Anti-Suffrage Essays Part 5

There is a lamentable as well as ridiculous aspect of the suffragists'

activity in connection with the peace movement. Their intrusion into the pacificist camp has brought discredit not only upon themselves, but upon every pacificist. If the word "pacificist" today suggests to most men an ecstatic, irresponsible dreamer, it is they who are to blame. The sane pacificist, whose patient labors are directed toward unsensational and unspectacular, slow but sure, organization of friendly relations to be gradually made closer and closer, realizes that his task is a complicated one, not to be solved by emotionalism, but by calm reasoning and patient adjustment. He realizes that many different functions must be brought into co-operation before the likelihood of war can be reduced. His n.o.ble work is in danger of being thought ridiculous because of the meddling of suffrage fanatics.

The present war, instead of justifying the suffragist theory, has refuted it. It has vindicated the position of the anti-suffragists.

What is the chief lesson of the great war? It has shown that international law and treaties are so weak as to be useless, unless there is physical force to ensure their not being violated. What anti-suffragists have always maintained in national government has proved true in international relations. Any law that is made by those unable to support it through force of arms will sooner or later become a "sc.r.a.p of paper." Consequently the most sanely progressive step in the peace movement is the formation by men like Mr. Taft, and Mr. A.

Lawrence Lowell, (both anti-suffragists, by the way) of a league to enforce peace, which aims to give international law the sanction not only of world-wide opinion, but of the irresistible power of the united armed forces of the great nations. That is the work of men toward world peace.

What is the work of women? In this field as in all others, it is not to try to compel, but to educate and civilize, to create in the children committed to her care an intelligent love for fair play, justice, and self-control. The suffragist is an enemy to the diffusion of the peace spirit, because she would force women into political warfare, where contention is bred. She closes her eyes to woman's greatest opportunity for diminishing the spirit of belligerency--that of keeping one of the s.e.xes out of the bitter strife of partisan politics. The anti-suffragist, asking that the mothers of men may be left free to develop the milder attributes of character, has the true vision of the road that leads to lasting peace.

VIII

WOMAN SUFFRAGE VS. WOMANLINESS

MRS. THOMAS ALLEN

_Alice Ranney Allen, wife of Thomas Allen; member of the Woman's Munic.i.p.al League, in which she was the organizer of the Department of Streets and Alleys; member of the Woman's Education a.s.sociation; reader of the Committee on Selection of Fiction for Libraries; Chairman of Boston Committee on the work of District Nursing in the mountains of North Carolina; a well-known speaker against woman suffrage._ _J. A. H._

To me the chief reason why political duties should not be imposed on women is the effect that this preliminary dip into politics, this struggle for votes-for-women, is having on the women themselves. It is surely not making them any more lovely, or pleasant in their lives. They grow bitter, aggressive, and antagonistic, liking the excitement of campaigning and finding their natural, proper duties "flat, stale, and unprofitable."

Speaking from platforms and being constantly in the public eye, does not improve women. We anti-suffragists have taken part in a political campaign to keep ourselves out of politics for the rest of our lives, and to keep our daughters out of politics, but we know that in a proper division of duty we have better work to do along civic, sanitary, and philanthropic lines, and in our homes, than to be, as our Western sisters are, out campaigning for candidates, and engaged in struggles for political supremacy.

Anyone may gauge the bitterness of the recent campaign if he remembers the abuse heaped on the anti-suffragists by the President of the National Suffrage a.s.sociation; and we must judge every movement by its leaders. Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, at a hearing before the Senate Committee at Washington, said:

"We are not afraid of the body of women who are going up and down the land opposing suffrage. They are just enough in number so that by holding out their skirts they can make a screen for the men operating dens of vice and iniquity and prost.i.tution to hide behind."

In an interview printed in the New York Sun, Dr. Shaw referred to the anti-suffrage leaders as "vultures looking for carrion."

As important a person as Dean Thomas, of Bryn Mawr College, in an appeal for funds for the National American Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation in February, 1913, said:

"The ballot for women is the greatest of all the modern reforms. We urge those who are today contributing to other causes to _withdraw_ or _curtail_ their contributions until the ballot for woman is secured."

This seems to us anti-suffragists extremely narrow, as we know that woman suffrage is not a reform, but an experiment in legislation only.

In a public resolution pa.s.sed by the New England Women's Suffrage a.s.sociation at its forty-seventh annual meeting, the anti-suffragists were referred to as using "pole-cat" tactics--why, we do not know. These are only a few of the many evidences of the bitterness of feeling in this political campaign.

The whole ideal of womanhood seems to be changing. The wife of an editor of our most important New England magazine said to me:

"What use is it for you to oppose the suffrage movement, when it is only the first step in this larger movement for the emanc.i.p.ation of women that is sweeping over the world?" And I said: "Then we will do our best to stop the first step," for I remembered the doctrines of the suffrage leaders preached from their platforms. Mrs. Ida Husted Harper has said: "There is not a single forward step of woman that has not been blocked by the words 'wifehood' and 'motherhood'."

Dean Thomas, in an address to women at Mount Holyoke College, is quoted in Mr. Martin's book, _The Unrest of Women_, as saying: "Women may have spent half a lifetime in fitting themselves for a scholar's work, and then may be asked to choose between it and marriage. No one can estimate the number of women who remain unmarried in revolt before such a horrible alternative."

Dr. Stanton Coit is reported as saying from a suffrage platform: "Wifehood has all the characteristics of slavery--work without wage; no specified hours; no right to change employers."

We find constantly the evil influence that this first step of suffrage is having on the young women of our day; and, to me, the gist of the whole matter seems summed up in a paragraph from a pamphlet written by Mr. Joseph Pyle:

"With Christianity there came into the world a new example and a new thought. To woman's whole nature appealed that life of self-sacrifice, of love, and of willing service that has created a new Heaven and a new earth. From the foot of the Cross there arose and went out into the world a womanhood that did not demand, or claim, or threaten, or arrogate; a womanhood renouncing, yielding, loving, and, therefore, conquering. For twenty centuries that has been the law of woman's life.

It is sneered at and rejected today by the clamorous, but it has made of woman what we now find her. You see it in your mothers, your daughters, your wives. Do you wish to have that ideal changed? Woman has become to man not only a companion, but an inspiration. Out of the crucible of the centuries has come what we not only love but adore; before which, in certain hours, we bow with a reverence that links us unconsciously with the Divine. It is Christian civilization that is in the balance."

IX

ARE SUFFRAGISTS SINCERE REFORMERS?

MRS. AUGUSTINE H. PARKER

_Caroline M. Parker, wife of Augustin H. Parker; was educated in the Boston schools; is a member of the Dover Grange; Vice-President of the Unitarian Alliance of Dover; for five years President of the Vincent Club._ _J. A. H._

If the energy and vast sums of money squandered to promote suffrage in this country had been expended to bring about the reforms which the suffragists claim will be at once brought about by their votes, the reforms would all have been accomplished long ago. But do the suffragist leaders care a jot about the reforms? We hear of a Seattle woman who, now that she can vote in her own city, leaves home and husband to come East and agitate for suffrage. Little does she care that her husband sues for divorce on the ground of desertion. It is the excitement of agitation that she craves--the duties and responsibilities of the ballot are of no interest whatsoever to her.

A mayor in a city near Boston appointed a suffragist on the city planning board. Did she eagerly grasp the chance to plan the city so that it should be a joy and a blessing to its inhabitants for all time?

Not at all. She said that the mayor did not consult her, that she had not even known there was a city planning board, and that she would not think of serving on it in any case.

Through the Civic Federation, the Munic.i.p.al Leagues, and the Women's Clubs, an enormous amount of work for the good of all has been undertaken; but the suffrage members of these a.s.sociations far from welcoming all public spirited workers, attempt to make the belief in woman suffrage the test of a worker's value, and introduce party politics and petty strife into these great, non-partisan bodies of women, thereby impairing their services to the Commonwealth to such an extent that the eyes of many women have been opened to what the state of affairs would be if all women were in politics. It is not too much to say that many women, hitherto indifferent on the suffrage question, have been aroused by such interested and partisan methods into joining the anti-suffrage cause.

There is more work waiting to be done than there are workers to do it.

Ministers are constantly asking from the pulpit for workers. There are more offices open to women now than there are women to fill them, but they are the offices that mean hard work and no notoriety, and these are not what most of the feminist-suffrage leaders are looking for. These feminists tell you constantly how badly the men manage the country; the idea being how much better the women would govern it. But would they?

The anti-suffragists think that, on the whole, the men are doing well, and that a government ought to be in the hands of those who have the power to enforce the laws they make. To have responsibility without power is to be in a very uncomfortable and ignominious position. To the observer it seems that the professional suffrage agitator is _not_ out for service or the good of her town, state, and country, but for her own good. This is so obvious that her self-a.s.sertion is not convincing. It is through service and not by self-a.s.sertion that true women contribute their best work to their country.

Because they are unconvinced by the feminist's protestations, few women care to be represented by other women. Approximately half the stock of the Pennsylvania Railroad is owned by women. They could elect several women directors if they wished to do so, but the board is composed entirely of men. Women do not as a rule, employ other women to take care of their business affairs.

We anti-suffragists ask to be left free from the useless turmoil of partisan politics so that we may employ what time and strength we have in the service of those who need them most. We do not care to waste them in the petty personal struggles of the political arena--we can well afford to let the men fight the battles and crowd the polling booths because we in our own places and to the full extent of our power, have an equally valuable contribution to make to the welfare of the nation.

The help of all good women is now at the service of the men who have the nations' welfare at heart, nor are they hampered by the interference of the less good as they must be when the vote of the best might be nullified by the vote of the worst.

We beg the men not to be deceived by the noise and clatter of a few paid professional agitators, supported by misguided enthusiasts whose hearts are larger than their heads; and we ask the men to help us to uphold the womanhood of woman with all its responsibilities, its ideals, and its spiritual endowment.

X

SUFFRAGE AND THE SCHOOL TEACHER

ELIZABETH JACKSON

_Elizabeth Jackson graduated from the Bridgewater High School in 1908, from the Bridgewater State Normal School in 1910, from Radcliffe College A. B. (Summa c.u.m laude) 1913, A. M. 1914; is a candidate for the degree of Ph. D.; treasurer of Radcliffe Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa 1914-16; President of the Radcliffe Graduates'

Club, 1915-16._ _J. A. H._

An essential weakness in the suffrage argument is the failure to distinguish between government and culture, the functions and the instruments of each. Government is an organization for compelling one portion of the community to do the will of another portion. In a democracy, the minority is forced to obey the majority. The fundamental idea is compulsion, a thing not lovely in theory and frequently unlovely in practice. The golden haze that surrounds the dream of ideal democracy is dissipated by contact with any given city ward. The machinery of government is a matter of stress and strain; of selfishness, cruelty, and hate, at the worst; at best, of conflicting interest, mutual incomprehension, and maddening friction. When we refer to good government, we may mean either of two things. We may perhaps describe a community where the majority is notably successful in imposing its will on the minority so that laws are strictly enforced and scrupulously obeyed. In my experience, this is not the sense in which the suffragist uses the phrase. Woman suffrage is not advertised as a means of producing a more tractable minority. On the contrary, as Mr. Taft has pointed out, the suffrage movement is a conspicuous instance of one great menace of the age, the unwillingness of minorities to abide by the best judgment of the state as a whole. Again, the campaign orator does not a.s.sure the Maine audience that under equal suffrage statewide prohibition, inst.i.tuted by male voters, will become a fact instead of a joke; no speaker in our home town has informed us that woman's vote will wipe out the saloons that defy the "no" of the March meeting. Rather, as I understand it, the "good government" which the suffragist promises to inaugurate consists of improved legislation along certain specific lines. That is to say, she promises not that the laws will be better enforced, but that they will be different. A community's predilection for good laws or bad, however, depends not on government but on civilization. Public opinion is moulded by innumerable forces, of which the home, the church, the newspaper, and the public school are merely ill.u.s.trations. In most if not all of these, women already play a conspicuous part; through them they wield an incalculable power. The confusion, unconscious or otherwise, of these forces of culture and the forces of government, is one of the prime fallacies of the suffrage position.

To make the true state of the case more clear, take a single inst.i.tution, the public school, with its various bearings on the question of woman suffrage. Pa.s.s over the school committee vote which only about two per cent of Ma.s.sachusetts women regularly use, and consider merely the power which the very nature of our school system puts in women's hands. All the children in our primary grades, and all but an infinitesimal fraction of those in the grammar grades, are taught by women. The preponderance of woman teachers is nearly as great in the high schools where, except in a few cities, men are employed for administration and discipline and only secondarily for instruction. That is to say, women and not men are shaping the minds of future voters during the formative and decisive years. From women rather than men, our children learn the elements of good citizenship,--respect for public property, obedience to law, and the power of independent thought.