be a negligible quantity, in dividing the voting from the non-voting population. The fact that injustice may be done to one by denying her a vote is a poor excuse for forcing the right to vote upon the nineteen others, if they do not wish it. Legislation is or ought to be based upon the good of the whole, and not upon the desires of particular individuals. It is presumed to speak for the great mass of the people, and not for the exceptions. What, then, are the chief objections to woman suffrage? In this connection I wish to admit the perfect equality of the sexes in the general scheme of creation. I claim no superiority for man; 7 I admit none for women. I repudiate in toto the estimate placed upon women by Dr. Meininger in his now famous work upon "Sex and Character," the main object of which seems to be to demonstrate their hopeless inferiority, and the utter impossibility of their rising to man's intellectual level. A few extracts will exhibit the animus of the book, learned as it undoubtedly is: "It has been exhaustively proved that the female is soulless and possesses neither ego nor individuality, personality nor freedom, character nor will. . . . Woman is neither high minded nor low minded; strong minded nor weak minded. She is opposite to all of these. Mind cannot be predicated of her at all. She is mindless; . . . and, therefore, I must again assert that the woman of the highest standard is immensely beneath the man of the lowest standard." It seems a fitting corollary of such views that the writer should have taken his own life at the early age of twenty-three, and very soon after this remarkable book was written. But, while conceding the equality of the two sexes, there are undeniable differences which it would be folly to ignore. At the basis of these differences is the physical distinction, which impresses itself almost as much upon the mind as upon the body, and contains suggestions as to the proper functions of each sex and the part each should play in the economy of nature. There are certain particulars in which the superiority of one sex over the other is plainly manifested. To man must be accorded pre-eminence:--- 1. In physical strength. This is undeniable, and requires that the heavy labor of the world must be done by him; 2. The preservation of public order and safety; 3. The inauguration and management of great undertakings; 4. This dispassionate view of important questions, which we call the judicial temperament. Does not the superiority of the male sex in these particulars contain a suggestion that they also should determine as to when great enterprises should be undertaken, and how they should be carried out? If the labor and expense incidental to the building and operation of railways and manufacturing establishments, or the construction of buildings and the improvement of streets and roads be furnished 8 by men, is it not reasonable to say that men should also determine when and how these projects should be made effective? If the policing of cities and the preservation of the peace is to be secured by men, should they not also judge of the necessity for particular measures? If wars are contemplated, should not the necessity for such wars be passed upon by the men who are to provide the material, to constitute the armies and to fight its battles? Would it not be absurd, if the men of the country were opposed to a particular war, that the country should be driven into it by the votes of women? On the other hand, there are doubtless other spheres of activity in which the superiority of women is as marked as that of men in the particulars already named. They are:--- 1. The management of the household and the direction of family life; 2. The rearing and education of young children; 3. The nursing of the sick, from which of late men have been completely displaced by women; 4. Their superior vitality and patient endurance of suffering; 5. Their superior natural refinement and delicacy; 6. Their intuitive perceptions, which are more accurate than those of men. This enumeration also contains a suggestion that, in all such legislation as relates to the education of children, the establishment of public schools, the selection of teachers and of studies, women should have at least an equal voice with men. The right of women to vote upon school questions has been conferred, and I think wisely so, in nearly twenty different States; but the small extent to which that right has been exercised by the women does not augur well for its success. In a paper in advocacy of woman suffrage by the late and greatly lamented Mr. Justice Brewer, he states that while there are about 700,000 women authorized to vote in Massachusetts on school questions, the number actually voting fell from 18,000 in 1906 to 13,000 in 1907. In 189 towns, where 3,600 women were registered, not a single woman voted. In Cleveland, Ohio, the number of registered voters diminished from 6,681 in 1904 to 3,179 in 1907. If this be regarded as a fair experiment, it must be conceded a failure. 9 Indeed, one of the chief obstacles to the introduction of female suffrage is the apparent indifference of the women themselves. If there were a general sentiment among them that their rights were not being properly respected, and that their votes were really needed to protect them, I feel confident that the natural chivalry of men would rally to their support, and, irrespective of every other consideration, would cheerfully concede them the ballot. I do not, however, find among them any general demand for it. Earnest advocates, eloquent platform speakers there are undoubtedly, but in private conversation, particularly with women of the upper classes, most are actually opposed, or at best indifferent, to a change. Although the rights of women in England are not protected as they are in this country, I do not regard the riotous mobs which besiege Parliament, assault members, destroy property and court martyrdom as representative women of Great Britain. It would certainly be little to the credit of Parliament to permit itself to be hectored into the grant of suffrage by such means. A resort to similar violence would be simply impossible in any American capital. Fashion is so much more potent a fact in the lives of women than in those of men that there could be no general participation of women of the upper classes in exercising the right of suffrage, unless it were made fashionable to do so. Once make it as fashionable to go to the polls as to a matinee or a musicale, and every woman would vote, if only for the purpose of being seen. But let it be once understood that voting was unwomanly and fit only for the stronger sex, and what we may term masculine femininity, the suffrage would fall at once into the hands of the lower class and a few enthusiasts of the better sort. Considerations of fashion are rarely applied to questions of duty, but rather to those of fancy or pleasure. Indeed, considerations of duty outside of the church or domestic circle are of feebler efficacy than is generally supposed. Having found ample scope for the exercise of their peculiar functions in the family circle, women are generally content to leave the more serious questions of bread-winning and of government to the male sex. Every argument upon the subject finally comes back to the question whether nature has not answered it as effectively as certain economical questions are 10 answered by the law of supply and demand. While women are constantly winning their way to work formerly considered the exclusive prerogative of men, and have not only been permitted but encouraged to do so, there is after all a reserve of work which must be done by men, and in which it would be as absurd for women to participate as it would be for men to undertake the management of a family or the care of young children. A man who busies himself with such matters is looked upon with derision, while the woman who aspires to the platform or pulpit, and desires at least to be seen in every public assemblage, is regarded as asserting merely an inherent right. Within certain limitations this is just and proper, but in the end considerations of sex are sure to assert themselves as the dominating influence. Hence, the conservative American matron and her daughters, brought up to care for the family and children, according to historical ideas which have held away since the earliest days of the distaff and the loom, are content that in matters of State men shall bear the burden. Nor do the peculiar prerogatives of women involve any question of inferiority. Of two boys, one of whom is fond of mathematics and the other of the classics, there is no question o superiority of one over the other, but simply of difference. The mathematician might be expected to make the better astronomer, engineer or contractor; the other, the better scholar or professional man, - but both may be equally eminent in their own callings. So the particulars in which each sex is superior to the other are equally essential to the perpetuation of the race, and to the maintenance of the family, which is the basis of the whole social system. I consider that there is a positive danger involved in any extension of the suffrage to large classes who have not heretofore enjoyed it. True, this is a government of the people, but not necessarily of all persons constituting the people. The word "people" is used simply to distinguish it from a despotism or oligarchy; but the power of actually governing has always rested with an exceedingly small number of men, the great body of the people being merely represented by them. It is a grave question who are entitled to be thus represented. Surely not children or persons of defective intelligence. Formerly it was only extended to property owners of greater or less amount; 11 then to those able to read and write, - finally to everybody, or what is called manhood suffrage. The results have not been altogether encouraging. While universal suffrage has been fairly successful in the country and in the small towns, in large cities the consequences have been such as to justify fully the apprehension of its opponents. Indeed, it has been so near an absolute failure that the most important political question now confronting us is how to get rid of it without sacrificing the principle of self-government. In the District of Columbia Congress exercises directly the "exclusive legislation" vested in it by the Constitution, with the result that Washington is the best governed large city in the country. Other cities have sought relief from conditions which have become intolerable by commissions appointed or elected, with apparently satisfactory results. The object in every case is to rid the city of the incubus of a popular and largely an alien vote. The inauguration of this system is really due to Texas. When Galveston was overwhelmed by the sea and nearly swept out of existence, it was felt that its upbuilding must not be entrusted to the ordinary municipal politician, but it was put into the hands of a commission of its best citizens, who would do their work solely in the interests of the public. The example of Galveston has been followed by a number of cities in the West, to the great improvement of their municipal governments. That experimental extensions of the suffrage are often unwise is also shown by the fate of the fifteenth amendment of the Constitution, forbidding discrimination on account of color or race. While in the North, where the colored vote is small, no great harm has resulted, the amendment has been generally disregarded in the South, and a serious attempt to enforce it by the military arm, if persisted in, would probably have resulted in another civil war. This is meant not to express an opinion of the fifteenth amendment, but to show the danger of radical legislation, except to remedy a certain and radical evil. it is now proposed to extend the right not simply to those who have been unjustly excluded from it, but practically to double the voting population by including a class which has never exercised 12 the franchise, and of whose qualifications we have no practical knowledge. I look upon the experiment as not without peril. While in the ordinary process of peaceful government no danger may be apprehended, I should fear that in critical moments the generous impulses of women might lead them far astray from the path of safety. Women are far more intense in their convictions than men, and, once an opinion is formed, are prone to overlook the obstacles in the way, the difficulties in bringing about the desired results, or even to give credit to the conscientious convictions of others. As the average man who is defeated in a lawsuit is apt to attribute the outcome either to the bribery of the judge or jury, rather than to the inherent weakness of his case, a woman who is opposed in a favorite scheme or ambition is loth to admit conscientious motives in those who oppose her. Indeed, it is a common infirmity of both men and women to have the strongest opinions concerning matters of which we really know the least, and which are the least susceptible of proof. A painful instance of this kind occurred in connection with the anti-canteen law, enacted by Congress a few years ago. Those who were in Washington at the time could not fail to appreciate the fact that the passage of the bill was procured by the efforts of crowds of perfectly respectable, upright and conscientious women, who thronged the halls of the capitol during the debate, practically overawed the members and compelled many of them to vote against their convictions rather than be charged with oppositions to the cause of temperance. The consequences are said to be deplorable. Saloons of the lowest class sprang up around the reservations, and if we are to believe the almost universal testimony of army officers, drunkenness increased, arrests increased, desertions increased, though the principle that the United States should no longer be privy to the sale of liquor was fully established. It would be interesting to inquire what have been the practical results of woman suffrage in the States where the experiment has been fairly tried. But, unfortunately, there is an almost total absence of date from which an intelligent opinion can be formed. It would conduce much to our enlightenment if some Legislature interested in the subject (and what Legislature is not?) should appoint a 13 committee of leading citizens to visit the States in which the experiment has been tried, and by correspondence with foreign countries to investigate the whole subject, to ascertain what proportion of the female population entitled to vote has actually availed itself of the privilege, and to what class it belonged; what reforms in the moral character of the people the women have brought about, or have rendered efficient aid in bringing about; whether they have improved the character of the slums, suppressed gambling; eradicated houses of ill fame; put a stop to graft and corruption in municipal life; provided employment for the poor and educational facilities for their children, — in short, given a new and healthful impulse to civic life. If the report of this committee showed a marked improvement in these particulars, attributable to the influence of women, I, for one, would enroll myself under their banner. On the contrary, if it were shown, in a trial which must have lasted from twenty to forty years, to have been ineffective, or a mere excuse for obtaining a share of the spoils or a political prominence, I should say that a good cause for a change had not been proven. The few statistics we have are most unsatisfactory. We know that in France, during the revolution, an effort was made to endow women with the right of suffrage, which was defeated by the conduct of the lowest class of women in invading the legislative chamber and attempting to overawe the convention; that the attempt to admit women to suffrage was subsequently renewed several times, with a similar result; that in England the registration of women has always been denied by the courts; that in Finland, a semi-independent province of the Russian empire, it has been established for several years, with the consequence, as I am informed by a person of the highest authority, of a great increase in the socialist and anarchist vote, but with little effect upon the other vote. It is but fair to say, upon the other hand, that I have heard from an esteemed lady friend resident in Finland (the Baroness Korff) that it has proved to be a success. It has also been recently adopted in Australia and New Zealand, but with what results we are not informed. We know that an agitation in its behalf was begun in the United States about the middle of the last century; that various conventions 14 were held and associations organized, and finally an appeal made to the Supreme Court of the United States, which held that the right to vote had not been conferred on women by the Constitution or any of its amendments. We know that in New Jersey it was established by law in 1776 and was repealed in 1807, after an experience of thirty years, because, as reported, one election, in which the women were especially interested, was so corrupt that the courts were compelled to set it aside as fraudulent. In 1869 women were first admitted to vote in Utah, then a territory, but the act was subsequently limited, and finally repealed by Congress from fear that the attachment of women to the feature of polygamy might lead to disastrous results; but in 1895, after Utah became a State, a provision for woman suffrage was incorporated in the Constitution. We know that in 1869 it was adopted by the territory of Wyoming; that the act was repealed shortly thereafter, but the repealing act was vetoed by the Governor; and that twenty years after that, when Wyoming was admitted as a State, woman suffrage became a feature of its Constitution. Though it has been in operation for forty years very little seems to be known in other States regarding its popularity. In 1883 it was adopted by an act of the territory of Washington, but was declared invalid by the Supreme Court upon a technical ground, and when admitted as a State, in 1889, a provision in the Constitution for woman suffrage was defeated by the people. In Oregon it was three times defeated by popular vote, the adverse majority increasing largely at each successive election. In 1896 it was adopted in Idaho - too recently to afford satisfactory data as to its results. In 1892 woman suffrage was adopted in Colorado, by a small majority, and it has since remained the law in that State. If we are to believe the recent statements of Judge Lindsey of the Juvenile court, - a friend of woman suffrage, - in his article in " Everybody's Magazine," the condition of civic morality in Colorado is most deplorable. Woman suffrage there is still in its tentative stage. The experience of foreign countries, whose laws are generally much less favorable to women than our own, is an uncertain guide, since there are discriminations against women in those laws which have long since been abolished here. The argument that the greater gentleness and sweetness of the [15] female sex will predispose to peaceful instead of warlike measures does not strike me as of great weight. Conceding their greater docility in the ordinary affairs of life, I have thought that, when they feel a deep personal interest, there was not much to choose between the two sexes. Women can answer better than I whether, for example, in family quarrels their voices are oftener for peace than their husbands; whether in an important political crisis they are less violent than men; whether the results of the civil war have been accepted as freely by southern women as by the men; whether women's conventions are more or less free of jealousies, recriminations, plots and counter-plots than ordinary political conventions; or whether, in case of strikes or business disturbances, acts of violence were confined to the strong sex. I do not assume to answer these inquiries myself, but can only say that such testimony as I have heard does not always bear in the direction of peace and amity. If I have betrayed an opinion adverse to the bestowal of female suffrage, I am sure it will not be attributed to any opposition to the advancement of the sex in anything that will contribute to the complete rounding out of their lives, or make them more valuable members of the body politic. My fear is that the right to vote will not elevate their character, but will rather minister to a growing desire of the sex to vindicate their rights by competing with men in what has heretofore been regarded as men's peculiar province. My fear is that success in this effort may do much to brush away that bloom of delicacy and refinement which from time immemorial has won the admiration and evoked the chivalry of the stronger sex; than in becoming politicians they will lose something of the instincts of motherhood; that in winning public favor they will leave behind them something of their attachment to the virtues of private life; that contact with coarse men at the polls will familiarize them with the vulgarities of politics; in short, that in becoming more like men they will become less like women. If I oppose woman suffrage it is not so much because I fear their voting as because I fear their not voting, with the result that the intelligent and educated will refrain, and leave their sex to be represented by the lowest class. Coinciding, as I certainly do, with the efforts made during the 16 past century to elevate the position of women, to open new avenues of employment, and to encourage their independence of men, I am still an admirer of the idea woman of history and romance,-- women of the type of the three Marys of the New Testament, who for nineteen hundred years have been held up to us as types of the highest womanhood; of Dorcas, who Luke says, was full of "good works and alms deeds;" of Andromache, wife of Hector, who is described as equally remarkable for her domestic virtues and for her attachment to her husband; of Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi, whose education of her sons is said to have contributed more than nature to their eminence as Roman citizens; of Lady Jane Grey, who though a mere girl was the marvel of her age in learning and accomplishments, and whose hapless fate has for three hundred years excited the commiseration of the whole English-speaking race; of Florence Nightingale, whose energy and devotion delivered the English soldiers in the Crimea from an enemy more destructive than Russian guns, and who lived to found the system of trained nurses,-- in fine, of that long list of noble souls in whose praise poets have sung, novelists have written, and at whose feet princes and warriors of all ages have delighted to kneel. Such are the women I regard as most truly representative of their sex, and such I hope they will continue to be for centuries to come,-- the most resplendent jewels in nature's diadem. Washington, D. C., April, 1910. WOMEN SUFFRAGE. BY CARL SCHURZ. From Harper's Weekly, by permission. New York, June 16, 1894. The effort made by many women and men of excellent standing in the community to induce our Constitutional Convention to strike out the word "male" from the State Constitution, and thus to put the two sexes upon a footing of political equality, has given the question of woman suffrage an unusual prominence. It is probable that if the people of the Empire State assented to so radical an innovation, the movement would receive a powerful impulse throughout the country, and have a chance of success where at present it appears hopeless. The action of this State is therefore likely to be of great influence far beyond its boundaries. It must also be admitted that in the public discussions of this subject now taking place, the women who advocate woman suffrage have in some respects a decided advantage over their sisters who oppose it. The foremost among the female champions of "this cause" do not shrink from appearing upon the public stage; they are mostly "accustomed to public speaking," and speak well; and they are able to turn to their advantage a good many of those catch phrases taken as political axioms by our people in revolutionary times, or on occasions of self-glorification, although those phrases were never intended to carry the meaning which the woman suffragists now give them. Still, they make captivating battle-cries, and are used sometimes with effect. On the other hand, the women who oppose woman suffrage, and who believe that the circle of the duties of woman centres in the family, and that she should not permit herself to be unnecessarily drawn into publicity, are by their very principles debarred from demonstrative public manifestations of their views. The "campaign" is therefore, so far as their aggressive 2 vigor and their argumentative vocabulary are concerned, strongly in favor of the woman suffragists. But in another respect they find a difficulty in their way which gives their opponents a decided advantage. There was a time when the American people flattered themselves with the pleasing thought that they had succeeded in finally solving the problem of democratic government. The public mind is no longer in this state of self-congratulation. The number of American citizens who are much troubled by the miscarriages of democratic government in the nation, in the States, and especially in our municipalities, is very large and constantly growing. We do not believe that many of them would seriously think of substituting for the present form of government another form not democratic. But we are very sure the idea that the evils we now complain of can be cured by further extensions of the suffrage is, after the experiences we have had, entertained by but very few, if any, thinking men. On the contrary, the belief is fast gaining ground that in the democratization of our institutions by enlargements of the suffrage we have gone fully as far as the safety of the republic will warrant, and that it is much more advisable to sift the body of voters by educational requirements and the like, than to expand it by indiscriminating additions. The advocates of woman suffrage are certainly entitled to great respect, and there is much force in many of their arguments. When a woman of high character and culture asks us why she should not have the right to vote, while a plantation negro or an immigrant knowing nothing of American institutions or of the English language has that right, the appeal to our sympathies is very strong. But calm reason tells us that, after all, the highly educated woman and the plantation negro and the ignorant man from abroad do not stand upon the same level of comparison. If woman suffrage meant only the enfranchisement of the women of high character and good education, there would be little opposition among the men, provided such women actually desired the ballot. But the introduction of woman suffrage means also the enfranchisement of those classes of women who correspond in character and education to the plantation negro and the ignorant immigrant. And now, admitting that among the men enjoying the right to vote there are very many whose mental and moral fitness for the exercise of political privileges is at least doubtful, the question arises whether it would be wise 3 to increase in so sweeping a manner, as it would be done by the general enfranchisement of woman, the proportion of persons of doubtful fitness in the voting body. It is no answer to this question that as the fit women would be enfranchised with the unfit, the proportion between fit and unfit would, in the voting body, remain on the whole about the same. For here the difference between man and woman, the existence of which even the most enthusiastic suffragist will after all not deny, comes into consideration. One of our troubles is that among male voters the so-called better classes, the well educated and refined, take generally a much less active part in that political activity which has a direct bearing upon the exercise of the suffrage, as well as in the act of voting itself, than the less well educated and refined, the so-called lower classes. Another is, that many voters are ignorant or careless of public questions, or easily reached by dangerous influences, or apt to be controlled by personal considerations or blind party spirit, or have only one object in view, and sacrifice to it all others. Now, if men of refinement are deterred from the necessary political activity by the rudeness of the contacts inseparable from them, it is not probable that refined women will be still more deterred? Is it not probable that many women, belonging to the most estimable element of society, would keep aloof from all contact with politics on principle, believing it to be outside their sphere? Is it not probable that even more female than male voters would be ignorant or careless of public questions, or easily reached and controlled by extraneous, especially sectarian, influences, or personal considerations, or anything that appeals more to the emotions than to reason? Is it not probable, in one word, that, while doubtless a limited element of excellent quality would be added to the voting force, not only the positive quantity, but the proportion in it of the element to which some of our most serious troubles are owing, would be largely increased? Even if we were to admit, for argument's sake, that to these questions there are different answers, is it not certain that so tremendous an addition to the voting force as the granting of unqualified woman suffrage would effect, would involve at least the possibility of a dangerous increase of those evils which the best thought of the country is at present painfully struggling to remedy? Under such circumstances there would seem to be good reason for the following protest, which, signed by a large number of 4 women, has been sent to the Constitutional Convention : " We, women, citizens of the State of New York ( twenty-one years of age), believing that it would be against the best interest of the State to give women unqualified suffrage, thus taking an irrevocable step, at a time when the country is already burdened with many unsolved problems, do protest against striking out the word 'male' from Article II., Section I, of the Constitution." The woman who wrote this protest has the mind of statesman. It hits the mail on the head with rare precision. Against the striking commonsense of this one sentence all the able and beautiful speeches made by the advocates of woman suffrage about equal rights, and representation with taxation, and so on, avail nothing. Woman suffrage may eventually come. It may appear at some future time even very desirable. But will it not be wise to get more light on the problems which now perplex us, before adding to them, without the possibility of recall, a new complication which may immensely increase their difficulties? As good citizens, we should not permit ourselves one moment to forget that this is a very serious business, in the treatment of which we should keep our feelings and sympathies well in hand. Reprinted for the Massachusetts Association Opposed to Extension of Woman Suffrage. [*Colorado Anti-Send*] Women Suffrage In Practice A Criticism of "What Have Women Done With the Vote ?" By George Creel in The Century Magazine for March, 1914 [*By Editor Littell's Living Age*] ISSUED BY The Massachusetts Association Opposed to the Further Extension of Suffrage to Women Pamphlets and leaflets may be obtained from the Secretary, Room 615, Kensington Building 687 Boylston Street, Boston , Mass. WOMAN SUFFRAGE IN PRACTICE Mr. George Creel's article entitled "What Have Women Done With the Vote" in The Century Magazine for March, has attracted a good deal of attention, and has been widely read, presumably, by people who are weary of vague claims as to the moral and political uplift to be expected from women's participation in politics, and who crave a definite setting forth of results actually accomplished. Mr. Creel writes with enthusiasm, not to say exuberance. In his opening sentence he describes as "amazing" the "prairie-fire sweep of equal suffrage." Now, it was in 1869 that Wyoming adopted woman suffrage. It was exactly twenty-four years before Colorado followed suit; then, after three years came Utah and Idaho; after fourteen years more, Washington; in the next year, California; and in the next, Oregon, Kansas and Arizona. It take a vivid imagination to describe this rate of progress as "a prairie-fire sweep." NOT TEN BUT NINE. But Mr. Creel is not deficient in imagination. In his second paragraph, he says that, since Wyoming gave women the vote, "nine more States and a Territory have enfranchised their females" and, in his third paragraph, he speaks of "the ten States and one Territory that have already answered in the affirmative." Now, Mr. Creel, of course, knows perfectly well that the number of States which followed the example of Wyoming in "enfranchising their females" is not nine but eight, and that the whole number of equal- suffrage States is not ten but nine. He gets the number which he uses by including Illinois; and, repeatedly in his article he speaks of Illinois as an "equal suffrage State." But he knows that it is not; and it seems more courteous to attribute his statement to an excess of imagination than to willful misrepresentation. AS TO ILLINOIS. So far is it from being true that Illinois is one of the States which have answered in the affirmative that, as a matter of fact, its electorate has not been given a chance to make any answer at all. The Illinois suffragists knew perfectly well that it was futile to ask the voters of the State to "enfranchise their females" through a constitutional amendment. In April, 1912, they had tested the senti- 4 WOMAN SUFFRAGE IN PRACTICE sentiment of the voters at the Chicago primaries by a question on the ballot as to the expediency of woman suffrage, with the result that every ward in the city declared against suffrage, and the total vote was 71,354 in favor to 135,410 opposed. In the fall of 1912, they scoured the entire State to get enough signatures of voters to a petition asking for the submission of the suffrage question to the voters under the so-called "public policy" Act. Only 100,000 signatures were needed; and Mrs McCulloch, the suffrage leader, publicly advertised: "I will pay for services in obtaining genuine signatures of registered Illinois voters on our Woman Suffrage Policy Petition at the rate of one dollar a hundred signatures until 20,000 additional names are secured prior to Sept. 1, 1912." But, even with this pecuniary inducement, the effort failed. Not 100,000 could be found in the entire State of Illinois who were in favor of suffrage, and the movement was abandoned. With these experiences fresh in mind, the suffragists realized the hopelessness of submitting a suffrage amendment to the voters. Instead, they pushed through the Legislature, by a secret lobby of whose proceedings they have been boasting ever since, a limited suffrage bull, applying only to statutory offices. And yet, Mr. Creel's buoyant fancy permits him to describe Illinois as "an equal suffrage State." A TARDY "GUN." Readers of Mr Creel's article must have been surprised by his statement that "1910 heard the first gun of Colorado's winning struggle for equal justice." But Colorado adopted woman suffrage in 1893. Why should there have been a delay of seventeen years in the firing of the first gun for equal justice? Mr. Creel does not explain; but he goes on to state that, at about that time, "hard fighting wrenched the initiative and referendum from a venal legislature;" and as late as 1911, in Denver, "a corrupt council consigned a petition containing 20,000 signatures to the waste-basket." From which it appears that, seventeen and eighteen years after Colorado women were given the ballot, the legislature was "venal" and the Denver council "corrupt." It was during the period before this first gun was fired that certain Denver women were found to have helped organize repeating at the polls. And it was in the very year of the firing of the gun that Judge Lindsey, in Everybody's Magazine for May, 1910, writing of the campaign which he had led in Denver against the forces of municipal corruption which he described as "the Beast" and "the System," said : WOMAN SUFFRAGE IN PRACTICE 5 "At the beginning of the campaign, I went to practically all the woman's suffrage leaders who, at national meetings, had been telling how much the women had done for the Juvenile Court in Denver; and none of them dared help me. Women like Mrs. Mary C. Bradford and Mrs. Lafferty, who was a member of the last Legislature, took the platform against me and supported the System in its attempt to "get" the Juvenile Court. . . . If any one believes that woman's suffrage is a panacea for all the evils of our political life, he does not know what those evils are. The women are as free of the power of the Beast as men are,—and no freer." TWO SUFFRAGE EXAMPLES. Mr. Creel remarks, at the outset of his inquiry, that "Colorado and California suggest themselves as examples that may serve all purposes of computation and comparison." This relieves him of the necessity of explaining why Wyoming for many years legalized gambling, and other matters which would interfere with the continuity of his exposition. As to California, he dwells at length upon the recall of Judge Weller, points to improved moral conditions in San Francisco, and enumerates some of the most striking of the laws enacted by the last Legislature. It is too early yet, as Mr. Creel doubtless would admit, to test the workings of this extraordinary mass of legislation. Some of the laws are good; some are half-baked ; and some are certain to work mischief ; but they can better be appraised later. When a legislature has under consideration nearly 4,000 bills and 149 constitutional amendments, an off-hand judgment on its work is to be avoided. As to the moral effect of women's vote, Mr. Creel does not notice the fact that, at the Los Angeles election of 1912, with women voting, the "wet" majority was heavily increased ; nor does he mention the spectacle of women campaigning from soap boxes at Redondo Beach in the interest of the saloons ; nor the recent election at Santa Monica, where an overwhelming majority of the women voted for "wet" Sundays. Mr. Creel says "there can be no question that the voting woman is as bitterly opposed to the saloon as she is to the brothel." But there are odds among voting women as there are among voting men; and Mr. Creel should correct his judgment by considering the incidents just mentioned, and by reading the utterances of the suffrage leaders in the Wisconsin campaign of 1912, when they crowded the W. C. T. U. one side and wooed the brewers. At the end of that campaign, Mrs. Crystal Eastman Benedict, campaign manager for the Political Equality League of Wisconsin said, in a statement in the Milwaukee Wisconsin for November 6, 1912: "The brewers in 6 WOMAN SUFFRAGE IN PRACTICE Wisconsin gave us so far as we know, a perfectly square deal. They said at the beginning that they were not going to fight woman suffrage and so far as we know, they held to that decision." In Michigan as well as in Wisconsin, the suffrage leaders took pains to separate themselves from the Women's Christian Temperance Union. A circular issued by the Michigan Equal Suffrage Association, and published in the Detroit News of October 27, 1912, made the following definite disclaimer: "Our Association has had no connection with the W. C. T. U., and we are not responsible for what the W. C. T. U. says or does. The temperance issue has nothing to do with woman suffrage." The significance of public utterances like these, made by official leaders, has not been sufficiently appreciated. A Comparison of Laws Mr. Creel devotes considerable space to the enumeration of laws for the protection of women and children enacted in Colorado and in some of the other suffrage states. These he describes as "women's laws," leaving it to be inferred that they are the direct result of women's votes. Yet, in several conspicuous instances, for example, the child labor law in Oregon and California, and the eight hour law for women in California and Washington, the laws in question were passed before women were given the vote. If women contributed at all to their enactment, it must have been by exerting that indirect influence of which suffragists are in the habit of speaking so scornfully. It cannot be denied, and no fair-minded person would wish to deny, that many of the laws enumerated, especially those of Colorado, are good laws. But a fact which Mr. Creel ignores is that the enactment of these laws is only a part of a wide movement for the better protection of women and children, for the amelioration of labor conditions, for the removal of inequalities, and for the humane treatment of the unfortunate,-a movement which is quite as active in the male-suffrage States as in the equal-suffrage States. With scarcely an exception, the Colorado laws which Mr. Creel enumerates are duplicated in a number of male-suffrage States, several of which enacted them long before that tardy "gun" went off in Colorado. Colorado by no means leads the procession in improved legislation, but in some important particulars lags in the rear. She will have to progress a good deal and quite rapidly before she catches up with Wisconsin, New York, Massachusetts and other male-suffrage States. Colorado laws allow children of any age to be employed in concerts or theatrical exhibitions, and they allow boys of any age and girls of ten years or over to engage in street trades. Neither WOMAN SUFFRAGE IN PRACTICE 7 Colorado nor any other suffrage State prohibits night labor for women; but there are sixteen male-suffrage States where such labor is prohibited or restricted. During the suffrage campaign in Wisconsin, in 1912, the Milwaukee Free Press was challenged by Miss Ada James, President of the Political Equality League of Wisconsin, to name any state which had as many laws pertaining to the welfare of women and children as Colorado. The Free Press took up the challenge and printed in parallel columns a comparison of Colorado and Wisconsin laws of this description. The Free Press accepted as accurate Miss James's epitome of Colorado legislation, with nineteen specifications, and showed that, with two or three unimportant exceptions, Wisconsin had laws closely corresponding to those cited from Colorado, in some instances stronger and more protective; and that, besides, Wisconsin had nineteen other laws to promote the welfare of women and children, for which there were no parallels in Colorado. In particular, the Free Press called attention to the law then just enacted in Colorado, permitting girls over ten years to engage in street trades, and contrasted it with the Wisconsin law which excluded girls under 18 from such trades. Speaking of this Colorado law, Mrs. Florence Kelley, the well-known social worker, had said: "Even in sinful New York, girls below the age of 16 years have for many years been banished from street trades." A comparison of the laws of Colorado and Massachusetts shows that both States have juvenile courts and parental schools, both have generous laws for the care of dependent children, in both, fathers and mothers are joint heirs of a child, and in both it is a criminal offence to contribute to the delinquency of a child. Colorado forbids the employment of children under 14 in smelter, etc.; but Massachusetts goes further and forbids their employment in a factory, workshop or mercantile establishment. It forbids the public exhibition of children under 15, and does not allow children under 18 in places injurious to the health of minors. Among other laws for the protection of women and children in force in Massachusetts but wanting in Colorado are these: Railroad companies are forbidden to allow children under 10 years of age, selling papers, to enter their cars; the property of a wife in business on her own account cannot be attached as the property of her husband; a man is liable for the debts of his wife, but a woman is not liable for the debts of her husband, except to the amount of $100 for family neccessaries; the employment of women between 10 o'clock at night and 6 o'clock in the morning is forbidden; there is a penalty of $100 for selling liquor to a child under 18; and the employment of minors under 18 in barrooms is forbidden. 8 WOMAN SUFFRAGE IN PRACTICE Some "Man-Made Laws." In States as far apart as New York and Texas, the legislatures last year,-without the exercise of the slightest political power on the part of women-made important additions to the laws for the protection of women and children. The Texas legislature enacted a severe Wife Abandonment Act; an act limiting the working hours of women; a Married Women's Property Rights Act; an Act creating a training school for delinquent girls; and an act broadening and strengthening the previously-enacted Juvenile Court law. The New York legislature enacted a law strengthening the law requiring seats for female employees; a law prohibiting the manufacture in tenements of articles of food, dolls and dolls' clothing, and articles of children and infants' wearing apparel; a law prohibiting a child under 14 from working in any factory; a law requiring every employer to allow every person employed in a factory or mercantile establishment,-with a few specified exceptions--at least 24 consecutive hours of rest in seven days; a law providing that no female minor shall work in any factory before 6 A.M. or after 9 P.M. ; a law prohibiting the employment of women or children about dangerous machinery, prohibiting the employment of minors in trades injurious to health and the employment of females in foundries; and a law regulating the employment of children in street trades, raising from ten to twelve years the minimum age of boys permitted to sell papers, etc., on the streets, and forbidding children from selling papers after eight o'clock in the evening instead of after ten o'clock as formerly. It cannot be necessary to extend these comparisons farther to prove that the suffrage states not only have no monopoly of progressive and humane legislation in the interest of women and children ; but that they have yet much to learn from the male-suffrage states. It was not Colorado, but Massachusetts, which was the first State to establish a minimum wage commission and to pass a maternity Act; and the first Children's Code in the world was enacted, not in Colorado, but in Ohio. As To Moral Questions Mr. Creel says: "According to the National Vigilance Association, every single equal-suffrage State has a "good" statute against white slaving or pandering." He is in error at this point; for, in the tabulation of the Vigilance Association, the white slave laws of only six of the nine suffrage States are classed as "good." Those of the other three States,-Colorado, Kansas and Wyoming,-are classed as only "fair." Twenty-four of the male suffrage WOMAN SUFFRAGE IN PRACTICE 9 States are given as high rank in the Vigilance Association list as the six suffrage States of the first group. Mr. Creel further claims that "The equal-suffrage States are also far in advance of the rest of the country in the matter of age of consent. California is the only commonwealth with twenty-one years; Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Utah, Washington and Wyoming have eighteen; Arizona has seventeen; and Oregon and Illinois have sixteen." But is there no limit beyond which the raising of the age of consent cannot safely go? In trying to protect our girls, shall we make the laws a menace to thoughtless, uninstructed and possibly sorely-tempted boys? What of the case of a boy of sixteen who is deliberately led astray by a sophisticated girl of eighteen or twenty-one? It will be remembered that Judge Lindsey has been charged with undue leniency in his treatment of such cases in the Juvenile Court of Denver. The Survey of December 6, 1913, summarized as follows a part of Judge Lindsey's defence against this charge, as made in a public statement: "The law of Colorado defines rape as the entering into sexual relations with any unmarried girl under 18, whether she gives her consent or not, and this is true even if she deliberately solicits the relation. In many of the cases brought before the Juvenile Court the girl had been wild and had gotten into difficulty with a young boy of about her own age who, according to her own statement, was no more guilty than she. In not a few cases, the girl was a prostitute who led astray a boy much more innocent than herself." As To Illiteracy. Mr. Creel thinks that "It is distinctly noteworthy that in the list of the ten most illiterate States in the Union,-Louisiana, South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky and West Virginia-there is not an equal suffrage State." But he does not notice nor mention the fact that every one of the ten States in this group is a Southern State, loaded with negro illiteracy. How Generally Do Women Vote? Mr. Creel remarks that the charge that women do not avail themselves of the right to vote "must necessarily be approached through typical instances" and he selects as such instances the Seattle election which recalled Mayor Gill, the Los Angeles election of 1912, and half a dozen small-town elections in Illinois. Only the first two demand consideration, for on the average, less than 250 voters of either sex voted in the small towns which Mr. Creel selected. But 10 WOMAN SUFFRAGE IN PRACTICE the Seattle election has always been claimed as preëminently a women's victory. Mr. Creel gives the vote of men and women by wards. The total shows 43,489 men and 21,807 women. Now in the state of Washington the ratio of sexes in the population is 136 males to 100 females. Assuming that this ratio holds good in Seattle, the number of women voting should have been 31,977 instead of 21,807/ That is to say, in this much-vaunted election, if the interest of women in the moral issues involved had been as great as that of men, they should have polled over 10,000 more votes than they did.* An analysis of the returns of the Los Angeles election of 1912 yields a somewhat similar result. In California, the males outnumber the females but slightly,–the ratio being 125.5 males to 123.5 females. Mr. Creel's figures show 54,625 men and 37,399 women voting. But, applying to Los Angeles the sex ratio of the State, when 54,625 men voted, there should have been,- if they took an equal interest, 43,525 women at the polls. The actual women's vote was more than 6,000 less than that. Presumably Mr. Creel made the most favorable selections that were available, but this is the way they work out. As to the State of California, it would be interesting, if it were possible, to ascertain exactly how many women availed themselves of their new privileges at the Presidential election of 1912. Everything favored a large women's vote. It was their first opportunity; the election was an exciting one; and the Governor of the State was a candidate for Vice President. Unfortunately, the votes of men and women are not separated in the returns of the election But there is a process of comparison which throws some light upon the question. It is a familiar principle, of almost universal application, that a Presidential election calls out a heavier vote than is polled for state officers in the off years. In California, the vote cast for presidential electors in 1908 was 118,947 larger than that cast for Governor in 1906. The vote cast for Governor in 1910 was 385,652. Suppose that the special enthusiasm attending a Presidential election had brought out a men's vote as much larger than the Gubernatorial vote of 1910 as the Presidential vote of 1908 was larger than the Gubernatorial vote of 1906. The total vote for President in 1912 would then have been 504,600, without the votes of women. But the actual total was 673,527. This leaves 168,927 votes to be credited to women. But there were 613,626 women entitled to register in 1912. [ * It is interesting to notice, by the way, that the same Hiram C. Gill, whose recall in 1911 was hailed as a great moral victory, was again elected Mayor of Seattle, on the 3rd of March 1914, by a majority of 14,000. ] WOMAN SUFFRAGE IN PRACTICE 11 This comparison indicates that considerably less than one-third of the women in California who were entitled to vote at the Presidential election in 1912 did so. The absolute accuracy of such a comparison cannot, of course, be insisted on, for it necessarily ignores varying conditions; but it certainly does not suggest any consuming zeal on the part of the women of California to use their new privilege. A similar conclusion as to Chicago women may be drawn from the fact that of those entitled to register and to vote, only a trifle more than 9 per cent participated in the February 1914, primaries. HAS THE VOTE COARSENED OR CHEAPENED WOMEN? Mr. Creel puts this question and answers it in the negative, citing the testimony of several well-known citizens of suffrage states. It would be going far to answer the question in the affirmative, or to say that, as a rule, or in most cases, the vote had had this effect. But there are some concrete instances which suggest unpleasant possibilities. There, for example, were the four women members of the Colorado legislature who voted for the race-track gambling bill. The Woman's Journal explained their course by saying that three of the four "were nominated by the local boss-ridden Democratic Party" of Denver. But if women legislators are to be boss-ridden, it is hard to see how they are much better than men. Then there was the Woman's Public Service League of Denver which, it was proposed by the Board of Aldermen to make it a misdemeanor to serve women patrons of cafes with intoxicating liquors, sent in to the Board a form protest "against any measure which places restrictions upon the freedom of action of women which are not placed upon the freedom of action of men." A League of women which thinks it is rendering a "public service" by claiming for women the privilege of promiscuous drinking and intoxication with men in saloons seems rather an anomaly, at least from the temperance point of view. And again, there were the four Colorado women legislators whom the Rev. Dr. Samuel Garvin of the First Presbyterian Church in Colorado Springs, in a sermon preached August 17, 1913, charged with voting against the so-called Search and Seizure bill several years ago, "thus defeating it and making local option legislation of the State of Colorado of virtually no effect." WOMEN AS OFFICE-SEEKERS. Mr. Creel asks "Do women become inveterate office-seekers?" and answers the question emphatically in the negative. That women, as a whole, in the suffrage states, evince any more eagerness than men to hold public office it would be unfair to charge. But there are 12 WOMAN SUFFRAGE IN PRACTICE not lacking instances of zeal in that direction which, while they may have been prompted by the noblest motives, are curiously like male manifestations of the sort. For example, the Denver Republican of April 2, 1912 states that the Democratic women, the Republican women and the Citizens' women all wanted the office of recorder, an office which carried more patronage than any other office in city or county, and reported a prominent woman as saying: "We want an office with patronage. Of course a woman can't do much as recorder, but she'll have a lot of jobs to distribute. We women are tired of being given offices that have no patronage attached. How can a woman office-holders work up a personal following without patronage to give her workers? That we haven't had it before is the reason we are so weak in politics." The Republican further states that the women would also like a supervisor or two and a member of the election commission and would make a strong fight for the office of secretary of state; and it concluded: " 'We want offices where there are enough spoils to reward our workers' in the new campaign cry of the suffragists of state." That the Denver Republican did not misrepresent Colorado women in this statement is indicated by an interview with Mrs. Harriet G.R. Wright, president for years of the Colorado Equal Suffrage Association, which was printed in the Chicago Record-Herald of July 13, 1913. In this interview, Mrs. Wright advised the women of Illinois to "grab everything that is offered while the grabbing is good" and recalled regretfully that the Colorado women leaders made the mistake of not being more insistent upon offices, and even thought it was properly feminine to decline politely, with the result that now they have to fight for every single concession. She added: "Let the Illinois women be advised and insist on recognition in the partition of offices from the start. Else they will find themselves spending a weary time later trying to get the least of offices." And that this advice did not pass unheeded is indicated by the fact that while only 9 per cent. of the Chicago women entitled to register and vote participated in the primary election of February 24, 1914, no less than seven women got themselves nominated for aldermen. WHO ARE THE ANTI-SUFFRAGISTS? The suffragists are in the habit of describing the women who oppose them as allies of the saloon-keepers, the white slavers and other agents of iniquity. With a delicate courtesy and admirable self-restraint which perhaps foreshadow what may be looked for from the political woman, Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, President of the Nation Woman Suffrage Association, has described the WOMAN SUFFRAGE IN PRACTICE 13 anti-suffrage leaders as "vultures looking for carrion," and as "protectors of the liquor interests, food dopers, child-labor exploiters, white slavers and political bosses" and has said that they "only serve the purpose that, by holding out their skirts, they act as a screen for the liquor traffic, the gambler, the vicious, and those interested in dance halls and places where young girls are ruined." It may be worth while to glance for a moment at some of the women whom Dr. Shawn thus describes. Take the Massachusetts Anti-Suffrage Association for example. The President has been for many years on the State Board of Charities, was one of the first women overseers of the poor ever elected in the State, and has been for many years one of the managers of a large private hospital. One of the vice-presidents was for many years Dean of a woman's college; another is President of the Woman's Educational Association and Vice-President of the Woman's Municipal League; another has been for many years a Director of the Massachusetts Prison Association and a member of the Massachusetts Child Labor Committee: another was for twenty years on the Massachusetts Prison Commission, and is Director of a hospital. One member of the Executive Committee has been on the school committee of her town twelve years, is trustee of a library, a manager of the District Nursing Association, and has been prominent in village improvement society work; another is Vice-President of a Home for Aged Women, and one of the managers of a Home for Crippled Children; another was for many years President of the Consumers' League; another is on the State Library Commission; another is prominent in the Society for Improved Housing of the Poor; another is President of a Village Improvement Society and Vice-President of a Hospital League; another has been chairman of the Sanitation Department of the Woman's Municipal League; another is Director of the Massachusetts Milk Consumers' Association, Director of the Department of Public Health of the Woman's Municipal League, and Chairman of its Committee on Infant Social Service, which was the pioneer in introducing pre-natal work among the poor; another is Treasurer of an Industrial School; another is on the board of management of a Home for Workingwomen, a Home for Incurables, a Woman's Free Hospital and an Industrial School for Crippled Children; and another is connected with the work of the National Woman's Civic Federation and the Boston Widows' Society, and is a Visitor for the Massachusetts General Hospital. These are the women who are directing the anti-suffrage work in Massachusetts, and women of a similar type make up the official boards of the sixteen State Anti-Suffrage Associations and the 14 WOMAN SUFFRAGE IN PRACTICE National Anti-Suffrage Association and thousands of the same type are found in the rapidly-increasing membership of these Associations. They are disinterested, public-spirited women, who give their time and strength freely to charities and philanthropies and measures for the public welfare without any thought go recognition or political preferment. They oppose woman suffrage because they believe it to be a menace both to women and to the State, and because they believe that the interests of woman and children can be better served by disinterested and non-partisan influence than by thrusting women into the strife of politics and loading them with men's responsibilities. WHAT SORT OF WOMEN ARE TO BE CONSIDERED? In discussing the question of the wisdom or the unwise of woman suffrage, the type of woman to be considered is not the woman of leisure, restless to find some avenue for her activities; nor the spectacular woman,- the woman of cross-country hikes, of street parades, of soap-box oratory; nor the young woman fresh from college, who has not yet found herself nor had time to appraise fairly values of life; but the average normal woman. Mr. Creel closes his paper with a quotation from a well-known Colorado woman, who professes to agree heartily with the opponents of equal suffrage who declare that woman's place is in the home, and who bases her own enthusiasm for suffrage on the conviction that it is in the interest of the home. This would be a good note to close on,- if only it were true. But it is not. The average woman of the home is busy,- in the vast majority of cases happily busy- with the cares of the home and the rearing of her children. She has no sympathy with Mrs. Inez Milholland Boissevain's commendation of "ten minute a day housekeeping" nor with Mrs. Charlotte Perkins Gilman's advocacy of state nurseries for children, and her argument that "if the child is not seriously ill, the nurse is as good as the mother. If the child is seriously ill, the nurse is better." The average, normal woman has the average, normal womanly instincts; and her time is fully occupied and her strength fully taxed by the duties to which they lead. If she has to make and maintain her own home by some form of industry, her time is still fully occupied and her strength often unduly taxed. In either case, it is no kindness to ask her to assume a part of man's work in addition to her own. Her interests, so far as a legislation can affect them, are increasingly well protected,-far better protected, on the average, in male suffrage states than in equal suffrage states. The suffrage is in no sense a right; it is not primarily a privilege ; it is first of all an obligation,- and not an WOMAN SUFFRAGE IN PRACTICE 15 obligation which can be met, as the suffragists lightly assert, by dropping a piece of paper in a box on the way to market. The great majority of American women do not want the ballot. The suffragists themselves admit the fact,-sometimes by implication, when they strenuously resist every proposal to find out the wishes of women through referendum, and sometimes by direct and unguarded statements; as when the Boston suffragists distributed flyers under the heading "Votes for Women" containing this statement: "People say: The majority of women don't want to vote. The majority never wants a progressive measure." In other words, the majority must have the burdens of the suffrage thrust upon them because a small and noisy minority thinks suffrage is "a progressive measure." After the overwhelming defeat of the proposed suffrage amendment in Wisconsin in 1912, Mary Swain Wagner, founder of the Political Equality League of that state, gave as an explanation of the defeat "the appalling indifference of the women," and added: "When the women themselves showed so little eagerness to obtain the ballot, it is not surprising that many men who really believed in equal suffrage, decided it was best for the women to wait awhile." And Ellis Meredith, returning to Colorado in September, 1912, after campaigning in Ohio, asked to explain the overwhelming suffrage defeat in that State, said, in an interview in the Denver News of September 9: "The first great underlying cause of the defeat was that the women themselves were so many of them either very timid or indifferent. They didn't make it evident enough that they cared. . . The defeat lies chiefly at their doors." THE REAL ISSUE. In Massachusetts, the Woman Suffrage Association claims a membership of 40,000. But the woman of the State, of voting age, number more than 1,100,000. Shall the principle of the control of the majority prevail? Or shall the 40,000 thrust the unwelcome burdens of the ballot upon more than 1,000,000? That is the real issue in Massachusetts; and the issue is the same in other male-suffrage States in which a similar demand is made. WOMAN'S RIGHTS VS WOMAN SUFFRAGE BY MRS. A. J. GEORGE ...Compliments of the... Massachusetts Association Opposed to the Further Extension of Suffrage to Women For pamphlets and information address the Secretary 687 Boylston Street, Room 615, Boston. ISSUED BY The New York State Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage 29 WEST 39TH STREET, NEW YORK CITY. WOMAN'S RIGHTS vs WOMAN SUFFRAGE. VOTES are far from being the whole story in this dispute. The imposition of political duties upon women is not, as suffragists claim, the logical result of the several steps by which the civil and legal rights of women have been recognized. It is a fundamental departure from the ideals of life and of the distribution of its duties on which the fabric of our society rests to-day. As the civic and legal rights of women have increased, public thought has become blurred and confused as to woman's duties. The suffrage is a responsibility and a duty. Upon one thing we are all agreed - the right of woman to that individual development which shall make possible her fullest contribution to the social order. There is honest difference of opinion as to how this contribution shall be made. There is no monopoly on either side of spiritual vision or of devoted service. There are those who believe that only through the vote can the State be moralized and reformed - and there are others who believe that woman's vote would be a waste of power because a duplication of effort, and that there would be no compensating gain to woman of the state for this economic loss. These hold the conviction that true progress can lie only in guiding nature in the direction in which she is moving, and not in trying to head her off, who believe that the so-called "reform" is really a retrogressive movement. The chief opponents of woman suffrage are not the special interests nor those men who take a narrow and prejudiced view of woman's relation to the state, but those women who have grave doubts whether their duty lies in service to the state by the ballot, or by a fulfilment of present responsibilities which bear no relation to the ballot. Society 3 developing normally tends to differentiate and separate the duties which men and women have, for "civilization deepens the dye of sex." If there is one thing which alarms the advocates of woman suffrage, it is the suggestion that an opportunity shall be given to the women to register an opinion on this "revolutionary measure," as Mr. Gladstone termed woman suffrage. They hate the thought of it. The reason is quite clear: they know quite well that the great majority of women are not with them and they do not want the voters to find it out. The most ardent suffragists are agreed that the enfranchisement of woman is the one subject which men alone are competent to decide. It is no part of their plan to give women a chance to express their own will on this question. They forget that the foundation of a democracy lies in mutual agreement and majority rule. From the days of the Mayflower Compact to the adoption of the Arizona constitution, the people are "bound to obedience under what is undoubtedly the will of the majority." So convinced are these impassioned advocates of votes for women that theirs is the one method by which woman should contribute her services to the state that they are determined to force legislation which is in strong opposition to the wishes of the great majority of those most concerned. Because it is peculiarly true of the American man that he shuns contention and argument with women, there is danger that the will of a minority, insistent and clamorous, shall be interpreted as the expressed desire of the majority, unless this great army of hitherto silent women takes the anomalous position of publicly protesting against the imposition of political duties. Wherever women have been given an opportunity to express their will in regard to the suffrage, a very small proportion have gone on record in favor of it. The suffragists report that only 8 per cent. of the 24,000,000 women of voting age in the United States are enrolled as active suffragists. In the state of Connecticut, which the suffragists claim as the best organized of any of the eastern states, only 4 per cent. of the women of voting age are acknowledged suffragists. In Massachusetts in 1895 a Referendum was held in which both men and women were allowed to vote on the question "Is it expedient that Municipal Suffrage should be granted to Women." The suffragists made every possible effort to bring out the vote of the women while 4 the anti-suffragists were encouraged not the vote. Only 4 per cent, of the women of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts went on record in favor of municipal suffrage for women. You may say that this was 18 years ago and public sentiment has changed, yet we find the suffragists to-day in the state of Massachusetts protesting against another referendum, because they now admit "the referendum of 1985 set their cause back many years" as well it might. In that state where all women of 21 years can vote for members of the school board without paying a poll tax and by meeting a slight educational qualification, only 2 ½ per cent. of the women entitled to register and vote for school committee do so. The last election in Boston for school committee brought out the lowest percentage of registered women voters on election day that has been recorded since 1879-with two exceptions-although since 1879 the city has greatly increased in population. In the state of New Hampshire during May 1912 over 3,000 women of voting age were enrolled opposed to woman suffrage, although in 40 years' agitation the suffragists reported as their net membership some 7,000 members, men and women. In San Francisco at the election of November 1912, according to the report of the Commissioner of Elections, 26 per cent. of the women of that city entitled to register and vote did so, although that day offered the first real opportunity for San Francisco women to cast their vote for presidential electors. In England when it was suggested in South Wiltshire to hold a referendum which the local anti-suffragists welcomed, the suffragists spurned the suggestion because "the referendum gives an equal value to the opinion of those who have carefully studied the subject and probably that larger number who have given it no serious consideration." In passing, it is interesting to ask if this objection which in the minds of the suffragists invalidated the referendum in South Wiltshire does not sum up one of the chief arguments of the opponents to woman suffrage, who see in woman suffrage a destruction of the power of the informed woman to-day, since the vote would give to the uninformed woman equal power with the informed. Suffragists promised us in 1910 a petition to Congress bearing 1,000,000 signatures. They managed to secure the signatures of 5 163,438 women to that long heralded petition and these 163,438 names represented the harvest of months of passionate devoted work throughout the country. Why is it that the majority of women do not want the franchise? It is not because they are careless of the public welfare or the rights of woman, but because they are reluctant to assume responsibilities for which they are not fitted and which do not carry with them a promise of the better fulfilment of old responsibilities which woman must carry. What has thus far been done or left undone in other states and countries where women have the ballot signifies little, for nowhere has the principle been in operation long enough to be put to the test. The real test of such a change requires a great international crisis in which passion and prejudice are at white heat and the life of the nation is at stake. Because of the recent suffrage gains this sort of talk is unpopular, but we have lived through other movements - greenbackism, populism, free silver - and time may prove that suffragism is no more sound than these other panaceas which failed when put to the test. As yet there is only the initial enthusiasm of a popular movement. There is reason that we should consider the situation in England. Does the deliberate destruction of property and the creation of public disorder promise that women are to show a more excellent way in government? Those who read history aright know that reforms have not been brought about in that country by the use of force. The country could doubtless stand the drainage of woman's civic life into political activities; in a short time as history moves, the waste of such a policy would be manifest and woman would again seek her natural channels of expression. I am not afraid of the masculine woman, but I have grave fears for the woman who confuses the work of man and woman and attempts to do both. How shall woman best contribute her part to the social order? It is not a question of aim in which suffragists and antisuffragists differ. Both parties desire woman's opportunity for her highest social efficiency in order that she may serve the State fully and nobly. The problem is to be solved, not by consulting the wishes of one group of women, but be earnest consideration of the possible results to the 6 State of the imposition of the duties of government upon all women. If the law gives to woman the right to vote, then all women have the responsibility of voting. This burden, if it is put upon any woman, must be upon all women. Never before has it been proposed to extend the franchise to a new electorate, the majority of whom are acknowledged to be either indifferent or opposed to it. It is not a question of what women want - even a majority of women; it is a question whether it is expedient for the State to put the balance of political power into the hands of woman. Does this policy promise a better order for the State? We must not take any single group of women and compare them with a less informed group of men. We must compare like with like. Have those who advocate woman suffrage the proof that the average woman will make a better voter than the average man? A favorite cartoon of the suffragists representing a woman scrubbing, with a contrasting picture of a drunken husband. The cartoon is labelled "She can't vote - he can." Fortunately, society is not made up of scrubbing wives and drunken husbands. Unfortunately both types exist, but to compare these two for purposes of illustrating the quality of moral force which all women would bring to the exercise of political duties, is neither fair nor just, either to the voting men of to-day or to the women whom it is proposed to enfranchise. Compare like with like. Do you believe that the average woman has surer means of information in regard to matters of state and national policies than has the average man? Unless you have proof you must hesitate, as patriotic women, before you double the present difficulties of our democracy. Civilization goes forward by two roads - one of them is provided by the State and deals with the conditions which surround the citizen; the other is opened by education - and here is woman's distinctive sphere - in the upbuilding of character. She trains and educates not only her own children, but also the whole body politic. She builds the individual character, by which society is reformed, for society at best reflects the character of those who compose it. It is not by the establishment nor by the suppression of institutions that social change is wrought - you may suppress the saloon, but unless public conscience is aroused, the liquor traffic is unchecked; it is by reform within the individual that the Kingdom 7 of God is advanced, and to-day we have lost our clearer vision of this truth and, forgetting the power of character, invoke the power of the law. Man's work is concerned with affairs which are akin to government, with commerce, with finance, with defense—a realm which lies outside the experience of most women. Woman is vitally concerned with matters in the home or akin to the home. To imply that we need her vote in order to help our larger housekeeping, bespeaks a misapprehension of what constitutes municipal housekeeping. As in the home the mother stands for ideals, so in the State woman stands for the creation of public opinion which the voter embodies in law. It is no answer to say that the men have failed. If they are doing so poorly, what shall we say of the women who have trained them? We have made the men what they are. Our need to-day is not more voters but better voters, and if the men have failed—and they have not failed, if we consider the slow process of the race in attaining its ideals—but if they have failed, it is because woman has neglected her part in training them to ideals of righteousness which shall be translated at the polls into votes for candidates who stand for that which is true and clean in public life. A clever woman said in New York the other day—"we want more of the home-made child and less of the street-made;" if the women think they must go into politics in order to make the street a safer place for their children, we must ask in all honesty who made the street child? As reasonable women we need not to deal with the absurd contention that the anti-suffragists class themselves with criminals, and idiots, and insane. Nor we consider the old argument which stood for "woman's rights," so called, on the assumption that the suffrage was a natural right; leading suffragists long ago abandoned that claim, and have taken up new and alluring arguments which seem to them an expression of the spirit of the times. Anti-suffragists are the first to affirm that woman's citizenship is as real as man's ; that her contribution to the State is as worthy as man's. The logic of theory is on the side of those who ask for this change ; the logic of fact is with those who protest against it. A New York newspaper of February 14 contained on a single 8 page an illustration of this logic of theory measured up to the logic of fact. One press despatch informed a sympathetic public that a young woman would march in a suffrage pageant bound in shackles to represent the state of unenfranchised women. Another press despatch told of the introduction into the New York Assembly of a proposed constitutional amendment which "prohibits the Legislature of that state from enacting laws making any discrimination between the sexes in relation to personal, civil or property rights. The amendment provides that all such laws at the time the amendment takes effect shall be null and void unless vested rights are thereby affected. A number of laws now discriminate in favor of women in regard to such matters as dower rights, alimony and personal property." There are no shackles save of nature's making. Full justice has not been done to woman, neither has full justice been done to man, but the laws of the state of New York stand as a protest against those who talk of "shackles," and they record the legal rights and exemptions for women which have been written on the statute books in recognition for the state and needs these rights and these exemptions in order that she may do her work with efficiency. Women stand to-day for the duties of a broader moral and social life, apart from the spectacular duty of exercising political power under stress of personal political ambition- and undivided body to create a scientific and trained public opinion. if they are to use men's clumsy methods, they will be a part of the political machine, and they will be divided into Democrats, and Republicans, and Socialists and Prohibitionists, precisely as men are, and as they themselves, are to-day threatened with divisions by the politics of suffrage. It is the greatest power and the pressing danger of our women's temperament that we cannot have difference of opinion and treat them impersonally as men do. In too many instances to-day necessary work right at our hand, is hampered and hindered because we are estranged by this talk and noise of the suffrage movement. Do you believe that a pledge which a powerful suffrage organization sought to exact from its members that they would "give neither money nor services to any other cause until the women of New York state have been enfranchised," is a hopeful sign that enfranchised woman will place the public good 9 above party politics? While woman parade and demand votes, what is the work at their hands which no vote can solve? Some of us, gravely doubtful as to the results of suffrage, are anxiously asking ourselves whether we are standing in the way of our toiling sisters. There are 7,000,000 of "females gainfully employed," according to the census of 1910. Are the troubles of these women to be solved by more politics or are they social and economic? Of these 7,000,000 of women, 40 per cent. are domestic servants in our homes. If we women who have so signally failed to solve the problems of two-fifths of all the wage earning women in our country, with whom we come in daily and hourly contact, who make or mar our domestic order, can we hope that by the votes of women better conditions will be obtained either for or by the women who toil in our homes and the women who toil in our factories? The terrible thing about the wage earning woman is that she is so young, that she is so overworked and that she is so underpaid. Probably the percentages of the census of 1900 will hold good with the larger figures of the census of 1910, when one-third of the wage earning women were under voting age and one-half were under twenty-five years; the average duration of the working woman was from the age of 18 to 22 years, when she left industry to go into "the business of being a woman," as Ida Tarbell has aptly termed it. Three factors determine wages; the market supply and demand, the degree of skill which is offered, and the organization of the workers into bodies where they can make collective bargaining. Under the census of 1900, only one woman in six of voting age was gainfully employed. If the five who are not wage-earners are so careless and indifferent of the lot of the woman who toils, can we hope that votes are going to help out these problems of the woman in the industry? a problem beside which questions of tariff and finance sink into insignificance and to which every right-minded woman must bring the best her heart and mind can offer. When you attend a conference on Juvenile Crime, or Infant Mortality, or Divorce, what is the keynote sounded every time? Not "Votes for Women," but the need of the preservation of the home. While suffragists are talking about the passing of the home and the dawn of an era when baby gardens shall precede kindergartens, and the state shall take care of the child, experts affirm that what the child 10 needs even more sanitary conditions is mothering, and that the morals and the health of the child are safer in a poor home than in a good institution. In recognition of this fact, we have the movement for the Widow's Pension bills in various states. That great Chinese woman, Dr. Yamei Kin recently said, "I think there will be a great reaction toward home and family life instead of the present agitation against the sacrifice and so-called narrowness of woman's sphere." In all the States there are now Child Labor Committees. Those committees have done more to better the conditions of child labor than all other influences combined, and the woman members have influenced legislation as much as the men, and the fact that the latter had a vote has not increased their effectiveness. The Child Labor laws of states in the union where women do not vote are in advance of those where women do vote, and there is abundant proof from suffrage authority to uphold this statement. Dr. McKelway is authority for stating in the fall of 1912 that the Child Labor Law of Massachusetts was the best in the country considering the compulsory education law, the age certificate system, the factory inspection laws and the many other factors which go into the building of conditions which shall safeguard the children. It is also true of the body of remedial and protective legislation for the working women, that the best safeguards for the woman who toils are found in those states where the laws have been made under an electorate of men. This is not because, as some suffragists urge, there is no need of this legislation in the woman suffrage states. There is need of it, even though the workers be few, and the comparison of laws in Colorado, Utah, Idaho and Wyoming, where women have had the vote, with those of the adjoining states of Nebraska, Oregon, Oklahoma and the Dakotas, shows and advantage on the side of the latter group of States where male suffrage has prevailed. The high water mark of legislation for the working woman was reached in Massachusetts, where her Maternity law, which forbids the employment of women for a certain period before and after child birth ( New York in 1912 passed a similar law ) and with her Minimum Wage Commission, which is concerned with the living wage of women, and her absolute prohibition of woman's work after 10 P. M. in manufacturing 11 and mercantile establishments. New York in 1912 enacted a 54-hour law for women which has just passed the test of the Supreme Court. As far back as 1877 women were elected by popular vote in the State of Massachusetts as Overseers of the Poor. The value of the work of women on appointed commissions dealing with the dependent and defective has increasing recognition in many states. To these positions women bring service untainted by political ambitions. Suffragists claim that suffrage is necessary to abolish the hideous white slave traffic. The Federal Slave Act has been on the statute books since June, 1910. Since this Act was passed, the government has obtained 337 convictions, only thirty-five of which have been acquitted, and in the present session of Congress an effort will be made to have certain amendments adopted to make a wider application of the law. These matters are being corrected along educational lines, rather than by political propaganda. Other laws must and will follow as the knowledge of the extent of the evil awakens the public conscience and the moral sense of the people aroused. A woman before the Massachusetts Legislature pleaded for the ballot in order that the theatrical billboard displays might not offend the eyes of the youth. She lacked nothing in zeal, but her knowledge of fact was lacking, as it is a fact that eighty-five per cent. of the patrons of the theatre are women. Obviously, the most direct and simple way to raise the standard of the stage is to make the box office receipts voice our protest against the violation of decency, of modesty and the corruption of youth. We have laws enough to sink the Ship of State. What we need is an enforcement of existing laws, and such new ones as shall express a public opinion which stands ready to make those laws operative. Why are we known as the most lawless people on the face of the earth? Because when a law is passed, we feel the fight is won, when in reality the campaign is just begun. The only consistent suffragist to-day is the woman who has the courage to follow her theories to their ultimate conclusion ; who stands for the so-called economic independence of woman, even to the co-responsibility of the wife for the maintence of her children, if she has any. This is the socialistic view. It must be the view of every suffragist who has the intellectual honesty and perception of the feminist. Although an officer of the National Suffrage Association has recently 12 pronounced that "Most informed and progressive people are agreed that the married woman should be economically independent," and assuming this, has urged that the father and mother should have five-hour shifts at work and in the care of the children in the home, public opinion has not kept pace with this interesting device to put marriage on a business basis. If you honestly believe in doubling the present electorate, by adding to the problem of our democracy an untried electorate, the majority of which is acknowledged to be indifferent or opposed to the exercise of the franchise, if you believe that the ballot is woman's best means of social efficiency, then you are a suffragist. Manhood suffrage is on trial and those of us who are optimistic believe it must succeed, but we know that our machinery of government is under the greatest strain in congested areas of population which present the greatest obstacles to getting measures clear before the voters. In the towns and in these same congested areas women are doing noble work through their individual efforts and in their municipal leagues and kindred organizations. They gain respectful hearings because they are distinctly apart from party strife and they do not divert the efforts for the solution of social problems to the machinery of political organization. If you recognize that nowhere on the face of the earth has woman suffrage been tried under conditions which would obtain here in this state, you will hesitate before you support the suffrage claim and you will question whether woman's service to the state should be identical with main's. What method of that service may be I tried to indicate. It has not the glamor of a new program ; it has not even a war cry, which Voltaire said people dearly loved ; but it involves a careful consideration of present duties and old obligations, to which the ballot, the political activities, the share in the administration of government, the scramble for office, offer no solution. That great English woman who made the largest contribution of the 19th century toward solving the problem of the housing of the poor, Octavia Hill, has said "Political power would militate against usefulness in the large field of public work in which so many are now doing noble and helpful service. This service is far more valuable than any voting power could possibly be . . . . . . Let the woman be set 13 on finding her duties, not her rights - there is enough of struggle for place and power, enough of watching what is popular an will win votes, enough of effort to secure majorities; if woman would temper this wild struggle, let her seek to do her own work steadily and earnestly." The anti-suffragists recognizes woman's distinctive value to the State, and believes that it is by an intensifying of her old methods of work and of her present obligations and duties, that she is to make her best contribution to the body politic, not by an extension of her energy, already overtaxed, into fields of politics and government, for which she is unfitted. There is no limitation to woman's opportunity to-day, save the limitations imposed by her physical and nervous constitution, and there we have a stone wall - not of prejudice, as some would make us think, but of Nature's own building. Suffrage is a backward step toward conditions where the work of man and woman were the same, because neither sex had evolved enough to see the wisdom of being specialists in their own line. The question is one of the improvement of society versus the multiplication of votes. To-day we have the vote of the informed man reinforced by the influence of the informed woman to set over against the vote of the informed man - two against one. Universal woman suffrage would destroy this situation, it would distribute the power among women qualified for holding it and those not qualified for holding it. We would have votes of the informed man and the informed woman against the votes of the uninformed man and the uninformed woman - two against two. The average woman is worthily employed outside of political lines. The exceptional woman to-day has every opportunity of rendering her distinctive service to the state by giving public service uncolored by political motives. To-day women have no office to seek, no political emotion to gratify, no desire but to serve. Shall the ballot be adopted as a means for that service? If woman is to exercise political functions, every act of every woman in public life will be taken with an eye to her personal and political future and not solely, as now, with reference to the good of the state. The voters register the general will - the general will is created by each human being discharging first of all the duty to which he is called by the state. There are those, and they are a majority of our 14 women, who believe that woman's duties to the state are not along political lines. These recall Maeterlinck's fable of the lighthouse keeper, who gave oil, which should have filled his lamps, to feed the poor, and when the storm came he saw great ships go to pieces on the rocks, because he had failed in the duty which was his portion. ALICE N. GEORGE. 15 In Opposition to the Further Extension of Suffrage to Women To the People of Massachusetts: We, the undersigned, believing that the success of the present agitation for Women Suffrage would be prejudicial to the best interests of the Commonwealth, do hereby affirm our opposition to the further extension of suffrage to women. Charles F. Adams, 2d, Concord Melvin O. Adams, Boston Alfred L. Aiken, Worcester Charles Allen, Greenfield Oliver Ames, Easton Charles W. Amory, Boston Francis H. Appleton, Peabody L. Dewart Apsley, Hudson William H. Aspinwall, Newton Edwin F. Atkins, Belmont Benjamin S. Atwood, Whitman Charles G. Bancroft, Natick Eben D. Bancroft, Hopedale Charles B. Barnes, Jr., Hingham Charles Neal Barney, Lynn Henry M. Batchelder, Salem Philander Bates, Cohasset Theodore C. Bates, Worcester Walter C. Baylies, Taunton William A. L. Bazeley, Uxbridge Augustus M. Bearse, Middleboro March G. Bennett, Boston Ernest Bernbaum, Cambridge Joseph S. Bigelow, Cohasset Elias B. Bishop, Newton Clarence J. Blake, Boston John Babst Blake, Boston John G. Blake, Boston Charles V. Blanchard, Somerville Joshua P. L. Bodfish, Boston Alfred Bowditch, Jamaica Plain Francis T. Bowles, Boston Samuel H. Boutwell, Andover Howard W. Bracken, Hopedale Gamaliel Bradford, Jr., Wellesley George G. Bradford, Newton S. Parker Bremer, Manchester Charles Brigham, Watertown William H. Brigham, Hudson Peter C. Brooks, Medford Howard N. Brown, Framingham Winthrop Brown, Belmont W. Sohier Bryant, Cohasset George P. Bullard, Newton Charles J. Bullock, Cambridge Clarence A. Bunker, Wellesley Herbert W. Burr, Boston Allan G. Buttrick, Lancaster Samuel Carr, Boston Franklin Carter, Williamstown Martin L. Cate, Boston Cleaveland A. Chandler, E. Bridgewater Henry A. Christian, Boston B. Preston Clark, Cohasset Charles R. Codman, Barnstable James M. Codman, Brookline Russell S. Codman, Boston Charles P. Coffin, Brookline John N. Cole, Andover John H. Corcoran, Cambridge Louis C. Cornish, Hingham Peter H. Corr, Taunton William T. Councilman, Boston Alfred E. Cox, Malden Charles T. Crane. E. Braintree Reginald H. Fitz, Boston William M. Flanders, Newton Herbert E. Fletcher, Chelmsford Louis E. Flye, Holbrook J. Murray Forbes, Milton Roger S. Forbes, Boston Frank Foxcroft, Cambridge George H. Francis, Brookline Charles T. Gallagher, Boston William F. Garcelon, Newton William A. Gardner, Groton William A. Gaston, Boston Edward Glines, Somerville William W. Goodwin, Cambridge John C. Gray, Boston Charles M. Green, Boston Frederick L. Greene, Greenfield Jerome D. Greene, Cambridge Charles P. Greenough, Brookline John M. Grosvenor, Jr., Swampscott Charles E. Guild, Milton Courtenay Guild, Boston Curtis Guild, Jr., Boston Frederick S. Hall, Taunton Paul H. Hanus, Cambridge George Harris, Amherst Robert O. Harris, East Bridgewater Edward M. Hartwell, Boston Charles H. Haskins, Cambridge Alfred Hewins, Dedham Edward Y. Hincks, Andover D. Blakely Hoar, Brookline John A. Holway, Sandwich Robert Homans, Boston Charles I. Hood, Lowell John Hopewell, Cambridge Raymond A. Hopkins, Provincetown W. S. B. Hopkins, Worcester Henry Hornblower, Arlington Frank A. Hosmer, Amherst Phineas Hubbard, Cambridge Samuel E. Hull, Millbury Clarence B. Humphreys, Boston Richard W. Irwin, Northampton Charles C. Jackson, Boston J. Lovell Johnson, Fitchburg Lesly A. Johnson, Boston T. S. Johnson, Worcester Edward A. Jones, Pittsfield Seward W. Jones, Newton Elliott P. Joslin, Boston Frank E. Kendall, Framingham E. Winchester Kingsbury, Framingham George L. Kittredge, Cambridge Henry W. Lamb, Brookline Benjamin C. Lane, Boston Daniel W. Lane, Boston Charles R. Lanman, Cambridge Aaron H. Latham, Brookline John Lawrence, Groton William B. Lawrence, Groton Ashton Lee, Lawrence Frank W. Lee, Lawrence Thomas L. Livermore, Boston Arthur Lord, Plymouth Francis Peabody, Jr., Milton W. Rodman Peabody, Cambridge Frederick B. Percy, Brookline John W. Platner, Cambridge Charles Allen Porter, Boston Abner Post, Boston James M. Prendergast, Boston George Putnam, Boston William L. Putnam, Boston Josiah H. Quincy, Boston James Ford Rhodes, Boston Arthur H. Rice, Pittsfield Charles B. Rice, Danvers Theodore W. Richards, Cambridge Charles W. Richardson, Salem William L. Richardson, Boston Austen F. Riggs, Stockbridge Alfred L. Ripley, Andover Henry F. Ripley, Hingham Charles M. Robbins, Attleboro Reginald L. Robbins, Milton Royal Robbins, Brookline Benjamin L Robinson, Cambridge James H. Ropes, Cambridge John J. E. Rothery, Wellesley Thomas Morgan Rotch, Boston Thomas Russell, Boston William H. Ryder, Andover A. Henry Sabin, Williamstown Richard M. Saltonstall, Newton Charles S. Sargent, Brookline Dudley A. Sargent, Cambridge William H. Sayward, Boston Francis P. Sears, Waltham Alexander Sedgwick, Stockbridge William T. Sedgwick, Brookline L. Clark Seelye, Northampton Frederic C. Shattuck, Boston Willis E. Sibley, Worcester Frank J. Smith, Jr., Worcester M. P. Smithwick, Lexington Samuel Snelling, Boston Frederic E. Snow, Boston William D. Sohier, Beverly Arthur W. Spencer, Brookline Francis P. Sprague, Boston Alfred E. Stearns, Andover Ephraim Stearns, Waltham Ellery Stedman, Plymouth Henry R. Stedman, Brookline Frederic J. Stimson, Dedham Charles A. Stone, Plymouth James S. Stone, Framingham Marshall I. Stone, Boston William P. Stone, Boston Charles Storrow, Brookline Charles E. Stratton, Boston John A. Sullivan, Boston Frederick C. Swift, Yarmouth Henry H. Thayer, Worcester John R. Thayer, Worcester William B. Thurber, Milton Edward A. Trowbridge, Boston M. Vejux Tyrode, Boston Arthur P. Underhill, Boston John Babst Blake, Boston John G. Blake, Boston Charles V. Blanchard, Somerville Joshua P. L. Bodfish, Boston Alfred Bowditch, Jamaica Plain Francis T. Bowles, Boston Samuel H. Boutwell, Andover Howard W. Bracken, Hopedale Gamaliel Bradford, Jr., Wellesley George G. Bradford, Newton S. Parker Bremer, Manchester Charles Brigham, Watertown William H. Brigham, Hudson Peter C. Brooks, Medford Howard N. Brown, Framingham Winthrop Brown, Belmont W. Sohier Bryant, Cohasset George P. Bullard, Newton Charles J. Bullock, Cambridge Clarence A. Bunker, Wellesley Herbert W. Burr, Boston Allan G. Buttrick, Lancaster Samuel Carr, Boston Franklin Carter, Williamstown Martin L. Cate, Boston Cleaveland A. Chandler, E. Bridgewater Henry A. Christian, Boston B. Preston Clark, Cohasset Charles R. Codman, Barnstable James M. Codman, Brookline Russell S. Codman, Boston Charles P. Coffin, Brookline John N. Cole, Andover John H. Corcoran, Cambridge Louis C. Cornish, Hingham Peter H. Corr, Taunton William T. Councilman, Boston Alfred E. Cox, Malden Charles T. Crane, E. Braintree Alvah Crocker, Fitchburg David Crocker, Barnstable George G. Crocker, Boston Albert Cross, Groton Prentiss Cummings, Brookline Frederic Cunningham, Brookline Benjamin Curtis, Wellesley Herbert E. Cushman, New Bedford Gorham Dana, Brookline James Dana, Brookline Eugene A. Darling, Cambridge Edward L. Davis, Worcester John H. Denison, Williamstown Clifford Devens, Boston Caleb H. Dolbeare, Boston George H. Doty, Waltham William B. H. Dowse, Newton George A. Draper, Hopedale George Otis Draper, Hopedale James R. Dunbar, Brookline William B. Durant, Cambridge Frank J. Dutcher, Hopedale Thomas Dwight, Nahant S. Alden Eastman, Milford Samuel J. Elder, Winchester Charles W. Eliot, Cambridge Ephraim Emerton, Cambridge William Endicott, Boston William C. Endicott, Danvers Harold C. Ernst, Boston Frank A. Fales, Norwood William O. Faxon, Stoughton Daniel B. Fenn, Stockbridge Fredrick P. Fish, Brookline Samuel A. Fisk, Brimfield Albert P. Fitch, Cambridge Robert O. Harris, East Bridgewater Edward M. Hartwell, Boston Charles H. Haskins, Cambridge Alfred Hewins, Dedham Edward Y. Hincks, Andover D. Blakely Hoar, Brookline John A. Holway, Sandwich Robert Homans, Boston Charles I. Hood, Lowell John Hopewell, Cambridge Raymond A. Hopkins, Provincetown W. S. B. Hopkins, Worcester Henry Hornblower, Arlington Frank A. Hosmer, Amherst Phineas Hubbard, Cambridge Samuel E. Hull, Millbury Clarence B. Humphreys, Boston Richard W. Irwin, Northampton Charles C. Jackson, Boston J. Lovell Johnson, Fitchburg Lesly A. Johnson, Boston T. S. Johnson, Worcester Edward A. Jones, Pittsfield Seward W. Johns, Newton Elliott P. Joslin, Boston Frank E. Kendall, Framingham E. Winchester Kingsbury, Framingham George L. Kittredge, Cambridge Henry W. Lamb, Brookline Benjamin C. Lane, Boston Daniel W. Lane, Boston Charles R. Lanman, Cambridge Aaron H. Latham, Brookline John Lawrence, Groton William B. Lawrence, Medford Ashton Lee, Lawrence Frank W. Lee, Lawrence Thomas L. Livermore, Boston Arthur Lord, Plymouth Thornton K. Lothrop, Boston Thornton K. Lothrop, Jr., Boston Francis C. Lowell, Boston John Lowell, Newton Robert Luce, Somerville Walter O. Luscombe, Falmouth Theodore Lyman, Brookline Henry S. Macomber, Brookline Frank B. Mallory, Brookline John H. McCollom, Boston Roger B. Merriman, Cambridge George H. Mifflin, Boston Charles S. Minot, Milton Laurence Minot, Boston Jacob H. Mock, Boston Charles E. Monroe, Brookline John Lovett Morse, Boston Robert M. Morse, Boston James G. Mumford, Boston William B. Munro, Cambridge James P. Munroe, Lexington Thomas H. Nickerson, Pittsfield Arthur D. Norcross, Monson Grenville H. Norcross, Boston Frederic O. North, Boston Grant W. Nowell, Brookline Augustus S. Nye, Boston Charles W. Page, Danvers Calvin D. Paige, Southbridge David L. Parker, New Bedford Fordis C. Parker, Springfield Walter E. Parker, Lawrence William L. Parker, Cohasset Henry Parkman, Boston Endicott Peabody, Groton Francis Peabody, Danvers Thomas Russell, Boston William H. Ryder, Andover A. Henry Sabin, Williamstown Richard M. Saltonstall, Newton Charles S. Sargent, Brookline Dudley A. Sargent, Cambridge William H. Sayward, Boston Francis P. Sears, Waltham Alexander Sedgwick, Stockbridge William T. Sedgwick, Brookline L. Clark Seelye, Northampton Frederick C. Shattuck, Boston Willis E. Sibley, Worcester Frank J. Smith, Jr., Worcester M. P. Smithwick, Lexington Samuel Snelling, Boston Frederic E. Snow. Boston William D. Sohier, Beverly Arthur W. Spencer, Brookline Francis P. Sprague, Boston Alfred E. Stearns, Andover Ephraim Stearns, Waltham Ellery Stedman, Plymouth Henry R. Stedman, Brookline Frederic J. Stimson, Dedham Charles A. Stone, Plymouth James S. Stone, Framingham Marshall I. Stone, Boston William P. Stone, Boston Charles Storrow, Brookline Charles E. Stratton, Boston John A. Sullivan, Boston Frederick C. Swift, Yarmouth Henry H. Thayer, Worcester John R. Thayer, Worcester Wiliam B. Thurber, Milton Edward A. Trowbridge, Boston M. Vejux Tyrode, Boston Arthur P. Underhill, Boston W. Lyman Underwood, Belmont Edward P. Upham, Boston Samuel Usher, Cambridge Joseph M. Vance, Pittsfield William W. Vaughan, Boston Herman F. Vickery, Boston F. Manton Wakefield, Brookline Henry P. Walcott, Cambridge George R. Wallace, Fitchburg Herbert I. Wallace, Fitchburg Robert de C. Ward, Cambridge Charles E. Ware, Fitchburg Joseph B. Warner, Boston John Warren, Boston J. Collins Warren Boston Winslow Warren, Dedham William N. Washburn, Greenfield Edwin S. Webster, Newton Stephen M. Weld, Dedham F. O. Wellington, E. Braintree J. Frank Wellington, Somerville Arthur H. Wellman, Malden Barrett Wendell, Boston Barrett Wendell, Jr., Boston William F. Wharton, Groton Alden P. White, Salem Henry M. Whitney, Brookline William B. Willcutt, Boston Arthur Williams, Jr., Brookline Fred H. Williams, Brookline Moses Williams, Brookline Robert Winsor, Weston Arthur H. Wood, Pittsfield Charles J. H. Woodbury, Lynn George H. Worthley, Brookline September, 1910 [*P 05 A 13*] WOMEN AND POLITICS. On behalf of a great though silent multitude of women, I desire to set forth some of the grounds on which we shrink from the proposed abolition of our present exemption from the office of electing members of Parliament. This change, if made without the serious attempt to ascertain the wishes of the women of England, may inflict upon them, against their will and without a hearing, a grave injustice. I am not about to attempt a full discussion of the whole subject, that being a task for which I am by no means competent. Nor is it my purpose to argue against the proposed measure. My objects are (1) to urge the claim of women to be consulted before any such unaccustomed share in the work of the country is assigned to them; and (2) to contribute towards the full and deliberate consideration of the question in all its bearings by calling attention to some of the pleas which women of the more retiring type are either unable, or for obvious reasons unwilling, to put forward for themselves. (1) With regard to the first question -viz., the claim of women to be consulted before the introduction of any measure so profoundly affecting their interests, and through them the interests of the whole nation-a very few words will suffice, for there can scarcely be two opinions as to the desirableness of the step if practicable. And it could hardly "pass the wit of man" to devise some method by which the opinion of women could be ascertained. There can be no impossibility about a referendum, however unfamiliar to us may be the necessary machinery. In this way, and in this way alone, we could ascertain what is the real wish of Englishwomen in this matter. We who object to the change would assuredly be glad of the opportunity of protesting; while the women who are agitating for the suffrage could not without obvious inconsistency demand that it should be given without reference to the wish of "one half the nation." We may be wrong in thinking that the change in our position would be disastrous. We cannot be wrong in maintaining that it should not be involuntary. (2) But to set forth the grounds on which many women are strongly though silently opposed to the measure is a far more arduous task. The difficulty of approaching the subject from a point of view distinctively feminine, and at the same time purely human, is great, though, I trust, not insuperable. It arises, of course, largely from those habits of reserve, and those surrounding shelters of convention and tradition, for the continuance of which we have to plead. Many women, I am sure, are silent in this controversy, not only because their education may have in some degree unfitted them for the public advocacy of their cause, but also because the very cause itself which they would advocate- the cause of reserve, of modesty, of personal dignity and refinement- appears to forbid public discussion of a position which till lately has seemed to be "its own security." It can, however, no longer be held that the subject of the right position of women is sufficiently protected by our better instincts from public discussion; and since those who wish for a change are restrained by no such scruples as I have referred to, it would, indeed, be misplaced modesty to allow judgment to go by default. 2 Women and Politics. The difficulty of discussing the question of female suffrage to any good purpose is also greatly increased by the impossibility of detaching it from the much larger and deeper problem of the right general position of women, and the feminine and human ideals to which that position should correspond and contribute. The question of the suffrage, indeed, is but an incident, so to speak, in the great movement of the last century towards what is called the “emancipation” of women. That movement has, no doubt, been mainly for good. Much has been gained for women and for the race by the removal or many restraints and causes of oppression from the lot of women, and by the opening to them of various spheres of activity and means both of self-support and of education from which they were formerly debarred. Yet none but a bold, not to say a blind, partisan of "progress" would venture to deny that the price paid for these gains had been a heavy one. With the removal of restraints it was inevitable that special protections should also be removed. With the opening of careers for women it was inevitable that they should become, more than of old, recognized breadwinners. It may be good that all doors should be open. It does not follow that it must be equally wise to pass through them all. No one can deny that there is a need for caution in going forward; and we are now confronted with the demand for a further step in the same direction, by which in the name of justice and of equal rights a real injustice, as many of us feel, may not impossibly be wrought. For the equalization of conditions or of tasks, in disregard of unequal abilities, is manifestly injustice. Whether woman can in any sense be considered as "equal" to men appears to be a question as idle as it is interminable; but there is no need to consider it, since women are certainly handicapped by natural burdens from which men are free. The women whose profound, though often unspoken, reluctance to the proposed addition to their duties and responsibilities I am endeavoring to interpret, do not regard the question as mainly referring to the value, or the best distribution, of a particular bit of political machinery; but as involving that of the right and fair division of labor between the sexes. We regard the suffrage not as conferring a necessarily advantageous position, but rather as the symbol, and to some extent the instrument, of a public participation in political functions; not as a prize to be coveted, but as the token of a task which should not be indiscriminately imposed - a task not to be lightly undertaken, or discharged with out encountering both toil and opposition. We think that justice and fairness consist, not in ignoring actual differences, but in so adjusting necessary burdens with due regard to the lines of irremovable difference as to secure the most even distribution of pressure. We believe that the fact that Nature has irrevocably imposed certain burdens on our sex constitutes a claim, as a matter of justice, that we should be relieved from some part of those functions which men are competent to share with us. That we have hitherto been exempt from political and electoral duties is, we believe, the natural result of the universal and partly instinctive recognition of this piece of elementary justice. It cannot be in fairness attributed to any doubt of our "worthiness" to take a part in national duties and responsibilities. Rather it is owing to the belief, unquestioned till yesterday, that other methods of sharing such duties were more worthy of our already burdened strength. It has hitherto been felt that woman's time Women and Politics 3 and woman's best energies were not only more fitly occupied, but more economically bestowed, in discharging those duties which she alone is capable of undertaking. And who can estimate the importance to the whole nation of the right and unhindered performance of those duties? It is often said that the suffrage could be no grievance to the women who do not wish for it, because they could always abstain from voting. Individuals, of course, could abstain. But is it reasonable to suppose that women generally, if placed by the deliberate act of the nation in the position of electors, could maintain their present sense of exemption from the call to investigate for themselves the opinions and qualifications of candidates, and the mechanism and probable working of the particular measures to which candidates might be willing to pledge themselves? Any woman could, of course, abstain from voting; but would this shelter her from being canvassed for her vote? Is it possible to suppose that a constitutional change of such magnitude as the extension of the suffrage to women would leave unaltered the prevailing view of the right relative position of the sexes? Is it not the convenience or the wish of either sex, still less of individuals, that we have to consider, but the good of the nation. The proposed change may be for good or for evil, but it is idle to deny that it would be far-reaching and important in its effect on all our social relations. Again, we are told that the objection which rests on the fact that he hands of women are already full of domestic duties does not apply to the large (at present unduly large) proportion of single women, who for the purposes of argument are often assumed to have no share in such duties. Those of us who occupy that position well know how far this is from being the case, even during the existence of the present excess of the female population (soon we must hope, to be reduced for the benefit of the colonies). In almost every home in the country, in every school, and every hospital, and every poverty-stricken district, there is work for single women, and the difficulty even now is to find women available for the performance of it. Childless women, of course, have more freedom of choice in the disposal of their time than mothers; but if they are but moderately capable they will find the demands on their time and sympathies often overwhelming. While sickness and sorrow and orphanhood abound amongst us as they do, it can hardly be otherwise. It is also to be remembered that unmarried women, though many, are yet a minority. It is not easy to ascertain the precise proportion of women who never marry, but it would appear from an observation continued during some months of the deaths of women over thirty, as recorded in the Times newspaper, that about three out of four were or had been married. In the wage-earning classes the proportion of confirmed spinsters is probably still smaller. At any rate, the number of women of mature age who have really no domestic duties can never be large enough to alter to an appreciable extent the general truth that women's work, even when professional (as in the case of trained nurses, schoolteachers, and matrons of institutions), is still chiefly domestic. Whether it ought to be more or less exclusively so than it is now is a question of far- reaching importance, and well worth our serious consideration. Its bearing upon the question of the suffrage is, perhaps, chiefly indirect. For there is no doubt that almost all women, whether married or single, and whatever their occupation, could find time to record a vote, if that were all, and 4 Women and Politics if it were their duty to do so. The question is whether, without neglecting their own special work, they can have leisure or opportunity for acquiring the familiar knowledge, either of candidates or of measures, which would be needed to give any value to their votes; whether, in short, public affairs are not outside the peculiar province of women, and whether it is best that women should outstep, or remain within, their own peculiar province. In a certain sense, no doubt, public affairs are the province of us all. There are many questions coming before Parliament on which it would be most desirable that the opinion of wise and experienced women should be heard. If it were within the horizon of practical politics that some women should sit in each House, or that there should be a third House (with or without legislative power) in which the voice of women could be heard, as that of "the Church" is heard in Convocation, much would no doubt be gained. In that was a certain feminine tone-- by which I mean a tone of comparative tenderness, calmness, and piety, combined with a lively sense of detail --might not ineffectually leaven the deliberations of our representatives. Women, in electing each other, would bring to bear a real discrimination, and such elections could be carried on in modes specially adapted to preserve the essential qualities of womanhood from unfavorable influences. But this is not what seems to be now in contemplation. The object of the present agitation seems to be to obliterate for electioneering purposes the distinction of sex, while maintaining it as regards the members elected, and so to plunge women into the struggles of an ordinary election, merely that their votes may be given in favor of one man rather than another. This process appears to be double wasteful. No one can be sure what would be its effect on the House of Commons. The candidates chosen by men and women jointly might be pledged to a rather different set of measures from those now demanded of them; or the relative importance of certain measures might be in some degree altered; by the representatives chosen would still be men, and as such entirely incompetent to represent the woman's view of affairs. I am not undervaluing the importance of that view. My contention rather is that the proposed change would fail to give effect to it, and would, at the same time tend to hinder its present effectiveness, as conveyed through its natural channels of gentle home influence and personal authority over the consciences and convictions of men. It is certainly not in the interests of either sex alone that this question should be considered. Nor can the demand for the extension of the suffrage to women be rightly described as a claim made by "woman." Not only do many women utterly refuse to acknowledge as their representatives those who are now making that demand, but these silent opponents feel that it is a claim on women rather than for women which is under consideration. The use of the word "enfranchisement" as equivalent to voting power appears to be full of misleading associations. To have a voice in electing members of Parliament is, no doubt, to have a minute fragment of political power. But this is a very different thing from freedom. It seems to me very doubtful whether the personal freedom of women would, on the whole, be increased by the possession of such power. Anything like rivalry of jealousy between the sexes is too odious a thought to be dwelt on. But it seems necessary to remember that, were it possible for any such opposition to arise, women must of necessity fail. Women and Politics 5 Our strength lies not in our power to oppose, but in our appeal to all that is best and tenderest in men--in our possession of a key to their reverence. If there be any method by which we can really help them more fully, either in private or in public life, every true woman will rejoice to use it. But the suffrage can never have any other value or importance than as it may help or hinder the united and harmonious action of the nation as a whole. It is a means to an end, not a thing precious in itself. What we therefore have to consider is a deeper and larger question than that of our electoral machinery. It is what adjustment of offices and burdens, as between men and women, will most effectually promote the harmonious and energetic working of our national institutions, and the purification and elevation of our national life, both in public and in private. To whatever extent it may be possible, by changes in our organization and in our accepted ideals, to assimilate the functions of the two sexes, to that extent, of course, the advantage of variety is sacrificed. If women are to be encouraged to spend their lives, so far as Nature allows, as men spend theirs, the special value and virtue of womanliness will be lost; and the contribution of women to the general stock will to that extent be merely a numerical increase, not an enrichment of quality. This change, which would in my judgement be a disastrous one, is happily limited, not only by immemorial custom, but in the last resort by unalterable conditions; but it is not so limited as that there is nothing risked by the attempt to approach, or even to push forward, the limit. The extension of the suffrage to women might not by itself greatly lessen the distinctness of the present division of human affairs into separate provinces; but as the symbol and instrument of what is called "emancipation" it would unquestionably tend in that direction. And we are bound to consider seriously how far we are right in pursuing the policy of effacing or ignoring the distinctions of sex. To say that this policy has gone far enough is not to cast any doubt on its having been right to pursue it up to a certain point. It does not follow, because a certain process has been beneficial in a particular case and a moderate degree, that it must be desirable to push it in all cases to the utmost extreme. The real question, then, is whether our country will be best served by a continuation of the present immemorial distribution of functions, by which men undertake the actual management of what are emphatically called public affairs, while women are mainly occupied with private or domestic matters, each sex exercising the while a powerful influence on the way in which the other manages its own special business; or whether it would be a better plan that both sexes should indiscriminately attend to all business, whether public or private. There is a certain absurdity about the mere suggestion of men's taking any increased part in women's work, which seems to show the inherent one-sidedness or unfairness of the suggested alteration. What is, in fact, proposed is that women, while continuing to do all their own work, shall take an increased share in that of men --or, if the expression be preferred, in that which is open to both men and women. The obvious result would be that the work which women only can do must be increasingly neglected. How much and how grievously it is already neglected is too clear from the terrible statistics of infant mortality, and probably also from the evidence of physical degeneration in adults. The health and vigor of the nation are at 6 Women and Politics. the present time too obviously suffering from the extent to which, in the wage-earning classes, at any rate, women have become bread-winners. [*No one who has worked among the poor can have failed to notice the discreditable readiness of many men to live upon the earnings of their wives.*] I do not, of course, mean that this is the only cause of the evils in question, but that it is one of their main causes can, I think, hardly be denied. Whatever tends to throw on women more than their natural share of the burdens and struggles of life must act unfavorably upon the children. I know that this and other kindred evils are very naturally brought forward as showing the need of more feminine and motherly influences on public affairs. As to the need of such influence I most earnestly agree. It is the very ground of my whole protest; for if women are to exercise it they must before all things remain feminine and motherly. Call them away from home-from their own comparatively limited but (perhaps for that very reason) deeper and more lasting range of influence into the wider arena of political strife and of the multifarious daily business of the outer world -and you may find that you have forfeited the very qualities of which you were in search; or, rather, you may gravely impair that which, thank Heaven, can never be entirely forfeited. For what is it that makes or keeps women feminine and motherly? Why do we expect to find in women a tenderness, a gentleness, and a detailed consideration and understanding of the needs and sufferings of others, along with a rapidity and sureness of instinctive judgment and a delicate sense of moral fitness, not to be found in anything like the same degree in men of the same social position and opportunities? Because they are born so, will be the reply of most people. Largely, no doubt, the difference is innate, and depends upon conditions beyond our ken of control. To that extent I thankfully believe it to be indestructible. But we want, for the purification and elevation of our national life and action, not the irreducible minimum of womanliness. We desire, not the lowest, but the highest and purest type of womanhood to be preserved and perpetuated amongst us. Who can doubt that this depends largely upon social and educational influences, and upon the nature of the feminine ideal we accept as distinct from, and complementary to, the masculine ideal? The purest and noblest type of womanhood is assuredly -and this is what, I fear, we are in some danger of forgetting -largely developed by the experiences and habits of motherhood and sisterhood, whether actual or ideal. That is to say, women are, or have been, from their childhood trained to bestow a very large proportion of their time and attention upon the art of family life. From the doll stage onwards the habit of watching over and cherishing the helpless, and especially the suffering, is exercised and encouraged. As long as the lot of wife and mother -or, as an alternative, that of Sister of Charity and Mother in Israel -was regarded as the ideal destiny for women generally, the virtues of patient, self-forgetful devotion and tenderness, with all the accompanying qualities which we can specially womanly, were fostered by every surrounding influence. But it is idle to suppose that these qualities will flourish equally well in an atmosphere of ambition for success in professional or political careers. Dare we say even now that there is no falling off in the appreciation by girls of the beautiful possibilities of domestic life? Can we honestly say that the free and applauded entrance of women Women and Politics. 7 on careers more or less public has not lessened their readiness to undertake the heavy, though precious, burdens of maternity? If it be true, as we an scarcely doubt, that some such grievous perversion of natural feeling is going on, the causes of it must certainly be far deeper and wider than can be reached by any electoral arrangements. But the existence of a serious danger is reason enough for avoiding everything which may in even a slight degree tend to aggravate it, and this particular danger must obviously be increased by whatever tends to exalt political and public careers in the estimation of women as compared with the exercise of motherly and specially feminine influences. It is not from any wish to exclude women from taking their share in public life that we dread the suffrage. We desire, while preserving the old domestic ideal, to extend its action beyond the narrow limits of particular families, and beyond the actual relation of parent and child, so as to purify and elevate the whole of our national action through its influence - by its own methods. To this end our first care must be to see that girls shall still be trained to motherliness from infancy, and that all our expanding view of education, all our modern facilities for extending it, shall be regulated by this distinct aim. Maternal instincts may, indeed, be innate in all good women, but it does not follow that their right development is independent of training. Appreciation and admiration alone are not sufficient to preserve them. The art of family life, like all other arts, needs steady practice and study. It consists in the continual application to all the details of daily home life of those principles of goodness, beauty, and truth which underlie all right action, but the working of which, by continual practice in "that which is least," comes to be more instinctively recognized, if less intellectually grasped, by the half of humanity whose duties lie nearest at hand, and in whom the sense of duty has a more or less conscious root in physical instincts. It does not seem possible to cultivate merely intellectual faculties to the utmost without in some degree sacrificing the swiftness and clearness of moral instincts. At any rate, the womanly gift of instantaneous moral judgment must greatly result from the fact that in family life observation, quickened by affection, supplies so much practice in the rapid and almost unconscious application of ethical standards, apart from the slower process of reasoning out the connection between welfare and virtue. That slower process is doubtless quite as important as instinctive judgment, and, indeed, is indispensable as a support and corrective to it. My point is that if we begin to aim at qualifying women to take a share in public life on the same level with men, not to say - which Heaven forbid! - in opposition to our rivalry with them, we shall run a serious risk of blunting the weapon with which a more domestic training so wonderfully furnishes them, for promptly dividing truth from error, reality from pretence, purity of motive from self-seeking, however plausible or disguised. By the keenness and especially the detachment of feminine judgment many a man is kept from sinking to the level of worldly or professional or business codes of conventional morality. While home is a sanctuary, the world of business and politics is continually open to a purifying and elevating influence. I thankfully believe that this influence can never be wholly lost. I gravely fear that it may be lowered by the throwing down of all protecting barriers between women and the rough outer world. 8 Women and Politics. The sanctuary which every rightly ordered home must be is not a mere school of housekeeping and ornament, but a centre of calmness and peace, from which the greatest and deepest as well as the minutest things of life wear an aspect not less but more impressive than they can have in the market or the street. I would have women, to the extent of their ability, study and form a deliberate judgment upon the concerns of their country and of the world at large. If their sheltered position as home-builders naturally prevents their becoming familiar with the precise working of political machinery, their view of the goal to be aimed at may be all the more distinct. From their bird's-eye point of view the end may be kept well in sight, while the means by which it is to be worked out are chiefly left to the men who are in the thick of the battle. From such a central but retired position - "true to the kindred points of heaven and home" - may radiate influences far stronger as well as purer than could ever be exercised by comrades in the field. Where all are striving none can be umpire. I would have an Egeria in every house to act not only as inspirer, but as moderator and guide of the patriotic zeal of the men whose hearts, after all, she holds in her hands. We cannot eat our cake and have it. The world will move, and in striving for new virtues and new power for some good of the old defences must, I readily acknowledge, be left behind. Yet no one will deny that the process, however beneficial, is a dangerous one. It may be that my apprehensions are exaggerated; it may be that there are real needs, imperfectly visible to my eyes, for some further alteration of our traditional balance and adjustment of functions as between men and women. It may be that the gains of such readjustment will outweigh the losses, and that new virtues may be developed by it without serious injury to the old loveliness of life. But it cannot be right that such readjustment should be made or stimulated on any but the broadest grounds of national expediency, or without the hearty concurrence of the half of the nation most immediately concerned. Caroline E. Stephen. The Nineteenth Century and After. (Reprinted from The Living Age, March 9, 1907.) Printed by the Massachusetts Association opposed to further Extension of Suffrage to Women. Pamphlets and leaflets may be obtained fro the Secretary of the Association. Address, THE SECRETARY P.O. Box 134, Brookline, Mass. Comparison of the Official Vote in Six Non-Suffrage and Six Suffrage States. Official records show an immense contrast between the total possible vote in States where women vote and the actual vote. This article compares the record of six "suffrage" States and six adjoining "non-suffrage" States. The figures indicate that the imposition of the vote upon women has caused a host of men to evade the responsibility of the ballot or that very few women vote in the suffrage States. In either case the problem is serious and additional proof of the perils of woman suffrage. Figures showing the surprising weakness of the total vote of both males and females in the six suffrage States in the last Presidential election and the contrasting high percentage of the total vote in six adjoining non-suffrage States: WOMAN SUFFRAGE STATES CALIFORNIA - Population 21 years of age or over, exclusive of Japanese and Chinese: Males ......................... 890,793 Females ....................... 665,450 Total possible vote ............. 1,556,244 Actual vote for Presidency ................ 673,527 COLORADO - Males ......................... 269,211 Females ....................... 213,340 Total possible vote ............. 482,551 Actual vote .............................. 266,871 WYOMING - Males ......................... 61,519 Females ....................... 28,426 Total possible vote ............. 89,945 Actual vote .............................. 42,296 WASHINGTON - Males ......................... 428,825 Females ....................... 276,429 Total possible vote ............. 705,254 Actual vote .............................. 322,799 IDAHO - Males ......................... 108,847 Females ....................... 69,761 Total possible vote ............. 178,608 Actual vote for Presidency ................ 104,203 UTAH - Males ......................... 101,902 Females ....................... 85,648 Total possible vote ............. 187,550 Actual vote for Presidency ................ 111,894 Total population of men and women 21 years or more of age, exclusive of Japanese and Chinese, in six suffrage States, and therefore the total possible vote in those six States .... 3,200,152 Total vote actually cast in those six States for the Presidency in 1912 ......................... 1,521,590 The per cent. which voted ....................... 47 1/2 NON-SUFFRAGE STATES KANSAS - Males 21 years of age or over, exclusive of Japanese and Chinese ............. 508, 425 Votes cast ............................... 365,442 NEBRASKA - Male votes possible ...................... 352,995 Votes cast ............................... 249,871 OREGON - Male votes possible ...................... 244,719 Votes cast ............................... 137,040 NEVADA - Male votes possible ...................... 38,443 Votes cast ............................... 20,744 SOUTH DAKOTA - Male votes possible ...................... 178,054 Votes cast ............................... 116,325 MISSOURI - Male votes possible ...................... 972,483 Votes cast ............................... 698,562 Total men 21 years or over in six non-suffrage States ..................................... 2,295,119 Total vote in the six non-suffrage States for President .................................. 1,587,984 Percentage of possible vote case in six non-suffrage States ..................................... 69 If 69 per cent. of the men voted in the woman suffrage States, as they did in the non-woman suffrage States, an analysis of the figures shows that only 17.8 per cent. of the women voters in the suffrage States actually voted. Here are the striking facts: In the six woman suffrage States only 47 1/2 per cent. of the total possible vote was cast. In the six non-suffrage States near the suffrage States 69 per cent. of the total possible vote was cast, showing that woman suffrage, according to these statistics, which have been secured from the Secretaries of State of the various States and from the most accurate published figures available, tends to decrease the actual voting strength rather than to increase healthy interest in politics. Issued by the Massachusetts Association Opposed to the Further Extension of Suffrage to Women. Pamphlets and leaflets may be obtained from the Secretary, Room 615, Kensington Building, 687 Boylston Street, Boston, Mass. 15 LETTER FROM MRS. CLARA T. LEONARD, IN OPPOSITION TO WOMAN SUFFRAGE, FIRST WOMAN MEMBER OF THE STATE BOARD OF HEALTH, LUNACY, AND CHARITY OF MASSACHUSETTS. The following letter was read by Thornton K. Lothrop, Esp., at the hearing before the Legislative Committee on Woman Suffrage, January 29, 1884: - The principal reasons assigned for giving suffrage to women are these: That the right to vote is a natural and inherent right of which women are deprived of the tyranny of men. That the fact that the majority of women do not wish for the right or privilege to vote is not a reason for depriving the minority of an inborn right. That women are taxed but not represented, contrary to principles of free government. That society would gain by the participation of women in government, because women are purer and more conscientious than men, and especially that the cause of temperance would be promoted by women's votes. Those women who are averse to female suffrage hold differing opinions on all these points, and are entitled to be heard fairly and without unjust reproach and contempt on the part of "suffragists," so called. The right to vote is not an inherent right, but, like the right to hold land, is conferred upon individuals by general consent, with certain limitations, and for the good of all. It is as true to say that the earth was made for all its inhabitants, and that no man has a right to appropriate a portion of its surface, as to say that all persons have a right to participate in government. Many persons can be found to hold both these opinions. Experience has proved that the general good is promoted by ownership of the soil, with the resultant inducement to its improvement. Voting is simply a mathematical test of strength. Uncivilized nations strive for mastery by physical combat, thus wasting life and resources. Enlightened societies agree to determine the relative strength of opposing parties by actual count. God has made women weaker than men, incapable of taking part in battles, indisposed to make riot and political disturbance. * Mrs. Leonard was characterized by the late Senator George F. Hoar as "the highest living authority on private and public charities." 2 The vote which, in the hand of a man, is a "possible bayonet," would not, when thrown by a woman, represent any physical power to enforce her will. If all the women in the State voted in one way, and all the men in the opposite one, the women, even if in the majority, would not carry the day, because the vote would not be an estimate of material strength and the power to enforce the will of the majority. When one considers the strong passions and conflicts excited in elections, it is vain to suppose that the really stronger would yield to the weaker party. It is no more unjust to deprive women of the ballot than to deprive minors, who outnumber those above the age of majority, and who might well claim, many of them, to be as well able to decide political questions as their elders. If the majority of women are either not desirous to vote or are strongly opposed to voting, the minority should yield in this, as they are obliged to do in all other public matters. In fact, they will be obliged to yield, so long as the present state of opinion exists among women in general, for legislators will naturally consult the wishes of the women of their own families and neighborhood, and be governed by them. There can be no doubt that in this State, where women are highly respected and have great influence, the ballot would be readily granted to them by men, if they desire it, or generally approved of woman suffrage. Women are taxed, it is true; so are minors, without the ballot; it is untrue, to say that either class is not represented. The thousand ties of relationship and friendship cause the identity of interest between the sexes. What is good in a community for men, is good also for their wives and sisters, daughters and friends. The laws of Massachusetts discriminate much in favor or women, by exempting unmarried women of small estate from taxation; by allowing women, and not men, to acquire a settlement without paying a tax; by compelling husbands to support their wives, but exempting the wife, even when rich, from supporting an indigent husband; by making men liable for debts of wives, and not vice versa. In the days of the American Revolution, the first cause of complaint was, that a whole people are taxed but not represented. To-day there is not a single interest of woman which is not shared and defended by men, not a subject in which she takes an intelligent interest in which she cannot exert an influence in the community proportional to her character and ability. It is, because the men who govern, live, not in a remote country with separate interests, but in the closest relations of family and neighborhood, and bound by the tenderest ties to the other sex, who are fully and well represented by relations, friends, and neighbors in every locality. That women are purer and more conscientious than men, as a sex, is exceedingly doubtful when applied to politics. The faults of the sexes are different, according to their constitution and habits of life. Men are more violent and open in their misdeeds; but any person who knows human nature well, and has examined it in its various phases, knows that each sex is open to its peculiar temptation and sin; that the human heart is weak and 3 prone to evil without the distinction of sex. It seems certain that, were women admitted to vote and to hold political office, all the intrigue, corruption, and selfishness displayed by men in political life would also be found among women. In the temperance cause we should gain little or nothing by admitting women to vote, for two reasons: first, that experience has proved that the strictest laws cannot be enforced if a great number of people determine to drink liquor; secondly, because among women voters we should find in our cities thousands of foreign birth who habitually drink beer and spirits daily without intoxication, and who regard license or prohibitory laws as an infringement of their liberty. It has been said that municipal suffrage for women in England has proved a political success. Even if this is true, it offers no parallel to the condition of things in our own cities: first, because there is in England a property qualification required to vote, which excludes the more ignorant and irresponsible classes, and makes women voters few and generally intelligent; secondly, because England is an old, conservative country, with much emigration and but little immigration. Here is a constant influx of foreigners: illiterate, without love of our country or interest in, or knowledge of, the history of our liberties, to whom, after a short residence, we give a full share in our government. The result begins to be alarming - enormous taxation, purchasable votes, demagogism, - all these alarm the more thoughtful, and we are not yet sure of the end. It is a wise thought that the possible bayonet or ruder weapon in the hands of our new citizens would be even worse than the ballot, and our safer course is to give the immigrants a stake and interest in the government. But when we learn that on an average one thousand immigrants per week landed at the port of Boston in the past calendar year, is it not well to consider carefully how we double and more than double the popular vote, with all its dangers and its ingredients of ignorance and irresponsibility? Last of all, it must be considered that the lives of men and women are essentially different. One sex lives in public, in constant conflict with the world, the other sex must live chiefly in private and domestic life, or the race will be without homes and gradually die out. If nearly one-half of the male voters of our State forego their duty or privilege, as is the fact, what proportion of women would exercise the suffrage? Probably a very small one. The heaviest vote would be in the cities, as now, and the ignorant and unfit women would be the ready prey of the unscrupulous demagogue. Women do not hold a position inferior to men. In this land they have the softer side of life, - the best of everything. There are, of course, exceptions - individuals - whose struggle in life is hard, whose husbands and fathers are tyrants instead of protectors; so there are bad wives, and men ruined and disheartened by selfish, idle women. The best work that a woman can do for the purifying of politics is by her influence over men, by the wise training of her children, by her intelligent, unselfish counsel to husband, brother, or friend, by a thorough knowledge and discussion of the needs of her community. Many laws on the statute 4 books of our own and other States have been the work of women. More might be added. It is the opinion of many of us, that woman's power is greater without the ballot or possibility of office-holding for gain, when, standing outside of politics, she discusses great questions upon their merit. Much has been achieved by women in the anti-slavery cause, the temperance cause, the improvement of public and private charities, the reformation of criminals, all by intelligent discussion and influence upon men. Our legislators have been ready to listen to women, and carry out their plans when well framed. Women can do much useful public service upon boards of education, school committees, and public charities, and are beginning to do such work. It is of vital importance to the integrity of our charitable and educational administration that it be kept out of politics. Is it not well, that we should have one sex who have no political ends to serve, who can fill responsible positions of public trust? Voting alone can easily be performed by women without rude contact, but to attain any political power women must affiliate themselves with men; because women will differ on public questions, must attend primary meetings and caucuses, will inevitably hold public office and strive for it; in short, women must enter the political arena. This result will be repulsive to a large portion of the sex, and would tend to make women unfeminine and combative, which would be a detriment to society. It is well that men after the burden and heat of the day should return to homes where the quiet side of life is presented to them. In these peaceful New England homes of ours, great and noble men have been reared by wise and pious mothers, who instructed them, not in politics, but in those general principles of justice, integrity, and unselfishness, which belong to and will insure statesmanship in the men who are true to them. Here is the stronghold of the sex, weakest in body, powerful for good or evil over the stronger one , whom women sway and govern; not by the ballot and by greater numbers, but by those gentle influences designed by the Creator to soften and subdue man's ruder nature. (Signed) CLARA T. LEONARD. Issued by the Massachusetts Association Opposed to the Further Extension of Suffrage to Women. Pamphlets and leaflets may be obtained from the Secretary, Room 615, Kensington Building, 687 Boylston Street, Boston, Mass. 1911 Massachusetts Association Opposed to the Further Extension of Suffrage to Women Room 615, Kensington Building, 687 Boylston street, Boston Members in 305 Cities, Towns, and Villages of the State Thirty-eight Branch Committees EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE PRESIDENT Miss Mary S. Ames VICE-PRESIDENTS Mrs. J. Randolph Coolidge Miss Anna L. Dawes Mrs. Charles E. Guild Mrs. Charles D. Homans Miss Agnes Irwin Mrs. Henry W. Whitney TREASURER Mrs. James M. Codman, Brookline. RECORDING SECRETARY Miss Elizabeth Johnson CORRESPONDING SECRETARY Mrs. Charles. P. Strong EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE (Continued) Mrs. Martin L. Cate Miss Sarah H. Crocker Miss Katharine E. Guild Miss Elizabeth H. Houghton Mrs. Henry P. Kidder Miss Elizabeth McCracken Miss L. C. Post Mrs. William Lowell Putnam Mrs. B. L. Robinson Mrs. Richard M. Saltonstall Miss Elizabeth P. Sohier HONORARY MEMBERS OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE Mrs. James M. Crafts Miss Sarah E. Hunt Mrs. Francis C. Lowell Mrs. Philip H. Sears Mrs. William T. Sedgwick Mrs. G. Howland Shaw This Association has been organized by women who believe that a systematic resistance should be made to the appeals and claims of women suffragists, and who desire to educate public opinion to an opposition based on intelligent conviction. The work of the Association includes the collection and distribution of pamphlets on the subject, the promotion of publicity by means of lectures and written articles, as well as the presentation to the legislature, when occasion demands, of remonstrances against the passage of suffrage measures. In view of the decisive vote of November, 1895, when only four per cent of the women of Massachusetts called for the suffrage, it seems not unfair to say that the vast majority of the women of the state, indifferent or unwilling, is in danger of having the ballot thrust upon it by a minority numerically insignificant. This minority is, however, outspoken and aggressive. Women who neglect to express their dissent from suffrage views must expect to find themselves misrepresented by their most active opponents. It becomes of the utmost importance, therefore, that those who believe that the enfranchisement of woman is undesirable should make themselves heard. All women in Massachusetts over twenty-one years of age, who are opposed to woman suffrage, are urged to ally themselves with this movement by sending their names for membership to the Secretary, 615 Kensington Building, 687 Boylston Street, Boston. No fee is required. On receipt of twenty-five cents the quarterly publication of the Association, The Remonstrance, will be mailed to any address. STANDING COMMITTEE Amherst Mrs. George Harris Mrs. Edward Hitchcock Mrs. George Olds Andover Mrs. George W. W. Dove Mrs. Percival Dove Miss Emily A. Means Mrs. Harold Melledge Mrs. Alfred E. Stearns Arlington Mrs. I. T. Hunt Barnstable Mrs. David Crocker Barre Miss L.E. Jenkins Bedford Mrs. George R. Blinn Belmont Mrs. Edwin F. Atkins Mrs. H. A. Clark Mrs. M. B. Horne Mrs. John G. Palfrey Beverly Mrs. W.C. Boyden Mrs. Francis Norwood Miss Elizabeth P. Sohier Miss Asenath Woodbury Billerica (North) Mrs. Frederic S. Clark Boston Mrs. T. B. Aldrich Mrs. Thomas Allen Mrs. C. W. Amory Mrs. Robert Amory Mrs. Judith W. Andrews Mrs. F. Spencer Baldwin, Brighton Miss Jessie F. Beale Mrs. Arthur W. Blair, Dorchester Mrs. Alfred Bowditch, Jamaica Plain Mrs. T.J. Bowlker Mrs. Leverett Bradley Mrs. John L. Bremer Miss Anna N. Brock, Brighton Mrs. P.C. Brooks Mrs. Herbert W. Burr, Dorchester Mrs. B. S. Calef Miss Julia Carey, Dorchester Mrs. Martin L. Cate Miss Anna Farrar Clary, Mattapan Mrs. Benjamin E. Cole Miss Helen Collamore Miss Lisbeth B. Comins, Jamaica Plain Miss Katharine E. Conway Mrs. J. Randolph Coolidge Miss Mary E. Corbett, Charlestown Mrs. James M. Crafts Mrs. George G. Crocker Miss Sarah H. Crocker Mrs. S. V. R. Crosby Mrs. Charles P. Curtis Mrs. Charles P. Curtis, Jr. Mrs. Lorin F. Deland Mrs. Charles F. Dewick, Dorchester Miss Frances J. Dyer Miss Alice Farnsworth Mrs. Walbridge A. Field Mrs. R. H. Fitz Mrs. J. Murray Forbes Mrs. Julia F. Francis Miss Frances Goodwin, Jamaica Plain Mrs. John C. Gray Mrs. Curtis Guild, Jr. Mrs. Herbert L. Harding, Jamaica Plain Mrs. C. F. Hartt, Allston Mrs. E. M. Hartwell, Jamaica Plain Mrs. James A. Hathaway, Brighton Miss Heloise E. Hersey Mrs. F. L Higginson Mrs. Charles D. Homans Boston (continued) Mrs. Robert Homans Mrs. Arabella Howe Mrs. J.F. Hunnewell Miss. Elizabeth Johnson Mrs. Henry P. Kidder Mrs. Reuben Kidner Mrs. C.M. Lamson Mrs. Channing Lilly Mrs. Frederick T. Lord Mrs. Robert W. Lovett Mrs, Francis C. Lowell Mrs. William P. Lucas Mrs. J.B. Millet Miss Madeline C. Mixter Mrs. S.J. Mixter Mrs. James G. Mumford Miss Clara J. Nickels Mrs. William L. Parker Mrs. Henry Parkman Mrs. William K. Porter, Jr. Miss L.C. Post Miss J.C. Prendergast Mrs. Josiah H. Quincy, West Roxbury Mrs. James Reed Mrs. James Ford Rhodes Mrs. Robert S. Russell Mrs. Thomas Russell Mrs. George P. Sanger Mrs. William H. Sayward, Dorchester Mrs. Philip H. Sears Mrs. Frederick C. Shattuck Mrs. G. Howland Shaw Mrs. Nelson Shumway, Dorchester Mrs. Henry H. Sprague Miss Adele G. Thayer Mrs. Charles S. Tuckerman Mrs. W.W. Vaughan Mrs. Darwin E. Ware Mrs. Kate Gannett Wells Mrs. Barrett Wendell Mrs. Charles T. White Mrs. F.A. Whitwell Mrs. Frederick Winslow Miss Mary P. Winsor Bourne Mrs. W.A. Nye Brewster Mrs. Roland Nickerson Bridgewater (East) Mrs. Robert O. Harris Brockton Mrs. F.E. White Brookline Mrs. George F. Arnold Mrs. Henry N. Bigelow Miss Ann A. Bradford Mrs. Causten Browne Mrs. Samuel J. Bullock Miss Alice G. Cobb Mrs. James M. Codman Mrs. J. Randolph Coolidge, Jr. Mrs. Frederic Cunningham Mrs. Gorham Dana Miss Emily G. Denny Mrs. James R. Dunbar Mrs. Charles Eliot Mrs. C.C. Ely Mrs. A.J. George Mrs. Charles Eliot Guild Miss Katharine E. Guild Mrs. R.H. Howe Mrs. A.H. Latham Mrs. George Linder Mrs. Guy Lowell Mrs. Theodore Lyman Mrs. G.W. Nowell Mrs. Edward S. Philbrick Miss Agnes Blake Poor Miss Lucy T. Poor Mrs. David Hall Rice Mrs. William T. Sedgwick Mrs. William P. Shreve Mrs. Henry R. Stedman Miss Susan T. Storey Miss Maria Storrs Mrs. William W. Swan Mrs. Charles P. Ware Mrs. Henry P. White Mrs. Henry M. Whitney Mrs. Moses Williams Cambridge Miss Annie E. Allen Mrs. John Fiske Miss Mary B. Foote Mrs. Frank Foxcroft Mrs. Arthur Gilman Mrs. William W. Goodwin Miss E. H. Houghton Mrs. A. Lawrence Lowell Miss Elizabeth McCracken Miss Mary A. McIntire Mrs. Benjamin L. Robinson Mrs. Joseph B. Russell Miss Carrie H. Saunders Mrs. Charles P. Strong Mrs. Thomas B. Ticknor Chatham Mrs. F. H. Bond Chestnut Hill Mrs. Allston Burr Mrs. Arthur B. Denny Mrs. Richard M. Saltonstall Clinton Mrs. S. Ives Wallace Cohasset Mrs. William S. Bryant Mrs. Charles A. Gross Mrs. Oliver H. Howe Concord Mrs. Charles F. Adams, 2d Mrs. Prescott Keyes Mrs. Daniel Lothrop Danvers Mrs. William C. Endicott Mrs. Charles W. Hood Miss Margaret Howe Mrs. Henry Newhall Mrs. Francis Peabody Dedham Mrs. J. Varnum Abbott Mrs. Henry F. Batehelder Mrs. A. J. Garceau Mrs. Alfred Hewins Mrs. Albert W. Nickerson Mrs. Frederic J. Stimson Miss Margaret Warren Mrs. Winslow Warren Easton (North) Miss Mary S. Ames Fairhaven Mrs. Edmund Anthony, Jr. Mrs. Walter P. Winsor Fitchburg Mrs. Adams Crocker Mrs. G. H. Crocker Miss Mary E. Jaquith Mrs. George R. Wallace Mrs. Charles E. Ware Framingham Mrs. E. F. Bowditch Mrs. George H. Gordon Miss Abigail F. Taylor Framingham (South) Mrs. W. I. Brigham Mrs. H. A. Dutton Georgetown Mrs. H. H. Noyes Gloucester Mrs. J. W. C. Downes Miss Helen Mansfield Mrs. J. O. Proctor Grafton (North) Mrs. Edward Brigham Great Barrington Mrs. Henry M. Whiting Greenfield Mrs. George Twitchell Groton Mrs. F. Lawrence Blood Mrs. John Lawrence Mrs. Endicott Peabody Mrs. George E. Whittier Hamilton Mrs. Augustus P. Gardner Haverhill Miss Mary E. Moody Mrs. J. Otis Wardwell Hingham Miss A. A. Bradley Miss Lucy Lewis Mrs. Henry A. Miles Mrs. J. H. Robbins Mrs. Jn. Winthrop Spooner Holliston Mrs. Zephaniah Talbot Holyoke Mrs. C. W. Ranlet Hopedale Mrs. Eben D. Bancroft Mrs. Eben S. Draper Mrs. Frank J. Dutcher Hyannis Miss Martha N. Soule Kingston Mrs. Henry M. Jones Lancaster (South) Mrs. Herbert Parker Lexington Mrs. Robert P. Clapp Mrs. James P. Munroe Lowell Mrs. Charles H. Allen Mrs. J.P. Bradt Medford Mrs. William B. Lawrence Melrose Mrs. George L. Morse Milford Mrs. William H. Cook Milton Mrs. Munroe Chickering Mrs. Robert F. Clark Mrs. Francis S. Fiske Mrs. Horace A. Lamb Mrs. Albert A.H. Meredith Mrs. Felix Rackemann Mrs. C. Minot Weld Mrs. Ellerton P. Whitney Mrs. Roger Wolcott, Jr. Nahant Mrs. J.T. Wilson Natick Mrs. Charles Q. Tirrell New Bedford Mrs. Herbert E. Cushman Miss Julia Delano Miss Lucy A. Leonard Mrs. W.N. Swift Newburyport Mrs. John F. Pearson Newton Mrs. Charles H. Ames (West Newton) Mrs. Henry E. Bothfeld Mrs. Charles C. Burr (Newton Centre) Mrs. Isaac T. Burr Mrs. John W. Carter (West Newton) Mrs. T.B. Lindsay (West Newton) Mrs. Lincoln R. Stone Mrs. John W. Weeks (West Newton) Mrs. Justin Whittier Northampton Miss Mary Breese Fuller Miss Mary A. Jordan Mrs. L. Clark Seelye Mrs. A. L. Williston Northbridge Mrs. Harry T. Whitin Orange Mrs. J. W. Wheeler Peabody Miss H. C. Allen Mrs. H. K. Foster Mrs. G. H. Little Mrs. Samuel Crane Lord Mrs. F. C. Merrill Mrs. Jacob C. Rogers Mrs. G. F. Sanger Pittsfield Miss Anna L. Dawes Plymouth Mrs. Arthur Lord Mrs. Thomas R. Watson Provincetown Mrs. Raymond A. Hopkins Miss L. C. Paine Quincy Mrs. John Quincy Adams Mrs. Theodore Hardwick Mrs. T. L. Sturtevant Rehoboth Mrs. Charles Perry Salem Mrs. Edward C. Battis Miss Sarah E. Hunt Mrs. S. E. Peabody Mrs. John Pickering Sandwich Mrs. Jonathan Leonard Sheffield Miss Mary R. Leonard Sherborn Mrs. William H. Burlen Somerville Mrs. Robert Luce Springfield Mrs. Lawton S. Brooks Mrs. Matthew D. Field Miss Katharine H. Leonard Stockbridge Miss Agnes Canning Mrs. Oscar Iasigi Miss Caroline T. Lawrence Miss Grace S. Parker Swampscott Mrs. Addis M. Whitney Taunton Mrs. Charles T. Hubbard Miss Harriet Newbury Miss Kate I. Sanford Miss Sarah B. Williams Topsfield Miss Mary O. Hodges Tyringham Mrs. Robb de P. Tytus Waltham Mrs. William E. Bright Wellesley Mrs. Henry F. Durant Mrs. J. J. E. Rothery Mrs. H. L. Dodd (Wellesley Hills) Westwood Mrs. Edward Cunningham Mrs. Lindsley Loring Mrs. George T. Rice Weymouth (South) Mrs. Henry B. Reed Whitinsville Mrs. G. M. Whitin Williamstown Mrs. J. Franklin Carter Mrs. O.M. Fernald Worcester Miss Josephine C. Aldrich Mrs. Frederick J. Barnard Miss Isabel Crompton Mrs. Edward L. Davis Mrs. Edgar A. Fisher Miss Sarah B. Hopkins Mrs. W.S.B. Hopkins Mrs. Francis B. Knowles Miss Lucy Lewisson Miss Frances M. Lincoln Mrs. Winslow S. Lincoln Mrs. Charles F. Marble Mrs. Nathaniel Paine Miss Mary Thurston Rice Mrs. A. B. R. Sprague Mrs. Charles M. Thayer Mrs. Samuel Utley Mrs. John D. Washburn Miss Sarah Weiss Yarmouth Mrs. George R. Agassiz Miss Louise Hallett Some Pamphlets issued by the Massachusetts Association Opposed to the Further Extension of Suffrage of Women Some of the Reasons against Woman Suffrage Of What Benefit to Woman? Francis Parkman Why I Am Opposed to Woman Suffrage Jeannette L. Gilder Letter to Legislative Committee Mrs. Clara T. Leonard Argument before Committee Mrs. Kate Gannett Wells Real Opponents to the Suffrage Movement Edward W. Bok How Woman Can Best Serve the State Mrs. Barclay Hazard Woman's Progress versus Woman Suffrage Mrs. Rossiter Johnson The Blank Cartridge Ballot Rossiter Johnson Municipal Suffrage for Women. Why? Frank Foxcroft Taxpaying Suffrage Charles R. Saunders The Wage-earning Woman and the State Minnie Bronson Rights and Exemptions Given by Massachusetts Law to Women and Not to Men Opinions of Eminent Persons against Woman Suffrage In Opposition to the Further Extension of Suffrage to Women (A List of Massachusetts Men) Pamphlets and Leaflets may be obtained from the Secretary of the Association ROOM 615, KENSINGTON BUILDING 687 BOYLSTON STREET, BOSTON, MASS. 1913 Massachusetts Association Opposed to the Further Extension of Suffrage to Women Room 615, Kensington Building, 687 Boylston Street, Boston Members in 381 Cities, Towns, and Villages of the State Seventy-six Branch Committees EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE PRESIDENT Mrs. James M. Codman VICE-PRESIDENTS Miss Anna L. Dawes Mrs. Charles E. Guild Mrs. Charles D. Homans Miss Agnes Irwin Mrs. Francis C. Lowell Mrs. Robert S. Russell Mrs. Henry M. Whitney TREASURER, pro tem- Mrs. James M. Codman, Brookline RECORDING SECRETARY Miss Eliza C. Post CORRESPONDING SECRETARY Mrs. Charles P. Strong EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE (Continued). Miss Mary S. Ames Mrs. John Balch Mrs. Robert S. Bradley Mrs. J. Randolph Coolidge Miss Sarah H. Crocker Miss Elizabeth H. Haughton Miss Elizabeth Johnson Mrs. Henry P. Kidder Mrs. Herbert Lyman Mrs. Augustin H. Parker Mrs. William L. Putnam Mrs. Benj. L. Robinson Mrs. Richard M. Saltonstall Miss Evelyn Sears Miss Elizabeth P. Sohier Mrs. Barrett Wendell Mrs. Henry P. White HONORARY MEMBERS OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE Mrs. Catherine E. Guild Mrs. Sarah E. Hunt Miss Elizabeth McCracken Mrs. William T. Sedgwick Mrs. G. Howland Shaw This Association has been organized by women who believe that a systematic resistance should be made to the appeals and claims of women suffragists, and who desire to educate public opinion to an opposition based on intelligent conviction. The work of the Association includes the collection and distribution of pamphlets on the subject the promotion of publicity by means of lectures and written articles, as well as the presentation to the legislature, when occasion demands, of remonstrances against the passage of suffrage measures. In view of the decisive vote of November, 1895, when only four per cent. Of the women of Massachusetts called for the suffrage, it seems not unfair to say that the vast majority of the women of the state, indifferent or unwilling, is in danger of having the ballot thrust upon it by a minority numerically insignificant. This minority is, however, outspoken and aggressive. Women who neglect to express their dissent from suffrage views must expect to find themselves misrepresented by their more active opponents. It becomes of the utmost importance, therefore, that those who believe that the enfranchisement a woman is undesirable should make themselves heard. All women in Massachusetts over twenty-one years of age, who are opposed to woman suffrage, are urged to ally themselves with this movement by sending their names for membership to the Secretary, 615 Kensington Building, 687 Boylston Street, Boston. No fee is required. On receipt of twenty-five cents the quarterly publication of the Association, The Remonstrance, will be mailed to any address. STANDING COMMITTEE Acushnet Miss Emily A. Brownell Amherst Mrs. Edward Hitchcock Mrs. George Olds Andover Mrs. George W. W. Dove Mrs. Perceval Dove Mrs. M. S. McCurdy Miss Emily A. Means Mrs. Harold Melledge Mrs. Alfred E. Stearns Arlington Mrs. I. T. Hunt Ashland Mrs. Willard H. Gerrish Barnstable Mrs. David Crocker Barre Mrs. L. E. Jenkins Bedford Mrs. George R. Blinn Belmont Mrs. Edwin F. Atkins Mrs. H. A. Clark Mrs. M. B. Horne Mrs. John G. Palfrey Mrs. Thomas B. Ticknor Beverly Mrs. W. C. Boyden Miss Katherine Silsbee Miss Elizabeth P. Sohier Miss Asenath Woodbury Beverly Farms Mrs. F. W. Varney Billerica (North) Mrs. Frederick S. Clark Boston Mrs. T. B. Aldrich Mrs. Thomas Allen Mrs. C. W. Amory Mrs. Robert Amory Mrs. Judith W. Andrews Miss Jessie F. Beale Mrs. Leverett Bradley Mrs. Robert S. Bradley Mrs. John L. Bremmer Mrs. P. C. Brooks Mrs. B. S. Calef Mrs. Benjamin E. Cole Boston---Continued Miss Helen Collamore Mrs. Walter H Collins Miss Katherine E. Conway Mrs. J. Randolph Coolidge Mrs. George G. Crocker Ms. Sarah H. Crocker Mrs. S. V. R. Crosby Mrs. Charles P. Curtis Mrs. Charles P. Curtis, Jr. Mrs. Edward L. Davis Mrs. Lorin F. Deland Miss Alice Farnsworth Mrs. Walbridge A. Field Mrs. Chas. H. Fiske, Jr. Mrs. R. H. Fitz Mrs. J. Murray Forbes Mrs. Thos. B. Gannett, Jr. Mrs. John C. Gray Mrs. Curtis Guild, Jr. Miss Heloise E. Hersey Mrs. F. L. Higginson Mrs. Charles D. Homans Mrs. Robert Homans Mrs. Arabella Howe Mrs. J. F. Hunnewell Miss Elizabeth Johnson Mrs. Henry P. Kidder Mrs. Reuben Kidner Mrs. C. M. Lamson Mrs. Channing Lilly Mrs. Frederick T. Lord Mrs. Robert W. Lovett Mrs. Francis C. Lowell Miss Madeleine C. Mixter Mrs. S. J. Mixter Mrs. James P. Munroe Miss Clara J. Nickels Mrs. William L. Parker Mrs. Henry Parkman Mrs. Daisy Porter Miss E. C. Post Miss J. C. Prendergast Mrs. George J. Prescott Mrs. James Reed Mrs. James Ford Rhodes Mrs. Robert S. Russell Mrs. Thomas Russell Mrs. George P. Sanger Mrs. Frederick C. Shattuck Mrs. G. Howland Shaw Mrs. Henry H. Sprague Miss Adele G. Thayer Mrs. Charles S. Tuckerman Mrs. W. W. Vaughan Mrs. Barrett Wendell Mrs. Charles T. White Mrs. Henry M. Whitney Mrs. Frederick Winslow Brighton Mrs. F. Spencer Baldwin Miss Anna N. Brock Mrs. James A. Hathaway Charlestown Miss Mary E. Corbett Dorchester Mrs. Arthur W. Blair Mrs. Herbert W. Burr Miss Julia Carey Mrs. Charles F. Dewick Mrs. William H. Sayward Mrs. Nelson Shumway Jamaica Plain Mrs. Alfred Bowditch Miss Lisbeth B. Comins Miss Frances Goodwin Mrs. Herbert L. Harding Mrs. E. M. Hartwell Mrs. Charles L. Hill Mrs. Charles B. Perkins Mrs. William Rooney Mattapan Miss Anna Farrar Clary West Roxbury Mrs. Josiah H. Quincy Mrs. J. W. Rollins Bourne Mrs. W. A. Nye Braintree (East) Mrs. F. O. Wellington Braintree (South) Mrs. William Gallagher Brewster Mrs. Henry E. Allen Mrs. Roland C. Nickerson Bridgewater (East) Mrs. Robert O. Harris Brockton Mrs. F. E. White Brookline Mrs. George F. Arnold Mrs. Henry N. Bigelow Miss Ann A. Bradford Mrs. Causten Browne Mrs. Samuel J. Bullock Mrs. Benj. F. Carroll Miss Alice G. Cobb Mrs. James M. Codman Mrs. J. Randolph Coolidge, Jr. Mrs. Frederic Cunningham Mrs. Gorham Dana Miss Emily G. Denny Mrs. James R. Dunbar Mrs. Charles Eliot Mrs. A. J. George Mrs. Charles Eliot Guild Miss Katharine E. Guild Mrs. R. H. Howe Mrs. A. H. Latham Mrs. George Linder Mrs. Guy Lowell Mrs. G. W. Nowell Mrs. Edward S. Philbrick Miss Agnes Blake Poor Miss Lucy T. Poor Mrs. David Hall Rice Mrs. George K. Sabine Mrs. William T. Sedgwick Mrs. William P. Shreve Mrs. Henry R. Stedman Miss Mabel Stedman Miss Susan T. Storey Miss Maria Storrs Mrs. William W. Swan Mrs. Charles P. Ware Mrs. Henry P. White Mrs. Moses Williams Cambridge Miss Annie E. Allen Mrs. John H. Corcoran Mrs. John Fiske Mrs. Frank Foxcroft Mrs. William W. Goodwin Mrs. J. Frederick Hill Miss E. H. Houghton Mrs. A. Lawrence Lowell Miss Elizabeth McCracken Miss Mary A. McIntire Mrs. J. B. Millet Mrs. Benj. L. Robinson Mrs. Joseph B. Russell Miss Carrie H. Saunders Mrs. Charles P. Strong Canton Mrs. C. I. Porter Miss Mary C. Rogers Chatham Mrs. F. H. Bond Chestnut Hill Mrs. Wm. H. Aspinwall Mrs. Allston Burr Mrs. Arthur B. Denny Mrs. C. C. Ely Mrs. Richard M. Saltonstall Clifton Mrs. Darwin E. Ware Clinton Mrs. S. Ives Wallace Cohasset Mrs. Charles A. Gross Mrs. Oliver H. Howe Concord Mrs. Chas. F. Adams, 2d Mrs. Samuel Hoar Mrs. Woodward Hudson Mrs. Prescott Keyes Mrs. Daniel Lothrop Dalton Mrs. W. Murray Crane Danvers Mrs. William C. Endicott Mrs. Charles W. Hood Miss Margaret Howe Mrs. Henry Newhall Dedham Mrs. J. Varnum Abbott Mrs. Henry F. Bachelder Mrs. A. J. Garceau Mrs. Alfred Hewins Mrs. Albert W. Nickerson Mrs. Richard Olney, 2d Mrs. William B Rogers Mrs. Frederic J. Stimson Miss Margaret Warren Mrs. Winslow Warren Mrs. Stephen M. Weld Dover Mrs. Richard W. Hale Mrs. Augustin H. Parker Easton (North) Miss Mary S. Ames Fairhaven Mrs. George H. Tripp Mrs. Walter P. Winsor Fall River Mrs. Arthur Anthony Mrs. Charles A. Bassett Mrs. Chas. C. Buffington Mrs. Oliver Hawes Mrs. Chas. B. Luther Falmouth Mrs. Lewis C. Weeks Fitchburg Mrs. G. H. Crocker Miss Mary E. Jaquith Mrs. George R. Wallace Mrs. Charles E. Ware Framingham Mrs. George H. Gordon Miss Mary H. Phillips Mrs. James S. Stone Miss Abigail F. Taylor Framingham (South) Mrs. W. I. Brigham Mrs. H. A. Dutton Georgetown Mrs. H. H. Noyes Gloucester Mrs. J. W. C. Downes Miss Helen Mansfield Mrs. J. O. Proctor Grafton (North) Mrs. Edward Brigham Great Barrington Mrs. Henry M. Whiting Greenfield Mrs. Charles Allen Miss Lucia Russell Mrs. George Twitchell Groton Mrs. F. Lawrence Blood Mrs. John Lawrence Mrs. Endicott Peabody Mrs. George E. Whittier Hamilton Mrs. Augustus P. Gardner Mrs. Reginald C. Robbins Haverhill Mrs. George H. Carter Miss Mary E. Moody Mrs. J. Otis Wardwell Hingham Miss A. A. Bradley Miss Lucy Lewis Mrs. Henry A. Miles Mrs. Jn. Winthrop Spooner Miss Susan B. Willard Holliston Mrs. Alan V. Garrett Hopedale Miss Anna M. Bancroft Mrs. Eben D. Bancroft Mrs. Frank J. Dutcher Hopkinton Mrs. Charles Walter Hyannis Miss Martha N. Soule Kingston Mrs. Henry M. Jones Lawrence Mrs. G. F. Russell Miss Annie G. Saunders Lancaster (South) Mrs. Herbert Parker Lexington Mrs. Robert P. Clapp Mrs. Wm. R. Monroe Lincoln Mrs. Henry E. Warner Lowell Mrs. Charles H. Allen Mrs. J. P. Brandt's Malden Mrs. Truman R. Hawley Manchester Mrs. Wallace Goodrich Mrs. J. C. Mackin Mrs. Wm. Lowell Putnam Mansfield Mrs. Clarence A. Barnes Mattapoisett Mrs. Charles S. Hamlin Mrs. John. C. Shaw Medfield Mrs. Davenport Brown Medford Miss Alice C. Ayres Mrs. William B. Lawrence Melrose Mrs. George L. Morse Milford Mrs. Aaron H. Mayhew Miss M. O. Sumner Millis Mrs. M. J. West Mrs. Fred H. Williams Milton Mrs. John Balch Mrs. Clifford Brigham Mrs. Munroe Chickering Mrs. Adams Crocker Mrs. P.Y. DeNormandie Mrs. Francis Fiske Mrs. Horace A. Lamb Mrs. James Lawrence, Jr. Mrs. Samuel Crane Lord Mrs. Albert A. H. Meredith Mrs. Felix Rackemann Mrs. C. Minot Weld Mrs. Ellerton P. Whitney Mrs. F. A. Whitwell Monson Mrs. Robert S. Cushman Nahant Mrs. J. T. Wilson Natick Mrs. Ralph Sweetland Mrs. Charles Q. Tirrell Needham Mrs. Martin L. Cate Mrs. Edwin Owen Miss Elizabeth Willgoose New Bedford Mrs. Herbert E. Cushman Miss Julia Delano Miss Carolyn S. Jones Miss Lucy A. Leonard Mrs. W. N. Swift Newburyport Mrs. John F. Pearson Newton Mrs. Henry E. Rothfeld Mrs. Lincoln R. Stone Mrs. Fred H. D. Tucker Mrs. Justin Whittier Newton Centre Mrs. Arthur C. Badger Mrs. Charles C. Burr Mrs. Joshua M. Dill Mrs. Ellis Spear Miss Mary P. Winsor Newtonville Mrs. Wallace C. Boyden Mrs. Edward K. Hall Mrs. Marcus Morton Newton (West) Mrs. John S. Alley Mrs. Charles H. Ames Mrs. John W. Carter Mrs. W. B. H. Dowse Mrs. Clifton H. Dwinnell Mrs. George Hutchinson Mrs. Thos. B. Lindsay Mrs. John W. Weeks Northampton Mrs. Arthur Gilman Miss Mary A. Jordan Mrs. L. Clark Seelye Northbridge Mrs. Harry T. Whitin Northfield (East) Mrs. Ambert G. Moody Norwood Mrs. Herbert B. Everett Orange Mrs. G. Tabor Thompson Peabody Miss. H. C. Allen Mrs. H. K. Foster Mrs. F. C. Merrill Mrs. Jacob C. Rogers Pittsfield Mrs. S. G. Colt Miss Anna L. Dawes Miss E. W. Hinsdale Plymouth Mrs. Arthur Lord Mrs. Thomas R. Watson Princeton Mrs. Raymond J. Gregory Mrs. E. S. Lewis Mrs. J. H. Stimpson Provincetown Mrs. Raymond. A. Hopkins Miss L. C. Paine Quincy Mrs. Theodor Hardwick Mrs. T. L. Sturtevant Rehoboth Mrs. Charles Perry Roslindale Miss Maud L. Leadbetter Salem Mrs. Edward C. Battis Miss Sarah E. Hunt Mrs. John Pickering Mrs. Wm. G. Rantoul Miss Anna L. Warren Sandwich Mrs. Jonathan Leonard Sharon Mrs. Wm. E. Clark Sheffield Miss Mary R. Leonard Sherborn Mrs. William H. Burlen Somerville Mrs. Robert Luce Southborough Mrs. Charles A. Kidder Southbridge Mrs. Calvin Paige Mrs. George Wells Springfield Mrs. Lawton S. Brooks Mrs. Matthew D. Field Miss Katherine H. Leonard Miss Annie C. Stebbins Stockbridge Miss Agnes Canning Mrs. Oscar Iasigi Miss Caroline T. Lawrence Miss Grace S. Parker Mrs. Alexander Sedgwick Swampscott Mrs. Addis M. Whitney Taunton Mrs. Charles T. Hubbard Miss Harriet Newbury Miss Kate I. Sanford Miss Sarah B. Williams Topsfield Miss Mary O. Hodges Tyringham Mrs. Robb De P.Tytus Waltham Mrs. Lyman A. Bowker Mrs. William E. Bright Miss Evelyn Sears Mrs. Lowell E. Warren Miss Alice M. Worcester Wareham Mrs. E. A. Gammons Miss Frances Hennessy Wellesley Mrs. Henry F. Durant Mrs. J. J. E. Rothery Mrs. H. L. Dodd, Wellesley Hills Wenham Miss Helen C. Burnham Mrs. Edward B. Cole Mrs. Charles Parker Weston Mrs. Wm. Bramhall Westwood Mrs. Edward Cunningham Mrs. Lindsley Loring Mrs. T. N. Perkins Mrs. George T. RIce Weymouth (South) Mrs. Henry B. Reed Whitinsville Mrs. G. M. Whitin Wilbraham Mrs. Charles M. Pease Williamstown Mrs. J. Franklin Carter Mrs. O. M. Fernald Mrs. John E. Russell Winchendon Mrs. Charles R. Frost Winchester Mrs. Eben Caldwell Miss Minnie B. Joy Mrs. George S. Littlefield Miss Maria A. Parsons Woods Hole Mrs. W. O. Luscomb Worcester Miss Josephine C. Aldrich Miss Isabel Crompton Mrs. Edgar A. FIsher Mrs. Austin L. Garver Miss Eleanor G. Goddard Miss Sarah B. Hopkins Mrs. W. S. B. Hopkins Mrs. Francis B Knowles Miss Lucy Lewisson Miss Frances M. Lincoln Mrs. Winslow S. Lincoln Mrs. Charles F. Marble Mrs. Nathaniel Paine Miss Mary Thurston Rice Mrs. A. B. R. Sprague Mrs. Charles M. Thayer Mrs. Samuel Utley Yarmouth Mrs. George R. Agassiz Miss Louise Hallett Some Pamphlets issued by the Massachusetts Association Opposed to the Further Extension of Suffrage to Women. Some of the Reasons against Woman Suffrage Francis Parkman Of What Benefit To Woman? ..... Why I am Opposed to Woman Suffrage Jeannette L. Gilder Letter to Legislative Committee Mrs. Clara T. Leonard Anti-Suffrage Creed How Woman Can Best Serve the State Mrs. Barclay Hazard Woman's Progress versus Woman Suffrage Mrs. Rossiter Johnson The Blank Cartridge Ballot Rossiter Johnson Municipal Suffrage for Women. Why? Frank Foxcroft Taxpaying Suffrage Charles R. Saunders The Real Danger of Woman Suffrage ... Rights and Exemptions Given by Massachusetts Law to Women and Not to Men ..... Opinions of Eminent Persons against Woman Suffrage ......... Should Women Vote? .... Joseph Pyle Woman's Power and Woman Suffrage. Ida M. Tarbell Woman Suffrage in California ...... Woman's Rights vs. Woman's Suffrage Mrs. A. J. George Why a Man Should Oppose Woman Suffrage Frank Foxcroft A set of Six Pamphlets will be mailed on receipt of 25 cents. ROOM 615, KENSINGTON BUILDING 687 BOYLSTON STREET, BOSTON, MASS. 15 1915 Massachusetts Association Opposed to the Further Extension Of Suffrage to Women Room 615, Kensington Building, 687 Boylston Street, Boston Members in 411 Cities, Towns, and Villages of the State 106 Branch Committees EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE PRESIDENT Mrs. James M. Codman VICE-PRESIDENTS Mrs. George R. Agassiz Miss Mary S. Ames Mrs. John Balch Mrs. Robert S. Bradley Miss Anna L. Dawes Mrs. Charles E. Guild Mrs. Francis C. Lowell Mrs. Robert S. Russell Mrs. Henry M. Whitney TREASURER Mrs. James M. Codman, Brookline RECORDING SECRETARY Miss Ellen M. Tower CORRESPONDING SECRETARY Mrs. Charles P. Strong EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE (Continued). Mrs. Thomas Allen Mrs. Edward B. Cole Mrs. James D. Colt Mrs. J. Randolph Coolidge Miss Sarah H. Crocker Miss Elizabeth H. Houghton Miss Elizabeth Johnson Mrs. Henry P. Kidder Mrs. Herbert Lyman Mrs. Augustin H. Parker Miss E. C. Post Mrs. William L. Putnam Mrs. Benj. L. Robinson Mrs. Richard M. Saltonstall Miss Evelyn Sears Miss Elizabeth P. Sohier Mrs. Barrett Wendell Mrs. Henry P. White HONORARY MEMBERS OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE Miss Katharine E. Guild Miss Sarah E. Hunt Mrs. William T. Sedgwick Mrs. G. Howland Shaw Miss Elizabeth McCracken This Association has been organized by women who believe that a systematic resistance should be made to the appeals and claims of woman suffragists, and who desire to educate public opinion to an opposition based on intelligent conviction. The work of the Association includes the collection and distribution of pamphlets on the subject, the promotion of publicity by means of lectures and written articles, as well as the presentation to the legislature, when occasion demands, of remonstrances against the passage of suffrage measures. In view of the decisive vote of November, 1895, when only four per cent. of the women in Massachusetts called for the suffrage, it seems not unfair to say that the vast majority of the women of the state, indifferent or unwilling, is in danger of having the ballot thrust upon it by a minority numerically insignificant. This minority is, however, outspoken and aggressive. Women who neglect to express their dissent from suffrage view must expect to find themselves misrepresented by their more active opponents. It becomes of the utmost importance, therefore, that those who believe that the enfranchisement of woman is undesirable should make themselves heard. All women in Massachusetts over twenty-one years of age, who are opposed to woman suffrage, are urged to ally themselves with this movement by sending their names for membership to the Secretary, 615 Kensington Building, 687 Boylston Street, Boston. No fee is required. On receipt of twenty-five cents the quarterly publication of the Association, The Remonstrance, will be mailed to any address. STANDING COMMITTEE Acushnet Miss Emily A. Brownell Adams Mrs. Arthur E. Truesdell Amhert Mrs. Edward Hitchcock Andover Mrs. Percival Dove Mrs. M. S. McCurdy Miss Emily A. Means Mrs. Harold Melledge Mrs. Alfred E. Stearns Arlington Mrs. I. T. Hunt Mrs. Benjamin A. Norton Ashfield Mrs. W. L. Porter Ashland Mrs. Henry E. Dix Mrs. Willard H. Gerrish Barnstable Mrs. David Crocker Barre Mrs. William A. Gaston Mrs. Alexander Martin Bedford Mrs. George R. Blinn Belmont Mrs. Edwin F. Atkins Mrs. H. A. Clark Mrs. M. B. Horne Mrs. John G. Palfrey Mrs. Thomas B. Ticknor Bernardston Mrs. E. B. Hale Beverly Mrs. W. C. Boyden Miss Katharine Silsbee Miss Elizabeth P. Sohier Mrs. Edward Winslow Beverly Farms Mrs. F. W. Varney Billerica (North) Mrs. Frederick S. Clark Boston Mrs. T. B. Aldrich Mrs. Thomas Allen Mrs. C. W. Amory Mrs. Robert Amory Miss Mary Bartlett Miss Jessie F. Beale Mrs. Leverett Bradley Mrs. Robert S. Bradley Mrs. John L. Bremer Mrs. P. C. Brooks Mrs. B. S. Calef Mrs. Robert F. Clark Boston - Continued Mrs. Benjamin E. cole Miss Helen Collamore Mrs. Walter H Collins Miss Katharine E. Conway Mrs. J. Randolph Coolidge Mrs. Adams Crocker Mrs. George G. Crocker Miss Sarah H. Crocker Mrs. Charles P. Curtis Mrs. Charles P. Curtis, Jr. Mrs. Edward L. Davis Mrs. Lorin F. Deland Miss Alice Farnsworth Mrs. Walbridge A. Field Mrs. Chas. H. Fiske, Jr. Mrs. R. H. Fitz Mrs. J. Murray Forbes Mrs. Thos. B. Gannett, Jr. Mrs. John C. Gray Mrs. Curtis Guild. Jr. Miss Heloise E. Hersey Mrs. F. L. Higginson Mrs. Robert Homans Mrs. Arabella Howe Mrs. J. F. Hunnewell Miss Elizabeth Johnson Mrs. Henry P. Kidder Mrs. Reuben Kidner Mrs. C. M. Lamson Mrs. Channing Lilly Mrs. Frederick T. Lord Mrs. Robert W. Lovett Mrs. Francis C. Lowell Miss Madeline C. Mixter Mrs. S. J. Mixter Mrs. James P. Munroe Mrs. William L. Parker Mrs. Henry Parkman Mrs. Daisy Porter Miss E. C. Post Miss J. C. Prendergast Mrs. George J. Prescott Mrs. James Reed Mrs. James Ford Rhodes Mrs. Robert S. Russell Mrs. Thomas Russell Mrs. George P. Sanger Mrs. Wm. T. Sedgwick Mrs. Frederick C. Shattuck Mrs. G. Howland Shaw Mrs. Henry H. Sprague Miss A. F. Taylor Miss Adele G. Thayer Mrs. Charles S. Tuckerman Mrs. W. W. Vaughan Mrs. Barrett Wendell Mrs. Charles T. White Mrs. Henry M. Whitney Mrs. Frederick Winslow Brighton Miss Anna N. Brock Miss Margaret W. Cooper Mrs. James A. Hathaway Dorchester Mrs. Arthur W. Blair Mrs. Herbert W. Burr Miss Julia Carey Mrs. Charles F. Dewick Mrs. William H. Sayward Mrs. Nelson Shumway Jamaica Plain Miss Lisbeth B. Comins Miss Frances Goodwin Mrs. Herbert L. Harding Mrs. E.M. Hartwell Mrs. Charles L. Hill Mrs. Charles B. Perkins Mrs. William Rooney Mattapan Miss Anna Farrar Clary Miss Adelaide B. Reynolds Roxbury Mrs. Albert F. Hayden West Roxbury Mrs. Josiah H. Quincy Mrs. J.W. Rollins Bourne Mrs. W.A. Nye Braintree (East) Mrs. F.O. Wellington Braintree (South) Mrs. William Gallagher Brewster Mrs. Henry E. Allen Mrs. Roland C. Nickerson Bridgewater (East) Mrs. Robert O. Harris Brockton Mrs. Elroy S. Thompson Mrs. F.E. White Brookline Mrs. George F. Arnold Mrs. Henry N. Bigelow Mrs. Samuel J. Bullock Mrs. Benj. F. Carroll Miss Alice G. Cobb Mrs. James M. Codman Mrs. J. Randolph Coolidge, Jr Mrs. Frederic Cunningham Mrs. Gorham Dana Miss Emily G. Denny Mrs. James R. Dunbar Mrs. Charles Elliot Guild Miss Katherine E. Guild Mrs. R.H Howe Mrs. A.H Latham Mrs. George Linder Mrs. Guy Lowell Mrs. G.W. Nowell Mrs. A.J. George Mrs. Edward S. Philbrick Miss Agnes Blake Poor Miss Lucy T. Poor Mrs. David Hall Rice Mrs. George K. Sabine Mrs. William P. Shreve Mrs. Henry R. Stedman Miss Mabel Stedman Miss Susan T. Storey Miss Maria Storrs Mrs. William W. Swan Mrs. Charles P. Ware Mrs. Henry P. White Mrs. Moses Williams Cambridge Miss Annie E. Allen Mrs. John H. Corcoran Mrs. John Fiske Mrs. Frank Foxcroft Mrs. James J. Greenough Mrs. J. Frederick Hill Miss E.H. Houghton Mrs. A. Lawrence Lowell Miss Elizabeth McCracken Miss Mary A. McIntire Mrs. J.B. Millet Mrs. Benj. L. Robinson Mrs. Joseph B. Russell Miss Carrie H. Saunders Mrs. Charles P. Strong Canton Mrs. C.I Porter Miss Mary C. Rogers Chatham Mrs. F.H. Bond Charlemont Mrs. Lewis W. Sears Chelsea Mrs. Frederick S. Raddin Chestnut Hill Mrs. Wm. H. Aspinwall Mrs. Allston Burr Mrs. C.C. Ely Mrs. Harold Murdock Mrs. Richard M. Saltonstall Clifton Mrs. Darwin E. Ware Cohasset Mrs. Charles A. Gross Mrs. Oliber H. Howe Concord Mrs. Chas. F. Adams, 2d Mrs. Samuel Hoar Mrs. Woodward Hudson Mrs. Prescott Keyes Mrs. Daniel Lothrop Dalton Mrs. W. Murray Crane Danvers Mrs. William C. Endicott Mrs. Charles W. Hood Miss Margaret Howe Mrs. Henry Newhall Miss Margaret A. Nichols Dedham Mrs. J. Varnum Abbott Mrs. Henry F. Batchelder Mrs. A.J. Garceau Mrs. Alfred Hewins Mrs. Richard Olney, 2d. Mrs. William B. Rogers Mrs. Frederic J. Stimson Miss Margaret Warren Mrs. Stephen M. Weld Dover Mrs. Richard W. Hale Mrs. Augustin H. Parker Easton (North) Miss Mary S. Ames Mrs. S.S. Early Everett Mrs. Wilmot R. Evans, Jr. Fairhaven Mrs. George H. Tripp Mrs. Walter P. Winsor Fall River Mrs. Arthur Anthony Mrs. Charles A. Bassett Mrs. Chas. C. Buffington Mrs. Oliver Hawes Mrs. Chas B. Luther Mrs. J. M. Morton Jr. Falmouth Mrs. Lewis C. Weeks Fitchburg Mrs. G.H. Crocker Miss Mary E. Jaquith Mrs. George R. Wallace Mrs. Charles E. Ware Framingham Miss Mary H. Phillips Mrs. James S. Stone Mrs. Arthur L. Ware Framingham (South) Mrs W.I. Brigham Mrs. H.A. Dutton Georgetown Mrs. H.H. Noyes Gloucester Mrs. J.W.C. Downes Miss Helen Mansfield Mrs. J.O. Froctor Grafton (North) Mrs. Edward Brigham Great Barrington Mrs. Henry M. Whiting Greenfield Mrs. Charles Allen Miss Lucia Russell Mrs. George Twitchell Groton Mrs. F. Lawrence Blood Mrs. John Lawrence Mrs. Endicott Peabody Mrs. George E. Whittier Hamilton Mrs. Augustus P. Gardner Mrs. Reginald C. Robbins Hanover Mrs. A.L. Sylvester Haverhill Mrs. George H. Carter Miss Mary E. Moody Mrs. J. Otis Wardwell Hingham Miss A.A. Bradley Miss Lucy Lewis Mrs. Henry A. Miles Mrs. Jn. Winthrop Spooner Miss Susan B. Willard Holliston Mrs. Allan V. Garrett Hopedale Miss Anna M. Bancroft Mrs. Eden D. Bancroft Mrs. Frank J. Dutcher Hopkinton Mrs. Charles Walter Hyannis Miss Martha N. Soule Kingston Mrs. Henry M. Jones Lawrence Miss Isabel St. C. Herrick Mrs. G.F. Russell Miss Annie G. Saunders Lancaster (South) Mrs. Herbert Parker Lexington Mrs. Robert P. Clapp Mrs. Charles B. Davis Mrs. Wm. R. Munroe Miss Ellen M. Tower Lincoln Mrs. Henry E. Warner Longmeadow Mrs. John P. Harding Lowell Mrs. Charles H. Allen Mrs. J.P. Bradt Mrs. G.H. Pillsbury Malden Mrs. Truman R. Hawley Manchester Mrs. Wallace Goodrich Mrs. J.C. Mackin Mrs. Wm. Lowell Putnam Mansfield Mrs. Clarence A. Barnes Marblehead Mrs. Chester L. Dane Mattapoisett Mrs. Charles S. Hamlin Mrs. John C. Shaw Medfield Mrs. Davenport Brown Medford Mrs. Charles Holyoke Mrs. William B. Lawrence Melrose Mrs. Grant Drake Mrs. George L. Morse Milford Mrs. Aaron H. Mayhew Miss M. O. Sumner Millis Mrs. M. J. West Mrs. Fred H. Williams Milton Mrs. John Balch Mrs. Clifford Brigham Mrs. Munroe Chickering Mrs. Adams Crocker Mrs. P. Y. DeNormandie Mrs. Francis S. Fiske Mrs. Horace A. Lamb Mrs. James Lawrence, Jr. Mrs. Samuel Crane Lord Mrs. Albert A. H. Meredith Mrs. Felix Rackemann Mrs. C. Minot Weld Mrs. Ellerton P. Whitney Mrs. F. A. Whitwell Monson Mrs. Robert S. Cushman Nahand Mrs. Frank H. Wilson Mrs. J. T. Wilson Natick Mrs. Ralph Sweetland Mrs. Charles Q. Tirrell Needham Miss Grace Moseley Mrs. Edwin Owen Miss Elizabeth Willgoose New Bedford Mrs. Herbert E. Cushman Miss Julia Delano Miss Carolyn S. Jones Miss Lucy A. Leonard Mrs. W. N. Swift Newburyport Mrs. John F. Pearson Newton Mrs. Henry E. Bothfeld Mrs. Charles H. Breck Mrs. Frank A. Day Mrs. Lincoln R. Stone Mrs. Justin Whittier Newton Centre Mrs. Arthur C. Badger Mrs. Charles C. Burr Mrs. Joshua M. Dill Mrs. Ellis Spear Miss Mary P. Winsor Newtonville Mrs. Wallace C. Boyden Miss Edward K. Hall Mrs. Marcus Morton Newton (West) Mrs. John S. Alley Mrs. John W. Carter Mrs. W. B. H. Dowse Mrs. Clifton H. Dwinnell Mrs. Swan Hartwell Mrs. George Hutchinson Mrs. Thos. B. Lindsay Mrs. John W. Weeks Northampton Miss Clara F. Bodman Miss Mary A Jordan Mrs. L. Clark Seelye North Adams Mrs. Ezra Whittaker North Andover Miss Kate H. Stevens Northbridge Mrs. Harry T. Whitin North Easton Mrs. S. S. Early Northfield (East) Mrs. Ambert G. Moody Norwood Mrs. Herbert B. Everett Orange Mrs. G. Tabor Thompson Peabody Miss H. C. Allen Mrs. F. C. Merrill Mrs. Jacob C. Rogers Pittsfield Mrs. S. G. Colt Miss Anna L. Dawes Miss E. W. Hinsdale Plymouth Mrs. Arthur Lord Mrs. Thomas R. Watson Princeton Mrs. Raymond J. Gregory Mrs. E. S. Lewis Mrs. J. H. Stimpson Provincetown Miss L. C. Paine Quincy Mrs. Theodore Hardwick Mrs. T. L. Sturtevant Rehoboth Mrs. Charles Perry Roslindale Miss Maude G. Leadbetter Rowe Mrs. George E. Stanford Salem Mrs. Edward C. Battis Miss Sarah E. Hunt Miss Ellen B. Laight Mrs. John Pickering Mrs. Wm. G. Rantoul Miss Anna L. Warren Sandwich Mrs. Jonathan Leonard Sharon Mrs. Wm. E. Clark Sheffield Miss Mary R. Leonard Sherborn Mrs. William H. Burien Somerville Mrs. Robert Luce Mrs. Chas. S. Underhill Southborough Mrs. Charles A. Kidder Southbridge Mrs. Calvin Paige Mrs. George Wells Springfield Mrs. Lawton S. Brooks Mrs. Matthew D. Field Miss Katharine H. Leonard Miss Annie C. Stebbins Stockbridge Miss Agnes Canning Mrs. Oscar Iasigi Miss Caroline T. Lawrence Miss Grace S. Parker Mrs. Alexander Sedgwick Swampscott Mrs. Arthur F. Bent Mrs. Addis M. Whitney Taunton Mrs. F. S. Hall Mrs. Charles T. Hubbard Miss Harriet Newbury Miss Kate I. Sanford Miss Sarah B. Williams Topsfield Miss Mary O. Hodges Townsend Mrs. Frank M. Warren Tyringham Mrs. John S. McLennan Vineyard Haven Mrs. Howes Norris Waltham Mrs. Lyman A. Bowker Mrs. William E. Bright Miss Evelyn Sears Mrs. Lowell E. Warren Miss Alice M. Worcester Wareham Mrs. E. A. Gammons Miss Frances Hennessy Watertown Mrs. Maria G. Brigham Wellesley Mrs. Henry F. Durant Mrs. T. B. Rollins Mrs. J. J. E. Rothery Mrs. H. L. Dodd, Wellesley Hills Wenham Miss Helen C. Barnham Mrs. Edward B. Cole Mrs. Charles Parker Weston Mrs. William Bramhall Westwood Mrs. Edward Cunningham Mrs. Lindsley Loring Mrs. T. N. Perkins Whitinsville Mrs. Chester W. Lasell Mrs.G. M. Whitin Wilbraham Mrs. Charles M. Pease Williamstown Mrs. J. Franklin Carter Mrs. O. M. Fernald Mrs. John E. Russell Mrs. Henry D. Wild Winchendon Mrs. Charles R. Frost Winchester Mrs. Eben Caldwell Miss Minnie B. Joy Mrs. George S. Littlefield Miss Maria A. Parsons Woods Hole Mrs. W. O. Luscomb Worcester Miss Josephine C. Aldrich Mrs. Chandler Bullock Miss Isabel Crompton Mrs. Edgar A. Fisher Mrs. Austin L. Garves Miss Eleanor G. Goddard Miss Sarah B. Hopkins Mrs. W. S. B. Hopkins Mrs. Francis B. Knowles Miss Lucy Lewisson Miss Frances M. Lincoln Mrs. Winslow S. Lincoln Mrs. Charles F. Marble Mrs. Nathaniel Paine Miss Mary Thurston Rice Mrs. A. B. R. Sprague Mrs. Charles M. Thayer Mrs. Samuel Utley Yarmouth Mrs. George R. Agassiz Miss Louise Hallett Some Pamphlets issued by the Massachusetts Association Opposed to the Further Extension of Suffrage to Women Some of the Reasons against Woman Suffrage Francis Parkman Of What Benefit to Woman? . . . . . Why Am I Opposed to Woman Suffrage Jeanette L. Gilder Letter to Legislative Committee Mrs. Clara T. Leonard Anti-Suffrage Creed how woman Can Best Serve the State Mrs. Barclay Hazard Woman's Progress versus Woman Suffrage Mrs. Rossiter Johnson The Blank Cartridge Ballot Rossiter Johnson Municipal Suffrage for Women. Why? Frank Foxcroft Tax Paying Suffrage Charles R. Saunders The Real Danger of Woman Suffrage . . . Rights and Exemptions Given by Massachusetts Law to Women and Not to Men . . . . . Should women vote? . . . . Joseph Pyle Women's Power and Woman Suffrage Mrs. A. J. George Why a Man Should Oppose Woman Suffrage Frank Foxcroft A Social Worker's View of Suffrage. . . . Mrs. Wm. Lowell Putnam Suffrage Statements Answered. . . . . . A set of Six Pamphlets will be mailed on receipt of 25 cents ROOM 615, KENSINGTON BUILDING 687 BOYLSTON STREET, BOSTON, MASS 15 Lathrop's tenure of office ; while the male heads a bureaux lost their positions on account of their political affiliations in the change from the Taft to the Wilson administration. 9. If women desire to hold office there are more offices for women now than there are women to fill them, BUT these offices are the useful, inconspicuous and unexciting positions. 10. As soon women have votes they must faced the resulting demand by women for political office. Since women from double suffrage States have been displaying emotionalism and incompetency in public office both men and women who used to think differently now believe that the affairs of the nation are safer in the hands of men. As a matter of fact few women wish to be represented by other women. 11. Few women could stand the strain of active political campaigning. Women are too emotional and to personal, too easily irritated and to easily upset. Sentimentality and emotion are out of place in politics. Hard cold facts which most women dislike, and personal vilification and abuse which most women hate when apply to themselves, although they do not hesitate to employ them, are the daily portion of the politician. 12. The inseparable obstacle to women's competition with man is the fact of her physical disabilities. 15 Caroline M. Parker Twelve Anti-Suffrage Reasons FOR THE Single Woman Women's Anti-Suffrage Association of Massachusetts Room 615, 687 Boylston Street, Boston 1917 TWELVE ANTI-SUFFRAGE REASONS FOR THE SINGLE WOMAN 1. The majority of women do not want to vote in this State, and the will of the majority ought to obtain. 2. Voting is not a natural right, or men of the army of navy, residents of Washington, D. C., aliens and children would all have votes, which none of them possess, while all of them pay taxes. 3. In return for her taxes, a woman receives police and fire protection, use of roads and public schools, etc., etc., just as much as a man, while she is not called upon to fight fires or to enforce the law as any man may be whenever it is necessary Few women pay taxes. Woman suffrage would multiply the proportion of non-taxpaying voters and practically double the number of those who could vote away the income, and further tax the women already taxed, without themselves sharing the burden. There is no connection whatever between property and votes in this country. Mrs. Rockefeller and the poorest man who is a citizen of the United States in his employ have each just one vote. 4. What is the use under woman suffrage of voting for good laws when, if they pass against the will of the men, you cannot enforce them? If the men wanted good laws and meant to keep and enforce them, they would pass them themselves without the votes of the women. 5. Laws for the protection of women and children are better in non-suffrage than in suffrage States. Men seem to be more anxious to pass such laws than are women, who have votes. 6. The suffragists say girls are better educated than boys. What practical good is book learning compared to the training of business experience? The boys begin to learn how to conduct affairs with common sense and success, while the girls are being taught theories. Knowledge of facts, not of theories, is necessary for those who should govern the country. 7. The voting of women would increase the untrained, criminal, buyable and stay-at-home votes. The stay-at-home vote in particular is already a great menace in this country. Why increase it? 8. Women, once in politics, would lose influence in obtaining legislation. Ida Husted Harper said: "What did Miss Jane Addams gain by her course at the Progressive Convention that she did not have already?" If Miss Addams lost influence by entering into party politics, and she did unquestionably, what woman will not? As an example of the advantage a woman possesses in being non-partisan, take Miss Julia G. THE WAGE-EARNING WOMAN AND THE STATE (1913) BY MINNIE BRONSON Formerly Special Agent, Bureau of Labor, Department of Commerce and Labor, Washington, D.C. ISSUED BY The Massachusetts Association Opposed to the Further Extension of Suffrage to Women Pamphlets and leaflets may be obtained from the Secretary, Room 615, Kensington Building, 687 Boylston Street, Boston, Mass. MISS MINNIE BRONSON. Graduated from Upper Iowa University with degree of A.B., receiving degree of Master of Arts from the same institution, 1892. Teacher of Mathematics in St. Paul, Minn., High School, from 1889 to 1899. Assistant in the Department of Education of the U.S. Commission to the Paris Exposition of 1900. Director of the Educational Department of the Pan-American Exposition of 1901. Superintendent of Elementary and Secondary Education at the St. Louis Exposition, 1904. Secretary of the U.S. Jury of Awards at the Liege Exposition of 1905. Delegated by the U.S. Bureau of Education to report the Educational Congresses held in Belgium, 1905. Chief of Department of Social Economy, Jamestown Exposition, 1907. Special Agent of the U.S. Bureau of Labor, to investigate the conditions of labor of women and children, 1907-1909. Special Agent U.S. Department of the Interior, Alaskan Exhibit, Seattle Exposition, March-July 1909. Special Agent U.S. Bureau of Labor, to report on the strike of Shirt Waist Makers, January-June, 1910. The Wage-Earning Woman and the State A COMPARISON OF THE LAWS FOR HER PROTECTION IN VARIOUS STATES OF THE UNION. BY MINNIE BRONSON, Formerly Special Agent, Bureau of Labor, Department of Commerce and Labor, Washington, D.C. One of the most forcible arguments advanced by the advocates of woman suffrage is that it would lead to a fairer treatment of women in industry and to better laws for their protection. The claim is made that the laws on our statute books are unjust to the wage-earning woman, and that her only redress from this discrimination is in the ballot. So often has this view been urged that it has come to be accepted by many wage-earning women, who have for this reason become advocates of a cause otherwise distasteful to them. A study of the laws of the various States of the United States will show that these conclusions are as fallacious as the premise is untrue. Fallacious Arguments from the Shirt Waist Strike During the shirt waist strike in New York, in the winter of 1909-10, a noted suffragist, addressing the women strikers at a street meeting, declared that if the women engaged in this industry had had the ballot, such a strike as theirs would have been unnecessary. The speaker doubtless believed what she said, and would have been surprised to learn that 40 per cent. of the strikers were men, 36 per cent. were women under twenty-one years of age, and 6 per cent. were women workers of voting age who had not been in this country long enough to gain a residence. Such statements, unrefuted, go far to impress a credulous people, too busy or too indifferent to investigate the truth. Laws for the Protection of the Wage-Earning Women Reference to the laws governing the labor of women shows that our law makers, far from enacting laws which discriminate against the wage-earning woman, are constantly enacting new and better laws for her protection; that these laws are constantly improved, not because women have the ballot, or want it, but because women are entering more and more into the industrial life of our country. And, because of her great function to society, because of her physical disadvantage, and, above all, because she is not herself a law maker, public opinion demands that her rights and her interests shall be doubly conserved and safeguarded from any probable injustice by man, and that she shall be given the opportunity to become whatever her abilities, natural or acquired, permit. And in obedience to this demand, the laws enacted for the protection of wage-earning women are more beneficent and far-reaching than the laws for the protection of wage-earning men. [*Laws enacted for protection of wage-earning women more far-reaching than laws for protection of wage-earning men.*] Comparison of Laws in Suffrage and Non-Suffrage States. In all but three States, one of which is a suffrage State 1, [*1 Women vote on equal terms with men in Colorado, Idaho, Utah, Wyoming, Washington and California. Oregon, Arizona and Kansas now (January, 1913) have woman suffrage, but the laws quoted herein were enacted under male suffrage; these States are therefore included under non-suffrage States.*] laws have been passed for the protection of the women who earn, which laws are distinct from and in addition to the laws protecting all wage-earners, men and women alike; that is to say, in forty-four States the laws for the safeguarding of wage-earning women are better and more comprehensive than the laws for the safeguarding of wage-earning men. Moreover, a comparison of the labor laws of the various States shows that there are more and better laws for the protection of women wage-earners in the non-suffrage States than in States where women have the ballot; the inference being that, possessing the ballot, a woman who works must stand on a level with the male worker, and asks no favors; must accept the conditions imposed by the law of supply and demand, and 4 give as many hours of toil per day as he, although no increase in physical vitality will respond to this demand of the "equal privilege." In thirty-four States laws have been passed limiting the hours of labor in which a woman may be employed. Three of the four woman suffrage States where women have voted long enough to affect legislation, have no such law, and the 54 hour law in Utah was not enacted until 1911, fifteen years after Woman Suffrage became operative. [*Limitation of hours of labor.*] Thirty-nine States compel employers in stores, factories, shops, etc., to provide seats for female employees. Nine States have no such laws, and one of the nine States is a suffrage State. [*Seats for female employees.*] In forty-two States, the Territory of Alaska and the District of Columbia, the earnings of a married woman are secured to her absolutely, and cannot be required by law, as can the earnings of a married man, for the support of the family, nor are they liable for her husband's debts. Six States do not so provide, and one is a suffrage State. [*Earnings of a married woman.*] Sixteen States regulate the employment of women at night, and specifically state the hours between which women may not be employed. These regulations were all enacted under male suffrage. Included in these sixteen States are all those States which prohibit night work for girls who are minors but who are over sixteen years of age and who are therefore not protected by Child Labor laws. [*Regulation of employment at night.*] Twenty-four States, only one of which is a suffrage State, restrict the number of hours during which a woman may be employed both by the day and week, thus insuring one day of rest in seven. It is true that the suffrage States of Washington and California have laws limiting the work of women to forty-eight hours per week, but the law in Washington was passed by a legislature elected under male suffrage, and the law in California was enacted nine months before women were enfranchised in that State. In 1903 an eight hour law for women was enacted in Colorado. A very inadequate law for it was restricted in its application to women who must stand while at work and ex- 5 empted the great majority of women employed in that State where the manufacturing was largely in what is termed the seated trades - ready made clothing, dressmaking, millinery, candy making, and cigar making. This law was pronounced unconstitutional in 1907 by the Supreme Court of Colorado, though the Supreme Courts of Oregon and Nebraska, as well as the Supreme Courts of the United States, upheld similar laws in these neighboring male suffrage States. It was not until 1912, nineteen years after Woman Suffrage came into Colorado that a law was finally secured limiting the hours of labor for women who work. Comparison of Laws Affecting Wage-Earning Women in Suffrage and Western Non-Suffrage States. If we eliminate from this comparison the Manufacturing States of the East, which, for obvious reasons, have the most and perhaps the best remedial laws for wage-earning women, and consider only those States which have practically similar conditions, we are able to determine more definitely what woman suffrage has accomplished for wage-earning women in the States where women have the franchise. The suffrage States of Idaho and Wyoming place no restriction upon the number of hours a woman may be employed, but the neighboring male suffrage States of Oklahoma, South Dakota, North Dakota, and Nebraska, regulate the hours by law, and Nebraska, on the East, reaches the high tide of remedial legislation by prohibiting the employment of women at night in all manufacturing, mechanical or mercantile establishments and in hotels and restaurants, and limits the number of hours per week, thereby ensuring one day of rest. There are a half-dozen laws pertaining to the work of women in two or three States: as, for instance, a law in Massachusetts, prohibiting employers from deducting the wages of women when time is lost because machinery has broken down and a law prohibiting the employment of women for a fixed period before and after childbirth (this act follows the precedent established in the leading industrial nations of Europe); or a law in Delaware and Louisiana, exempting the wages of women from execution; or laws in 6 California, Illinois and Washington, providing that no person shall, on account of sex, be disqualified from entering upon or pursuing any lawful business, vocation or profession; but none of these laws were enacted under woman suffrage. Wages of Teachers. [*Suffrage fallacies.*] With reference to the wages of teachers, a suffragist writer says: "Woman needs the ballot because it leads to fair treatment of women in public service. In Massachusetts the average pay of a female teacher is only one-third that of a male teacher, and in almost all of the States it is unequal; but in Wyoming and Utah the law provides that they shall receive equal pay for equal work." This statement is misleading. Where teachers are doing the same grade of work, it will be found that no such percentage as three to one obtains in Massachusetts. It may be that the sum of the salaries of female teachers in the State, divided by the number of such teachers, is only one-third of the average pay of male teachers; but the majority of male teachers are principals, supervisors, superintendents and college presidents or college professors, while the country school teachers, the kindergartners and under teachers, are women. It is true that few women are found in the highest-paid positions of a teaching force, but this is due to the other causes than political. In four hundred and seventy-five calleges of various grades and attendance in the United States only eight have women presidents, yet it will scarcely be claimed that this is due to woman's political status. There seems to be a growing sentiment, not only among fathers, but mothers as well, that their sons, whose training at home is so largely in the hands of the mothers, should be brought under the influence of men in their school life; that, since the grown boy's life of affairs will be spent with men, it should be from men that he learns to meet it and its obligations; that he should not receive his impressions of life entirely from a sex to which he does not belong to. [*Law of supply and demand.*] It is not denied that female teachers do not in the majority of cases receive the same pay as men for the work of 7 equal grade;1 but here the law of supply and demand is paramount. [*1 Very recently the women teachers of the city of New York have been granted equal pay with men teachers. The working of this law will be watched with interest. It is worth noting that the law was passed in a male suffrage State by a Legislature elected by male suffrage.*] Teachers' Wages in Suffrage and Non-Suffrage States. The States of Wyoming and Utah are confirmatory of this fact, in spite of the law on their statute books to the contrary. The average monthly wages of female teachers in Utah is $53.60, while the average wage of male teachers is $77.32; that is, the average of the female teacher's is a little less than 70 per cent. of the average male teacher's wage. This at first seems very satisfactory, and a partial confirmation of the suffragist argument; but we find that in Maine women teachers receive 75 per cent. of the wages of men; in Virginia, 80 per cent.; in Indiana and Missouri, 90 per cent.; and in New Mexico, 99 per cent. Also, in Wyoming the average monthly wage of men teachers is $85.26, as compared with $53.05, the average monthly wage of female teachers, or a difference of $32.21 per month, as compared with a difference in Iowa of $21.81; Illinois, $21.36; South Dakota, $20.44; Washington, $16.66; Oregon, $15.48; Ohio, $14.50; Pennsylvania, $14.38; in Kansas, $9.85; in Oklahoma, $8.61; and in North Dakota, $.24; while in the Southern States the difference ranges from $20.22 in Louisiana to $6.16 in Alabama. The average monthly salary for all men teachers in the United States is $62.35, and of women teachers $51.61, a difference of $10.74, which is less than one-third the difference found in Utah. As a matter of fact, there are twenty-nine States in which the ratio between the salaries of men and women teachers is less than in Wyoming, and twenty-five States in which it is less than in Utah; twenty-seven States in which it is less than in Colorado. Eleven States, California, Nevada, Arizona, Idaho, Illinois, Colorado, Montana, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Washington 8 and Indiana, in the order named, pay higher monthly wages to women than Wyoming and Utah, the excess over Wyoming running from $24 in California to $2.75 in Indiana. 1 [*1 Statistics taken from Chapter XVI. of the Report of the Commissioner of Education for 1909. January, 1913*] Wages in General Employment. [*Wages in public employment.*] Dr. Helen L. Sumner, in her book entitled "Equal Suffrage" says: "Taking public employment as a whole, women in Colorado receive considerable less remuneration than men." It is the old story, she says, of supply and demand in the commercial world and suffrage has probably nothing to do with the wages of either men or women. "The wages of men and women in all fields of industry are governed by economic conditions." [*Wages in private employment.*] She shows by tables carefully compiled that in Colorado the pay of women in private employment has been steadily lower than that of men, never reaching quite one-half as much, and that while the average weekly wage of women in Colorado is 97 cents higher than the average weekly wage of women in the United States as a whole, the average weekly pay of men in Colorado is $3.62 higher than in the United States as a whole, a difference of nearly 400 per cent. more in Colorado than the United States altogether. Labor Legislation Shows Constant Improvement. The history of labor legislation shows conclusively that laws for the wage-earning woman are constantly improving, in accord with her increasing employment in the industrial world; that her rights and interests are best safeguarded in those States where her numbers and opportunities for work are greatest; and that each year sees new and better laws enacted by legislators who are bitterly denounced, by the advocates for woman suffrage, as unjustly discriminating against the wage-earning women. Record of Thirty-two States (Non-Suffrage) in Legislation for Working Women, 1908-1911. The years 1909-1911 show the most remarkable improvement in laws affecting the wage-earning woman. Fifty-four 9 laws were enacted by the Legislatures of thirty-two States, affecting the employment of women and children. Chief among them were the laws restricting or prohibiting night work by women; and the numerous laws which were enacted or amended regulating the hours of her labor show a marked tendency to their continued reduction. [*Night work. Restrictions of hours of labor.*] In most of these cases existing laws were simply amended, but in many States entirely new legislation was enacted. A Minnesota law of 1909 prescribes a fifty-eight hour week for women employed in stores, shops and factories; in the same year Missouri enacted a law prohibiting night work for women, and limiting the hours of labor by the week to fifty-four in all manufacturing and mercantile establishments, laundries and restaurants; and Oregon strikes out a proviso of the previous law allowing women to work twelve hours per day during the week preceding Christmas. These thirty-two States are non-suffrage States, and it cannot be claimed that the votes of the women have influenced the result. During the year 1911, sixteen additional laws were passed for the protection of women along the lines of hours, wages and night work. Eight-hour laws were enacted in two States and a material reduction made in the number of hours a woman could be employed. Utah was the only suffrage State making any material change in her laws for wage-earning women, and in that State a nine-hour day for women was enacted. The history of labor legislation shows invariably that suffrage States instead of being in the vanguard of remedial legislation have usually lagged behind and have only enacted labor laws when the majority of male suffrage States have pointed the way. Women are Better Protected than Men by Labor Legislation. It is claimed by suffragists that more men than women enjoy the benefits of a working day limited by law. This is simply equivalent to saying that there are more men than women engaged in industry. No one denies this obvious fact. In every six breadwinners only one is a woman. It is further 10 stated that in twelve States the working day is limited to eight hours for men in mines, without a corresponding law for women. But in all these twelve States the law forbids the employment of women in mines, a far more humane law than if they were allowed to work for eight hours a day as do men. It is also claimed that men in the public service of state or federal government have an eight-hour law, but this law applies equally to women in public service, and in Washington, D.C., where government employees have a seven-hour working day, the number of men and women employed are nearly equal and neither can vote. It is also said that twenty-four States have an eight-hour working day for men on railroads and allied industries, but these laws were passed for the protection of the traveling public from the dangers incident to overworked train employees. And further that many States prohibit the employment of men in occupations dangerous to health for more than eight hours a day. But here again women are protected since they are forbidden to work in such dangerous occupations at all. Present Standard of Remedial Legislation Has Been Reached Without the Vote of Women. These are facts which cannot be controverted either by assertion or argument. such misleading statements have been made in reference to the subject that the wage-earning woman is led to believe that existing laws were framed not for her protection, but for her extinction. And yet the history of legislation of all past time shows no such improvement in humane laws as that enacted in the last decade for the protection and safeguarding of the women and children who work. If so much has been accomplished without the votes of women, and so little has been done with the vote, it would seem to behoove the wage-earning woman to inquire carefully into the specious promises of the advocates for equal suffrage. Such inquiry will show her that the variation in the wage paid to male and female workers is due to the oper- 11 ation of the law of supply and demand, and that neither the wage paid to woman nor remedial legislation in her behalf depends upon her political status. It is hardly conceivable that equal suffrage would reverse the remedial legislation already enacted, but further progress in that line could scarcely be expected; and the constantly reiterated demand that woman shall be allowed to stand on exactly the same footing as man may render ineffective much of the law which now gives her an advantage. Issued by the Massachusetts Association Opposed to the Further Extension of Suffrage to Women. Other Literature and information may be obtained from the Secretary of the Association, Room 615, Kensington Bldg., 687 Boylston St., Boston, Mass. 15 12 THE EQUAL CUSTODY OF CHILDREN BY PARENTS. As many people feel that our present laws are unjust in that they do not give what is usually called the "equal Custody" to each parent, the following brief survey of the question in its social aspects has been made:- First. In general it may be said that at present, when the father and mother are living together in the marriage relation, the control of the children, in case a disagreement should arise in any matter, would be ultimately with the father. Ordinarily and practically the question of disagreement is not apt to present itself in any very serious form. It is a mistake to exaggerate theoretical difficulties. The wise law maker provides as best he may for the great majority of cases. Nothing more is humanly possible. "De minimis non curat lex" has been the highest wisdom since the dawn of law. The social value of the marriage relation is largely that it provides, as we believe, the best means for perpetuating and properly training the race. The head of the family should of course be a united head, in this or any other human intuition, that consists of two, unless one can decide in case of absolute disagreement. If two ride a horse, one must ride behind. Exactly "equal custody" of children, or anything else, is simply impossible by two persons. The power of decision must rest somewhere. Shall it, in the rare cases in which it must be used, rest with the man or the woman? This is socially the only question. The general sense of the world up to this time is that in such case the ultimate decision should rest with the man, and this has found expression in law. The man is and must be charged with the legal duty of support, and this is one great reason why, in case of disagreement, he is given, so to speak, the casting vote. Any other arrangement would seem to have little in its favor. But if the woman can show socially a better claim to the casing vote, she will get it from the justice of the community as at present organized, precisely as she has succeeded in doing in so many other matters. Second. When a husband and wife legally separate, the court passes on the custody and control of the children under the circumstances as may be made to appear best in the interest of all concerned. Surely, no fairer nor more suitable method can be suggested than this. Third. There remains only to consider the case where the husband and wife live apart, but do not legally separate. The law at present refuses to take cognizance of such an anomalous condition. Should it do so? This is almost entirely a question of public policy, and involves the most serious social problems. The law contents itself with exerting all its force on the side of keeping husband and wife together, in conserving and cementing the family. If this fails, it favors legal separation. The last thing that it can tolerate is that husband and wife shall sustain the legal but not the real marriage relation. For this reason alone it refuses to try to encourage the practical breaking up of the family, and it does not permit its judges to make voluntary separation easy, by an apportionment of children of division of custody. For the accomplishment of great social ends demanded by our present conceptions of public policy, it decrees that the lesser evil shall be submitted to, rather than to endure the infinitely greater one. If this is wrong, if it is not in accord with the best thought of the whole community, it can be changed, but only when the best thought of the whole community calls for the change. Printed by the Massachusetts Association Opposed to Extension of Woman Suffrage. Pamphlets and leaflets may be obtained from the Secretary of the Association, Mrs. Robert. W. Lord, 56 St. Stephen St., Boston, Mass. WHY SHOULD SUFFRAGE BE IMPOSED ON WOMEN? Do they want it? For many years the woman suffrage in this State have been doing all in their power to secure converts. They have an organ and an organization. They have endeavored to convince women that they are imposed upon and deprived of their rights, and that they ought to be dissatisfied. Their arguments have been most ingenious and seductive. Notwithstanding all their shrewd agitation, their following embraces only a small minority of the women of the State. This statement can be confirmed by personal experience among women in various directions. Would it promote the general welfare? The average woman being no better than the average man, it could not be a public benefit simply to double the present vote for good and for evil alike. The woman suffragists constantly inform us how one and another good measure might have been carried if the men who advocated it "could only have had the votes of the women who wished it also." They seem utterly to forget that a measure is not carried by any fixed number of votes in its favor, but by the proportion those votes bear to the whole number casts. The difficulty in American politics has long been the proportion of ignorant, selfish, and thoughtless voters. These elements would certainly exist quite as largely among women. There is no assurance that women would be more scrupulous than men in the use of the ballot or in the conduct of public affairs. Could it benefit the cities? Even earnest advocates of woman suffrage admit that in the cities the immediate effects would be questionable. The idle, the depraved, and the ignorant chiefly congregate in cities, and the votes of such women would be as unwisely cast as those of the men of the same class, and as easily purchased, especially by indirect bribery in forms which would excite their gratitude. The more enlightened and conscientious voters would also be outnumbered by that large portion of the population which, without being necessarily corrupt, would readily be led by energetic politicians of either sex. Would it be practically possible in the towns? Woman suffrage contemplates that all adults, both male and female, should take part in town meetings. Towns are not governed by councils which can be simply elected, but by the voting members of the population assembled in conclave. After the advent of woman suffrage, how should this be accomplished? Shall the homes be left deserted? If not who shall remain to guard them? Shall it be the father of the family, or the hired man, the mother, or the help? All would have equal rights. Our town meetings have been the pride of New England, but their founders certainly never contemplated any such wholesale muster of the population as the woman suffragists are trying to bring to pass. How would it affect the interests of children and householders? Very unfavorably, especially in the country towns. The parents of the State are now fairly represented in proportion to the number of voters, but they would cease to be so if women voters were admitted, since many single women could easily attend town meetings, while the proportion of mothers who could be present would be of necessity much smaller. Therefore the representation of families, including both children and parents, would be less fair than it is to-day. The appropriations for the schools and the interests of farmers and small householders in the outlying settlements would be very apt to suffer. Would it not impose great hardship on many women? Women have many physical limitations which do not exist for men. Already, as a rule, their strength is overtaxed. Nervous diseases among them are alarmingly increasing, as is shown by statistics on both sides of the Atlantic, while those who have time and energy for more than their home duties, or efforts for self-support, are met by pressing demands from charities and useful organizations of every kind, in addition to the various literary and professional labors in which so many are distinguished. Whatsoever the fatigue of body or mind, the more conscientious and intelligent the voter, the more resolute would she be in fulfilling every patriotic duty ; and it is these willing and right-minded women who should be considered when such a revolution in their lives is contemplated. Can it be granted simply to the women who wish it, without injustice to all others? Nothing can be more shortsighted that the good-natured indifference of women who say that they "do not wish to vote themselves, but would gladly see others gratified if they desire it." Such liberality is highly proper when it is a question of opening to women any professional or educational advantages. But it must be remembered that, if some women were allowed the ballot, those who held opposite opinions would be obliged to vote in order to counterbalance them. Women who had selfish interest to promote, or favorite hobbies to pursue, would be certain to attend all political meetings, and the more conscientious and moderate women would then be obliged to follow their example in order to secure as good government as they enjoy to-day. The small number of votes which women have cast for members of the School Committee is no test of the obligation which wider municipal suffrage would impose on them. A large class of women have, after earnest deliberation, refrained from voting for members of the School Committee, lest it should prove an entering wedge for that more extended woman suffrage whose consequences they believe would be most disastrous for the State. Is the ballot essential to the dignity of women? It is urged that unless woman has the ballot "she is classed with minors, idiots, lunatics, and felons." With equal reason might it be urged that minors should have the ballot, since they would otherwise be classed with idiots, or that paupers should have the ballot to distinguish them from felons. It is also repeatedly asserted that "women now are slaves" and require the ballot for their "emancipation." But American women know well the liberty and power which they enjoy, and will not be deceived by such assertions. The free-born daughters of New England will not be readily convinced that they are "slaves," or that they and their mothers before them have not been honored and respected without the ballot. Are not the interests of women safe in the hands of men? Quite as safe as in those of other women. The woman suffragists always imply that men legislate only for their own interests. But in America, certainly, men can be accused of almost any fault rather than of indifference to the wishes and happiness of women. They would make any reasonable amendments in the laws affecting the welfare of women, if urged with half the force now annually brought to bear in favor of suffrage. Moreover, in general the interests of men and women are very much the same. Both desire good schools, good roads, and good government. The prosperity of the town and the State benefits both alike. Only in the common division of labor, certain duties are apportioned to each, according to their special conditions of strength and organization. These differences are not of human origin, and therefore cannot be changed by any so-called "reform," by which name any movement, however mischievous, seems now to be honored. Issued by the Massachusetts Association Opposed to the Further Extension of Suffrage to Women. Pamphlets and leaflets may be obtained from the Secretary, Room 615, Kensington Building, 687 Boylston Street, Boston, Mass. (From The National Review, London, Jan. 1909.) SUFFRAGE AND ANTI-SUFFRAGE. A WOMAN WORKER'S APPEAL No thoughtful person will deny that the present agitation about Woman Suffrage is the most alarming symptom of decadence we, as a nation, have to face at this moment. [*/*] To the women workers whose powers of reflection have not been quite deadened by the routine of professional work, by endurance of the heavy fatigue this imposes on feminine organizations, or, as in some cases, by removal, in consequence of their labors, from contact with common everyday experience, it is being brought forcibly home that no single factor at this date threaten us with such rapidly accelerated degeneration. [*/Meaningless words*] Women workers are not less proud than other women; personally, they would rather go on to the last gasp than own that they are being urged beyond their strength; where their own interests only are at stake the idea of appealing for help is peculiarly abhorrent to them. But, once they have been forced to realize that any further over-driving is going to seriously impair the national welfare, then they have to confess that the time for reticence is past. That time came when politicians made it clear that they were going to leave to women themselves the duty of demonstrating what it has at last become imperatively necessary to demonstrate, that is to say the inadvisability of imposing on women this new responsibility of the suffrage: since when it has also been shown that this question is not one for the married women or for young ladies living under the paternal roof, because the vote will not be given to them; but that it is on the householding women, most of whom will be working to maintain that household, that the burden of political responsibility is to lie. So confused is the thinking on this subject that there are many who still deny that for women the suffrage is a responsibility, and serious persons can yet be found to ask: "What unreasonable demand is made upon women's time if they go to the poll to record their vote?" With half the advocates of woman suffrage, "Votes for Women" is merely an affair of the polling booth. Any one who has been in contact with the lives of men knows well that the possession of that political responsibility of which the vote is but an outward sign, places them under the necessity of expending an organization, demonstration, and so forth, an amount of energy which forms no small share of the sum total of masculine activities. It is not likely that the extreme partisan women we have lately been introduced to are going to have their ardor extinguished by the bestowal of the vote. We may expect it on the contrary to be redoubled and invigorated by success. And when these extremists do possess the vote, it seems likely that they will make political responsibility a much more serious, all-absorbing affair for the female than it has ever been for the male. The headlong feminine methods now applied by the militants to their suffrage campaign, once transferred to a reform of the customs and habits of their moderate fellow women, will leave those unfortunate moderate very little choice as to whether they will confine their political activity to the polling booth. Counter-organizations Suffrage and Anti-Suffrage. Counter-organizations, demonstrations, and the rest will make a demand on feminine energies which will leave the men's performance as far behind, as the suffrage agitation does other agitations. No, it is too late to say that possession of the vote is only going to involve women in occasional visits to the polling booth. It is going to be their heaviest responsibility. The inherent incapacity of the sex to discharge such a responsibility has been, one might have thought, more than proved by the suffragists. But owing to that dangerous love of novelty, that instinctive thirst for a spectacle, especially a savage spectacle (additional symptom of degeneracy), everywhere at present observable, the yelling, screeching, scratching, biting displays we have witnessed lately have won for the suffragists, it seems, a number of adherents among the reckless and unreflecting part of mankind quite outweighing the total of those more serious persons they have alienated. It is, perhaps, when human nature is taken into account, a not unnatural result. But it has imposed on women workers the painful necessity of making an appeal for assistance in the accomplishment of their new task of withstanding the imposition of what will be to them a real cruelty. How painful this necessity is to them must be evident when it is remembered that they are not particularly well equipped even for making this appeal; that they are already working, many of them, to execute a man's task with a woman's strength; and that to speak will mean owning up that many of them feel that a little more is expected of them already than is quite fair or reasonable, as also their conviction that if upon them principally is to devolve the heavy task of averting what threatens to be a national disaster, the only wise and honest course for them is to confess at once that they are not equal to performing it. The suffrage question, shorn of the many nondescript accretions it has accumulated in the course of its career, is a very simple matter, so simple, indeed, that there is danger in that very fact; no one can believe that it is so simple as it really is. What we have actually to face is this. On the suffrage side we see exceptionally endowed women, women of quite extraordinary capacity of intellect and of physical endurance; women who feel, and rightly, that they are capable of undertaking and executing not only any task under the sun, but every kind of task at once; associated with them we find other women upon whom the favors of fortune have been so lavishly showered that they also enjoy this same exhilarating sense of omnipotence -- the Vanderbilts and others of the millionaire class, whose espousal of this cause is announced from America; and behind these leaders we find a solid mass of women possessed not only of a reassuring conviction that they do everything they do supremely well, but that it must ultimately be for the good of mankind if they add to their own peculiar and allotted task some performance of those labors which have been hitherto considered masculine. These must evidently be the women who are unusually skilful and competent, really the exceptional part of womankind; it will at once therefore be conceded, the minority. Opposed to these aspirants for the suffrage, we, the great majority, shamefacedly conscious of our limitation, straining after the accomplishment of our task to the accompaniment of a sense of imperfection we can never escape from, disagreeably conscious that, taken as a demonstration only, we could make no show against the brilliant creatures opposed to use, we cannot but be aware that when it comes to proving even the inability that lies at the root of our unreadiness to undertake further responsibilities, Suffrage and Anti-Suffrage. we are hopelessly handicapped in this effort to do so by the very inferiority that causes our reluctance. And yet it is the average woman who should have been considered in discussing the extension of the suffrage to women, as suffragists have shown in their careful elimination of this important factor from their statement of the problem. The suffragist argument is based on the capacity of the exceptional women to undertake that most exceptional task, so exceptional that we have only in rare instances seen it attempted, the discharge by one person of a man's functions as well as a woman's. Is it fair to require of the average woman what it has not yet been proved that the exceptional ones are capable of performing? The case of the average woman is a hard one on this occasion. She is not particularly clever at explaining herself lucidly, and yet a man cannot quite understand without being told. It has been said that as long as the world endures there will always be one field of exploration which can never be worked out. Every man, in fact, sets out on a voyage of discovery when he tries to get into the mind of a woman. Though many modern women say this is not the case when a woman does the same with a man, there are some for whom the sense of adventure eternally endures. Nothing has been such a surprise to women for a long time, as the extraordinary trouble taken lately by one or two eminent masculine thinkers to show that their objections to the suffrage for women imply no disbelief in the equality of men's and women's intellectual capacity. How is one to convey to the masculine understanding that serious women workers have quite another point of view, that average women of any maturity never lose their sense of wonder at the way in which average men accomplish without effort some things that involve strain to themselves? Schoolgirls, we know, when their work is adjudged inferior to that of a male competitor, sometimes attribute the verdict to a conspiracy on the part of men against them. And some women carry this schoolgirl attitude through life. But thoughtful women honestly acknowledge the superior aptitude of the male for certain activities, and secretly prefer that their own energies should be employed in those direction where the male, in his turn, must admire their especial skill. It will be seen that no humility need therefore be implied in the conviction of the Anti-Suffrage woman that it would be kinder not to call on her to undertake what is so peculiarly calculated to display her deficiencies as the suffrage is. But the more the average woman reflects upon the number of words that would be required to make any man understand what she has always so perfectly well known herself that she never thought of mentioning it before, the more she is forced to decide that she had better simply request that this should be taken for granted. She is, after all, the only person who can really know, and she feels that it is wiser not to burden her appeal with too much preliminary justification. What she is most anxious to make known is this: that she not only holds the suffrage agitation, accompanied as it is by the hysteria and mendacity of which we have witnessed so many examples, to be a symptom of decadence, but that she believes this decadence itself to be largely the result of a false conception of woman's position in society; that she further believes that if decadence preceded the demand for the suffrage and caused it, the granting of the suffrage is bound to still further magnify this misconception in such alarming degree that it will lead to absolute Suffrage and Anti-Suffrage. solutely fatal degeneration. It cannot be too strongly urged that it is the degeneration of the race that is bound to follow of the granting of the suffrage to women in our present condition of civilization. It is a national duty to avert this degeneration. On this women base their appeal for national support in fighting against it. Women know, what men do not seem to have perceived, that it is not an ideal, a heaven-born Licensing Bill that is going to strike at our great national vice of drunkenness. To find the root of the evil it Is really necessary to go back to first causes, and the existence of the public house Is an effect, not a cause, of the desire for drink. It Is not possible to deal with this calamity of our drunkenness while disregarding that primitive wisdom of humanity which dates from the Garden of Eden. In this problem, as in all others, it is indispensable to see what is the woman's share. That the blame in such things rests ultimately with her, is irrefutable testimony to the important role she plays on the human stage, a role the importance of which is so terrible, so awful that only the most rash and foolhardy, rather than the most courageous, would wish to add one fresh responsibility to it. If the working man always had a well-kept home, an exemplary wife, and well-prepared food waiting for him at the end of his hard day's toil, would there be so much drunkenness as there is? If the working men who are being born year by year were born into cleaner surroundings, of mothers who had more of that knowledge women nowadays seem so often unable to acquire, the knowledge of rearing children, as well as of preparing food and keeping a home habitable for the fathers of their children, would there be so much probability as there is that these working men, grown to man's estate, will drink their way to ruin, however superior a wife they may light upon? Would there be so many women drinkers? It is the tritest commonplace, long ago worn threadbare, that by the cradle and the fireside is installed the supreme ruler, the ruler of each man's destiny: she who holds in her hands the fate of the children. Ask how she is acquitting herself there. Scientific men will give you no uncertain answer. Their reply will involve much tedious detail as to unsatisfactory feeding, want of cleanliness and of all that is so important to the health of man and infant. If you do not believe them, go to the schools Ask, it is not a savory question, but ask, how many children's heads are free from vermin: there are schools where you will be fortunate if you hear of one. Can there be a question whether it is more advisable to instruct women how better to discharge the duties, the grand and awful duties, they are already invested with, or to impose on them new ones? Or can any one who has been near to the lives of the very, very poor, lay all the blame for all their wrongdoing, for all their unsatisfactory performance at their own door? No, it is where the larger liberty is where human creatures are not the slaves of those bodily needs which must be ministered to somehow by work done between dark and dark, often enough in the dark hours when the rest of the world is sleeping, before a man has earned the right to pause and think, that the blame lies. Dimly the poor know it. They showed it at the French Revolution. They are showing it now. Does not the poor mother, driven, harassed, often incompetent, who yet is bringing up somehow, in the midst of squalor and discomfort, the family that her richer sister will not interrupt the round of her pleasures and gaieties to bear and rear, declare it when she says of one of the spoilt women who protest Suffrage and Anti-Suffrage. that they are the equals of men, "Them the ladies don't know what it is to be a woman?"* * good argument for suffrage because it shows facts which the poor woman has no means of altering For it is because the wealthier women have been neglecting the first elementary duties of women that the poor have come to this. Where can the fine and complicated art of housekeeping be learnt as well as in the houses of the rich, where there Is leisure, and need for every kind of household skill from the highest to the lowest? But women have long ago forgotten that they might afford in their own domain a training given by the dames of a former day to damsels of varying degree as well as to serving maids, a training which Included much ministering to and care of the poor. as well as valuable personal intercourse between different ranks. In the deepest sense this is the day of the machine-made in the household; the old Christian, personal relationships have been abolished. William Morris spent a magnificent life-time in one long fruitless endeavor to recall mouton sense of the beauty of the old order, and the waves of time have closed over him. What is there left to show that any one understood? Are we to suppose that all his grain has been thrown overboard, and the husks carefully cherished, the tradition of beautiful decoration only that ministers to the gratification of the rich? Women have practised as well as preached their contempt for art and craft within their own walls until the contagion has spread from upper to lower class. Ready as they have shown themselves to undergo the severe technical training required of one who aspires to earn an income as a hired laborer in the market, they will not train in the same way to work in the home, neither will they consent to earn that income, as they easily could, in their own home. It is to be observed that although they will submit to long hours of close work and even to severe discipline outside, anything of the kind is regarded an unendurable injustice and hardship once the necessity for it is asserted under their own roof-tree. - A distortion of facts to a rust of the past. "Looking backward to the golden days of yore that never were" What is it that makes women so averse from remaining within the sheltering walls of home, that makes the very poor herd into bleak factories, where the pay is wretchedly poor. where hard living replaces the comparatively soft living of the private house, and apply for any arduous, unhealthy task In the rough outside world, rather than face the chilly atmosphere of woman-governed domesticity? Is it not really that women have, in very truth, ceased to govern: they have relinquished their household task to any one who can be found for pay to perform it. The boredom of personal supervision will never be endured by the luxurious modern woman. And other not minor evils have crept in. It seems not only that the upper-class women are fast losing the trick of homemaking, that mistresses have shirked the difficulties there are in the relations between those who serve and those who are served (there must always be difficulties, though these should not be insuperable even in this complex age of ours), by keeping at a distance and imposing a rule of speechlessness on their dependents, but that there must be, somehow, where women are the dominant factor, some lack of gentleness, of respect for the individuality and personality of the governed, which makes so many women inpatient of household control not to be coaxed or coerced from their refusal to stay at home in the houses from which the man goes forth in the morning only to return at nightfall. Whatever explanation lies at the foot of the poorer women's preference for factory life over household service, for their transference to careers in which the acquisition of household skill is impossible to them, it is this disastrous want of Suffrage and Anti-Suffrage. household training which accounts for so much that is deplorable to-day in the lives of the very poor. It is the personal factor which has got to be dealt with before women can claim fitness for political responsibility, or to vote or legislate for other women. But the most aggressive portion of womankind are hammering, clamoring for further extinction of the dear, domestic delightful household tasks that all right-minded children and women, not strictly prohibited from indulging their natural bent, adore from the day of the doll's house until the day that ends everything for them. The nearer the schools are approaching to a restoration of the old ideals, the faster and the louder grows the suffragist execration of women's sphere, the appeal for Votes for Women and for all the round of political duty they will bring in their train. Assiduously and insidiously the poison is being spread. Women with money, brains, and leisure at their disposal, have conceived this evil idea of setting on foot an organization to instill into the working women contempt for the old-fashioned, simple ideals of womanhood, of sending out organizers to collect more money and thus procure the means to spread the poison further, and now the amour propre as well as the professional income of these organizers is at stake, depending on their success in this new and undesirable role for women, that of political organizer. Where is it to end? Women workers are in despair. Never, they are told by the suffragists, can they expect to catch up with this snowball of organization, this evil which it seems only possible to reach by the same evil, by counter organization. Those women who are taking their life's duty seriously, who are struggling to earn their day's wage and not relinquish the unprofessional feminine tasks they still are desperately clinging to, in spite of discouragement and loudly expressed contempt (the suffragist male who boasts his chivalry on espousing the cause of the suffragette has not much of it to spare for the women who are not the suffragettes), how can they organize and meet on their own ground, for instance, those suffragist organizers in the north who are paid to work up the factory hands there into a sense of grievance at their non-possession of the vote? We will suppose that a woman worker wrote to offer sympathy to the Anti-Suffrage League at its inception, together with such small contribution as she could spare. The reply that welcomed her avowal of sympathy probably contained an inquiry whether she could undertake to work. The working woman would have to reply that the work she already did, left her very little leisure, and that that leisure was claimed by home cares, though doubtless what she can do she is doing to help. But how can women endeavoring to combine housework and office-work do really effective work against so many women who have clearly no definite duties, and who as clearly possess considerable means, or they could not have spent the time in the streets that they have lately expended there, or hold Suffrage at Homes day by day as they are doing now? Women workers have to appeal to the general public to help them to crush out this poison before it is too late. Shall they appeal in vain? It is not for money they ask, but for the expression everywhere, with strength and vigor, of such a force of public opinion as shall make it impossible for us again in this generation to fall into such a peril. It is an appeal to all who read this to use every ounce of personal influence they possess to bring about this end. The writer who makes this appeal is a woman worker who has endeavored to the best of her ability to combine first teaching and then historical research [*This article presents the delema withholding at the same time the tool by which the problem may be solved at least in part.*] Suffrage and Anti-Suffrage. with housekeeping. A twenty years experience of steady work has led her to the conclusion that it will be a cruelty to impose on women of her class the triple burden of wage-earning, housekeeping, and political responsibility. What such women workers want when their present double task is accomplished is not political excitement, but rest and quiet. These views are held by many women of her own acquaintance, who are called upon to discharge the same double debt as herself. They have at last come to the conclusion that their profound reluctance to incur a responsibility which they feel peculiarly unfitted to discharge has received inadequate attention in consequence of their having been too much absorbed in tasks already theirs to give expression to it. M. E. Simkins. Printed by the Massachusetts Association Opposed to the Further Extension of Suffrage to Women. Pamphlets and Leaflets may be obtained from the Secretary of the Association, ROOM 615, KENSINGTON BUILDING, 687 Boylston Street, BOSTON, MASS. Issued by the Massachusetts Association Opposed to the Further Extension of Suffrage to Women. Pamphlets and leaflets may be obtained from the Secretary, Room 615, Kensington Building, 687 Boylston Street, Boston, Mass. Woman's Power and Woman Suffrage Ida M. Tarbell (From Introduction to The Book of Woman's Power, The MacMillan Co., New York, 1911) The assumption that the improvement of woman's position depends upon the vote is quite as unsound as the charge of her inferiority. Sixty years ago it was held that the only road to the broad and full plan of education which the new democratic scheme made imperative, was the ballot, but that scheme has been realized to the full without a single woman's vote. * * * * It has not taken a vote of hers to set professional doors ajar, and they will surely swing further open, ballot or no ballot. Undoubtedly the argument for suffrage which to-day causes most hesitation among the thoughtful and sympathetic who are not convinced of the wisdom of extending suffrage to women, is that fair conditions and wages for the great body of women in industry can only be realized by giving them suffrage, that they need it for self-protection. The rapid advance which protective legislation for women and children is making, the absolute certainty that it will be soon as perfect as has been conceived and will be improved as rapidly as it is learned how to improve it, the absolute certainty that wages depend not on votes but economic laws, are the best answers to this. The woman in industry is after all but a transient - her working life averaging but a few years. She graduates from shop or factory to real life. [*paid to unpaid labor*] A harmful and unsound implication is the suffrage argument has been that woman's position in society would improve in proportion as her activities and interests became the same as those of men. This implies of course that man's work in society [*has been*] is more important and developing than woman's. But both are essential to society, and who can prove that one essential factor is superior to another essential factor? * * * * As for a woman developing more perfectly under masculine conditions, all the laws of growth are against [*true*] it. Her aptitudes and instincts and functions are different. * * * * Her differences are her strength. * * * * To suppress these differences is to rob not merely her individual life but the life of the world of its full ripeness. 12 There is grave need in this country particularly of lifting the suffrage debate from the narrow lines it has followed, stripping it of false assumptions and of impossible claims, and centering it about a woman more nearly typical than the melancholy figure which so far has served it. This can hardly be done more effectively than as it is done in this book of Woman's Power. Here is restored something of that fine historical perspective which is hers by right. **** She is no longer asked to prove her equality (with man) by doing in this way the things he does. She proves it by doing things for which she is fitted and which the world needs from her. THE BOOK OF WOMAN'S POWER Introduction by IDA M. TARBELL AN ANTHOLOGY OF ARTICLES TOUCHING:-- I. Man and Woman in Society Some of the biological and sociological considerations are followed by pen-pictures of women of different periods. II Man and Woman in Industry The primitive division of labor and its meaning; the changed conditions; the modern stress and the wisest mode of meeting it, are all briefly, clearly stated. III. Women in Government The section discusses the true basis of social adjustment; woman in political history -- at her best and worst; her political place in the United States, and the general subject of "Votes for Women." IV. The Political Value of the Family The relation of the family to the State, the drift of modern life, and the tendency toward disintegration of the family, are among its subjects. V. The Growth of Democracy Explains the real meaning of political equality, the essence of democracy and its high demands. VI. The Strength of a Free Influence Sets forth the sources of influence, woman's unquestioned power over public opinion, and her grave moral responsibilities. VII. Education in Relation to Modern Unrest The section is divided into three parts dealing respectively with the modern unrest, some educational considerations, and homely remedies for present evils. The book aims to show that, seen in the true historical perspective, woman is neither servant nor queen but able in every land and age to secure a position in society as useful as she has cared to make it, and as honored as her character has deserved. Price in cloth, $1.25 net; leather, $1.75 net. (If ordering by mail, add eight cents for postage.) THE MACMILLAN COMPANY Publishers, 64-66 Fifth Avenue, New York Five Reasons Against Woman Suffrage 1. Because of the undemocratic spirit shown by the suffragists. They are entirely unwilling that the question of Women Suffrage should be decided by the people most concerned,--the women themselves. They are thrown into a panic by the mere suggestion of a referendum in which women shall have a voice. Cristabel Pankhurst says a referendum would be a dose of cold poison to the cause. Every other question in the universe they consider women capable of deciding--this one only should be left to men! This is, of course, a confession that they know themselves in a hopeless minority so far as women are concerned. Their unceasing attempts to force legislation which they know to be against the wishes of the majority proves them to be unfitted for political power in a democracy. 2. Because the suffrage movement develops sex hatred which is a menace to society. (In England this has reached a stage never before known in our civilization.) It also breaks down the traditional respect for womanhood, and threatens a return to barbarism. It is a wholly new thing to see English, Welsh and Irish mobs attacking and viciously illtreating women, and is entirely due to the suffrage movement. Women have been so long immune by reason of their sex from attacks by men that they seem to have forgotten that when it comes to trial of brute force woman is bound to go in the wall. 3. Because women make little use of the suffrage when it is given them. In the six suffrage states at the last presidential election, only 47 1/2 per cent. of the voters, including men and women, voted; while in the six adjoining male suffrage states 69 per cent. of the men voted. In Massachusetts, where women have had the school vote for many years, the women's vote has steadily fallen off, until last year, at a very important election in Boston, only 2 per cent. voted. 4. Because experience has proved that Woman Suffrage achieves nothing in making and enforcing most humane laws. Legislation protecting the working woman has not been enacted in a woman suffrage state until after its enactment in a male suffrage state. Laws ensuring the woman operative one day's rest in seven are lacking in three of the four oldest woman suffrage states (Colorado, Idaho and Wyoming) and were passed in Utah only after they had been passed in Massachusetts, Michigan and Missouri,--all male suffrage states. The only states which have laws prohibiting night work for women are Massachusetts, Nebraska and Indiana,--again all male suffrage states. The reports of the National Child Labor Committee show that the states which are most progressive in enacting and enforcing Child Labor Legislation are not woman suffrage states, but New York and Massachusetts. There are nine states which have Prohibition,--only one of them, Kansas, is a suffrage state, and Kansas had Prohibition long before it had suffrage. A prominent suffragist in Wisconsin offered last year as an inducement to the brewers to vote for Woman Suffrage, the argument that it would mean better business for them since all the suffrage states were wet! 5. Because of the alliance of suffrage with socialism, which teaches free love and institutional life for children. This teaching is opposed to progress and full of danger to society, for when homes shall perish, states shall fall, and a blow to family life is a blow to the nation itself. Issued by the Massachusetts Association Opposed to the Further Extension of Suffrage to Women. Pamphlets and leaflets may be obtained from the Secretary, Room 615, Kensington Building, 687 Boylston Street, Boston, Mass. SEPTEMBER, 1913. 15 [*God give Alabama homes, + real mothers in these homes, not intinerant political females, who wish juvenile courts to bring into their poor little children*] "MOTHERING THE COMMUNITY" (From The Remonstrance, October, 1914) IT is a favorite argument with suffragists that women, by keener insight, higher standards, steadier devotion to duty, and superior practical ability, would effect civic reforms which have been neglected by men. We hear over and over again that "woman is an adept at house-celaning" and that "city government is nothing but municipal house-cleaning;" that "the community is only a larger home," and that "it needs mothering." It would be pleasant to share this confidence in the present achievement of our sex, and to feel that it was ready for more worlds to conquer. But the facts do not point that way. One after another, social experts, the country over, are voicing the conviction that the individual home is not being "mothered" as it should be, and that faults there are responsible for much of the evil of the community. Speaking of wife-desertion—one of the evils which suffragists hope to check by Women's votes—Mrs. Catherine Van Wyck, President of the Wisconsin State Conference on Charities and Corrections—said, last fall: "Some of the homes I have seen almost justify the husband in running away from them. The wife who does not know her job must take her share of the blame for many cases of wife-desertion." Upon this same point, Miss Lucy Wheelock, the well-known educator, has said: "no business is so poorly and inefficiently conducted as that of housekeeping. To the luxury and inefficiency of the modern household, many economists charge the high cost of living. They are not far wrong. At least they are right enough to make it imperative that we give our girls good and thorough training in all the craft of home-making and housekeeping." Juvenile courts, the suffragists claim, would be reenforced in their work if women could vote. But Mrs. Fred T. Dubois, President of the Big Brother and Sister movement, though in close sympathy with these courts, writes to the Washington Times of June 12, to emphasize the need of urgent measures of prevention, before boys and girls reach the stage of juvenile crime. "Can you make human nature good through law?" asks Mrs. Dubois. "Is the old-fashioned home disappearing? I tremble at the thought. But when we watch the crowds upon the streets, day and night, the crowded cafes and restaurants, the dance-halls, moving-picture shows and theatres, this thought is uppermost: To what are we trending? The social centre is gradually going to take the place of the home, if we are not watchful. For we are trending toward the community life in this country. Can we become as strong a nation built of large units as of small ones well modelled? The community must grow out of the home." The public teaching of sex-hygiene is another subject in which the suffragists believe women voters would take keen interest. But here, again, experts are pronouncing women unequal to the opportunities they already have. Mr. Graves Moore of the Juvenile Protective Association of Chicago, reporting last March on the work of the association in classifying causes in the cases of 500 unmarried mothers, said: "We find that more than half of them come from homes where there is no financial pressure, but that they never had presented to them the essential facts of life." Dr. Charles H. Keene, of Minneapolis, a supervisor of hygiene and physical training, said at the recent meeting of the National Educational Association: "We should have but the strongest contempt for the wealthy, club-going woman who has not time to teach her child the fundamental truths of life, and would throw the responsibility upon a teacher or a football coach. Such shiftlessness is outrageous." Dr. E.P. Colby, professor of nervous diseases in Boston University, said before a Ford Hall audience, last winter: "The proper place for such teachings is the home. But how many mothers are capable of instructing their daughters in such matters? Probably not one-half." Speaking of the abnormal nervous conditions which, in his opinion, lead many girls to go wrong, Dr. Colby said: "The remedy lies in the early education a good mother can give." Looking at the same pitiful question from another standpoint, Miss Mary Bartelme, head of Chicago's Court for Delinquent Girls, told a reporter from the Boston Herald, last year, that the majority of the girls who were brought before her were between fourteen and sixteen. "Almost invariably," said Miss Bartelme, "I find that the home environment of these children had been bad. When the home is bad, it must be a girl of sterling principle who remains good. There has been a great hue and cry raised recently that most girls go wrong because of inadequate wages. I do not believe this is true. Low wages, I think, drive comparatively few girls to the street." It is startling to realize that the heedlessness, vanity, and social ambition of women are actually pandering to vice. But no thoughtful observer can doubt the fact. Speaking on "Commercialized Prostitution" in Brooklyn, last March, Mr. George J. Kneeland, of the Department of Investigation of the American Social Hygiene Association, enumerating the causes which swell the number of women in the profession each year, laid special emphasis on "the increasing tendency toward immoral and suggestive amusements as a serious problem in American life." For this tendency, surely, the mothers rather than the fathers of the community are to blame. At the theatre, too, and at the fiction-counter, the lack of delicacy shown by women patrons is notorious. That woman's vote would break up the "white-slave traffic," and go far toward curing the social evil, has been the strongest argument of the suffragists. And yet, at that very Tremont Temple meeting, last year, when their leader, Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, exploited the unsavory topic so sensationally, Mr. Frederic H. Whitin, of the New York Committee of Fourteen, declared that "a happy home is the greatest preventive of the white slave traffic," and added, "The great problem, however, is to educate young women not to arouse men." Last spring, before a fashionably attired New York audience of nearly one thousand, with an admission price of $2, the same subject was again discussed by experts. "The attitude of women toward libertines, rakes and dissipants," says the reporter, "was handled without gloves by the speakers, and it was the opinion of those dealing with subject that women themselves are largely to blame for the present situation. Clifford G. Roe, President of the American Bureau of Moral Education of Chicago, unhesitatingly told his audience (mostly women) that this was so." Plain speaking, this is. The fact that many of the sociologists whose opinions have been quoted are themselves suffragists only makes their admissions more striking. The need of the day seems to be, not more "mothering" of the community, but better "mothering" of the individual child. This conclusion will be a welcome one to the multitudes of mothers who believe that they can serve the community better through the home than through the ballot-box. (Published by the Massachusetts Association Opposed to the Further Extension of Suffrage to Women, Room 615, Kensington Building, Boston.) THE WOMAN MOVEMENT IN AMERICA. The movement for the advancement of Woman began in America early in the nineteenth century in the very general demand which arose soon after the Revolution, for better educational opportunities for women. The founding of Female Seminaries and the entrance of women upon educational, literary and professional fields of labor, were among the most notable characteristics of the first half of the Century. It was not till 1848, the year of Socialist revolutions in Europe, that the idea of the so called political rights of women was publicly formulated in this country by the calling of a woman's rights convention. The great social and political disturbances during the next decade, which led to our Civil War and the freeing of the Negro slaves, fostered the idea of universal liberty. The emancipation of women therefore quite naturally became the cry of those philosophers and reformers who failed to look deeply enough into the complicated structure of civilization, to see that the admitted limitations to the sphere of woman had arisen from causes which natural growth and evolution were sure in the long run to dissipate, without any violent, structural changes in society itself. The demand for political rights for women had however, this excellent effect. While the great mass of American people have never had any sympathy with it, have always distinctly felt that it was contrary to the principles upon which society, and especially the established relations between men and women were founded, the very aggressive and persistent tactics of the propaganda, have made it imperative that the defenders of the true progress and advancement of women should examine the basis of their belief, and fortify their position against the attacks of their 2 opponents. For twenty years or more, this sifting process, this thoughtful and studious examination of pros and cons, went on among women quite silently. In 1870 it found its first united public expression. In that year a very remarkable paper was sent to Congress by women opposed to woman suffrage, who felt that the time had come to make an open protest against the work of the Suffragists. This protest was written by Mrs. Madeline Vinton Dahlgren, wife of Admiral Dahlgren, and her coadjutors were Mrs. General William T. Sherman and Mrs. Almira Lincoln Phelps, sister and co-worker of Mrs. Emma Willard of Troy, the greatest woman educator of her time. It was signed by hundreds of leading ladies all over the country, women of prominence in social, educational and philanthropic circles. In all, fifteen thousand names were enrolled. It was thought at the time that so wide spread and powerful a protest must end the matter, and no permanent organization was attempted. The agitation went steadily forward however, and in another decade it became apparent that further means were necessary, to give expression to the growing conviction of the great majority of thoughtful women, that the true advancement of women must come along lines sympathetic with her peculiar endowments, and not through political preferment. In the early '80's a number of leading women of Boston and Cambridge, several of them connected with State Boards of Charities and Reforms, called a meeting, and without forming any organization, commenced to offer quiet but effective opposition to the efforts of the suffragists before the state legislature. Year after year, they met petitions with counter positions, arguments with counter arguments, and succeeded at session after session of the legislature, in defeating the proposed measures of the suffragists. As the contest grew more intense, and extended beyond the confines of Boston to the State at large, many gentlemen 3 became interested on either side; and at last the legislature, with a view to settle the vexed question forever, submitted the whole matter to the people of the State, women as well as men being permitted to register and vote upon it. The vote was taken November 6th, 1895 and the result was the most overwhelming defeat for the suffragists that any proposition had ever sustained in the State of Massachusetts, while the number of votes cast by women in favor of it, was less than four per cent of the number entitled to register and vote. This fact effectually disposed of the claim of the suffragists, that the women of Massachusetts desired the ballot. The anti-suffragists of course, supposed that so decided a victory would result in at least a temporary cessation of the contest; but the suffragists, returned undaunted to the field. The Massachusetts Association Opposed to the Extension of Suffrage to Women; which had organized in May, 1895, was therefore compelled to continue its work with increased zeal. Meantime, the Suffragists in the State of New York took the occasion of the Constitutional Convention assembled at Albany, in the spring of 1894, to petition that the word 'male' as applied to the qualification of voters, should be expunged from the Constitution. Immediately a numerous and powerful body of women appeared in the field to oppose this movement. Petitions signed by thousands of well-known and responsible women, including the overwhelming majority of the tax-paying women of the district, were sent in by the Albany Anti-Suffrage Association; while in New York City the contest called into action a very large contingent of the best known and most influential women in the city. When the Convention by a decided vote refused to consider the proposition favorable, the Anti-Suffragists supposed that their work was done for at least twenty years, and weary already of the excitement and publicity involved in the struggle, disbanded their forces. But they had something 4 yet to learn of the tactics of their opponents. Early in the following year they commenced to lay siege to the legislature to obtain the passage of a bill or Concurrent Resolution for an amendment to the constitution giving women the right to vote. So quietly was their work prosecuted that it was not until the resolution had passed the Assembly and reached the Judiciary Committee of the Senate, that the Anti-Suffragists awoke to a sense of the fact that their work, instead of being finished, was only just begun. The resolution finally passed the Senate, but a clerical error destroyed its value. The necessity of an organization was now fully apparent, and on the 8th of April, 1896, the New York State Association Opposed to the Extension of Suffrage to Women was formed, with a standing committee of over one hundred of the best known women in New York, while its membership speedily rose to more than twenty thousand, while the active interest aroused all over the State and through adjoining states, and the earnest sympathy and co-operation of the great mass of home-loving women are sufficient proof of the need and usefulness of the organization. In the West there had been hitherto no strictly local organization of Anti-Suffragists, but in 1886, the attention of a few women in Chicago had been called to the work which was being carried forward at Washington, by the National Woman's Suffrage Association, under the leadership of Miss Susan B. Anthony, and protests and memorials were form time to time, forwarded to Congress by these remonstrants with decided effect. They also addressed the Illinois Legislature and the legislatures of various other western states, besides keeping up a close correspondence with well known women in many states; thus bringing influence to bear privately, upon public men, in various localities. This work proved so effectual that early in 1897, Miss Anthony announced through the public press, that finding 5 the obstacles to the cause she advocated so great in Washington, she was determined to transfer the battle to the Middle West, concentrating her forces in the states of Iowa, Montana, Oregon and California. In February, 1897, the Woman's National Suffrage Association, instead of meeting at Washington, as it had done for the previous ten or fifteen years, convened at Des Moines, Iowa, with the avowed motive of laying siege to the Iowa legislature then in session. That its influence was considerable, there is no doubt, but it failed of success. The battle in Iowa has been steadily waged since that time, always to the discomfiture of the suffragists, while the victory of the anti-suffragists in 1902 is so decisive as to appear final. In neither of the other States mentioned, have any successes been recorded. The point of attack having thus been shifted from the East to the West, the associations in Massachusetts and New York, immediately urged organization in Chicago, and on the 6th of May, 1897, the Illinois Association Opposed to the Extension of Suffrage to women was formed. Committees for the co-operation were also formed in several other Western States. The work of all these societies has consisted mainly in circulating literature, to the press, legislative bodies, and leading men and women. Each association has sent out many thousand documents and leaflets each year and the work is still growing in volume and influence. Parlor meetings have sometimes been held, but appearance upon public platforms and participation in public debates, have been carefully avoided. The results during the six years of our organization have been well summed up, as follows, in a recent article in the Boston Transcript. It should be noted also that these substantial victories have been won after fifty years of determined and vigorous agitation on the part of the suffragists. "Since 1896, when Utah and Idaho granted suffrage to women, four other States - Minnesota, Delaware, Louisiana 6 New York -- have given limited suffrage for School Committees, Library Trustees or for tax-paying women. During the same xi years, or since 1896, women suffrage along all lines (license, tax-paying, municipal, presidential, school suffrage and constitutional amendments) has met with sixty defeats in twenty-eight States [* these statistics can be verified from legislative records*]. Fourteen of these States are west of the Mississippi river, which indicates that the States which are nearest to the four that have women suffrage, have no intention of following their example." During this long struggle of fifty years, several conclusions of interest have been established. And first, it has been conclusively shown that only a very small minority of women desire suffrage, In Massachusetts where the propaganda has been longest and most firmly established, the referendum of 1895 proved that the proportion was less than four per cent, and experiments with school suffrage which now obtains in twenty-two States, have shown an even smaller percentage elsewhere. Secondly, in the four States which now have presidential suffrage, it is generally conceded by thoughtful observers, even among suffragists, that the good results so lavishly promised have not yet appeared. It should be noticed, also, that Utah, Idaho and Wyoming are States of very scattered population, -- no more than two or three inhabitants to the square mile -- and very primitive habits of life. Colorado is mainly a mining State with only one or two large cities. From observations of the results there, the conclusion is steadily deepening that the State has committed a blunder, not easily retrieve, the effect of which will be to impair its reputation for good sense and sound policy for many years to come. Meantime the question of equality between the sexes has changed ground in the public estimation. Nowhere is 7 this more plainly seen than in the matter of co-education. When certain of our large Universities opened their doors to women on equal terms with men it was thought by many to be a great gain in the higher education of women, but now three great co-educational Universities, the Stanford of California, the Northwestern of Illinois, and the Chicago University are calling a halt. It is found that the admission of female students tends to feminize the University to a degree that is rather alarming; that the change also is a cumulative one, since the more the proportion of female students increases, the greater is the tendency of young men to flock to those Universities where the male standard is highest. At Stanford University, the proportion of female students has been limited, and in the two Illinois Institutions it has been decided that different courses of study, and different facilities must be provided for the two sexes. thus the line of sex becomes more and more a district line of cleavage through social and educational conditions, and the logical inference is, that the same embarrassing tendency would manifest itself in political life. The experience of Women's clubs is also worthy of note, and germane to the subject at issue. The first Woman's clubs were founded by suffragists in the confident belief that as fast as women become accustomed to literary debate, to the use of parliamentary law and to the study of social and literary topics, they would lose their aversion to the ballot, and augment the ranks of the suffragists. The contrary has proved true. While most of the clubs are under the control of suffrage leaders, the great majority of individual members steadfastly refuse to become suffragists, or even to discuss the natter. They quietly turn their attention to literature, art, domestic science, child study, physical culture, anything in fact, but suffrage. In spite of the gentle pleasantries of 8 the press concerning their very feminine way of doing things and some excess of zeal on the part of individual members, the Woman's clubs have done much good in developing women along the lines which Nature marks out as those best suited to their progress and achievement, but they have forwarded the cause of suffrage but little. Issued by the Illinois Association Opposed to the Extension of Suffrage to Women. President, Mrs. Caroline F. Corbin Vice-Presidents, Mrs. Samuel M. Nickerson Mrs. Richard J. Oglesby Mrs. Horatio N. May Secretary, Mrs. Jas. B. Barnet. SOME OF THE REASONS AGAINST WOMAN SUFFRAGE. BY FRANCIS PARKMAN AUTHOR OF "THE OREGON TRAIL," "PIONEERS OF FRANCE IN THE NEW WORLD," ETC. Issued by the Massachusetts Association Opposed to the Further Extension of Suffrage to Women. Pamphlets and leaflets may be obtained from the Secretary, Room 615, Kensington Building, 687 Boylston Street, Boston, Mass. CONTENTS The Power of Sex ... 1 Self-Complacency of the Agitators ... 2 Cruelty of Woman Suffrage ... 3 Power should go with Responsibility ... 3 Alternatives of Woman Suffrage ... 3 Political Dangers of Woman Suffrage ... 3 The Female Politician ... 4 Men will give Women Suffrage it they want it ... 6 Most Women Averse to it ... 6 Woman Suffragists have done nothing to prove their fitness for share in Government ... 7 Permanence of the Relations of the Sexes ... 7 Is Woman Suffrage a Right or a Wrong? ... 8 Woman Suffrage not Progress ... 10 Woman in Politics an Antiquated Idea ... 10 The Connection between Voting and Fighting ... 11 The Voting of a large Non-Combatant Class dangerous to Civil Harmony ... 11 Another Source of Discord ... 12 Practical versus Sentimental Government ... 13 Shall we stand by American Principles? ... 14 SOME OF THE REASONS AGAINST WOMAN SUFFRAGE THE POWER OF SEX. It has been said that the question of the rights and employment of women should be treated without regard to sex. It should rather be said that those who consider it regardless of sex do not consider it at all. It will not do to exclude from the problem the chief factor in it, and deal with women only as if they were smaller and weaker men, Yet these have been the tactics of the agitators for female suffrage, and to them they mainly owe what success they have had. Hence their extreme sensitiveness whenever the subject is approached on its most essential side. If it could be treated like other subjects, and discussed fully and freely, the cause of the self-styled reformers would have been hopeless from the first. It is happy for them that the relations of women to society cannot be so discussed without giving just offense. Their most important considerations can be touched but slightly; and even then offense will be taken. Whatever liberty the best civilization may accord accord to women, they must always be subject to restrictions unknown to the other sex, and they can never dispense with the protecting influences which society throws about them. A man, in lonely places, has nothing to lose but life and property; and he has nerve and muscles to defend them. He is free to go whither he pleases, and run what risks he pleases. without a radical change in human nature, of which the world has never given the faintest sign, women cannot be equally emancipated. it is not a question of custom, habit, or public opinion but of an all-pervading force, 2 always formidable in the vast number of men in whom it is not controlled by higher forces. A woman is subject, also, to many other restrictions, more or less stringent, necessary to the maintenance of self-respect and the respect of others, and yet placing her at a disadvantage, as compared to men, in the active work of the world. All this is mere truism, but the plainest truism may be ignored in the interest of a theory or a "cause." Again, everybody knows that the physical and mental constitution of woman is more delicate than in the other sex; and, we may add, the relations between mind and body are more intimate and subtile. It is true that they are abundantly so in men; but their harder organism is neither so sensitive to disturbing influences nor subject to so many of them. It is these and other inherent conditions, joined to the engrossing nature of a woman's special functions, that have determined through all time her relative position. What we have just said - and we might have said much more - is meant as a reminder that her greatest limitations are not of human origin. Men did not make them, and they cannot unmake them. Through them, God and Nature have ordained that those subject to them shall not be forced to join in the harsh conflicts of the world militant. It is folly to ignore them, or try to counteract them by political and social quackery. They set at naught legislatures and peoples. SELF-COMPLACENCY OF THE AGITATORS. Here we may notice an idea which seems to prevail among the woman suffragists, that they have argued away the causes which have always determined the substantial relations of the sexes. This notion arises mainly from the fact that they have had the debate very much to themselves. Their case is that of the self-made philosopher who attacked the theory of gravitation, and, because nobody took the trouble to answer him, boasted that he had demolished it, and called it an error of the past. 3 CRUELTY OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE. The frequent low state of health among American women is a fact as undeniable as it is deplorable. In this condition of things, what do certain women demand for the good of their sex? To add the excitements that are wasting them other and greater excitements, and to cares too much for their strength other and greater cares. Because they cannot do their own work, to require them to add to it the work of men, and launch them into the turmoil where the most robust sometimes fail. It is much as if a man in a state of nervous exhaustion were told by his physician to enter at once for a foot-race or a boxing-match. POWER SHOULD GO WITH RESPONSIBILITY. To hold the man responsible and yet deprive him of power in neither just nor rational. The man is the natural head of the family, and is responsible for its maintenance and order. Hence he ought to control the social and business agencies which are essential to the successful discharge of the trust imposed upon him. If he is deprived of any part of this control, he should be freed also in the same measure from the responsibilities attached to it. ALTERNATIVES OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE. Woman suffrage must have one of two effects. It, as many of its advocates complain, women are subservient to men, and do nothing but what they desire, then woman suffrage will have no other result than to increase the power of the other sex; if, on the other hand, women vote as they see fit, without regarding their husbands, then unhappy marriages will be multiplied and divorces redoubled. We cannot afford to add to the elements of domestic unhappiness. POLITICAL DANGERS OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE. One of the chief dangers of popular government is that 4 of inconsiderate and rash legislation. In impatience to be rid of one evil, ulterior consequences are apt to be forgotten. In the haste to redress one wrong, a door may be opened to many. This danger would be increased immeasurably if the most impulsive and excitable half of humanity had an equal voice in the making of laws, and in the administration of them. Abstract right would then be made to prevail after a fashion somewhat startling. A lady of intelligence and admirable intentions, an ardent partisan on principles of pure humanitarianism, confessed that, in the last presidential election, Florida had given a majority for the Democrats; but insisted that it was right to count it for Hayes, because the other States had been counted wrongfully for Tiden. It was impossible to make her comprehend that government conducted on such principles would end in anarchy. In politics, the virtues of women would sometimes be as dangerous as their faults. If the better class of women flatter themselves that they can control the others, they are doomed to disappointment. They will be outvoted in their own kitchens, without reckoning the agglomerations of poverty, ignorance, and vice, that form a startling proportion of our city populations. It is here that the male vote alone threatens our system with its darkest perils. The female vote would enormously increase the evil, for it is often more numerous, always more impulsive and less subject to reason, and almost devoid of the sense of responsibility. Here the bad politician would find his richest resources. He could not reach the better class of female voters, but the rest would be ready to his hand. Three fourths of them, when not urged by some pressing needs or contagious passion, would be moved, not by principles, but by personal predilections. THE FEMALE POLITICIAN. It is not woman's virtues that would be prominent or influential in the political arena. They would shun it by an invincible repulsion; and the opposite qualities would be 5 drawn into it. The Washington lobby has given us some means of judging what we may expect from the woman "inside politics." If politics are to be purified by artfulness, effrontery, insensibility, a pushing self-assertion, and a glib tongue, then we may look regeneration; for the typical female politician will be richly endowed with all these gifts. Thus accoutered for the conflict, she may fairly hope to have the better of her masculine antagonist. A woman has the inalienable right of attacking without being attacked in turn. She may strike, but must not be struck, either literally or figuratively. Most women refrain from abusing their privilege of non-combatants; but there are those in whom the sense of impunity breeds the cowardly courage of the virago. In the reckoning the resources of female politicians, there is one which can by no means be left out. None know better than women the potency of feminine charms aided by feminine arts. The woman "inside politics" will not fail to make use of an influence so subtile and strong, and of which the management is peculiarly suited to her talents. If -- and the contingency is in the highest degree probable -- she is not gifted with charms of her own, she will have no difficulty in finding and using others of her sex who are. If report is to be trusted, Delilah has already spread her snares for the congressional Samson; and the power before which the wise fail and the mighty fall has been invoked against the sages and heroes of the Capitol. When "woman" is fairly "inside politics," the sensation press will reap a harvest of scandals more lucrative to itself than profitable to public morals. And, as the zeal of one class of female reformers has been, and no doubt will be, largely directed to their grievances in matters of sex, we shall have shrill-tongued discussions of subjects which had far better be let alone. It may be said that the advocates of female suffrage do not look to political women for the purifying of politics, 6 but to the votes of the sex at large. The two, however, cannot be separated. It should be remembered that the question is not of a limited and select female suffrage, but of a universal one. To limit would be impossible. It would seek the broadest areas and the lowest depths, and spread itself through the marshes and malarious pools of society. MEN WILL GIVE WOMEN THE SUFFRAGE IF THEY WANT IT. Again, one of the chief arguments of the agitators is that government without the consent of the governed is opposed to inalienable right. But most women, including those of the best capacity and worth, fully consent that their fathers, husbands, brothers, or friends, shall be their political representatives; and no exhortation or teasing has induced them to withhold their consent. Nor is this surprising; for a woman is generally represented in a far truer and more intimate sense by her male relative than is this relative by the candidate to whom he gives his vote, commonly without knowing him, and often with dissent from many of his views. Nothing is more certain than that women will have the suffrage if they ever want it; for when they want it, men will give it to them, regardless of consequences. A more than readiness on the part of men to conform to the wishes of the other sex is a national trait in America, though whether it would survive the advent of the female politician is matter for reflection. We venture to remind those who demand woman suffrage as a right that, even if it were so, the great majority of intelligent women could judge for themselves whether to exercise it, better than the few who assume to teach them their duty. MOST WOMEN AVERSE TO IT. The agitators know well that, in spite of their persistent importunity, the majority of women are averse to the suffrage. Hence, the ludicrous terror which the suffragists 7 showed at the Governor's proposal to submit the question to a vote of the women of the State. THE WOMAN SUFFRAGISTS HAVE DONE NOTHING TO PROVE THEIR FITNESS FOR A SHARE IN GOVERNMENT. A small number of women have spent their time for several decades in ceaseless demands for suffrage, but they have lost their best argument in failing to show that they are prepared to use the franchise when they have got it. A single sound and useful contribution to one side or the other of any question of current politics - the tariff, specie payments, the silver bill, civil-service reform, railroad monopoly, capital and labor, or a half score of other matters - would have done more for their cause than years of empty agitation. PERMANENCE OF THE RELATIONS OF THE SEXES. The agitators say that no reason can be given why women should not take a direct part in politics, except that they have never done so. There are other reasons, and strong ones, in abundance. But this particular one is nevertheless good. All usages, laws, and institutions have risen and perished, and risen and perished again. Their history is the history of mutability itself. But, from the earliest records of mankind down to this moment, in every race and every form or degree of civilization or barbarism, the relative position of the sexes has been essentially the same, with exceptions so feeble, rare, and transient that they only prove the rule. Such permanence in the foundation of society, while all that rests upon it has passed from change to change, is proof in itself that this foundation lies deep in the essential nature of things. It is idle to prate of the old time that has passed away and the new time that is coming. The "new time" can no more stir the basis of human nature than it can stop the movement of the earth. The cause of this permanence is obvious. Women have great special tasks assigned them in the work of life, and men have not. To these tasks their whole nature, moral 8 and physical, is adjusted. There is scarcely a distinctive quality of women that has not a direct or indirect bearing upon them. Everything else in their existence is subordinated to the indispensable functions of continuing and rearing the human race; and, during the best years of life, this work, fully discharged, leaves little room for any other. Rightly considered it is a work no less dignified than essential. It is the root and stem of national existence, while the occupations of men are but the leaves and branches. On women of the intelligent and instructed classes depends on the future of the nation. If they are sound in body and mind, impart this soundness to a numerous offspring, and rear them to a sense of responsibility and duty, there are no national evils that we cannot overcome. If they fail to do this their part, then the masses of the coarse and unintelligent, always of rapid increase, will overwhelm us and our institutions. When these indispensable duties are fully discharged, then the suffrage agitators may ask with better grace, if not with more reason, that they may share the political functions of men. IS WOMAN SUFFRAGE A RIGHT OR A WRONG? It has been claimed as a right that woman should vote. It is no right, but a wrong, that a small number of women should impose on all the rest political duties which there is no call for their assuming, which they do not want to assume, and which, if duly discharged, would be a cruel and intolerable burden. This pretense of the female suffragists was reduced to an absurdity when some of them gravely affirmed that, if a single woman wanted to vote, all the others ought to be required to do so. Government by doctrines of abstract right, of which the French Revolution set the example and bore the fruits, involves enormous danger and injustice. No political right is absolute and of universal application. Each has its conditions, qualifications, and limitations. If these are disregarded, one right collides with another, or with many others. 9 Even a man's right to liberty is subject to the condition that he does not use it to infringe the rights of his neighbors. It is in the concrete, and not in the abstract, that rights prevail in every sound end wholesome society. They are applied where they are applicable. A government of glittering generalities quickly destroys itself. The object of government is the accomplishment of a certain result, the greatest good of the governed; and the ways of reaching it vary in different countries and different social conditions. Neither liberty nor the suffrage are the end; they are nothing but means to reach it ; and each should he used to the extent in which it is best adapted to its purpose. If the voting of women conduces to the greatest good of the community, then they ought to vote, and otherwise they ought not. The question of female suffrage thus becomes a practical question, and not one of declamation. What would be the results of the general application of the so-called right to vote, a right which, if it exists at all, must be common to all mankind? Suppose that the populations of Turkey, the Soudan, or Zululand were to attempt to exercise it and govern themselves by universal popular suffrage. The consequence would be anarchy, and a quick return to despotism as a relief. The same would be the case, in less degree, among peoples more civilized, yet not trained to self-government by the habits and experience of generations. In fact, there are but a few of the most advanced nations in whom the universal exercise of the pretended "inalienable right" to vote would not produce political and social convulsions. The truth is this: If the exercise of the suffrage by any individual or body of individuals involves detriment to the whole people, then the right to exercise it does not exist. It is the right and the duty of the people to provide itself with good government, and this great practical right and duty is imperative and paramount; whatever conflicts with it must give way. The air-blown theory of inalienable right in unworthy the good sense of the American people. 10 The most rational even of the suffragists themselves have ceased to rely on it. WOMAN SUFFRAGE NOT PROGRESS. Many women of sense and intelligence are influenced by the fact that the woman-suffrage movement boasts itself a movement of progress, and by a wish to be on the liberal or progressive side. But the boast is unfounded. Progress to be genuine, must be in accord with natural law. If it is not, it ends in failure and in retrogression. To give women a thorough and wholesome training both of body and mind; to prepare such of them as have strength and opportunity for various occupations different from what they usually exercise, and above all for the practice of medicine, in which we believe that they may render valuable service; to rear them in more serious views of life and its responsibilities, are all the way of normal and healthy development: but to plunge them into politics, where they are not needed and for which they are unfit, would be scarcely more a movement of progress than to force them to bear arms and fight. WOMAN IN POLITICS AN ANTIQUATED IDEA. The social power of women has grown with the growth of civilization, but their political power has diminished. In former times and under low social conditions, women have occasionally had a degree of power in public affairs unknown in the foremost nations of the modern world. The most savage tribes of this continent, the Six Nations of New York, listened, in solemn assembly, to the counsels of its matrons, with a deference that has no parallel among its civilized successors. The people of ancient Lycia, at a time when they were semi-barbarians, gave such power to their women that they were reported to live under a gynecocracy, or female government. The word gynecocracy, by the way, belongs to antiquity. It has no application in modern life; and, in the past, its applications were found, not in the higher developments of ancient society, but in the 11 lower. Four hundred years before Christ, the question of giving political power to women was agitated among the most civilized of ancient peoples, the Athenians, and they would not follow the example of their barbarian neighbors. THE CONNECTION BETWEEN VOTING AND FIGHTING. The advocates of woman suffrage have ridiculed the idea of any connection between voting and the capacity to fight. Their attitude in this matter shows the absence of reflection on questions of government, or the inability to form rational judgement upon them. In fact, it is with nearly all of them a matter, not of reason, but of sentiment. The human race consists of two equal parts, the combatant and the non-combatant, and these parts are separated by the line of sex. It is true that some men are permanently disabled from fighting, and others may be disabled in one year or one month, and fit to bear arms in the next; but the general fact remains that men are the fighting half of humanity, and women are not. Fundamental laws are made in reference to aggregates of persons, and not to individual exceptions; and it would be absurd to exact a surgeon's certificate of military competency from every voter at the polls. It is enough that he belongs to a body which, as a whole, can and will fight. The question remains, What has this to do with voting? It has a great deal to do with it, and above all in a government purely popular. THE VOTING OF A LARGE NON-COMBATANT CLASS DANGEROUS TO CIVIL HARMONY. Since history began, no government ever sustained itself long unless it could command the physical force of the nation; and this whether the form of government was despotism, constitutional monarchy, or democracy. The despot controls the army which compels the people to obey; the king and parliament control the force of the kingdom, and malcontents dare not rise in insurrection till they think they have drawn away an equal or greater share of it. Finally, 12 the majority in a democratic republic feels secure that its enactments will take effect, because the defeated minority, even if it does not respect law, will respect a force greater than its own. But suppose the majority to consist chiefly of women. Then legality would be on one side and power on the other. The majority of would have the law, and the minority the courage and strength. Hence, in times of political excitement, when passions were roused and great interests were at stake, the majority, that is, the legal authority, would need the help of a standing army. Without such support the possession of the suffrage by the non-combatant half of the nation would greatly increase the chances of civil discord. Once in our history a minority rose against the majority, in the belief that it could out-fight it. This would happen often if the minority rose against the majority, in the belief that it could out-fight it. This would happen often if the minority, as in supposed case of woman suffrage, had not only the belief but the certainty that it could master the majority. It may not be creditable to human nature if we would have a subtle government it is necessary to keep the balance of power on the side of law ; but the business of government is to shape itself to the actual, and not the ideal or millennial, condition of mankind. Suppose, again, a foreign war in which the sympathies of our women were enlisted on one side of the other. Suppose them to vote against the judgement of the men that we should take part in it ; or, in other words, that their male fellow citizens should fight whether they liked it or not. Would the men be likely to obey? ANOTHER SOURCE OF DISCORD. There is another reason why the giving of the suffrage to women would tend to civil discord. In the politics of the future, the predominant, if not the engrossing, questions will be to all appearance those of finance and the relations of labor and capital. From the nature of their occupations, as well as other causes, women in general are ignorant of these matters, and not well fitted to deal with 13 them. They require an experience, a careful attention, a deliberation and coolness of judgment, and a freedom from passion, so rare that at the best their political treatment is full of difficulty and danger. If these qualities are rare in men, they are still more so in women, and feminine instinct will not in the present case supply their pace. The peculiar danger of these questions is that they raise class animosities, and tend to set the poor against the rich and the rich against the poor. They become questions of social antagonism. Now, most of us have had occasion to observe how strong the social rivalries and animosities of women are. They far exceed those of men. If, in the strife between labor and capital, which, without great self-restraint on both sides, is likely to be a fierce one, women should be called to an active part, the effect would be like throwing pitch and resin into the fire. The wives and daughters of the poor would bring into the contest a wrathful jealousy and hate against the wives and daughters of the rich, far more vehement than the corresponding passions in their husbands and brothers. PRACTICAL VERSUS SENTIMENTAL GOVERNMENT. The real issue is this: Is the object of government the good of the governed, or is it not? A late writer on woman suffrage says that it is not. According to her, the object of government is to give his or her rights to everybody. Others among the agitators do not venture either on this flat denial or this brave assertion, but only hover about them with longing looks. Virtually they maintain that the object of government is the realization of certain ideas or theories. They believe in principles, and so do we ; they believe in rights, and so do we. But as the sublime may pass into the ridiculous, so the best principles may be transported into regions of folly or diabolism. There are minds so constituted that they can never stop till they have run every virtue into its correlative weakness or vice. Government should be guided by principles ; but they should be 14 sane and not crazy, sober and not drunk. They should walk on solid ground, and not roam the clouds hanging to a bag of gas. Rights may be real or unreal. Principles may be true or false ; but even the best and truest cannot safely be pushed too far, or in the wrong direction. The principle of truth itself may be carried into absurdity. The saying is old that truth should not be spoken at all times ; and those whom a sick conscience worries into habitual violation of the maxim are imbeciles and nuisances. Religion may pass into morbid enthusiasm or wild fanaticism, and turn from a blessing to a curse. So the best of political principles must be kept within bounds of reason, or they will work mischief. That greatest and most difficult of sciences, the science of government, dealing with interests so delicate, complicated, and antagonistic, becomes a perilous guide when it deserts the ways of temperance. SHALL WE STAND BY AMERICAN PRINCIPLES ? The suffragists' idea of government is not practical, but utterly unpractical. It is not American, but French. It is that government of abstractions and generalities which found its realization in the French Revolution, and its apostle in the depraved and half-crazy man of genius, Jean Jacques Rousseau. The French had an excuse for their frenzy in the crushing oppression they had just flung off and in their inexperience of freedom. We have no excuse. Since the nation began we have been free and our liberty is in danger from nothing but its own excesses. Since France learned to subject the ideas of Rousseau to the principles of stable of freedom embodied in the parliamentary government of England and in own republicanism, she has emerged from alternate tumult and despotism to enter the paths of hope and progress. The government of abstractions has been called, sometimes the a priori, and sometimes the sentimental, method. We object to this last term, unless it is carefully defined. 15 Sentiments, like principles, enter into the life of nations as well as that of individuals ; and they are vital to both. But they should be healthy, and not morbid ; rational, and not extravagant. It is not common sense alone that makes the greatness of states ; neither is it sentiments and principles alone. It is these last joined with reason, reflection, and moderation. Through this union it is that one small island has become the mighty mother of nations ; and it is because we ourselves, her greatest offspring, have chosen the paths of Hampden, Washington, and Franklin, and not those of Rousseau, that we have passed safe through every danger, and become the wonder and despair of despotism. Out of wholesome fruits of the earth, and the staff of life itself, the perverse chemistry of main distils delirious vapors, which, condensed and bottled exalt his brain with glorious fantasies, and then leave him in the mud. So it is with the unhappy suffragists. From the sober words of our ancestors they extract the means of mental inebriety. Because the fathers of the republic gave certain reasons to emphasize their creed that America should not be taxed because America was not represented in the British Parliament, they cry out that we must fling open the floodgates to vaster tides of ignorance and folly, strengthen the evil of our system and weaken the good, feed old abuses, hatch new ones, and expose all our large cities -- we speak with deliberate conviction -- to the risk of anarchy. Neither Congress, nor the states, nor the united voice of the whole people could permanently change the essential relations of the sexes. Universal female suffrage, even if decreed, would undo itself in time ; but the attempt to establish it would work deplorable mischief. The question is, whether the persistency of a few agitators shall plunge us blindfold into the most reckless of all experiments ; whether we shall adopt this supreme device for developing the defects of women, and demolish their real power to build an ugly mockery instead. For the sake of womanhood, let us hope not. In spite of the effect on the popular mind of the 16 incessant repetition of a few trite fallacies, and in spite of the squeamishness that prevents the vast majority averse to the movement form uttering a word against it, let us trust that the good sense of the American people will vindicate itself against this most unnatural and pestilent revolution. In the full and normal development of womanhood lie the best interests of the world. Let us labor earnestly for it; and, that we may not labor in vain, let us save women from the barren perturbations of American politics. Let us respect them; and, that we may do so, let us pray for deliverance from female suffrage. Reprinted by the Massachusetts Association opposed to further Extension of Suffrage to Woman. Pamphlets and leaflets may be obtained from the Secretary of the Association, ADDRESS THE SECRETARY, Room 615 Kensington Bldg, Boston Transcribed and reviewed by contributors participating in the By The People project at crowd.loc.gov.