Woman and the Republic Part 3

When Col. Higginson can use such logic, it is no wonder that women have repeated the argument. The question was not whether, because certain men who were naturally looked upon by the Government as its defenders, and as such were called upon to fight, proved physically unable, but whether the Government had a right, because of its very existence, to call upon those men, and in case of need, to say to them "Put yourself into physical condition for this service." If it had such a right, by what law under the const.i.tution of the United States could Lucy Stone ask to vote and not expect to have her military fitness inquired into, and be asked to put herself into physical condition for it?

Recalling the action of her grandfather, she, better than some other women, might have realized the necessity of force for government. Her defiant spirit might well have descended from that ancestor who led four hundred men in Shays's Rebellion, when, in the State before whose tribunal she was speaking, he a.s.sisted in preventing court sessions, and swelled the ranks of the rioters who were decrying taxes and calling for fiat money, in a land that was impoverished and was struggling for a sound financial standing after a war that had been waged to guarantee the blessings of freedom to her and to her children.

As a matter of fact, many of those men whom Col. Higginson referred to as deemed unfit, did go into immediate training, and "muscular Christianity"

would now present to the Surgeon-General a different showing. It was one of the surprising things, in a statistical way, to find that city-bred boys stood the marching and exposure of the Civil War campaigns better than their country brothers, and that the yard-stick turned into as effective a sword as the pruning-hook. Garrison, who maintained for so many years that men should not vote because the government was founded on force, had the grace not to speak on this phase of the question, but he said it was cruel that women should be disfranchised and cla.s.sed with paupers, idiots, and criminals. Senator Hayes asked him if there was no "difference between a person who was disfranchised and one who never had been enfranchised?" and added that "he could see no argument for woman suffrage in the proposition that certain cla.s.ses of men were not permitted to vote." Neither can I.

The argument for woman suffrage which bases it upon a fancied grouping of women with the vile and brainless element in the country, appears to me to be at once the weakest and the meanest of all. When the United States Government invited its woman citizens to share in making the Columbian Exposition the most wondrous pageant of any age, they responded from every town and hamlet by sending of their best. But the national Suffrage a.s.sociation, as its official exhibit, gave a picture of the expressive face of Miss Willard surrounded by ideal heads of a pauper, an idiot, and a criminal, with a legend recording their belief that it was with these that American men placed American women. So false a picture must have taught the thoughtful gazers the opposite lesson from the one intended. It could have told them that the United States Government had at least guarded one trust with sacred care. The pauper was excluded from the ballot as not being worthy to share with freemen the honor of its defence.

The unfortunate was excluded by an inscrutable decree of Providence. The criminal was excluded as being dangerous to society. The women were exempt from the ballot because it was for their special safety that a free ballot was to be exercised, from which the pauper and the criminal must be excluded. They were the ones who have given to social life its meaning and its moral, the ones who give to civic life its highest value.

The authors of the "History" so often referred to, in answer to the claim that "government needs force behind it, and those who make the laws must execute them, and a woman could not be a sheriff or policeman," say: "Woman might not fill these offices as men do, but might far more effectively guard the morals of society and the sanitary conditions of our cities." A "moral guard" might be an excellent thing to ward off the ghosts in a country burying-ground, but would hardly prove effective against the riot of a Tammany mob on the night of an exciting election. It is absurd to speak in such fashion of work that is needed every hour. The crust of our civilization is very thin--how thin, the nation learned during the campaign just pa.s.sed. Like a tempest from a clear sky, or one of their own cyclones, burst an influence from a portion of the West and South, that would have overturned the Government. Men struck fanatically and misguidedly at the integrity of the Supreme Court, at the power of the United States to hold jurisdiction over its own public affairs where they conflicted with State right, at the currency that gave the country ability to be honest at home and abroad, at the prosperity and honor of every citizen.

Fifteen years ago Suffrage leaders wrote in view of the wonderful advance of woman: "The broader demand for political rights has not commanded the thought its merits and dignity should have secured." If this was true, it had not been for lack of having the demand pressed home upon Congress and upon every State and Territorial legislature (save in most of the South), in season and out of season, by every device known to politics, as well as by a steady and impetuous flow of literature and pet.i.tions. How have these bodies answered this long appeal? It would take too much time and s.p.a.ce, even were it of value, to follow the course of its ups and downs through all these years, but I mention first the fact that no State in New England has ever granted const.i.tutional, or even munic.i.p.al suffrage, although in some of the old thirteen it could have been done by an act of the legislature, a const.i.tutional amendment not being needed. These are some of the figures for the past few years:

In Vermont, in 1892, the House pa.s.sed a munic.i.p.al suffrage bill--yeas 149, nays 83. In 1894 the House defeated a similar bill by a vote of 108 to 106, and refused reconsideration by a vote of 124 to 96. Thus a favorable majority of 66 in 1892 was changed to an adverse majority of 28 in 1894.

In Ma.s.sachusetts, in 1894, the House pa.s.sed a munic.i.p.al suffrage bill by a vote of 119 to 107. In 1895 it defeated a similar bill, the vote standing, yeas 97, nays 137, on the question of carrying the bill to a third reading. In the same year an act was pa.s.sed permitting all persons qualified to vote for school committee to express their opinion at the state election by voting "Yes" or "No," to the question: "Is it expedient that munic.i.p.al suffrage be granted to women?" Not one woman in four voted in favor of the proposition, although if suffrage has any traditionary power outside of New York State, that power should have been felt in Ma.s.sachusetts.

In Maine, in 1893, the Senate pa.s.sed a munic.i.p.al suffrage bill, which was defeated in the House. In 1895 the House pa.s.sed a munic.i.p.al suffrage bill, which was defeated in the Senate.

In New Hampshire, in 1895, the House refused a third reading to a munic.i.p.al suffrage bill, by a vote of 185 to 108.

In Connecticut, in 1895, the Senate rejected a House munic.i.p.al suffrage bill, while a presidential suffrage bill did not reach a vote. And in Rhode Island a proposition for a suffrage Const.i.tutional amendment was referred to the next legislature.

All these States had granted school suffrage and could grant munic.i.p.al suffrage by act of the legislature. In 1893 munic.i.p.al suffrage bills were defeated in Minnesota, Missouri, North Dakota, and South Dakota. Full suffrage bills were defeated in Arizona and New Mexico. A township suffrage bill was defeated in Illinois, a license suffrage bill in Connecticut, and a village suffrage bill in New York. In that year, also, the Supreme Courts gave decisions adverse to suffrage laws. In 1893 a bill was defeated in the United States Senate which proposed to give women the munic.i.p.al vote in the Cherokee Outlet. The vote stood 40 to 9.

In Washington Territory the Legislature pa.s.sed a law conferring suffrage on woman in 1883; but this was declared invalid by the courts in 1887, because its nature was not sufficiently defined in its t.i.tle. It was re- enacted in 1888, and again declared invalid by the United States Territorial Court, on the ground that the Act of Congress which organized the Territorial legislature did not empower it to extend the suffrage to women. In 1889 the people, in forming their State const.i.tution, decided against suffrage.

In 1894, in the election of November 6, Kansas defeated a const.i.tutional amendment granting full suffrage, by a majority of 34,827.

In Iowa, in the same year, the Senate defeated a proposition to submit a suffrage const.i.tutional amendment to the people. In 1895, bills for full suffrage and for munic.i.p.al suffrage again failed to pa.s.s, and the question was submitted to the people in 1896, and resulted in defeat.

In 1895, also, a township suffrage bill was twice defeated in Illinois.

In Indiana a proposition to strike the word "male" out of the Const.i.tution, was not even reported from the committee to which it was referred.

In the same year, in Kansas, a bill pa.s.sed the Senate which proposed to confer upon nine specified women the full suffrage in response to their pet.i.tion. The Senate also pa.s.sed a bill conferring upon women the vote for presidential electors; but neither ever reached a vote in the House. In Michigan, the same year, a proposition to submit a const.i.tutional amendment was defeated, and a similar resolution in Missouri was also defeated. Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Washington, Wisconsin, and South Carolina also defeated propositions to submit the question to the people in 1895.

Since January, 1897, Nova Scotia, two Territories, and ten States have dealt with the suffrage proposal, and all but one of these have rendered adverse decisions. In Nova Scotia an old bill was reconsidered, and a larger majority was obtained against it. The territories are Arizona and Oklahoma. The states in which it was defeated are Iowa, Nevada, Nebraska, Kansas, Delaware, Maine, Ma.s.sachusetts, and California. The last two had given it heavy defeats but a few months previously. Indiana's Supreme Court handed down an adverse decision. The favorable state was Washington, where the Legislature voted to submit an amendment to the people next year.

Certainly, the question cannot be said not to have received the attention that any vital subject might have claimed, and the answers show that, as comprehension of the meaning of democracy has grown, and as liberty of thought and action for men and women has increased, the proposition to cast an unequal burden, not upon a disfranchised cla.s.s, but upon an unfranchised s.e.x which in every cla.s.s has its own correlative and equal duties, rights, and privileges, is losing ground.

But, it is answered, look at the suffrage triumphs in Utah State and Idaho. Let us look at them more closely. It is my opinion that a few more such triumphs would end in its utter overthrow. Utah introduced suffrage by a simple legislative act. Woman suffrage was abolished in Utah Territory by Federal statute, because it was found to be sustaining the Mormon Church and the inst.i.tution of polygamy. The Suffragists profess to hold in abhorrence churchly and polygamous rule. Here was an opportunity for them to say to the Government: "This is not what we meant by suffrage, nor what we desire suffrage to be used for. We approve this real disfranchis.e.m.e.nt." Did they do anything of the kind? Far from it. In 1876 they pa.s.sed the following: "Resolved, That, the right of suffrage being vested in the women of Utah by their const.i.tutional and lawful enfranchis.e.m.e.nt, and by six years of use, we denounce the proposition about to be again presented to Congress for the disfranchis.e.m.e.nt of the women of that Territory, as an outrage on the freedom of thousands of legal voters and a gross innovation of vested rights; we demand the abolition of the system of numbering the ballots, in order that the women may be thoroughly free to vote as they choose, without supervision or dictation; and that the chair appoint a committee of three persons, with power to add to their number, to memorialize Congress, and otherwise watch over the rights of women of Utah in this regard during the next twelvemonth."

In 1878 the report of Utah's governor contained the following: "All voters must be over twenty-one years of age, and must have resided in the Territory six months, and in the precinct one month. If males, they must be native born or naturalized citizens of the United States, and tax- payers in the Territory. A female voter need not be a tax-payer, and if the wife, widow or daughter of a native or naturalized citizen, need not herself be native or naturalized!" In 1892 the Utah Commission made to the Secretary of the Interior a report which gave it as their opinion that the sanction of the Church had been withdrawn only temporarily in regard to polygamous practices, and would be restored after a political purpose had been served. That same year a party was formed calling itself the "Liberal Party," and it carried Salt Lake City in the first election in which National party lines were drawn. This was one plank of its platform: "Anxious as every Liberal is to see every difference adjusted, as anxious as they are to exercise the utmost privileges accorded to the most favored Americans, they remember what first caused clashing here was the presence and control of an unyielding Theocracy and an _imperium in imperio_, and they cannot fail to note that at the last conference of this theocratic organization the old a.s.sumptions were all renewed." They therefore deprecated immediate Statehood. The bill granting it pa.s.sed Congress in 1894. The Republican, Democratic and Populist parties in Utah all favored Statehood, and at the election following the Const.i.tutional Convention these parties all inserted planks favoring free coinage of silver 16 to 1, demanding the return by government of "real estate belonging to the Mormon Church," and favoring the retention of woman suffrage.

The women of Utah were greatly in evidence during the late presidential election. Several of them were candidates for office; but it is a significant fact that, even in Utah, and even on the Republico-Demo- Populist ticket, the women's vote ran far behind that for the men. "The Salt Lake Herald" for November 13, 1896, records the fact that "Woman suffrage gave Utah to Bryan," and in another place it says: "The women on both tickets polled a small number of votes." Martha Cannon, who was elected State Senator, obtained 8,167 votes. The men on the same ticket, elected to the same office, polled, respectively, 9,875, 9,355, 9,244, 9,036 votes. Mrs. Cannon was on the free silver ticket against her husband, who was nominated for the same office on the Republican ticket.

Of the other candidates for the senatorships on that ticket, four were men and one a woman. The men's vote stood: 6,405, 6,197, 6,129, 5,961. The woman's was 4,692. The only woman put up for State Representative ran 2,000 votes behind her ticket. One man only, "the ex-dog-catcher" of the county, fell below her. The woman's vote was 4,879, the dog-catcher's 4,325.

I copy from the "Salt Lake Herald" a few sentences taken from an interview with Mrs. Cannon, State Senator elect. When asked if she was a strong believer in woman suffrage, she answered: "Of course I am. It will help women, and it will purify politics. Women are better than men. Slaves are always better than their masters." "Do you refer to polygamy?" was asked.

"Indeed I do not," she answered. "I believe in polygamy. My father and mother were Mormons, and I am a Mormon.... A plural wife isn't half as much of a slave as a single wife. If her husband has four wives, she has three weeks of freedom every single month.... Of course it is all at an end now, but I think the women of Utah think, with me, that we were better off in polygamy.... Sixty per cent. of the voters of this State are women.

We control the State.... What am I going to do with my children while I am making the laws for the State? The same thing I have done with them when I have been practicing medicine. They have been left to themselves a good deal.... Some day there will be a law compelling people to have no more than a certain amount of children, and the mothers of the land can live as they ought to live." This is the character and opinion presented by the highest State official that woman suffrage has as yet given to the United States. Comment upon it seems unnecessary, so far as it would be needed to express the disgust of the majority of American women at such sentiments and such a situation. But has any Suffrage speaker or meeting denounced them, or deprecated the result of the election? I have heard of none. The National Suffrage Convention, which was held in Iowa, in January, 1897, had the newly-elected Populist women as guests of honor, and held a jubilation over the two new Suffrage States--Utah and Idaho. Idaho has elected a Populist woman or two. The vote in that State in favor of the gold standard and that against woman suffrage tally within forty-two votes.

The instinctive alliance of the Woman Suffrage movement with the uncertain and dangerous elements in our political life is well exemplified by the campaign in California in connection with the late presidential election.

Mrs. Barclay Hazard, who was almost the sole woman to express publicly the opposition which the majority of women felt, to the Suffrage idea, has given me the following clear account of the conditions and result. She says: "If the advocates of Woman Suffrage give a really frank and truthful answer to the question, 'What caused the defeat of the movement in the late campaign in California?' they must reply, 'Public sentiment was against it.' In all fairness, there is no other reason. Let us consider the conditions under which the campaign was carried on. In the first place, the Suffragists were most fortunate in choosing a time when the whole country, as well as the State of California, was torn by a question of such vital importance to continued life and well-being that all other matters were in danger of going by default.

"Second: They were extremely well organized and had command of a campaign fund of no mean magnitude, which enabled them to keep in the field such able and experienced agitators as Miss Susan B. Anthony and the Rev. Anna Shaw, to say nothing of numerous lesser lights.

"Third: There was absolutely no organized opposition to the movement. The women who disapproved were as a rule entirely unaccustomed to public speaking and were averse to coming forward in any way. They remonstrated in private but would not express their views openly.

"Fourth: Last but by no means least, our Suffrage friends may be said to have had the press of the State with them. The 'Los Angeles Times' (the most influential paper in the southern part of the State) cannot be said to have aided the movement, neither did it actively antagonize it beyond admitting to its columns occasionally letters from the 'Antis.' Yet for this small opposition I heard an ardent advocate propose that the Suffragists should boycott the paper!

"Now, was ever a cause fought for under conditions more conducive to success? 'Every thing,' to use a current slang phrase, 'seemed to be going their way.' They fully expected to win, and those of us most opposed to their ideas in private sadly conceded their probable victory. The result when it came was all the more a surprise and blow to the Suffragists and a welcome rea.s.surance to the friends of stability and conservatism. The figures show us that while the stronghold of Populism, the South, went for the measure, Alameda County turned the scale. One must know California to realize what that means. Alameda County contains the city of Oakland, which is admittedly the most respectable and moral city in California; it also contains the town of Berkeley, which is the home of the University of California with its large faculty of clever men, most of them from the East. Yes, it was here in the stronghold of morals and intellect that the Woman Suffrage movement in California met its fate."

A question constantly and properly asked is: "How does woman suffrage work where it is exercised?" So far as I can obtain information, where it has worked at all, it has been detrimental to women and to the State.

Of Wyoming there is much testimony to the fact that during the Territorial period (1868-'89) women did little voting, and played no appreciable part in political life. Populism and Free Coinage had begun to play a prominent part in the whole section when Wyoming was admitted to Statehood in 1890.

At the election that followed its admission there was a fusion that resulted in the election of a Populist Governor, and such was the riotous state of feeling that the Governor was obliged to enter the State House through a broken window. A year later this same Governor, in his annual message, proclaimed woman suffrage to be a notable success. As a proof, he pointed to the fact that there were no criminals in the State, and that the jails were empty. A little research into official doc.u.ments showed that there might be other reasons, because the criminals and those guilty of small offences were at that time lodged in other States, and a year later, when the authorities took possession of Laramie Prison, given by the Government, and brought home their evil-doers, they outnumbered, in proportion to population, those of New Mexico, which certainly should be a fair place for comparison.

For a time, women served on juries, and there is testimony to the fact that in many respects they served well. But the practice of calling them was soon suspended, and never has been renewed. The only public office of consequence held by them was bestowed by the Republicans but a year or two ago, when Miss Reel was made State Superintendent of Schools. In our late crucial election, Wyoming and its woman suffrage gave their voices for Populism and Free Coinage. The scale hung in the balance. Why, if woman is a greater political power for good than man, did she not turn it for the principles which the State had held were best? The true test of the working of woman suffrage lies in a study of the legislation connected with it, and this will be presented under its appropriate heading.

The scenes of shameful defiance of law and order in the midst of which Colorado admitted woman to the ballot are of more recent occurrence and are fresh in memory. Populism never has played in Colorado the part that it has in Kansas, but "anything for free coinage" has been the motto, and in abiding by it the State brought in, and afterward turned out, Gov.

Waite, of disgraceful memory. Again, last year, there was Republican- Democratic-Populist fusion to beat the gold standard, and much Populist rule was again the result. One good authority writes me that women "have introduced an element of order and respectability upon election day that was never observed before." He says he thinks that, "as a whole, the people are very much satisfied with woman suffrage and believe that it has resulted beneficially in so far as it has made politics a little better than they were." Another says that "the influence of woman in politics did not prevent the last Republican caucus of Arapahoe Co. from being the most disgraceful in the history of the State. The Convention, though presided over by a woman, was completely in the power of the 'gang,' and sent to Pueblo the most unworthy delegate ever sent." This gentleman also says he has "heard numbers of intelligent women state that they were sorry the ballot had ever been given to them." Orderliness at the ordinary elections is expected here, without calling upon women to act as "moral police" at the polls. So quiet are they that it has been found practicable to place coffee-stands in charge of women near some of the booths, when women have requested it in the hope of preventing drunkenness. A friend said to me some time ago: "You know that I have been a Suffragist. I am most thoroughly converted. I have been three months in Colorado. It is enough to cure any one."

A Denver correspondent of the "Chicago Record," says: "The women of Colorado took no active part in the recent campaign, but they did not forget to vote.... The experiment of having women in the State a.s.sembly did not prove satisfactory, at the last session, and it was quite generally conceded that there would be no more women sent to that body; but the Populists won in this county, and on their ticket were three woman candidates, so the coming session will again have three women as members."

Of course the effect of suffrage in new States is not a criterion of its effect elsewhere. And whether the effect could be shown to be good or bad, the main argument would not be touched. The interesting thing to trace is the affiliations of the movement.

In addition to those that have been mentioned we recall the fact that in our recent political campaign, four parties that nominated candidates for President and Vice-President of the United States, had in their conventions women as delegates and members of committees. They were the Populist, the Free-Silver, the Prohibition, and the Socialist-Labor parties. The woman-suffragists of the Prohibition party left the rock- ribbed champion that had put a Suffrage plank in every platform for years, in order to go with Free Silver and Populism of the most extravagant type.

These parties also had Suffrage planks. Altgeld and Debs, c.o.xey and Tillman were only men, but Mary Ellen Lease furnished to the campaign that strain of exalted fanaticism that at once points out woman's glory and woman's danger.

The Suffrage indictment we have been considering is summed up as follows: "Now, in view of this entire disfranchis.e.m.e.nt of one half of the people of this country, their social and religious degradation--in view of the unjust laws above mentioned, and because women do feel themselves aggrieved, oppressed, and fraudulently deprived of their most sacred rights, we insist that they have immediate admission to all the rights and privileges which belong to them as citizens of the United States."

Dr. Jacobi in "Common Sense" says: "To this very day the survivors of that group of pioneer women have an abstract way of stating their claim which, to modern ears, sounds somewhat archaic."

She is not archaic when she says: "During the long ages of cla.s.s rule, which are just beginning to cease, only one form of sovereignty has been a.s.signed to all men--that, namely, over all women. Upon these feeble and inferior companions all men were permitted to avenge the indignities they suffered from so many men to whom they were forced to submit."

Mary A. Livermore is not archaic when in the "North American Review" for February, 1896, she says: "Her physical weakness, and not alone her mental inferiority, has made her the subject of man. Toiling patiently for him, cheerfully sharing with him all his perils and hardships, the unappreciated mother of his children, she has been bought and sold, petted and tortured, according to the whims of her brutal owner, the victim everywhere of pillage, l.u.s.t, war, and servitude. And this statement includes all races and peoples of the earth from the date of their historic existence."

I deny the truthfulness of the archaic accusation, and denounce as an absurdity the bombastic demand. I resent, as an unwarranted insult to woman and to man, the still more bitter modern representations of woman's condition and woman's rights in this world, and especially in this Republic. They are simply false.

Archaic or modern, the dictums of the Suffrage pioneers have been repeated at their every convention. Overlaid with sentiment as much of the Suffrage idea has become, contradictory as it is in argument and in statement of fact, blended as are its sophisms with the real progress of the time, sincere and well-meaning as are many of its advocates, s.e.x antagonism is the corner-stone of its foundation. The Woman's Rebellion is a more complex affair than the American Revolution. The latter was the natural result of the earnest and united protest, by a large majority of men and women of the American Colonies, against the tyranny of a monarchical government. The former was a protest by a small band of women and men against what they claimed to be universal tyranny. They attacked law and custom all along the line, and the weapon forever kept in order for the service was the demand for woman's possession of the ballot. Where she does not possess it, and has not asked it, her influence is mightiest. The relation of woman to the Republic is a study worthy the most exalted patriotism. In it is involved the broader question of her relation to man and to the destiny of the race. When told of her son's heroism in crossing the Delaware, Mary Washington said, "George will not forget the lessons I have taught him." Through the mother's devoted faith and the son's obedient power, the foundations were laid of a government whose sole reliance must still be on woman's inspiration and man's willing strength.

These are evidently G.o.d's instruments for our Nation's upbuilding.

CHAPTER IV.