The History of Woman Suffrage Volume III Part 29

Mr. VEST: No, sir.

The PRESIDENT _pro tempore_: The resolution is before the Senate and open to debate.

Mr. VEST: I have had the honor for a few years to be a member of the Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds, and my colleagues on that committee will bear witness with me to the trouble and annoyance which at every session have arisen in regard to giving accommodations to the special committees. Two sessions ago there was a conflict between the Senate and House in regard to furnishing committee-rooms for three special committees, and it is only upon the doctrine of _pedis possessio_ that the Senate to-day holds three committee-rooms in the capitol, the House still laying claim as a matter of law, through their Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds, for the possession of these rooms.

At the special session, on account of the exigencies in regard to rooms, we were compelled to take the retiring-room a.s.signed near the gallery to the ladies, and cut it into two rooms, to accommodate select committees.

At this session we have created two special committees more, and I should like to make the inquiry when and where this manufacture of special committees is to cease? As soon as any subject becomes one of comment in the newspapers, or, respectfully I say it, a hobby with certain zealous partisans throughout the country, application is made to the Senate of the United States and a special committee is to be appointed. For this reason, and for the simple reason that a stop must be had somewhere to the raising of special committees, I oppose the proposition now before the Senate.

But, Mr. President, I will be entirely ingenuous and give another reason. This is simply a step toward the recognition of woman suffrage, and I am opposed to it upon principle in its inception.

In my judgment it has nothing but mischief in it to the inst.i.tutions and to the society of this whole country. I do not propose to enter into a discussion of that subject to-day, but it will be proper for me to make this statement, and I make it intending no reflection upon the zealous ladies who have engaged for the past ten years in manufacturing a public sentiment upon this question. I received to-day a letter from a distinguished lady in my own State, for whom I have personally the greatest admiration and respect, calling my attention to the fact that I propose to deny justice to the women of the country. Mr.

President, I deny it. It is because I believe that the conservative influence of society in the United States rests with the women of the country that I propose not to degrade the wife and mother to the ward politician, the justice of the peace, or the notary public. It is because I believe honestly that all the best influences for the conservation of society rest upon the women of the country in their proper sphere that I shall oppose this and every other step now and henceforth as violating, as I believe, one of the great essential fundamental laws of nature and of society.

Mr. President, the revenges of nature are sure and unerring, and these revenges are just as certain in political matters and in social matters as in the physical world. Now and here I desire to record once for all my conviction that in this movement to take the women of the country out of their proper sphere of social influence, that great and glorious sphere in which nature and nature's G.o.d have placed them, and rush them into the political arena, the attempt is made to put them where they were never intended to be; and I now and here record my opposition to it.

This may seem to be but a small matter, but as this letter shows, and I reveal no private confidence, it recognizes the first great step in this reform, as its advocates are pleased to term it. My practice and conviction as a public man is to fight every wrong wherever I believe it to exist. I am opposed to this movement. I am opposed to it upon principle, upon conviction, and I shall call for the yeas and nays in order to record my vote against it.

DECEMBER 15.

The Senate resumed the consideration of the resolution reported from the Committee on Rules by Mr. h.o.a.r on the 13th inst.

Mr. VEST: Mr. President, I disclaim any intention again to incite or excite any general discussion in regard to woman suffrage. The senator from Ma.s.sachusetts [Mr. h.o.a.r], for whom I have very great regard, was yesterday pleased to observe that the State governments furnished by the senator from Missouri and other senators in the past had been no argument in favor of manhood suffrage. Mr. President, I have been under the impression that the American people to-day are the best governed, the best clothed, the best fed, the best housed, the happiest people upon the face of the globe, and that, too, notwithstanding the fact that they have been under the domination of the Republican party for twenty long years. I have also been under the impression that the inst.i.tutions of the States and of the United States are an improvement upon all governmental theories and schemes. .h.i.therto known to mortal man; but we are to learn to-day from the senator from Ma.s.sachusetts that this government and the State governments have been failures, and that woman suffrage must be introduced in order to purify the political atmosphere and elevate the suffrage.

Mr. h.o.a.r: Will the senator allow me to interrupt him for a moment?

Mr. VEST: Of course.

Mr. h.o.a.r: I desire to disclaim the meaning which the honorable senator seems to have put upon my words. I agree with him that the American governments have been the best on the face of the earth, but it is because of their adoption of that principle of equality more than any other government, the logical effect of which will compel them to yield the right prayed for to women, that they are the best. But still best as they are, I said, and mean to say, that the business of governing mankind has been the one business on the face of the earth which has been done most clumsily, which has been, even where most excellent, full of mistakes, expense, injustice, and wrong-doing. What I said was that I did not think the persons to whom that privileged function had been committed so far were ent.i.tled to claim any special superiority for the masculine intellect in the results which it had achieved.

Mr. VEST: To say that the governments, State and national, now in existence upon this continent are imperfect is but to announce the truism that everything made by man is necessarily imperfect.

But I stand here to declare to-day that the governments of the States, and the national government, in theory, although failing sometimes in practice, are a standing monument to the genius and intellect of the men who created them. But the senator from Ma.s.sachusetts was pleased to say further, that woman suffrage should obtain in this country in the interest of education. I permit not that senator to go further than myself in the line of universal public education. I have declared, over and over again, in every county in my State for the past ten years, that universal education should accompany universal suffrage, that the school-house should crown every mound in prairie and forest, that it was the temple of liberty and the altar of law and order.

I well remember that I was thrilled with the eloquence of the distinguished senator from Ma.s.sachusetts at the last session of the last congress, when, upon a bill to provide for general education by a donation of the public lands, he so pathetically and justly described the ma.s.s of dark ignorance and illiteracy projected upon the people of the South under the policy of the Republican party, and the senator then stood here and said that the people of Ma.s.sachusetts extended the public lands to relieve the people of the South from this monstrous burden. What does the senator propose to do to-day? He proposes with one stroke of the pen to double, and more than double, the illiterate suffrage of the United States. The senator says that one-half the people of the United States are represented in this measure of woman suffrage. I deny it, sir. If the senator means that the women of America, comprising one-half of the population, are interested in this measure, I deny it most emphatically and most peremptorily.

Not one-tenth of them want it. Not one-tenth of the mothers and sisters and Christian women of this land want to be turned into politicians or to meddle in a sphere to which G.o.d and nature have not a.s.signed them.

Sir, there are some ladies--and I do not intend to term them anything but ladies--who are zealously engaged in this cause, and they have flooded this hall with pet.i.tions, and have called their women's rights conventions all over the land. I a.s.sail not their motives, but I deny that they represent the women of the United States. I say that if woman suffrage obtains, the worst cla.s.s of the women of the country will rush to the polls and the best cla.s.s will remain away by a large majority. That is my deliberate judgment and firm conviction. But, Mr. President, a word in regard to the committees. I desire no general discussion upon woman suffrage, and simply alluded in pa.s.sing to what had been said by the senator from Ma.s.sachusetts.

The PRESIDENT _pro tempore_: The hour of one o'clock has arrived, and the morning hour is closed.

DECEMBER 16.

Mr. JONES of Florida: I desire to call up a resolution now lying on the table, which I introduced on the 14th instant, calling for information from the Secretary of War touching a ship-ca.n.a.l across the peninsula of Florida.

Mr. h.o.a.r: Mr. President--

The PRESIDENT _pro tempore_: The senator from Florida asks leave to call up a resolution submitted by him.

Mr. h.o.a.r: My resolution was before the Senate yesterday, and comes up in order. I hope we shall vote on it.

Mr. JONES of Florida: I will only say that my resolution was laid over temporarily on the objection of the senator from Vermont [Mr. Edmunds], which he will not insist upon.

Mr. h.o.a.r: Allow me to call the attention of the Chair to the fact; it is not the question of a resolution which has not been taken up. The resolution reported by me from the Committee on Rules was taken up, and was under discussion when the senator from Missouri [Mr. Vest] was taken from the floor by the expiration of the morning hour, in the midst of his remarks.

Certainly his right to conclude his remarks takes precedence of other business under the usual practice of the Senate.

The PRESIDENT _pro tempore_: The Chair thought the senator from Missouri had ended his remarks, or he would not have interposed when he did.

Mr. h.o.a.r: No, sir.

Mr. JONES of Florida: My resolution involves no debate. It is merely a resolution of inquiry.

Mr. h.o.a.r: The other will be disposed of, I hope, in a few moments.

Mr. JONES of Florida: The resolution to which I refer went over informally on the objection of the senator from Vermont, and I think he has no objection now.

Mr. h.o.a.r: The other will be disposed of in a moment, and I hope we shall vote on it.

The PRESIDENT _pro tempore_: The Chair lays before the Senate the resolution of the senator from Ma.s.sachusetts [Mr. h.o.a.r].

The Senate resumed the consideration of the resolution reported from the Committee on Rules by Mr. h.o.a.r on the 13th instant.

The PRESIDENT _pro tempore_: The Chair would state to the senator from Missouri [Mr. Vest] that the Chair supposed yesterday that he had finished his remarks, or the Chair would not have stopped him at that moment. The question is on agreeing to the resolution, on which the senator from Missouri [Mr. Vest] is ent.i.tled to the floor.

Mr. VEST: Mr. President, I was on the eve of finishing my remarks yesterday when the morning hour expired, and I do not now wish to detain the Senate. I was about to say at that time that the Senate now has forty-one committees, with a small army of messengers and clerks, one-half of whom, without exaggeration, are literally without employment. I shall not pretend to specify the committees of this body which have not one single bill, resolution, or proposition of any sort pending before them, and have not had for months. I am very well aware that if I should name one of them, Liberty would lie bleeding in the streets at once, and that committee would become the most important on the list of committees of the Senate. I shall not venture to do that.

I am informed by the Sergeant-at-arms that if this resolution is adopted he must have six additional messengers to be added to that body of ornamental employes who now stand or sit at the doors of the respective committee-rooms. I have heard that this committee is for the purpose of giving a committee to a senator in this body. I have heard the statement made, but I cannot believe it, and I am very certain that no senator will undertake to champion the resolution upon any such ground.

The senator from Ma.s.sachusetts was pleased to say that the Committee on the Judiciary had so many important questions pending before it, that the subject of woman suffrage should not be added to them. The Committee on Territories is open to any complaint or suggestion by the ladies who advocate woman suffrage, in regard to this subject in the territories; and the Committee on Privileges and Elections to which this subject should go most appropriately, as affecting the suffrage, has not now before it, as I am informed, one single bill, resolution, or proposition of any sort whatever. That committee is also open to inquiry upon this subject.

But, Mr. President, out of all committees without business, and habitually without business, in this body, there is one that beyond any question could take jurisdiction of this matter and do it ample justice. I refer to that most respectable and antique inst.i.tution, the Committee on Revolutionary Claims. For thirty years it has been without business. For thirty long years the placid surface of that parliamentary sea has been without one single ripple. If the senator from Ma.s.sachusetts desires a tribunal for calm judicial equilibrium and examination, a tribunal far from the "madding crowd's ign.o.ble strife," a tribunal eminently respectable, dignified and unique, why not send this question to the Committee on Revolutionary Claims? When I name the _personnel_ of that committee it will be evident that any consideration on any subject touching the female s.e.x would receive not only deliberate but immediate attention, for the second member upon that committee is my distinguished friend from Florida [Mr. Jones], and who can doubt that he would give his undivided attention to the subject? [Laughter.] It is eminently proper that this subject should go to that committee because if there is any revolutionary claim in this country it is that of woman suffrage. [Laughter.] It revolutionizes society; it revolutionizes religion; it revolutionizes the const.i.tution and laws; and it revolutionizes the opinions of those so old-fashioned among us as to believe that the legitimate and proper sphere of woman is the family circle as wife and mother and not as politician and voter--those of us who are proud to believe that--

A woman's n.o.blest station is retreat; Her fairest virtues fly from public sight; Domestic worth--that shuns too strong a light.

Before that Committee on Revolutionary Claims why could not this most revolutionary of all claims receive immediate and ample attention? More than that, as I said before, if there is any tribunal that could give undivided time and dignified attention, is it not this committee? If there is one peaceful haven of rest, never disturbed by any profane bill or resolution of any sort, it is the Committee on Revolutionary Claims. It is, in parliamentary life, described by that ecstatic verse in Watts' hymn:

There shall I bathe my wearied soul In seas of endless rest, And not one wave of trouble roll Across my peaceful breast.

For thirty years there has been no excitement in that committee, and it needs to-day, in Western phrase, some "stirring-up." By all natural laws stagnation breeds disease and death; and what could stir up this most venerable and respectable inst.i.tution more than an application of the strong-minded, with short hair and shorter skirts, invading its dignified realm and elucidating all the excellences of female suffrage? Moreover, if these ladies could ever succeed, in the providence of G.o.d, in obtaining a report from that committee, it would end this question forever; for the public at large and myself included, in view of that miracle of female blandishment and female influence, would surrender at once, and female suffrage would become const.i.tutional and lawful. Sir, I insist upon it that in deference to this committee, in deference to the fact that it needs this sort of regimen and medicine, this whole subject should be so referred. [Laughter.]

Mr. MORRILL: Mr. President, I do not desire to say anything as to the merits of the resolution, but I understand the sole purpose of raising this committee is to have a committee-room. So far as I know, there are some five or six committees now which are dest.i.tute of rooms, and it would be impossible for the Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds to a.s.sign any room to this committee--the object which I understand is at the foundation of the introduction of the proposition; that is to say, to give these ladies an opportunity to be heard in some appropriate committee-room on the questions which they wish to agitate and submit.

Mr. h.o.a.r: They would find room in some other committee-room. They could have the room of the Committee on Privileges and Elections, if there were no other place.

The PRESIDENT _pro tempore_: The question is on the adoption of the resolution reported by the senator from Ma.s.sachusetts.

Mr. HARRIS: Did not the senator from Missouri [Mr. Vest] offer an amendment?

Mr. GARLAND: As I understand, he moved to refer the subject to the Committee on Revolutionary Claims.

The PRESIDENT _pro tempore_: Does the Chair understand that the senator from Missouri has offered an amendment?