TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES
Transcriber's Note:
The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
SUFFRAGE SNAPSHOTS
By
IDA HUSTED HARPER
Have a smile with me
Washington, D. C.
1915
These random paragraphs are a few of many which have appeared in Judge to express the lighter side of the so-called “woman question.” This centers in the suffrage movement but woman’s quest of the vote is not a joke. It means a great deal of hard work, many anxious hours, some keen disappointments, yet those who are not in the thick of the fray will never know the good times they have missed. Flashes of fun have been scattered all along the way like flecks of sunshine on a shaded path. It will seem very dull for a little while after the vote is won and women get their rights, but they will soon be able to make things lively again and contribute as always to the gayety of the nation.
Copyright, 1915
By Ida Husted Harper
Original matter copyrighted by The Leslie-Judge Publishing Co. and used in its present form by their courtesy.
Miss Jane Addams in her suffrage speeches insists that men have nothing to fear, for the women will vote right. That very fact gives some of them everything to fear.
Edison says, “the movement for woman suffrage is just plain morals.” Maybe that’s the trouble—they’re too plain. Dress them up fashionably and see if the lady “antis” won’t accept them.
A new Chicago policewoman has qualified as one of the best shots on the force, 92 out of 100. Does she vote because she is such a good shot or can she shoot so well because she is a voter? What is the connection between shooting and voting anyway?
Annie Riley Hale, a prominent “anti,” says that women want the suffrage in order to establish polygamy throughout the United States. If she can prove it will have that effect the women can take a rest and the men will carry on their campaign for them.
It looks as if one recall, one defeat and then another election had started wings on Mayor Hi Gill, of Seattle. After the tragic close of his first term his chief of police and alleged partner in sinful practices was sent to prison. The women gave Hi another chance and now he has appointed as chief of police the ministers’ candidate for mayor and is trying to live up to his chief’s standard. Meanwhile the women are standing by with their spectacles on and a recall petition handy.
If Mr. Bryan writes the next Democratic platform it is safe to wager there will be one plank in it which he flatly refused to put in the last one.
Why don’t the “antis” get a sewing society somewhere to pass a resolution against woman suffrage? It is growing terribly monotonous to have all the women’s organizations in the country declaring in favor.
It is said the Ohio Board of Administration is appalled at the number of imbeciles in the State. We thought there must be quite a lot of them when 528,295 votes were cast against the woman-suffrage amendment recently.
Women have voted for over twenty years in Colorado and twenty-one judges of districts courts have sent letters to United States Senator Shafroth, testifying that they never have known a case of divorce because of political differences between husband and wife. Another anti-suffrage bomb failed to explode!
Dear, dear, how times have changed! Once a woman was not considered a person by law and a wife and husband were one and he was it. Now the highest court in New York has decided that a wife is not only a person and an individual in her own right but she is a family! “A childless widow or a deserted wife without children is included in the term family”—those are the very words. From nobody to a whole family—what an evolution!
A Chicago girl swam two miles to shore from an overturned boat, dragging her escort who couldn’t swim. Now the delicate question arises, Which shall do the proposing?
The High Court of Great Britain has decided that a woman cannot practice law because she is not a “person;” but she can be a Queen because a Queen does not have to be a person—at least that is all anybody can make out of the decision.
Mr. Hugh Fox, secretary of the United States Brewers’ Association, assures the women that it will make no organized opposition to the pending suffrage amendments. Maybe not—but there is something mightily suggestive in that name.
“Tariff reform, fiscal policies, large international relations are foreign to the consciousness of the average woman,” says Mrs. Dodge, president of the anti-suffragists. Maybe so, but it seems as if she might have sense enough to put a mark on a ballot opposite an eagle, a star or a moose’s head.
A man was excused from serving as juror in a murder trial in New York lately because his wife wouldn’t allow him to convict any one of murder. Out in Oregon a juror was challenged the other day because his wife had already been accepted and it would be impossible for him to give an unbiased opinion. What makes people think that under equal suffrage wives would all vote as their husbands do?
The women voters of Arizona have started in on so many reforms that the men can almost feel their wings sprouting.
The president of the New York State “antis” says, “Suffrage is going, not coming.” Well, it sure does seem to be going some these days.
It seems as if, when not only State courts but the United States government itself forbids the use of aigrettes, women would give up trying to wear them; but the Injun in ‘em dies hard.
A French naturalist has discovered that the female oyster is far more palatable than the male. This is the case with all animals that are used for food. It is a common remark about a woman that she looks good enough to eat, but did anybody ever say that about a man?
It seems as if the suffragists have come not to bring peace but a sword into the world. When Mrs. Chapman Catt, the international president, was sailing across the Pacific homeward from her little trip to organize the world for woman suffrage, all was calm and serene until she was called on for a speech. “Before this,” said one of the men voyagers, “we were all at peace with one another; but after that woman spoke, everybody was fighting over the suffrage question.” This is a hint to hostesses: When your guests seem bored to extinction, just get somebody to say woman suffrage, and then watch the sparks fly!
It is said that in England whiskers are again to be the style. One thing is certain—if they become the fashion in this country, our women will set their faces against them!
The dress skirt this fall is to be narrower than ever, and a noted tailor says the only question is, “Can a lady wear it?” Perhaps a lady can, but a modest woman won’t.
And now they say President Wilson is about to reverse his position on amending the Sherman anti-trust law. When he gets ready to back track on the woman-suffrage question he will have no difficulty in establishing a precedent.
In the debate in the North Carolina senate on a bill to permit women to act as notaries public it was objected to because women write a “vertical hand” and wear slit skirts. That shouldn’t disqualify them as notaries, but it is as strong an argument against giving them the suffrage as one often hears.
The New York City board of education dismissed a woman fireman from one of the public schools, on the ground that it was not suitable work for a woman. It’s all right for her to get up at home winter mornings and make the fire but whenever there is a salary attached the work becomes unwomanly. Strange that women cannot see these things without having to be shown so often. There ought to be little sign-boards set up along their path, saying, “Public salaries are only for voters.”
“Yeast,” a new suffrage play, is just being tried out. It is sure to cause a rise among the “antis.”
A bill is before Congress to annex the North Pole as United States territory. Bet it comes in with a Votes for Women flag on the end of it.
If the suffragists and the “antis” don’t quit writing letters to members of Congress the latter will raise the rate of postage instead of lowering it.
Recent census reports show that 86.7 of all persons over twenty-five marry. That is quite enough—the other 13.3 are needed to show the married what they escaped.
The woman-suffrage question in this country has been settled. The Colonel did it in his whirlwind tour of New York’s East Side. “How about votes for women?” called out the unscareable Maud Malone. “Madam,” said Mr. Roosevelt, “I have asked that you women be allowed to vote to determine whether or not you shall vote.” Just that; he never told whom he had asked, but the mere fact that he had asked was enough. All the women have to do now is to keep still and wait till somebody “allows” them to vote whether they want to vote. If one over one-half of the twenty-four millions says “yes,” then they can all go right out and vote. But if one over one-half says “no,” then the 11,999,999 that want to can’t. Beautiful plan—so simple, so statesmanlike! But it seems to lack provision for a recall and a new deal.
Two women card sharps on a big ocean liner are said to have relieved a number of the male voyagers of all their ready cash. Another flagrant instance of woman’s usurping an occupation that rightfully belongs to man!
Vice-President Marshall can’t do anything for woman suffrage because his wife doesn’t believe in it. That might be a sufficient excuse for Mr. Marshall as an individual but it is rather thin for the Vice-President of the United States.
“Bachelors are much more likely to become insane than married men,” is the decision of the Massachusetts Mental Hygiene Conference. Yes, the mere fact that they choose to remain bachelors shows a mental twist.
A New York paper sagely remarks, “Under any system we shall not get a government of cherubs until we become cherubs ourselves.” That’s too long ahead. Men have always told women they were angels, so why not begin with woman suffrage as the first step?
“All the blessed creatures have to do,” said Representative Adamson, of Georgia, in his speech, “is to intimate in a gentle way, in their charming tones and pleasing manner to the lords of creation that they wish to have the privilege of voting.” How much that reminds one of Heflin, of Alabama—it’s so different!
“Women of New Jersey,” said ex-Assemblyman Matthews at the legislative hearing, “if you want to improve the conditions of public life, I beg you to keep on being women.” As they felt that conditions very much needed improving, and for various other reasons, they adopted a resolution to keep on being women.
For the fourth year in succession a woman has won the prize of $1,250 offered by an English publishing house for the best first novel. It is bad enough that there are a million more women than men over there, without having them add to the offense by such performances as this. They’ll never get the vote.
The president of the Pennsylvania Anti-Suffrage Society asks its members to “write to all the United States Senators, except those from the suffrage States, and tell them that the great, silent majority of women do not want the vote.” She was very kind to omit those gentlemen—they might laugh themselves to death.
The Anti-Suffrage Association claims the credit for defeating the appointment of a Woman Suffrage Committee in the lower house of Congress. The only question voted on in the Democratic caucus was that “woman suffrage is a State and not a Federal question,” but this will not disturb the complacence of the “antis.” They will simply claim that they originated the doctrine of State’s rights.
The Texas preacher who asked all the women of his congregation on Easter Sunday to take off their hats had St. Paul beaten to a frazzle.
The “antis” are failing to scare the suffragists by warning them that they will get the worst of it when they “rouse the brute force in men.” As long as they are gradually getting everything they ask for they will never believe that men are brutes.
Englishmen are howling because, under the new income-tax law, the wife can find out how much property the husband has. But didn’t she know already, as he promised at the altar, “With all my worldly goods I thee endow”?
There seems to be some anxiety lest the new women internes at Bellevue Hospital may not be able to jump on a speeding ambulance. Some encouragement is given by the news from Vassar that one girl has just thrown a basketball seventy-five feet and another has “smashed the broad-jump record” with a jump of over nine feet. Give the new internes a chance.
A man in the audience of State Senator Helen Robinson, of Colorado, called out that as there was only one woman and thirty-four men in the Senate, this showed it was a place for men. She answered that as there were eighty-seven women and eight hundred men in the State penitentiary, this evidently showed the same thing. Doesn’t she know that men won’t love her if she talks like that?
Why are there so many more widows than widowers? Because a man finds marriage such a nice institution that he gets right back into it, while a woman—well, she doesn’t.
Ex-Speaker Cannon says that as women can now vote in Illinois it is a good time for handsome men to run for office, and that is why he ran. But Illinois women can’t vote for Congressmen and that is why he was elected.
The women of Alaska, at the first election since they were enfranchised, elected an entire non-partisan ticket. It is no wonder the old party machines put on speed and try to run over a woman-suffrage amendment.
According to the latest medical discovery, love causes an intoxication of the nerve centers which may lead to insanity. That is probably why people who are in love are said to be crazy about each other—their nerve centers are on a spree. Cynics might call marriage a jag cure.
The anti-suffragists say that the suffrage movement is driving women away from marriage and “the feminist movement is turning marriage into a trade for alimony,” and yet that the two movements are one and the same. But how can a woman make an alimony bargain if she has not been married? It really seems as if those “antis” had set out to prove the charge that the feminine mind is incapable of logic.
If the anti-suffragists would observe their Golden Rule, that “a woman’s place is at home,” it would not be half so easy for those other women to get the ballot.
Outside of the South only two States voted solidly against the woman suffrage amendment in the lower house of Congress—Vermont and Delaware. Please excuse them, they’re such little ones.
Virginia suffragists have discovered that in 1829 her women petitioned a constitutional convention for the franchise. That was only eighty-six years ago, and petitions from women are seldom acted upon in so short a time as that.
At the legislative hearing in Massachusetts, the other day, one of the opponents said she did not believe women ought to vote but thought one-half the Legislature should be composed of women. Just as her sister “antis” always have done, she keeps one eye on the offices.
During the recent registration in San Francisco, automobiles were provided for the women, while the men were left to walk, and they rent the air with their protests. In Washington a jury composed of men and women had to go to the country to inspect some property. The women were sent in automobiles and the men in wagons, and their anger could be heard for miles. As the young woman wrote to her sweetheart, “The trubble with you is you are jellus.”
Possibly women as well as men may be at their best when fifty, but they will never give anybody a chance to prove it on them.
Representative J. Hampton Moore, of Philadelphia, is quoted as saying it will be 20 years before Congress hears any more about prohibition or woman suffrage. That 0 must be a printer’s mistake, and even the 2 is fifty per cent. too much.
Indiana women have formed a council to work with the Legislature “for the uplift of women and children.” Wouldn’t it be of greater benefit to the State if they would work for the uplift of the legislators?
Anti-suffragists are censuring Senator Helen Ring Robinson, of Colorado, because she is in the East lecturing instead of at home legislating. But she can’t unless the Governor calls a special session, as the Legislature does not meet this year. Those anti-suffrage objections are such funny little boomerangs!
New Zealand has just been celebrating the twenty-first year of its equal-suffrage law. To be sure that country is some distance off, but it seems as if we should have heard of the wrecked homes, ruined families, declining birth rate, feminized men and general reign of socialism, polygamy and other things which the “antis” declare will follow woman suffrage. If they will then they have done it, so let us have a bill of particulars from New Zealand.
A Chicago lawyer secured a big alimony for his client on the argument that a man who marries a handsome woman must dress her in a style befitting her beauty. This ought to put the plain woman several laps ahead in the matrimonial race—but it won’t.
If the colonel feels a little disheartened at the lapses in the Progressive party while he was away revising the map of South America, he can cheer up at the boom in votes for women. There will be more than twice as many of them in 1916 as when he set out to round them up two years ago.
The Supreme Court of the District of Columbia has decided that after a wife has left her husband’s bed and board she may establish her own domicile wherever she pleases. That is an improvement on the old law, which did not allow her any place to sleep and eat legally without her husband’s permission.
Mrs. John Martin, a leader of the “antis,” said recently, in a public address in New York, “If they dare attempt to force the ballot on us here in the East, they will find that we are the daughters of the heroes who fought and bled at Concord and Lexington, who starved at Valley Forge!” Seems as if we had heard somewhere that those heroes did all that for the specific purpose of obtaining the ballot. “Descendants” is a very suitable word to apply to their daughters.
It was a woman who solved the “Million Dollar Mystery” and received the $10,000 prize; but that isn’t the worst of it—she hasn’t any husband to take care of the money for her.
The Anti-Suffrage Society forbids its members to say, “Woman suffrage is coming!” That’s right—it shows a lack of originality to use the same slogan as the suffragists and how can they expect to raise money for a campaign against a sure thing?
A rich New Yorker, who has just died, left his fortune for his daughters in the hands of masculine executors because he doubted women’s wisdom in business. How did he happen to have so much confidence in men’s honesty in business?
Speaker Clark is no “neutral” when it comes to woman suffrage. During the House debate the other day the officers of the Suffrage Association were invited to occupy his bench in the gallery and have luncheon in his rooms at the Capitol. Give him the Iron Cross.
A man in Chicago has written a booklet against woman suffrage, in which he relates that when he was a small boy he and his sister were attacked by wolves, which his mother drove off with a gun. “If she had been a suffragette,” he says, “she would probably have been away from home that night attending a political meeting and Sister Lucy and I would have been eaten alive.” Sister Lucy might have been a loss to the world.
A wife has recently laughed herself to death at one of her husband’s jokes. At least there is the consolation that she never will have to listen to any more of them.
The anti-suffragists say that “feminism and the family are inherently and irrevocably incompatible.” When we find out what that means we are going to get mad about it.
Professor Hugo MÜnsterberg, of Harvard University, after years of careful research has decided that women form their opinions and judgments just as rapidly and accurately as men. Thanks for that small concession, kind sir! It is so unexpected!
The women anti-suffragists have just held their first convention, while the suffragists have had them by the hundreds. Now let the antis get up one parade and match it against the more than a thousand suffrage parades on May 2d, to prove that “the vast majority of women do not want to vote.”
A speaker at the annual convention of the National Municipal Leagues takes President Wilson to task because his “History of the American People” scarcely mentions women. Why single out the President’s for what is common to all histories? The women ought to get even by writing histories themselves and leaving out the men. That is almost though not quite the case in the history of woman suffrage, but the men are mentioned whenever they vote it down.
“The cause of equal suffrage is so one with civilization and humanity that I wonder any civilized man can be against it,” is the latest utterance of William Dean Howells on the question. He was careful not to say “civilized woman,” because he did not want to hurt the feelings of the Anti-Suffrage Association.
The president of the Arizona Federation of Women’s Clubs said, in a recent speech, “It requires courage to be a good statesman and only nerve to be a good politician.” To apply this formula to suffrage—it requires only nerve to be a good anti-suffragist, but one really has to wonder where they get enough of it.
A six-foot woman who has recently been appointed purser on a Hudson River boat is opposed to suffrage because she does not feel equal to the burden and she thinks it would tend to make women take men’s jobs away from them. Her picture in the papers should be labeled “The Typical Anti-Suffragist, an Unconscious Humorist.”
One member of the lower House of Congress obtained unanimous consent that another member’s eulogy on his dog should be printed in the Congressional Record. Worse stuff probably has gone into that Record; but if two women members of the Legislature in some of those Western States had been guilty of this performance wouldn’t the country have rung with their unfitness for office?
The reformers say that when woman is economically independent she will be free to do the “proposing.” Perhaps then she won’t want to.
A man has started to walk with a donkey from Maine to Oregon on an election bet. The photographers should label their pictures, “Find the man.”
Great Britain has solved the race-suicide problem. Hereafter the parents, where either is insured, will get thirty shillings for each new baby. What a simple solution! What a magnificent recompense! The little island won’t hold the infants.
The judge of the Chicago Domestic Relations Court gives six reasons for the trouble in married life, and one of them is the interference of mothers-in-law. If it were not for the other five reasons, there would probably not be so much necessity for mothers-in-law to interfere.
The Anti-Suffrage Association is very desirous of adopting a color for its very own, but thus far has found that all in the rainbow and out of it have been pre-empted by the innumerable suffrage societies. The “antis” over in England had just such a difficulty, but finally decided on blue and black. Then they had made a button and on it placed the head of a dear little chee-ild; but when the black and blue infant made its appearance, it was received by the suffragists with such screams of laughter and proffers of sympathy that it suddenly vanished and was never seen again.
In Denmark the men police are going on a strike, because the new women police are to have a higher salary than men get when they begin. There is nothing strange about this news, except that Denmark should pay women such salaries.
A woman office-holder who is getting a $4,500 salary says: “No, I am not a suffragist. Why should I want to vote? Men have always been mighty good to me.” Prosperity sometimes does affect people that way—makes them so nearsighted they can’t see what is happening to their neighbors.
There doesn’t seem to be any particular reason why four or five women should have been guests of honor at the annual banquet of the Police Lieutenants’ Benevolent Association, but they just sat up there and sang, “We’re here because we’re here.” And that isn’t the worst of it—they’re going to be everywhere else and the men who don’t like it will have to go to the edge of the earth and jump off.
The president of the New York Press Club in talking lately to a woman’s society on suffrage said: “Keep within the sex line. I and the men behind me will never forgive you if you step outside of that line!” Is it anything like the bread line? And how are women to know if they fail to toe the mark exactly? They are as far now from what was originally considered the “sex line” as if it was the equator and they were at the poles and yet the men seem to have forgiven them.
If the New York women keep on rolling up that big suffrage fund the men will feel it their bounden duty to take over the management of the amendment campaign.
A New Jersey woman has been obliged to get a divorce because her husband was so “inordinately fond of dress” that he spent all his earnings on his clothes. Vanity and foolishness know no sex.
New York State has 101.2 men to every 100 women. That extra one and two-tenths of a man ought to make it entirely possible to give a vote to women without fear of changing the style of sex domination.
Some of the men are angry because the women said they are going to ride in the Washington suffrage parade with an imbecile, an insane person and a convict. The men say that the only time a woman should keep such company is on election day.
With an amendment for full suffrage pending in a certain State, the opponents believe in nipping any voting tendencies in the bud; so the district attorney announces that any woman giving a tea party to induce other women to come out and register for the school election, at which women can vote, will be prosecuted under the corrupt practices act. Of course then he will prosecute the ward bosses who round up the men in the back rooms of saloons to arrange for their registering and voting. Or is it only drinking tea that is a corrupt practice?
In Missouri there are 141 unmarried men to 100 unmarried women. It seems as if every woman there ought to be able to get a husband, but perhaps some of them are particular.
Some of those husbands who stay out late nights are surprised that the suffragists find it necessary to have so many classes for training inexperienced speakers.
Winston Churchill mispronounced a Greek word in the House of Commons lately, to the consternation of its members. Imagine the commotion in the House of Representatives at Washington if a member should make a mistake in his Greek!
“Our only problem now,” says the national anti-suffrage president, “is, Can we make the negative majority large enough to keep the voters from having to vote on it again for twenty-five years?” No use to waste any time and money figuring on that problem. The answer is, It can’t be done.
One of the New York Supreme Court justices, in adjourning a case against a woman recently, said, “My sex has been deceiving the other sex since the day of Adam.” There has always been a suspicion that in that little transaction in the Garden of Eden it was Adam himself who was deceived. Since then possibly the men have been trying to get even, but it looks nowadays as if the women were beginning to claim their share from the tree of knowledge, and deceiving them was not quite so easy.
The only “perfect woman” has been found at Cornell University. To find perfect ladies visit a bargain counter.
A noted astrologer has seen in the stars victories for woman suffrage in many States. The “antis” see stars every time there is a new victory; but when they pick themselves up they never make any forecast of the future.
Cuban women are organizing for the suffrage and a flourishing society already exists in Hawaii. Truly the anti-suffragists are kept so busy these days trying to stem the tide they are obliged to forget that a woman’s place is at home.
The candidates on the primary-election tickets in New York all had numbers opposite their names, so that voters who couldn’t read or remember carried the numbers of their choice into the polling booth and copied them on the ballot. It almost seems as if women might have intelligence enough to perform a feat like that.
A tablet has been discovered in Babylonia, recording that the first world was created by a woman, and the male gods, growing tired of it, wiped it out by a flood and created another. There is a nice thing about this record—it has no account of Eve’s eating the apple and bringing sin into the new creation. This removes one charge against woman and puts it up to man to account for the large amount of wickedness that has crept into his world.
That English anti-suffrage mother had no right to feel insulted when her “militant” daughter sent her a post-card with the one word “doormat” written on it. Wasn’t it the English writer, Dinah Mulock, who said women ought to be satisfied to be doormats in their husband’s home?
There seems to be some mild excitement over the question whether a woman should be allowed to write “Mrs.” before her name when she is really “Miss.” The chief effect would be on the men, who are much more chesty before the unmarried women that believe them to be heroes than before the married, who know they are not.
A Philadelphia clergyman says that “women’s clubs are the instruments of the devil.” With several million women enrolled in them, His Satanic Majesty should have a large working force; but it’s odd that every one of them seems to be trying to improve something or somebody. Maybe the minister meant to say men’s clubs.
The Business Women’s League of Nashville, with three hundred members, has united with the Equal Suffrage League to move on the Legislature. Apparently they have never heard from the lady “antis” what a hindrance the ballot will be to the working woman but it is not yet too late for the “antis” to save her from “impending doom,” in the classic language of their president.
The anti-suffrage women are boasting of the cooperation they receive from men. Sure—they are playing the game for the men!
Secretary Lane, of the Interior Department, says there will be no Indian man without the suffrage when he goes out of office. The surprising thing is that previous administrations have allowed a male of any sort to escape having it thrust upon him.
The wizard of Hoboken announces that the zodiacal sign of Sagittarius signifies that woman suffrage will be successful. Yes, all signs point that way; but is there anything in the zodiac to indicate when?
Why is it that as soon as women get the suffrage in any State they are called upon to clean up the cities and purify politics? As men have always been held to be so much better qualified to vote than women, the latter ought to find every city a Spotless Town and the political atmosphere too rarefied to breathe in safety.
The college girls all marry, according to recent statistics. They have to pass laws in many States to prevent school teachers from marrying. You can hardly keep a trained nurse single until her patient gets well. Stenographers go like hot cakes. The only girls that seem to have trouble in getting married are the old fashioned, womanly kind that do the sweetly domestic acts in the seclusion of the home.
At the big dinner given in New York for the Men and Religion Forward Movement the dean of Yale Theological School said: “The Church must have men because men are militant.” Go to: isn’t it militancy that is ruining the Women and Suffrage Forward Movement?
Ex-President Eliot, of Harvard, anti-suffragist, says, “Women are better adapted to work for the human beings of the future than men are.” Yes, and as there wouldn’t be any human beings of the future if it were not for women it almost seems as if they were of enough importance to have a vote.
Why should the advocates of woman suffrage be criticised for trying to defeat members of Congress who are opposed to it when all of the parties do their best to prevent the election of their opponents? If the suffragists did not try to keep their enemies out of Congress they wouldn’t have political sense enough to vote.
The corporation counsel of the District of Columbia has ruled that the new eight-hour law for women applies to those who do mechanical work in a newspaper office, but not to those who do brain work. He probably considers that those big, forty-page papers are a greater strain on hands than brains, and it sure does seem like that when you try to read them.
“As for me, I defy you women. Come and meet me on the stump.” Such were the brave words of a New York alderman, and from that moment Ajax defying the lightning was simply not in it.
All over the country ministers are giving sermons in favor of woman suffrage. Why don’t the “antis” get some of them to preach against it? Surely a few can be found who would dare to do it!
Mrs. John Martin, opposed to a vote because it will turn women from matrimony, says that “soon the only women to marry will be the infirm and the idiotic.” The anti-suffragists will continue to be eligible, won’t they?
Ex-President Eliot has come to the front again to declare that there wasn’t any Garden of Eden or Adam or Eve. All right. Then Eve didn’t eat the apple and bring sin into the world; therefore that objection to giving the ballot to the women of the United States is null and void.
Just at the psychical moment when the Alienist and Neurologist, a St. Louis publication, devoted several pages to prove that the “cave man is the type women adore” and that “the bigger the brute, the more a woman clings to him,” a New York wife took a 200-pound husband by the ear and led him to the police station, and one the same size in Chicago had his wife arrested for cruel and inhuman treatment. It looks as if the women themselves were trying the role of the cave man.
Have a Father’s Day, by all means, if any of them feel slighted; but wouldn’t a “night” be more appropriate?
They say that a stenographer is the only woman to whom a man can dictate these days. Is that the reason so many men marry their stenographers?
The New York suffragists are hunting for some means of moving Senators Root and O’Gorman to favor their amendment. They might try an earthquake.
The manager of a large school for the athletic training of girls says he has a number of pupils who can “heave a weight one hundred and eighty feet.” It almost seems that if women can do that they ought to have the physical strength to heave a ballot into a box.
The anti-suffrage ladies mourned over the women’s peace parade because it showed such a “thirst for publicity.” Yes; those timid, shrinking creatures themselves wouldn’t do a thing except parade up and down the streets wearing a big American Beauty rose to attract attention to their being “antis;” open headquarters in conspicuous places, call mass meetings and orate from the platform, besiege Congress and Legislatures, attend political conventions and go before the committees and send their representatives all over the country to conduct a publicity campaign against the suffragists. Oh, yes, they’re “shrinking” all right—getting smaller every day.
“If women go into politics, who will do their work?” wail the “antis.” The men can do it, as they’ve already taken most of it away from the home.
How could anybody wish the poor congressmen a Happy New Year when they had to begin it by voting on woman suffrage?
The churches and the social-uplift societies seem to have almost as much trouble in stopping the tango as the government does in putting an end to the snake dances among the Indians.
That new woman fire inspector in New York reported in one week thirty-seven violations of the law. The next thing she knows she will lose her job.
A hen at the Agricultural College of Oregon has laid 283 eggs this year, while the roosters stood around and crowed; and a cow in Michigan has given 18,733 pounds of milk, while the—but why specialize in order to prove the superior value of “the female of the species?”
Miss Julia Lathrop, head of the National Children’s Bureau, says, “The anti-suffragists are like the hypnotized chickens which balk at a chalk line when there is nothing beyond.” Yes, and after the ballot is actually given to women they are just like chickens when some corn is dropped the other side of the chalk line.
French annuity companies have discovered that women live twenty years longer than men, and now they propose to give women a choice of dying young or having their premiums raised.
“If my mother-in-law comes to heaven, I’ll leave,” wrote a New Orleans man, just before he committed suicide. Doubtless she will speed the parting guest.
It is too bad that members of the European nobility cannot come over here to hunt grizzly bears without being accused of seeking a rich wife, but perhaps it is because their graces and lordships have so long considered American heiresses as game.
Chicago women say that when they had to go to the City Hall before they got the ballot the officials there were polite but now they are cordial. In other words women without a vote are tolerated; with it, they are welcomed. Unfortunately many women don’t know the difference.
Morrison I. Swift, lecturing on the “Humanist Forum,” whatever that may be, says, “Women are amazingly incompetent to bring up children, have no special aptitude for it and it is doubtful whether they have any real liking for it.” So? Well, perhaps men had better try their hand at it for a while; but any woman who ever left father in charge for a few hours and remembers the general chaos she found on her return has her doubts as to man’s aptitude along this line.
“Woman’s closer relation to the machinery of government is inexpedient,” says the chairman of the New York anti-suffrage press committee. Well, if she takes out an accident policy she might run the risk of watching to see that it doesn’t slip so many cogs.
An army of suffragists have just ended a 400-mile walk from Edinburgh to present a suffrage petition to Prime Minister Asquith. The suffragette way is quicker—they just wrap it around a stone and throw it through his window. Both branches of the movement seem to have proved that they possess the physical strength to cast a ballot.
The health commissioner of New York is determined that all the restaurants and hotel dining-rooms shall display signs telling how much benzoate of soda and similar stuff there is in the pastry. It is often asked why men make so much better cooks than women but no such signs were ever necessary on the pies that mother used to make.
Irvin Cobb told them at the Kentucky dinner that “the reason woman suffrage is not a success in his State is that woman can never be man’s equal because she is always his superior.” That remark has a sort of “befo’ the wah” flavor. Women accept man’s word that they are much his superior but when they get the ballot they will try to improve his status.
A “mere man” complains in a Chicago paper that “men have dwindled in importance in the eyes of women.” Don’t worry! They are just as important as ever in their own eyes.
The pugilists of California are so mad because prize fights are prohibited that they are going to move out of the State to spite the women who did it.
The Los Angeles woman police officer who is touring the Eastern States gives as one great advantage of woman suffrage that men no longer have to go down town to talk politics. A good many men would consider that an argument against it.
The secretary of state for New York is willing to concede a good deal to women, but insists on the “physical superiority” of men. Then how do all life insurance statistics happen to show that women live to a much greater age than men?
Dr. Forbes Ross, an eminent English physician, has discovered that in two thousand years the men will have degenerated into gorillas. The women can save the race, he says, but not if they insist on the vote. The women will probably answer that they will take the vote now and run the risk of the gorillas two thousand years hence. And, when one comes to think of it, after the treatment the suffragists in England have received from some of the present generation of men, gorillas would have no terrors for them!
Another English doctor heard from! This one deprecates the present style of dress because “it does away with the mystery in women, which is greatly against their own interests.” Let the doctor calm himself—woman will always be enough of a mystery to keep the men busy guessing.
A Florida woman writes to the National Suffrage Association for permission to organize a troop of cavalry women, arm them with light rifles and send them to the Legislature to get a suffrage bill. The Southern women have been rather slow to get started but when they do they will go on horseback where the Northern women have gone on foot.
The chivalry of medieval times was of poor quality compared with the brand they have in Kansas. A man out there was too chivalrous to stand as candidate for an office when he found his opponent was a woman. This is a vast improvement on going to war with your lady’s handkerchief on the point of your spear.
On the adjournment of Congress, when the men who had been fighting each other for months and using language that had to be expunged from the Record fell on one another’s necks and wept and sang “Blest be the tie that binds”—it was then the women in the gallery realized that their sex is far too emotional and hysterical ever to make the laws for the nation.
Alexander Graham Bell says in his letter on eugenics, “Always remember that you are marrying a family, not a person.” Alas, yes; and if you forget it you are very apt to be reminded of it afterward.
Now that President Wilson has received Colonel Harvey and Colonel Watterson with open arms he ought to be ready to do the Abraham act with the suffragists.
It cost $11.40 a piece to register voters in Greater New York for the spring election. Will those who are clamoring for a referendum of the suffrage question to women themselves at a special election please state who will foot the bill?
Dr. Mary Walker is greatly disgusted with the suffragists for making so much fuss to obtain a right which is already guaranteed to them under the Constitution. If she really believes this let her try to cast a vote at the next election. There is always room in jail for one more.
The Anti-Suffrage Association has issued “The Woman’s Creed,” which says, “I believe in making every effort to protect the good name of our American men from the attacks of the suffragists.” Bless their soft, little hearts! One would think from their literator that the suffragists hadn’t any men of their own that they would fight to the last ditch for if necessary. What the “antis” should do is to protect men from the blandishments of the suffragists after their votes.
As man has only fourteen pockets in his clothes the tailors are now putting in another, a secret one, where he can hide his money from his wife. As it is only the size of a watch pocket she won’t grudge him the contents; besides she will know where it is located almost as soon as he does himself.
An “inspired” article says that there are signs of a revolt among the wives in nearly all the royal families of Europe and that “it is because the ideas of Mrs. Pankhurst have permeated the circles of royalty.” If Mrs. Pankhurst had accomplished no more than this, she would deserve all the honors her followers claim for her.
The president of a New York club said in her address to the City Federation the other day, “You neglect culture and buzz around too much; you should set aside ten minutes every day to meditate on something refining and ennobling.” Like that speech, for instance; but isn’t ten minutes a day an awful lot of time to spend on culture?
The 140,000 members of the Woman Suffrage Party in New York City are balloting for their officers in the different districts. The Anti-Suffrage State Society announces that it is increasing at the rate of one thousand a month. This proves that in one hundred and forty months it will catch up with the city party, provided the latter doesn’t add any new members.
The most important thing in regard to the candidacy of that woman from Kansas who is running for Congress is that it shows there is no constitutional barrier to women members of Congress. All they have to do is to get elected.
The anti-feminists have always related with great joy that it is the female mosquito which does the biting, but scientists have now learned that the reason the male of the species refrains is because he has nothing to bite with.
At the next registration in Montana after women were enfranchised, there was a sprinting match to see who would be enrolled first; but sad to relate it was won by the two leaders of the anti-suffrage movement.
A fashion periodical offers a large salary to a young man who understands the entire subject of a woman’s clothes and can edit a woman’s magazine. As has been often remarked, women are invading men’s domain and crowding them out of their legitimate work!
The first Anti-Suffrage Association in the United States or any other country was organized in Massachusetts in 1884. It has labored diligently ever since with the excellent result that both houses of the Legislature have voted by immense majorities to submit the question to the electors. If the “antis” will do their level best, it may pull through at the polls.
Dr. Hugh Cabot, of Puritan Boston, says that “if women want men to reform, they must cease to tempt them.” Maybe so, the poor things! but how did they ever happen to be called “the stronger sex”?
The Guidon Anti-Suffrage Club of New York is devoting itself to a study of the Bible. Nobody needs the consolations of religion quite so much just now as the anti-suffragists.
That dull thud which was heard in the direction of Springfield, Ill., was Senator Shaw, of Decatur, being dropped from his committee chairmanships because he presented a resolution to repeal the woman suffrage law.
The wife of Congressman Taylor, of Colorado, says the women of that State have found that it does not take as long to vote as it does to match a piece of silk. It is to be hoped not or the worst fears of the “antis” as to the neglect of the home and family would be more than realized.
Sir Almoth Wright says that women ask for the suffrage because they “have not been taught the defects and limitations of the feminine mind.” This is not because Sir A. W. and men of his stripe haven’t wasted a good deal of more or less valuable time pointing them out; but in another chapter he says, “Failure to recognize that man is the master lies at the root of the suffrage movement,” and to this the women plead guilty when they can stop laughing.
The French courts have decided that a married woman may spend as much on clothes as the rent of her home. If she lived in New York she could dress like the Queen of Sheba.
The big council of the Chippewas in Wisconsin recently declared for woman suffrage. The Indians know what it is to be without a vote; they are not like the chesty white men, who never did a thing to earn one and therefore don’t want to share it.
A New York paper said, after the recent primary elections, that “the people seemed inflexibly determined not to rule.” Before this statement is accepted give that half of the people a chance who have been trying to get it since 1848.
Miss Ida Tarbell says, “I don’t take much interest in magazines for women only, as I am incapable of differentiating women from the human race.” It is only when it comes to having the right of individual representation that Miss Tarbell would differentiate women from the rest of the human race.
At the anti-suffrage headquarters opened in Washington at the time of the parade they announced that during the first four days two thousand persons registered. Some of the suffrage mathematicians figured out that this would mean a registration of more than one person every minute for eight hours of every day—a manifest absurdity. It seems sometimes as if the sole object of the suffragists was to be disagreeable.
The Sir Almoth Wright who has recently written a book on woman suffrage which can’t be mentioned in good society is the same individual who last year put forth a treatise against taking a bath; but really he should have allowed an exception after reading his book.
The “antis” say that when legislators favor woman suffrage because they think the women will vote for them, they forget the women who don’t want it and will vote against them to get even. True, and they don’t take into account what a tremendous power these women are already with their “indirect influence.”
The egg crop is said to be worth as much to the country financially as the cotton crop and far more than the wheat crop, and women to be responsible for nine-tenths of the poultry crop. It might also be said that the hens are responsible for all of it but they don’t belong to the sex that does the crowing.
What are the women coming to? A man jumps up in the midst of an eloquent speech by the president of the National Suffrage Association and asks her to marry him, and she answers that she would rather have a vote than a husband! The time was when a woman would rather have a husband; but then she never had had a chance to know the value of a vote.
According to the society notes our women will now have to wear gowns made by American dressmakers: All right; it doesn’t matter who makes a woman’s dress if only they will make enough of it.
Sensible women are terribly mortified sometimes as they look at the fashion illustrations in the Sunday papers, but when they turn to the next page and see the baseball pictures they feel that in the ridiculous women have been outclassed.
Mrs. Havelock Ellis, an English woman lecturing in this country, advises all women to refuse to kiss their husbands until they get the suffrage. This would be somewhat risky, as getting the suffrage is a slow process and meanwhile the husbands might go elsewhere for their kisses.
“Let us, oh, let us hold fast to monogamy!” wail the “antis.” “Scientists believe it is the normal and natural relationship of humans.” Then don’t be alarmed, for even woman suffrage cannot entirely destroy what is natural and normal. One husband, one wife. All right. Now let every “anti” catch a husband—if she can.
The leader of the suffrage forces in Chicago says that “to appeal to American men’s sense of justice is all women have to do in order to obtain fair dealing,” and the Indianapolis News comments: “That’s the way to get results—flatter the brutes!” Yes, the Michigan women recently tried it and they got results all right.
No, the public has been too thoroughly hardened by the present styles in women’s dress to be frightened at anything that may happen if hoop skirts come in again.
Boston’s new mayor has dismissed all the women employes from the office, on the ground that “it is not a fit place for women.” Probably he knows what kind of a place it is going to be from now on.
In a temperance play running in New York the husband asks, “Where is my wandering wife tonight?” The answer of course should be, “At a suffrage meeting,” for women never neglect their homes for any other purpose.
A good many people always seem to be in doubt, along at inauguration time, as to how the great Jefferson got up to the Capitol. It is to be hoped the gentleman himself knew whether he was afoot or on horseback on that auspicious occasion.
The anti-suffragists have issued a ton or so of literature to show that the constitution of women can never endure the nervous strain of voting. Now the presidents of the State medical associations in all the States where women have been voting from two to forty-five years have signed a statement that if anything has happened to their constitutions their family physicians haven’t discovered it. The “antis” are playing in hard luck—every time they start out a nice little theory it runs up against a fact and is smashed to splinters.
Some time ago the women of Larned, Kan., met and resolved to use horsewhips on the professional gamblers if they did not leave the town. Now they have not exactly turned their spears into pruning hooks, but they have exchanged their horsewhips for ballots, and when they tell the gamblers to leave town they will gather up their outfit and go.
Some men are making an effort nowadays to scare women out of their independence by letting them stand in the street cars; but the women answer that they are better able to stand than many of the men they see sitting down, and that, according to statistics, a woman has a good many more years to ride on street cars than men have.
“We stand for an economic system which will enable every man to support a family so that women need not go outside the home to work,” say the Socialists. A good idea; but suppose some men wouldn’t use their earnings that way, and some women would rather work outside and support themselves than to do the same amount of work inside and have to be supported?
“The action of the Federation of Clubs at their biennial, indorsing woman suffrage,” says Mrs. Dodge, national president of the “antis,” “was a clear case of gag rule in a packed convention.” Well, if the suffragists could “pack” a convention to the extent of ninety-eight per cent. and “gag” two thousand delegates they are certainly almost clever enough to vote.
The woman who recently climbed to the top of Harvard Glacier in Alaska is a strong suffragist. Seems as if it would have to be a cold day when she was not able to go to the polls.
New York’s Alderman Quinn objects to woman suffrage because it would make monkeys of the men. Don’t worry—a lot of them haven’t waited for woman suffrage.
A young “efficiency expert” in Chicago tells his audiences that because a woman’s heart is in matrimony she is and always will be a failure in business. Give her a chance, son! Business is a matter of the head.
