The mystic oracles of the women’s clubs do not give a straightforward answer to this question. Yet there are mutterings, mouthings, and signs from them which tend to arouse masculine suspicions. To use a colloquialism, woman fancies herself very much at present, and she spends considerable time in studying the set of her mind in the looking-glass. And her serenity is justified. In spite of ridicule, baiting, and delay for several generations, she has demonstrated her ability and fitness to do a number of things which we had adjudged her incapable of doing. She can almost take care of herself in the street after dark. She has become a most valuable member of committees to ameliorate the condition of the poor, the sick, and the insane. She has become the president and professors of colleges founded in her behalf. The noble and numerous army of teachers, typewriters, salesladies, nurses, and women doctors (including Christian Scientists), stands as ample proof of her intention and capacity to strike out for herself. No wonder, perhaps, that she is a little delirious and mounted in the head, and that she is tempted to exclaim, “Go to, I will do more than this. Why should I not practise law, and sell stocks, wheat, corn, and exchange, control the money markets of the world, administer trusts, manage corporations, sit in Congress, and be President of the United States?”

The only things now done by man which the modern woman has not yet begun to cast sheep’s eyes at are labor requiring much physical strength and endurance, and military service. She is prepared to admit that she can never expect to be so muscular and powerful in body as man. But this has become rather a solace than a source of perplexity to her. Indeed, the women’s clubs are beginning to whisper under their breath, “Man is fitted to build and hew and cut and lift, and to do everything which demands brute force. We are not. We should like to think, plan, and execute. Let him do the heavy work. If he wishes to fight he may. Wars are wicked, and we shall vote against them and refuse to take part in them.”

If woman is going in for this sort of thing, of course she needs the ballot. If she intends to manage corporations and do business generally, she ought to have a voice in the framing of the laws which manifest the policy of the state. But to earn one’s living as a college professor, nurse, typewriter, saleslady, or clerk, or to sit on boards of charity, education, or hygiene, is a far remove from becoming bank presidents, merchants, judges, bankers, or members of Congress. The one affords the means by which single women can earn a decent and independent livelihood, or devote their energies to work useful to society; the other would necessitate an absolute revolution in the habits, tastes, interests, proclivities, and nature of woman. The noble army of teachers, typewriters, nurses, and salesladies are in the heels of their boots hoping to be married some day or other. They have merely thrown an anchor to windward and taken up a calling which will enable them to live reasonably happy if the right man does not appear, or passes by on the other side. Those who sit on boards, and who are more apt to be middle-aged, are but interpreting and fulfilling the true mission of the modern woman, which is to supplement and modify the point of view of man, and to extend the kind of influence which she exercises at home to the conduct of public interests of a certain class.

Now, some one must keep house. Some one must cook, wash, dust, sweep, darn, look after the children, and in general grease the wheels of domestic activity. If women are to become merchants, and manage corporations, who will bring up our families and manage the home? The majority of the noble army referred to are not able to escape from making their own beds and cooking their own breakfasts. If they occupied other than comparatively subordinate positions they would have to call Chinatown to the rescue; for the men would decline with thanks, relying on their brute force to protect them, and the other women would toss their heads and say “Make your own beds, you nasty things. We prefer to go to town too.” In fact the emancipation of women, so far as it relates to usurpation of the work of man, does not mean much in actual practice yet, in spite of the brave show and bustle of the noble army. The salesladies get their meals somehow, and the domestic hearth is still presided over by the mistress of the house and her daughters. But this cannot continue to be the case if women are going to do everything which men do except lift weights and fight. For we all know that our mothers, wives, and sisters, according to their own affidavits, have all they can do already to fulfil the requirements of modern life as mothers, wives, and sisters in the conventional yet modern sense. Many of them tell us that they would not have time to vote, to say nothing of qualifying themselves to vote. Indisputably they cannot become men and yet remain women in the matter of their daily occupations, unless they discover some new panacea against nervous prostration. The professions are open; the laws will allow them to establish banks and control corporate interests; but what is to become of the eternal feminine in the pow-wow, bustle, and materializing rush and competition of active business life? Whatever a few individuals may do, there seems to be no immediate or probably eventual prospect of a throwing off by woman of domestic ties and duties. Her physical and moral nature alike are formidable barriers in the way.

Why, then, if women are not going to usurp or share to any great extent the occupations of men, and become familiar with the practical workings of professional, business, and public affairs, are they ever likely to be able to judge so intelligently as men as to the needs of the state? To hear many people discuss the subject, one would suppose that all the laws passed by legislative bodies were limited to questions of ethics and morality. If all political action were reduced to debates and ballots on the use of liquor, the social evil, and other moral or humanitarian topics, the claim that women ought to be allowed and encouraged to vote would be much stronger—that is, assuming that she herself preferred to use her influence directly instead of indirectly. But the advocates of female suffrage seem to forget that three-fifths of the laws passed relate to matters remotely if at all bearing upon ethics, and involve considerations of public policy from the point of view of what is best for the interests of the state and the various classes of individuals which compose it. We do not always remember in this age of afternoon teas and literary papers that the state is after all an artificial body, a form of compact under which human beings agree to live together for mutual benefit and protection. Before culture, Æstheticism, or even ethics can be maintained there must be a readiness and ability to fight, if the necessity arises, and a capacity to do heavy work. Moreover, there must be ploughed fields and ship-yards and grain-elevators and engines and manufactories, and all the divers forms and phases of industrial and commercial endeavor and enterprise by which men earn their daily bread. If woman is going to participate in the material activities of the community she will be fit to deal with the questions which relate thereto, but otherwise she must necessarily remain unable to form a satisfactory judgment as to the merits of more than one-half the measures upon which she would be obliged to vote. Nor is it an argument in point that a large body of men is in the same predicament. Two evils do not make a benefit. There is a sufficient number of men conversant with every separate practical question which arises to insure an intelligent examination of it. The essential consideration is, what would the state gain, if woman suffrage were adopted, except an enlarged constituency of voters? What would woman, by means of the ballot, add to the better or smoother development of the social system under which we live?

Unless the eternal feminine is to be sacrificed or to suffer, it seems to me that her sole influence would be an ethical or moral one. There are certainly strong grounds for the assumption that she would point the way to, or at least champion, the cause of reforms which man has perpetually dilly-dallied with and failed to do battle for. To be sure, many of her most virtuous endeavors would be likely to be focussed on matters where indulgences and weaknesses chiefly masculine were concerned—such as the liquor problem; but an alliance between her vote and that of the minority of men would probably be a blessing to the world, even though she showed herself somewhat a tyrant or a fanatic. Her advocacy of measures calculated to relieve society of abuses and curses, which have continued to afflict it because men have been only moderately in earnest for a change, could scarcely fail to produce valuable results. Perhaps this is enough in itself to outweigh the ignorance which she would bring to bear on matters which did not involve ethical or humanitarian principles; and it is indisputably the most legitimate argument in favor of woman suffrage. The notion that women ought to vote simply because men do is childish and born of vanity. On the other hand, if the state is to be a gainer by her participation in the perplexities of voting, the case takes on a very different aspect.

I have been assuming that the influence of woman would be in behalf of ethics, but my wife Barbara assures me that I am thereby begging the question. She informs me that I have too exalted an idea of woman and her aims. She has confided to me that, though there is a number of noble and forceful women in every community, the general average, though prolific of moral and religious advice to men by way of fulfilling a sort of traditional feminine duty, is at heart rather flighty and less deeply interested in social progress than my sex. This testimony, taken in connection with the reference of Julius CÆsar to the disillusioning effect of a crowd of women in a drygoods store, introduces a new element into the discussion. Frankly, my estimate of women has always been high, and possibly unduly exalted. It may be I have been deceived by the moral and religious advice offered into believing that women are more serious than they really are. Reflection certainly does cause one to recollect that comparatively few women like to dwell on or to discuss for more than a few minutes any serious subject which requires earnest thought. They prefer to skim from one thing to another like swallows and to avoid dry depths. Those in the van will doubtless answer that this is due to the unfortunate training which woman has been subjected to for so many generations. True, in a measure; but ought she not, before she is allowed to vote, on the plea of bringing benefit to the state as an ethical adviser, to demonstrate by more than words her ethical superiority?

We all know that women drink less intoxicating liquor than men, and are less addicted to fleshly excesses. Yet the whole mental temper and make-up of each sex ought to be taken into account in comparing them together; and with all the predisposition of a gallant and susceptible man to say the complimentary thing, I find myself asking the question whether the average woman does not prefer to jog along on a worsted-work-domestic-trusting-religious-advice-giving basis, rather than to grapple in a serious way with the formidable problems of living. At any rate I, for one, before the right of suffrage is bestowed upon her, would like to be convinced that she as a sex is really earnest-minded. If one stops to think, it is not easy to show that, excepting where liquor, other women, and rigid attendance at church are concerned, she has been wont to show any very decided bent for, or interest in, the great reforms of civilization—that is, nothing to distinguish her from a well-equipped and thoughtful man. It is significant, too, that where women in this country have been given the power to vote in local affairs, they have in several instances shown themselves to be more solicitous for the triumph of a religious creed or faction than to promote the public welfare.

It is extremely probable, if not certain, that the laws of all civilized states will eventually be amended so as to give women the same voice in the affairs of government as men. But taking all the factors of the case into consideration, there seems to be no pressing haste for action. Even admitting for the sake of argument that woman’s apparent lack of seriousness is due to her past training, and that she is really the admirably earnest spirit which one is lured into believing her until he reflects, there can assuredly be no question that the temper and proclivities of the very large mass of women are not calculated at present to convict man of a lack of purpose by virtue of shining superiority in persevering mental and moral aggressiveness. Not merely the drygoods counter and the milliner’s store with their engaging seductions, but the ball-room, the fancy-work pattern, the sensational novel, nervous prostration, the school-girl’s giggle, the tea-pot without food, and a host of other tell-tale symptoms, suggest that there is a good deal of the old Eve left in the woman of to-day. And bless her sweet heart, Adam is in no haste to have it otherwise. Indeed, the eternal feminine seems to have staying qualities which bid fair to outlast the ages.