Part 3 (1/2)

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 fas.h.i.+on 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 Hamps.h.i.+re, 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 towns.h.i.+p 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 Was.h.i.+ngton 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 towns.h.i.+p 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, Was.h.i.+ngton, 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 Was.h.i.+ngton, 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 clas.h.i.+ng 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 senators.h.i.+ps 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.