Anti-Suffrage Essays Part 3

The work is now divided among different departments.

The State Board of Education had 1 woman member as far back as 1880; it now has 2.

The State Board of Charity has 2.

The Free Public Library Commission has 2.

The Commission for the Blind has 2.

The Homestead Commission has 1.

The Minimum Wage Commission has 1.

The Board of Registration of Nurses has 3.

The Prison Commission has 2, who also serve on the Board of Parole for the Reformatory for Women.

The Board of Trustees of the State Infirmary and State Farm has 2.

The Board of Trustees of the Hospitals for Consumptives has 1.

The State Hospitals at Worcester, Taunton, Northampton, Danvers, Westboro, Medfield, Monson, Boston, Foxboro, have 2 each.

The Gardner State Colony has 2.

The Wrentham State School has 2.

The Ma.s.sachusetts Training School Trustees has 2.

The Ma.s.sachusetts General Hospital has 1.

The Perkins Inst.i.tution for the Blind has 1.

The Hospital Cottages for Children has 1.

Here are forty-five women doing voluntary work on these Boards, all appointed by the Governor and working under laws pa.s.sed by the _men_ in the Legislature.

Take another line. The manual of the labor laws enforced by the State Board of Labor and Industries, covers the enforcement of the laws relative to the education of minors, employment of minors, hours of labor, apprenticeship, hours of labor for women, health inspection, lighting, ventilation, cleanliness, guarding against dangerous machinery, work in tenement houses, etc.

The little book ent.i.tled "Woman Suffrage, History, Arguments, Results,"

tells all about the suffrage states and gives the good laws that have been enacted since women voted. It gives the impression that none such are pa.s.sed in male suffrage States. It has just two words about Ma.s.sachusetts; under the heading of "School Suffrage," it says, "Ma.s.sachusetts--1879." Under California, however, it gives a list of the following laws and inst.i.tutions:

Mothers' Pensions.

Minimum Wage.

Juvenile Court.

State Training School for Girls.

Teachers' Pension.

Weights and Measures.

Civil Service.

State Housing Commission.

Milk Inspection.

Tuberculosis.

Workingmen's Compensation Psychopathic Parole.

But it carefully omits to mention that Ma.s.sachusetts has all of these, that some of them are much broader in scope, and that many are of longer years standing.

You go into the Western States, and you find that legislation is conducted on a different basis from what it is in Ma.s.sachusetts.

Altogether too frequently, bills are pigeon-holed; the bills can't be reported out of committee unless the chairman consents; and the result is that many bills never see the light. Here in Ma.s.sachusetts law-making is better managed. The number of bills presented is large; 3,459 were printed during the session of 1914, and 2,802 were printed during the last session. Some of these were offered by women. A woman, as well as a man, can pet.i.tion the Legislature. Every bill is referred to a committee; it is given a public hearing, is reported upon and action taken, one way or another; not one bill is pigeon-holed. The Ma.s.sachusetts system of legislative procedure is not surpa.s.sed anywhere in the United States, and there are competent boards and officers who carry out the various laws. Many of the things the suffragists agitate about and think they need the franchise to bring to pa.s.s, they would find are already being administered at the present time if they would only look into the facts.

V

HOW Ma.s.sACHUSETTS FOSTERS PUBLIC WELFARE

MONICA FOLEY

_Miss Monica Foley, was educated in the Boston schools, graduating from the Boston Academy of Notre Dame; is a member of the Ma.s.sachusetts Bar and Secretary of the Ma.s.sachusetts a.s.sociation of Women Lawyers. She is a director of the Notre Dame Alumni a.s.sociation of Boston, and is connected with the State Commission on Economy and Efficiency._ _J. A. H._

In the suffrage campaign just closed so much was heard of the greatness of some of our states, including Utah and Nevada, Colorado and Wyoming, that one was tempted to inquire, "Is there no good now in Ma.s.sachusetts?" It seemed pa.s.sing strange that our Commonwealth, which had always been the leader in every great turning point of the policy of the nation, should have so signally failed that it ceased to exist as a model to be extolled; it was stranger still that her worthy record was ignored by her own sons and daughters. And yet the facts are that while we may hold high in memory the examples of those who have gone before us, we may also rejoice that the men of our own time not only uphold the best ideals and lofty purposes of our State, but are day by day working out her problems in such a way that her position is still secure as a pioneer in sane legislation, her laws are still models for all states (particularly woman suffrage states) her name is still cherished in the wildernesses where her sons are pioneers, still venerated on her own soil where her people stand at the gateways and welcome the oppressed.

Proud as we are of her traditions, glorying as we do in her present achievements, we are unafraid that the future will see her fall from her eminence, from the dignity which has always characterized her statehood and made her name a synonym for the best in government in the nation, our Commonwealth of Ma.s.sachusetts.

While this paper deals almost wholly with the executive functions of the state, to make no mention of our judiciary would be to omit reference to one of the brightest pages of our history. Ma.s.sachusetts law and Ma.s.sachusetts judiciary decisions have always been and are now quoted and respected in the greatest courts of the country. This splendid system is being maintained at an annual cost exceeding $600,000.

Hand in hand with the establishment of a great judiciary system, Ma.s.sachusetts has devoted herself to the highest ideals of human charity, and her enormous expenditures show that selfish materialism plays no part in her legislation. Year by year the calls for charity are more insistent, and year by year the State responds more generously.

The State Board of Charity was first organized in 1863, and at the present time is an unpaid board of nine members, two of whom are women.

The inst.i.tutions under their supervision are governed by unpaid boards of seven members, two of whom are women, this latter being provided by law, except in the instance noted below. The inst.i.tutions under the supervision of the board are the State Infirmary for the sick poor at Tewksbury, and the State Farm at Bridgewater for misdemeanants and insane criminals, both opened in 1854 and costing the state nearly $1,000,000 annually. The training schools for delinquent children are the Lyman School for Boys at Westborough (1848) and the Industrial School for Boys at Shirley (1909) and for Girls at Lancaster (1856) costing over $300,000 annually. The hospitals for consumptives are located at Rutland (1898), North Reading (1909), Lakeville and Westfield, both the latter being opened in 1910. Upon these suffering poor the State spends over a half million dollars each year. The Norfolk State Hospital at Walpole was opened in 1911 for inebriates and drug habitues. There are no women on this board of trustees, there being no women inmates of the hospital. There has also been located at Canton since 1907 a Hospital School for crippled children. A hospital for lepers has been maintained at Penikese Island since 1905.

Under the direction of the Board of Charity, aid is given mothers with dependent children, the support of poor babies is undertaken, and the tuition of poor children is paid. The board places the children in homes wherever possible--inst.i.tutional life being approved only when necessary. Certain suffragists (of the Socialist persuasion) would give the children to the State under the new order. In 1914 the Board together with the inst.i.tutions under their direction expended over three million dollars and cared for more than 7000 persons in the inst.i.tutions alone. Is there anything here in the State's charity work which would make any woman other than proud of its record?

The State's care of her insane is under the direction of a paid board of three members, each hospital having a board of seven unpaid trustees, including two women. The hospitals for the insane are at Worcester (1833), Boston (Dorchester, 1839), Taunton (1854), Northampton (1858), Danvers (1878), Westborough (1886), Foxboro (1893) and Medford (1896), Gardner (1902.) There is a hospital for epileptics at Monson with schools for the feeble-minded at Waltham (1848), with a colony at Templeton since 1900 and a school at Wrentham (1907). In 1914 the State cared for over 14,000 of these unfortunates and expended over three and one-quarter millions of dollars for their maintenance.

The reformatory and correctional work of the Commonwealth (other than exercised over the training schools) is under the direction of a board of five prison commissioners (two women), only the chairman being paid.

Four inst.i.tutions comprise this group; the State Prison at Charlestown since 1805, but first established in 1785; the Reformatory at Concord (1884); the Women's Reformatory at Sherborn (1877); and the Prison Camp and Hospital at West Rutland, the camp being opened in 1904, the hospital in 1907. Ma.s.sachusetts has the distinction of being the first state in the union to separate its women offenders from the men, by establishing the Sherborn Reformatory. No child is born at this inst.i.tution. A mere man a few years ago, realizing the needless handicap an innocent child would suffer through life if born in a prison, pet.i.tioned the legislature to prevent the possibility. A law accordingly was pa.s.sed, and these unfortunate women are placed in a state hospital until after their children are born. In 1914 over 1500 persons were cared for in our prisons at a cost of more than a half million dollars.

Two boards of parole now study the histories of prisoners and recommend certain persons for parole, the men's board in addition recommends persons to be pardoned to the governor and council.

In no other sphere of the State's activities is the great throbbing heart of the Commonwealth shown with such poignant fervor as in the case of her unfortunates, and this phase of her work alone would ent.i.tle her to the homage of all our people--but she does not stop here. She dominates the educational field, and stands preeminent before the nation and the world for the superiority of her educational inst.i.tutions.

Ma.s.sachusetts has given abundantly to the great university at Cambridge, still endows freely the Ma.s.sachusetts Inst.i.tute of Technology, and gives annually of her funds to the Worcester Polytechnic Inst.i.tute, the Textile Schools at New Bedford, Lowell, and Fall River, and other independent industrial schools. She practically maintains the Agricultural College at Amherst, and gives to other agricultural schools, and also aids certain cities and small towns.

In aiding the deaf, dumb, and blind in 1914, Ma.s.sachusetts spent over $200,000. In 1891 she opened a nautical school to train her young men in seamanship, navigation, and marine engineering. In 1839 Ma.s.sachusetts founded the first Normal school in this country, and today ten of these schools are open throughout the State. In this line of endeavor in 1914 the State expended over one and one-half millions of dollars.

The Commonwealth maintains a Department of Health, established in 1869, expending in 1914 over $350,000. In Ma.s.sachusetts also was pa.s.sed the first pure food law in the country.

The Metropolitan Water Works have cost the State since 1901 over $50,000,000. Our park system is one of the finest in the world, and is maintained at an annual cost of over half a million dollars. In addition to the parks in the Metropolitan District, there are six other reservations throughout the State. These parks represent an outlay of over $20,000,000.