THE LADIES' BATTLE THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK BOSTON - CHICAGO SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED LONDON BOMBAY CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. TORONTO THE LADIES' BATTLE BY MOLLY ELLIOT SEAWELL gorft THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1911 All rightt rttervtd COPYRIGHT, igii, BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and electrotyped. Published April, 1911. Co THOSE OF MY COUNTRYWOMEN WHO THINK FOR THEMSELVES THIS LITTLE BOOK IS DEDICATED MOLLY ELLIOT SEAWELL The Ladies' Battle ONE fact concerning the woman- suffrage movement is plain to all who have watched that move- ment: this is, the superficial and inadequate manner in which the matter has been dis- cussed in general. The suffragists, in their spoken and published utterances, reveal that, while they propose a stupendous gov- ernmental change, they have little know- ledge of the fundamentals of government, the evolution of representation, the history of politics, or the genesis, scope, and mean- ing of suffrage. In their treatment of the subject, they hopelessly confuse political, philanthropic, socialistic, and economic ques- tions; nor do they seem able to discriminate between objects of national and those of state or municipal regulation. Women, sud- 7 THE LADIES' BATTLE denly proclaiming themselves suffragists, have been, in a few months, and without giving study to the science of government, advanced to leadership. Some of these leaders for leaders they are, in the true sense of being spokesmen for suffrage have never studied the Constitution of the United States, and con- tinually show in their speeches and writings, a singular want of knowledge concerning the unique nature of the American form of gov- ernment. They habitually seek to illustrate the workings of suffrage in the United States by instances drawn from monarchial gov- ernments, whose basis is not only different, but inimical to a popular representative sys- tem, like that of the United States. Few suf- fragists, perhaps, could explain, off-hand, why the House of Representatives has a Com- mittee on Foreign Affairs, and the Senate has a Committee on Foreign Relations. Fewer still, probably, understand the connection be- tween the first Parliament of Henry IV and 8 THE LADIES' BATTLE the absence of a Ways and Means Com- mittee in the United States Senate. But to persons versed in government, the mere men- tion of the absence of a Ways and Means Committee in the United States Senate sug- gests the answer. The ordinary voter may not understand these things; but suffragists, proposing a great, fundamental change in government, a change greater perhaps, than they really contemplate, ought to understand such points, which are among the alphabet of representative government. To attempt enormous governmental changes without knowing this alphabet is like trying to work the integral and differential calculus without mastering the ground-rules of arithmetic. One of the strangest features of the wo- man suffrage movement is that suffrage is treated throughout, not as a means, but as an end. In suffragist speeches and writings, no mention is made of what women would do, if they had a vote, beyond certain philan- 9 THE LADIES' BATTLE thropic movements and municipal ordinances supposed to be for the betterment of women and children. No suffrage organ, or woman suffragist has given any hint of knowing that our banking and currency system requires re- forming, or that there is any need for a lim- ited liabilities law, of an effective corrupt practices law, of a good domestic parcels post law, of methods of national defense, and many other governmental problems, with which the newspapers are full, and the minds of thinking men concerned to-day. It is doubt- * ful, whether in the whole suffrage body, a woman could be found who has an intelli- gent view of these subjects; nevertheless the suffragists clamor to vote on these and all other matter. The objectors to woman suffrage have only recently begun to formulate their views, and with the exception of a few suffrage ex- perts, little has been done to acquaint the public with the anti-suffrage side. The one 10 THE LADIES' BATTLE or two really comprehensive books on the anti-suffrage side, have been books for the library and for legislators rather than for the millions. One reason of this, perhaps, is that the anti-suffragists are in an enormous majority. This huge majority has an instinctive dislike to the overturning of the social order which woman suffrage would bring, but it has rea- soned little more than a person reasons who runs indoors from a hailstorm. The incon- veniences of remaining exposed to a hail- storm are so plain that few persons work the matter out logically; they act on instinct, which, unlike reason, makes no mistakes. Still, if an effort were made forcibly to ex- pose persons to hailstorms, a dozen conclu- sive reasons would, at once, be found why they should go indoors. Mr. William Dean Howells has said that he has heard many appeals against woman suffrage, but he has never heard any reasons against it; yet there II THE LADIES' BATTLE are compelling reasons against it. These reasons are not, in the smallest degree, based upon the assumption that women are not equal to men, but merely that men and women are not identical. ~" The suffragists have assumed that the rev- olution would be over when a woman can walk up to the polling booth and deposit a ballot in the box. It is at this point, how- ever, that the revolution would begin. It is true that limited suffrage prevails in twenty- two states, and full suffrage in five Colo- rado, Idaho, Wyoming, Utah and Washing- ton, and still there is no general revolution. But it must be remembered that in the states ' where there is limited suffrage, women have shown a general indifference to exercising suffrage, while the experiment in the five newer and sparsely settled states in which there is full suffrage affords no adequate test for full suffrage in great centres of civilza- tion, and in vast and crowded communities, 12 THE LADIES' BATTLE with immense and diversified interests. Wyoming is a state of cowboys and cattle- ranges. Idaho is dominated to a great de- gree by the Mormon Church, which has ever been the good friend of woman suffrage, and the most powerful advocate it has yet had. In Utah, the women voters, under the lead of Mormonism, have voted steadily in favor of polygamists and law-breakers, who have been sent to Congress, in defiance of the law, by the votes of women. In the State of Washington, the experiment has been too re- cent to afford any data. It may be noted however, that the same phenomenon was re- peated in Washington as in Colorado. When woman suffrage was adopted in Colorado in 1893, tne State had the highest divorce rate of any State or territory in the Union. When Washington adopted woman suffrage in 1910, that State led every State and territory in the Union, in divorce. In Colorado, the most civilized of all the suffrage states, the suf- 13 THE LADIES' BATTLE frage experiment has not been entirely suc- cessful, as will be shown further on. The near view of suffrage does not seem to help it. During the last fourteen years, Califor- nia, South Dakota and Oregon have all de- feated suffrage amendments to their consti- tutions. It may be, that the company kept by woman suffrage is not pleasing to legisla- tors. While happily, all suffragists are not Mormons, all Mormans are suffragists. Neither are all suffragists socialists, but with a few exceptions, all socialists are suffragists. That suffrage tends strongly to socialism, and that the relations between the socialists and the suffragists are close, is very clearly shown for many years past by the columns of the Wo- man's Journal, the official organ of the suf- fragists. In its issue of November 12, 1910, the following appears in its reading columns: "Noted Socialists Lecture. Philip Snowden, M. P., and Mrs. Ethel Snowden, both noted socialists, and equal suffragists will 14 THE LADIES' BATTLE speak at Tremont Temple, Boston, on De- cember i, at 8 P. M. The lecture is free." And in New Zealand, where women have full suffrage, and where they exercise it to the same extent as men, the woman's vote being almost equal to that of men, the government is embodied socialism. If the English news- papers are to be believed, New Zealand is one of the most corrupt electorates in the world. Nor does it seem a model in other respects, ac- v cording to a late official report of Mr. Paul, Minister of Justice, on prison reform. He says: "The problem is not an easy one, nor is it a small one. A large proportion of the native born population is yearly going to prison." It would be interesting to know the number of socialists among the suffragists in the United States. It must be remembered, however, that wo- man suffrage has not yet had, anywhere in the world, an actual test. It has not so far, met the shock of foreign wars, THE LADIES' BATTLE of civil strife, of revolution. Until a nation with woman suffrage has passed through some immense and prolonged con- vulsion, like the American Civil War, or the French Commune in 1871, it cannot claim to have had any real test. In those Titanic struggles of great nations, torn asunder by internal wars, with torrents of blood and oceans of treasure poured out like the un- salted seas that sweep over Niagara, would these two great nations have come out better if one half of their electorates had been un- able to lift a finger in attack or defence, yet compelling the men to useless resistance? Who shall say? 1 II are two basic principles against woman suffrage. A basic principle works with the merciless mechanism of a natural law like gravitation, and is indeed a natural law. It may be vio- lated for a time, just as a stick may be thrust in the cogs of a machine, but the machine will not work until the stick be removed, and is certain to be damaged by the performance. True, it is not only the suffragists who have defied a basic principle ; it is within the mem- ory of living men that the government of the United States, through some of its ablest and most experienced legislators, violated every principle of constitutional government, of common sense as well as common justice, by placing the ballot in the hands of recently emancipated slaves who could neither read nor write, and were without property. 17 THE LADIES' BATTLE By the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, in five states of the Union, all power and property were handed oved to the combined vice and illiteracy of those states. By the Fifteenth Amendment, a coach and horses were driven through the Constitution of the United States by an at- tempt to compel the same civil rights to be given to the recently emancipated slaves, only a few generations removed from cannibal- ism, as to the highest type of the Caucasian race, with a thousand years of civilization be- hind it. If civilization could be destroyed by legislative enactment, it would have been destroyed in the five Southern states which were thus delivered over to anarchy. But civilization cannot be destroyed by legisla- tive enactment. It may be grievously in- jured, and frightful disorders and lasting wrong may ensue; but the basic and natural law will always, in such dreadful events, rise above the statute law and civilization will 18 maintain itself at all costs. The reasons against the enfranchisement of women bear no relation whatever to the reasons for the practical disfranchisement of the negro which now prevails throughout the Southern states. It may rather be com- pared to the disfranchisement of all the citi- zens of that district which has the highest percentage of literacy in its white population of any district in the world, and the highest percentage of individual wealth, and in which the Government disburses three hun- dred and seventy-two millions of dollars a year in wages. This is the District of Co- lumbia, containing a population of 343,005 souls. No citizen of the District has a vote. The experiment of giving these citizens votes had been fully tried, when, less than forty years ago, two of the greatest jurists of the age, the late Senator Thurman, of Ohio, and Senator Edmunds of Vermont, car- ried through, without division of party, a 19 THE LADIES' BATTLE scheme of disfranchising every citizen in the most intelligent municipality in the country. Two reasons were given for this. One was to prevent the negroes from voting, and the other was the belief that it was better there should be no representatives of politics at the seat of Federal government except Fed- eral representatives. In this case, as from the beginning of rep- resentative government, the ballot was rec- ognized, not as a right, but as a privilege, which could be withheld from intelligent, qualified persons, as well as from the unqual- ified. As Senator Elihu Root, one of the greatest living jurists, has tersely put it, "But if there is any one thing settled, it is that vot- ing is not a natural right, but simply a means of government." I *^MMH1MIW No doubt Senator Root had in mind the decision of Chief Justice Marshall, "The granting of the franchise has always been re- garded in the practice of nations, as a matter 20 THE LADIES' BATTLE of expediency, and not as an inherent right." Whether the great Chief Justice be cor- rect in denying suffrage to be a natural right, or whether the suffragists be correct in call- ing it a natural right, it has always been . treated as a privilege by the Supreme Court o.f the United States, and must therefore be defined as a privilege. For there is no method in our present form of government by which the decisions of the Supreme Court may be overturned, without overturning the govern- ment at the same time. Any discussion of the question of whether voting be a natural right or a privilege must, therefore, be purely academic. In claiming it to be a natural ' right the suffragists seem to have lost sight of the position of the Supreme Court in the American government. If, however, voting be a natural right, not only men and women, but children may vote, for a natural right is acquired at birth and lasts until death. There could be no voting age. Neither could there 21 THE LADIES' BATTLE be any educational or property qualification; natural rights do not depend on education or property. Every one of the million for- eigners who land in this country yearly, would instantly become a voter, as soon as he or she set foot on American soil, for a natural right accompanies a human being wherever he goes, and descends only into the grave with him. What the legislation of such an electorate would be, cannot be predicted, for the world never saw a civilized electorate founded on natural right. It is true that in remote ages and among certain savage tribes, the right to take part in the government was regarded as a natural right. In the evolution of gov- ernment, however, it was very soon recog- nized that a voice in the government was not a natural right, and must be regulated. As time passed on, and more and more persons became qualified, the electorate was increased. At present, in a popular representative gov- 22 THE LADIES' BATTLE ernment, like that of the United States, the electorate has reached its ultimate develop- ment. It is guarded and restricted among men, and there is a constant effort to make it representative, not only of numbers, but of governing qualifications. This country has not forgotten its last reckless increase of the electorate and never will forget it. Although the woman suffragists have steadily and officially proclaimed suffrage to be a natural right, certain men, in sympathy with them, have held a contrary view. In the Woman's Journal, the official organ of the suffragists, there appeared in the same issue as the announcement of the socialist lecture by equal suffragists, a statement from Chief Justice Isaac N. Sullivan, of the Supreme Court of Idaho, and a pronounced suffragist, these words: "We recognize that to vote is a privilege and not an absolute right." This statement contravenes the whole suf- THE LADIES' BATTLE frage position, officially, publicly and con- stantly maintained that suffrage is a natural right. It is true, that recently, some ad- vanced suffragists, realizing that the natural right argument has been laughed out of court, have changed the phraseology to "moral right." But a moral right is identi- cal with a natural right. All natural rights are moral rights and all moral rights are natural rights. So the absurdity remains. Besides, voting is not a right at all, and those who speak of it as a right show ignorance of the nature of suffrage. ^j&q^CMMLfe Ill two basic reasons against wo- man suffrage in the United States are as follows: First, no electorate has ever existed, or ever can exist, which cannot execute its own laws. Second, no voter has ever claimed, or ever can claim, maintenance from another voter. In the suffrage states these basic laws are for the moment nullified. Concerning the first of these two proposi- tions, the suffragists have alleged, in contra- diction, that in England, there is still plural voting; in Sweden, property votes, and one man may cast a hundred votes, if he have enough property; while in Germany, one fourth of the voters elect four-fifths of the Reichstag. But these are all arguments on the anti-suffrage side, and show how impos- 25 THE LADIES' BATTLE sible such systems would be in a popular rep- resentative government like the United States. England and Sweden are monarchies, which are founded upon privileged classes, with a military caste, relatively large naval and military forces, and conscription, although the latter is cleverly dis- guised in England. In Germany, there can be no legislation without the permission of the Kaiser, who may dissolve the Reichstag at any moment, and who has something like six hundred thousand soldiers to enforce his will. Such electorates would be utterly im- possible in the United States. The first prin- ciple of our government is, that there shall be no large standing army; and that the peo- ple shall govern themselves. To do this, re- quires an electorate capable of enforcing its own laws. Plural voting, and the voting of property, and one fourth of the electorate electing four-fiths of the legislature are not ideal systems anywhere, but they are totally 26 THE LADIES' BATTLE incompatible with a republican form of gov- ernment. Under the government of the United States, the normal voter must have two quali- \ fications. First, he must, except in occasional individual instances, be physically able to make his way to the polls, against opposition if nec- essary; and, second, he must be able to carry out by force the effect of his ballot. Law con- sists of a series of Thou-shalt-nots, but govern- ment does not result until an armed man stands ready to execute the law. Force con- verts law into government. In civilized countries there are three methods of convert- ing law into government fine or compensa- tion, imprisonment, and death. For all of these, physical force is necessary. To create an electorate unable to use physical force, is not, as the suffragists seem to think, merely doubling the present electorate. It means pulling out the underpinning, which is force, from every form of government the 27 THE LADIES' BATTLE world has yet known. The suffragists claim that the moral forces ought to supplant mere physical force. But the law is made for the law-breaker who al- ways uses physical force. If a burglar equipped with a dark lantern and a jimmy, breaks into the house of a suffragist, she does not rely on any moral force to get him out. She calls on the nearest policeman, and her sole dependence is, physical force to sustain the law. Besides the two essential qualifications of a voter, there are many other desirable ones. Education is desirable, but not essential. The possession of education and intelligence does not enable women to force their way to the polls if opposed or to execute laws cre- ated under woman suffrage. The spectacle of one half the electorate unable to execute a sin- gle law it has made, or even to deposit its bal- lots without the assistance of the other half, is a proposition so fantastic that it is difficult 28 THE LADIES' BATTLE to attack it seriously. The trouble would begin with the mere at- tempt of women to deposit their ballots. A \ dozen ruffians could prevent a hundred women from depositing a single ballot. There can be no doubt that this means would be used by the rougher elements, and that the polls would become scenes of preordained disorder. In London, on April 2, 1911, a gang of roughs barred a crowd of suffragists from a skating rink hired by them. The women were help- less, and the roughs were subdued by some men suffragists marching with the women. Meanwhile, the police stood by, laughing and inactive. Suppose the skating rink had been a polling place ? Against the disturbances which would occur, women might invoke the law, but they could not enforce it. They would be de- pendent upon that moiety of men who might be willing to assist them. The constabulary has always proved totally inadequate to main- tain order at the polls when there was a de- 29 THE LADIES' BATTLE < termined effort at disorder; and there is in the American nation a fixed hostility to the employment of troops at polling places. It is a fact, probably unknown to the suffragists, that every administration which has ever passed a force bill, or even made a serious endeavor to do so, has lost the House of Representatives at the next election. This has given rise to the axiom that an electorate which cannot protect itself is not worth pro- tecting, and the country is better off without it than with it. This principle has worked unerring since the foundation of the Repub- lic, and is in itself the natural protection of the ballot. Supposing the ballots of women, however, to have been deposited by the indulgence of men, women will surely be called upon to legislate for men upon subjects of which no woman has ever had, or ever can have, any practical experience. True, men now legis- late for women. But there is no trade, pro- 30 THE LADIES' BATTLE . fession, or handicraft, of which women have ^5 a monopoly, and in which no man has any experience. It has often been pointed out that women could not, with justice, ask to legislate upon matters of war and peace, as no woman can do military duty; but this point may be extended much further. No wo- man can have any practical knowledge of ship- ping and navigation, of the work of train- men on railways, of mining, or of many other subjects of the highest importance. Their legislation, therefore, would not probably be intelligent, and the laws they devised for the betterment of sailors, trainmen, miners, etc., might be highly objectionable to the very persons they sought to benefit. If obedience should be refused to these laws, who is to en- force them? The men? Is it likely they will? And if the effort should be made, what stupendous disorders would occur! The entire execution of the law would be in the hands of men, backed up by an irrespon- 31 THE LADIES' BATTLE sible electorate which could not lift a finger to apprehend or punish a criminal. And if all the dangers and difficulties of executing the law lay upon men, what right have women to make the law? Great questions would arise concerning national defense and internal protection. The votes of women, not one of whom would be called upon to share the hardships of a mili- tary life, might decree that a hundred thou- sand soldiers would be sufficient in a case where the men from whom these soldiers would be recruited would say that two hun- dred thousand were needed. By providing only half that number, those men might be sent to their destruction. Would they go? And if they refused, who is to make them go? Where would be the justice in allowing women a voice, and an utterly irresponsible ballot, on this subject? Sometimes, suffra- gists say that the women, who stay at home, suffer as much as the men who go to the 32 THE LADIES' BATTLE front. In war, all suffer; but the women are exempt from marching and freezing and fighting, and horrible wounds and agonizing death, such as soldiers and sailors must face. If these be really sufferings, the women who stay at home do not suffer as much as the men who go to war. In municipal affairs, the men might de- cide that a city needed for its protection a police force of fifteen hundred men; the women, not one of whom would be called upon to risk her life as a policeman risks his, might conclude that a thousand men would be enough, and those thousand men would have to face odds with which it would re- quire fifteen hundred men to deal; and awful disasters might result. But suppose the po- lice refuse to meet these odds. Again, who is to make them do it? A considerable propor- tion of men are unable to do military or con- stabulary duty. To add to this irresponsible percentage among men the whole feminine 33 THE LADIES' BATTLE electorate, would be to reduce the responsi- ble electorate to a minimum. In a recent magazine article, Mrs. Clar- ence Mackey, a leading suffragist, advances with much simplicity the proposition that in- fluence such as women now possess, without responsibility, is a very bad thing. She pro- poses to substitute the authority of the ballot in place of influence, but still without respon- sibility. If influence without responsibility is dangerous, authority without responsibility must be a thousand times more dangerous. It is, in fact, the most dangerous thing on earth. The suffragists are not always as log- ical as Aristotle, nor as subtle as Ulysses. Suffrage is not a simple thing. It is one of the most complex things on this planet; it has its dangers, and its consequences reach far and last long. Man suffrage differs from woman suffrage. Perhaps the Supreme Being made a ridiculous blunder in creating sex, but it is now too late to remedy it. 34 */*- IV HE second basic principle against woman suffrage is, that no voter can claim maintenance from an- other voter. All voters must stand on the same level. This is a fundamental of repre- sentative government. The President of the United States has not a single privilege as a voter, which the humblest citizen in the United States does not possess. The relation between voting and mainte- nance is close and essential, and admits of no modification. It is based upon the principle that no voter shall be compelled to maintain any person who has a vote which may be cast against his benefactor, thereby imparing or destroying the capacity of the benefactor to maintain the beneficiary. The proposition is entirely just and reasonable, and relent- lessly logical. No principle of government is 35 THE LADIES' BATTLE worked out with more of mathematical exac- titude than this question of a vote and main- tenance. On attaining his majority, a man loses all claim to maintenance as long as he is a voter. The right to maintenance is what a man gives up for a vote. If he should be- come a pauper, he at once loses his vote. He may not lose a single desirable qualification as a voter; his excess of integrity may have made him a pauper ; he may be more virtuous and more intelligent than ever before in his life. But the instant he establishes a legal claim for maintenance, his vote is taken away. In twelve states paupers are specifically disfran- chised. In the rest, the property qualifica- tion and the poll tax effect the same thing. No man can pay another's poll tax, and if pau- pers tried to vote, they would undoubtedly be challenged. Now, if it be not because a vote and maintenance are incompatible, why is a virtuous and intelligent pauper disfranchised ? Has any one ever given any other reason ? 36 THE LADIES' BATTLE Can any other reason be given? When the suffragists can make a satisfactory answer to this question, the cause of suffrage will have a mountain removed out of its path. But no satisfactory answer can be given, except that no voter can be maintained at the expense of another voter. The fact that the women in the suffrage states are in general supported by the husbands, does not impair this principle. The suffrage experiment is too new and too limited to have already worked out all its logical results. It will, however, if it should prevail generally. The suffragist claim that \ a wife renders services to her hus- ' band, which entitles her to maintenance, is not sound. Maintenance has nothing to do with service. It is true there is a fiction of the English common law, which declares a husband to be entitled to his wife's services. But every method of enforcing this is care- fully penalized by statute law in the United States, and so far, no man has been found, 37 \t- THE LADIES' BATTLE ingenious enough to compel a wife's services gainst her will. A wife may be paralyzed within an hour of her marriage and never be able to move hand or foot, and be unable to render the smallest service to her husband. She is, however, just as much entitled to maintenance, as if she slaved forty years, for a husband and fourteen children. She may become insane, but her husband is still bound to maintain her, nor can he get a divorce from her on the ground of her insanity, and inability to perform any service. A wife's *" maintenance is her equivalent for a vote. But if she acquires a vote, she must give up her right to maintenance, because there is a direct conflict between a vote and mainte- nance and also all her property privileges. It operates between man and man, and being a basic principle, must in the end operate be- tween man and woman. The wife, for exam- ple, may be a free-trader, and the husband a protectionist. The wife may, by her single 1 vote, cause tariff changes that would enorm- ously impair the husband's power of support- ing her. This impairment may be done in a more direct manner by the wife of an official. She might by her vote reduce his salary, or even cause his office to be abolished entirely, thereby leaving him without an income. To say that wives would always vote for their husbands' financial interests is to accuse wo- men of absolute and complete corruption. That this condition does not exist in the suffrage states, does not disprove the princi- ple. On the contrary, the fact that in the suf- frage states women have been deprived of enormous property privileges, which the wo- men in the anti-suffrage states enjoy, proves that the principle is working. Not enough at- tention has been given to this striking fact, and very few women have any suspicion that they must pay heavily for acquiring a vote. In Colorado, Utah, Idaho and Wyoming, a wife has no dower, she is jointly responsible 39 THE LADIES' BATTLE for the support of the children and the home- stead may be mortgaged or sold without her consent. In Utah, a wife is jointly liable for household expenses, and may, as in Col- orado, under certain circumstances, be forced to support the husband. This has followed inevitably from giving the ballot to women, and it will be in- teresting to watch in the State of Washington, the same taking away of property privileges. In contrast to the suffrage states, the non-suf- frage states in general, grant enormous prop- erty privileges. Virginia and New York may be taken as fair average examples. In both, , a woman may sell her real estate, and any other property she possesses, without the hus- band's consent or even knowledge. But the husband cannot dispose of any part of his real estate, without his wife's consent, the wife to be questioned in private by a law offi- cer, as to whether she is willing to give her consent. In Ohio, a non-suffrage State, a 40 - THE LADIES' BATTLE man securing a divorce from his wife under certain circumstances, is given alimony; but knowing that no man would dare to apply for it, the law is mandatory and alimony is given the man arbitrarily. In no non-suffrage state \ is the wife called upon to support the husband, as in the suffrage states where non-support of a husband is a ground of f divorce. In Utah, this is frankly enforced and the census of 1900 shows that six women in Utah were divorced by their husbands for non-support. At this point comes in one of the most startling features of the suffrage movement. It might be imagined that the first point to be settled would be how does suffrage affect the property privileges of women? But so far, not one word has ever been publicly spoken at the suffrage conventions on this subject, nor is it even alluded to In any printed or spoken utterances, except a general denial that women will lose any property privileges by THE LADIES' BATTLE acquiring a vote. This position is forced up- on the suffragists. If they admitted otherwise, the suffrage movement would collapse. They are obliged to maintain that there would be two classes of voters, if women voted one without property privileges, and the other with property privileges, and the class with- out propertyprivilegeswould be liable for the support of the class with property privileges. This sounds more like a Gilbert and Sullivan opera than a serious proposition. The suf- fragists cannot deny, however, that the wo- men in the suffrage states have suffered a ter- rible curtailment of their property privileges, and the men have acquired a correspondingly large increase of their property privileges. Aitigv luvivaev \JL utvu pi \_j^ij. L^ t: viiv^gv-o. Woman suffrage is so advantageous 'to men, in relieving them of responsibilities and en- /"l*"\TT7i n rr +n om TTTI f-ri t"\t - rf"fcr^ot*4-ir o 4- <-ri o /vt"\ofio* r\r dowing them with property at the expense of their wives, that it is a wonder all men are not in favor of woman suffrage. In non-suf- frage states, the statute law endows the wife 42 THE LADIES' BATTLE with privileges at the expense of the husband from the moment she becomes a wife, and gives the husband no cor- responding privileges. And for women who are not wives the unwritten law which is always much more strictly obeyed than the written law, has decreed that the - father, if able, shall maintain his adult daughters as long as they remain unmarried. The exceptions to this only prove the rule. Under the present dispensation, the status between husbands and wives is, prac- tically, that the husband has the vote and the wife hasthe property. In lieuof avote, the law has given the wife enormous property privi- leges w r hich, of course, are totally inconsist- ent with the possession of a vote. The law of property between husband and wife may be broadly stated as follows: The wife on her marriage does not be- come responsible for any debts owed by her husband before marriage; the husband on 43 THE LADIES' BATTLE marrying becomes in many states responsible < for every debt owed by the wife before mar- riage. The wife is the sole possessor of her own estate; the husband is not, and never has been, the sole possessor of his own estate unless there is a pre-nuptial contract. He cannot alienate his wife's dower, either in his lifetime or by his will. A husband's courtesy- right in his wife's estate by no means corre- sponds in value with the wife's dower-right in his estate. A wife is not liable for her : husband's debts; a husband may not excuse himself from paying his wife's debts, even on the ground that they were contracted without his knowledge, or even against his prohibi- tion. The law compels him to pay those debts of his wife which are reckoned justifi- able and in proportion to the husband's in- come and station in life. A married woman is entitled to her own earnings; a married man is not, and never was, entilted to his own earnings. The law compels him out of 44 THE LADIES' BATTLE them to give adequate support to his wife and minor children. The woman seeking di- vorce from her husband can compel him to pay her counsel fees, and to give her alimony if she be the innocent party, even if he marry again, and this alimony continues until the former wife's death or remarriage. She can also compel her former husband to provide for the support of the minor children. A husband seeking divorce from his wife can- not force her to pay his counsel fees or se- cure alimony from her, or, if she be guilty, force her to support the minor children, al- though the wife may be wealthy and the hus- band may be penniless. It may be said in passing that this over- indulgence on the part of men toward women in divorce laws is to a great degree responsi- ble for the divorce evil. In most states, the laws concerning the property privileges of women seem to be embodied sentimentalism ; and in some, the husband appears to have no 45 THE LADIES' BATTLE rights which the wife is bound to respect. In Louisiana, a non-suffrage state, a wife is her husband's first creditor. In Michigan, a non- suffrage state, a man may not lawfully pawn his own clothes without his wife's consent, t f -i 1^1 MU-. while in Georgia, a recent legislature pro- posed to add to the gift of all of a man's property to his wife, that it should be a felony in the State of Georgia for a man to "de- fame" a woman. These delightful Knights of LaMancha omitted to define what consti- tutes defaming a woman. The confiscation of a part of a man's prop- erty and wages for the benefit of his wife, the instant he marries, has existed for so many ages, that men are accustomed to it, and see the justice of it, provided always that the wife has not a vote, by which his ability to support her may be impaired or destroyed. But when the wife acquires a vote, the men, in the suf- frage state quickly saw the justice in with- holding these great property privileges from 46 THE LADIES' BATTLE women, and withdrew them. The property privileges of a wife and a mother, are supremely important, because they involve the question of a woman being able to stay at home and rear her children. To make wives and mothers wage earners is a grave injury to the state. The contrary is held by the suffragists, whose leaders have v sometimes said that the State and women would be benefited if every woman had a gainful employment. This is strictly in line with the socialistic tendencies of suffrage, for suffrage and socialism walk hand in hand. The opposite view, however, appears to have been recognized in the organization of the government of the United States, and in conse- quence, women have been entrenched in privi- leges of all sorts, in order to enable a woman to do her duty to the state ; for the state rests upon the family. For this reason, the courts have always, in the United States, treated the question of a wife's share in her husband's 47 THE LADIES' BATTLE earnings as a vested right, to which she is entitled whether she needs the money or not. A woman may have millions, yet (except in the suffrage states) she owes her husband no maintenance. But she has a right to a share in every dollar he earns if she chooses to demand it. Lately, a Michigan judge, rightly named Stern, directed a man who was earning seven dollars a week, to give a share of it to his wife on her demand, although the wife had an income of eighteen hundred dol- lars a year from investments. "I will not put a premium on lazy husbands," declared this Michigan judge. "The woman with property must be protected as well as her less fortunate sisters. This man shall pay his wife two dollars a week, or go to jail." In New York City, later still, a man with a salary of eighteen dollars a week was ordered to pay five dollars a week to his wife who had an unearned income of fourteen hundred dollars yearly. In this case, the man refused, 48 THE LADIES' BATTLE and at last accounts was languishing in pris- on. In the city of Washington, a man is not ex- empt from contributing to the support of his wife even if he be without employment. When this is urged, the husband may be sent to the *"** ' - -.-- . j._- -_r- - _ - 11 _. - _ -j workhouse, and made to work there, and his earnings are handed over to his wife. This is constantly done. In neither the Michigan or the New York case was it pretended that the wife needed the money; it was given her v to support the principle that a wife must be maintained. The principle is sound, because, how can a wife and the mother of minor chil- dren do without maintenance from her hus- band? It is the law of nature, as well as of cus- tom, that the man should be the bread-winner of the family; and he is, ninety-nine times out of a hundred. The few instances to the con- trary only prove the rule. How many mothers with young children are capable of self-support? If, however, she becomes a 49 THE LADIES' BATTLE i voter she must take her place with all the voters, and abandon all claim to maintenance upon anybody. Here arises a new and cataclysmal compli- cation. What becomes of the rights of the minor children? At present, in the non- suffrage states, the father alone is lia- ble for the support of the children. But if a wife and mother had a vote, she would become jointly liable for the support of the children as in the suffrage states. How is that liability to be divided? The fath- er would be responsible for half the maintenance of a child; the mother re- sponsible for the other half. What is the half of maintenance? Half the expenses for keep, half for doctors' bills, half for school expenses, half for clothing. The mere at- tempt to adjust the property rights between a husband and wife, both of whom are voters, and the minor children, would bring about chaos. It is a problem never before presented 50 THE LADIES' BATTLE upon a considerable scale, for it must never be forgotten, that conditions prevailing in primitive and sparsely settled communities, like Wyoming, Idaho, Utah and Colorado, are unlike those in densely populated and highly civilized states, with laws and customs dating back to the beginning of the seven- teenth century. This divided responsibility for children would work more difficulty in Philadelphia, than in Wyoming or Utah. The question of divided responsibility for the main- tenance of children is practically incapable of adjustment upon a large scale; that is to say, the litigation which would result would swamp ten times as many courts as exist in thef United States to-day. It would present un- known complications in the transfer of prop- erty, in the making of contracts, in the carry- ing on of business, in every transaction in which a married man or a married woman was a party. It would be necessary to wipe out most of the common law, "the world's most THE LADIES' BATTLE copious fountain of human jurisprudence", and change most of the statute law relating to property. No lawyer or financier living would undertake to prophesy the result, ex- cept stupendous loss to women and a cataclys- mal confusion and destruction of values. The suffragists cannot, in truth, be expect- ed to encourage a full and free discussion of this subject, of property privileges and ex- emptions for women. The mere agitation of it would be disastrous to suffrage. Women would take the alarm, they would investigate their property privileges for themselves, and suffrage would receive a mortal blow. They would also find out that women in the non-suffrage states enjoy a vast number of immunities which they would, of course, have to resign, if they acquired a vote. Ex- emptions, long held, seem to be rights. Then there are a great number of laws which frankly discriminate in favor of working women. The courts have held that laws reg- 52 THE LADIES' BATTLE ulating the hours of labor for women in fac- tories, are constitutional, although the same laws referring to men are declared unconsti- tutional for courts, like legislatures, recog- nize that the wife and mother, actually, or potentially, is the first object of protection by ' the state. In many non-suffrage states, women are immune from arrest in certain cases where men are arrested; and in all the non-suffrage states, is that great undefined, but powerful protection with which the law of custom sur- rounds women. The withholding of the bal- lot is, in itself, a protective measure for the wife and mother. The law does not allow her to be burdened with a ballot which would drive her out of the fortress which legisla- tion and custom have built around her. There are two classes of women in the world the women with property and the women without property. To the woman with property, the suffragists offer as a prin- ciple a strange fallacy, not found in any 53 THE LADIES' BATTLE system of government on this planet that the payment of taxes entitles the taxpayer to vote. The phrase "Taxation without repre- sentation is tyranny" has been wholly misun- derstood by them. It is indeed a misleading phrase, especially to persons unfamiliar with governmental principles. But it was never meant or taken in the sense that the payment of taxes carried with it a vote. It did not refer to individuals at all, or to an enlarge- ment of the electorate. There is not the smallest evidence to show that the Colonies ever sought or desired parliamentary repre- sentation, and the subject was never men- tioned except to be dismissed. As Sydney George Fisher says, in his "Struggles for American Independence," "It is to be under- stood that they (the American Colonies) did not ask for representation in Parliament. They declared it to be impossible. . . . They always insisted that representation was impossible." 54 THE LADIES' BATTLE The phrase, as originally used, referred to what were really international relations. The suffragists in general think it meant that no- body should pay taxes who had not a vote. This notion would have made the founders of the Republic smile for, as, a Justice of the Supreme Court once calmly reminded an in- discreet advocate, "It may be assumed that the Supreme Court of the United States knows something." It knows there is no essential relation between taxation and representation. It knows that, if this principle proclaimed by the suffragists were adopted, the public . income would stop. It must be remembered that taxation, in its inception, meant protection; that is to say, property-owners paid in order to have their property protected. In any event, a woman's property as well as a man's must be protected by a man. If her rights are infringed, she has the same redress that men have the power of the courts, with men to carry the 55 THE LADIES' BATTLE mandate into effect, because no woman can carry any law into effect. The property is taxed, and not the individual. Nobody has proposed that the property of minors should be exempt from taxation. In the District of Columbia with its 343,005 inhabitants, no man has a vote there, but no man has had the assurance so far to ask exemption from taxa- tion. The entire Army and Navy of the United States, including the officers, the best educated body of men in the country, are practically disfranchised through difficulty in establishing domicile, and for other reasons. Yet army and navy men are required to pay taxes just as much as civilians. The idea that taxation carries with it a vote is peculiarly ludicrous when employed by suffragists from the South. There is probably not one of them to be found who advocates restoring the franchise to the two million negro voters, increased by two more millions of ignorant negro women-voters; 56 THE LADIES' BATTLE but the Southern suffragists have not so faf proposed to exempt the ten million negroes in the South from taxation. But if no one should be taxed who has not a vote, then these ten million negroes should be exempt from taxation; also all lunatics, minors, and criminals; all army and navy officers and men; all the inhabitants of the Territories and of the District of Columbia. The million or more foreigners who are added annually to our population would also be exempt from taxation for at least five years the shortest time, under our pres- ent naturalization laws, in which an alien may become a voter. But this would only be the beginning of the exemption. Citizen- ship cannot be forced upon any man, and im- migrants might choose to remain aliens, and no doubt would, in order to escape taxation. Sad to say, great numbers of American citi- zens would cross the Canadian border and become loyal subjects of King George, and 57 THE LADIES' BATTLE exchange their citizenship for exemption from taxes. If Mr. Carnegie, Mr. Rockefel- ler, and Mr. Pierpont Morgan should choose to become aliens, they would be exempt from taxation. Vast foreign corporations would be represented by a few individuals, who would remain aliens and pay no taxes. There are a few states where an alien cannot hold real estate, but there are many other forms of property which are taxed, and in most of the states a foreigner may own anything he can pay for, and he is taxed from the mo- ment he acquires it. To differentiate be- tween voluntary and involuntary aliens would be to call the whole population of the United States into court. The proposition that taxation without rep- resentation is an injustice would no doubt be enthusiastically supported by every scoundrel among men in the United States of America. If a man by reason of crime were deprived of his vote, or by not having the educational 58 THE LADIES' BATTLE qualifications which are usually required, he would also be exempt from taxation. In fact, if taxation without representation be adopted as a principle of government, no- body need pay taxes who does not want to, and the number of persons who really want to pay taxes is unfortunately, small. The attitude of the suffrage body toward this "Taxation without representation is tyranny" principle, is peculiar. The more intelligent suffragists discovered some time ago, the falsity of the principle, and have quietly disavowed it. But like the proposi- tion that voting is a natural right, it has been for so long, a cardinal belief with the suffrage body, and has been so often embodied in their official statements that they are not in a posi- tion to repudiate it generally. Moreover, it continues to be their most specious argument, and has won more converts, perhaps, to suf- frage than any other appeal. It made the great and good Florence Nigthingale a suffragist. 59 THE LADIES' BATTLE She wrote "You ask my reasons for believ- ing in woman suffrage. It seems to me, al- most self-evident an axiom, that every house- holder and taxpayer ought to have a voice in the expenditure of the money we pay, includ- ing as this does, interests most vital to a hu- man being." Here speaks the woman unlearned in gov- ernment. The equally great and good Queen Victoria, who was profoundly versed in gov- ernment never made any such blunder, but was an open and vigorous opponent of wo- man suffrage, knowing what voting meant. Another point upon which the better edu- cated suffragists disagree with the main body, is that of a sixteenth amendment to the Con- stitution, permitting women to vote. It has been long understood that every State can reg- ulate its own electorate without interference from the Federal Government, and that de- cisions of the Supreme Court have reduced the Fourteenth Amendment to a dead letter. 60 THE LADIES' BATTLE But the Woman's Journal, the official organ of the suffragists, still thinks the Fourteenth Amendment in operation and gravely de- clares the voting laws of Oregon unconstitu- tional, because they restrict voting to white men. Many suffragists still plead for a six- teenth amendment, and in the past, all did. "Taxation without representation is ty- rany" is not the only oratorical phrase which the suffragists have mistaken for a govern- mental principle. They have adopted as a /*" principle, the phrase "Governments exist by the consent of the governed." Nobody ever thought that, not even the man who wrote it, except the suffragists. Governments exist by the consent of a majority of the governed. If government exists by consent of the governed, there is a small, but very dangerous minority in the jails and penitentiaries who have never given their consent to any form of govern- ment, and never will. And if consent is an essential of government, these guests of the 61 THE LADIES' BATTLE State ought to be turned loose immediately. The suffragists would, no doubt, shrink as much as the non-suffragists from the practical application of this principle. In England, strange to say, the vote and tax theory is not wholly exploded, as the suffrage bill of 1910 shows. Many English suffragists refuse to pay taxes because they cannot vote, and compel eviction in con- sequence. 62 I can be no doubt that a wave of suffrage has swept over the world in the last few years. Besides what has been done in Amer- ica, Australia, New Zealand, and Fin- land have adopted full suffrage for women; Sweden, Norway and Denmark, have limit- ed suffrage in various forms and Portugal de- clared for it, immediately at the establishment of a republic. No complete test has been ap- plied to it. There have been neither wars nor revolutions in the Scandinavian countries, in Australia, or New Zealand, and in Finland, political conditions are in a state so unhappy, that nothing can be predicted concerning wo- man suffrage. Certainly it has not improved political affairs in Finland. In England it would be unjust to confound the section of law-abiding and dignified, if 63 THE LADIES' BATTLE mistaken, suffragists with the shrieking and savage mobs that make one shudder at the thought of intrusting them with a vote. Cer- tain of these insane creatures have actually made the threat publicly, that if women in England are denied a vote much longer, a number will be told off every year to commit suicide, until men yield full suffrage to wo- men. This brings to mind the stern words of the late Queen Victoria, the first sovereign on earth who understood, maintained and ob- served a constitution, and who, in the sixty- four years of her reign had more govern- mental experience, more practical knowledge of politics than any woman who ever lived, "The Queen is most anxious to enlist every one who can speak or write in check- ing this mad, wicked folly of 'Woman's Rights' with all its attendant horrors." This illustrious lady was celebrated for knowing what she was talking about. The present Liberal government has 64 THE LADIES' BATTLE shown a singular vacillation concerning the frenzied English women who rioted for suf- frage. In 1909 the London police were us- ing dog-whips upon them. In 1910, the non- partisan committee appointed by Prime Min- ister Asquith reported a bill giving the franchise to women householders in their own right, and those occupying at their own expense domiciles of a certain value. A large majority of the House of Commons prompt- ly expressed itself in favor of the bill, and is passed rapidly to its second reading before the adjournment of Parliament in August, 1910. With the example of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitu- tion of the United States before us, there is no reason to suppose that the British Parlia- ment may not do something equally irra- tional. As in that case, Parliament may yield to the clamors of frantic fanatics; but when a legislature does that, it always has to pay a fearful price. Also, Parliament is as 65 THE LADIES' BATTLE 9 likely as any American legislature to mistake a minority for a majority. For it must not be forgotten, that women suffragists are in ^V NBO*-.. a minority in every one of the twenty-two states in which there is limited suffrage, and there are many women opposed to suffrage in the full suffrage states, except in Utah. In that still polygamous state, women are unani- mous for woman suffrage. To the impartial observer, however, the action of the Liberal government in England appears to be a political trick of the first magnitude. The passage of the suffrage bill to its second reading did not commit any- body to anything. It is not the first time this has happened. Mr. Asquith, in pre- senting the bill, made a strong speech against it. So did several of the opposition leaders, which gave their action the look of throwing a tub to a whale. The suffragists, however, seem to have considered that Parliament was pledged to carry the measure through. In the 66 THE LADIES' BATTLE autumn of 1910, when a general election was determined upon, some months in advance of the time expected, it was only possible for the expiring Parliament to pass measures of the first consequence. The militant suffragists, under the lead of Mrs. Pankhurst, made vio- lent demonstrations, and proceeded in a large body to the Houses of Parliament, on a certain day in November, 1910. It was observed that great numbers of the rioters were very young girls, shrieking with their elders, "Votes for women!" They found the doors of the Houses of Parliament locked against them. They continued their disorderly de- monstrations, and when Prime Minister As- quith issued from the House of Commons, numbers of suffragists rushed at him, struck him in the face, and yelled "Traitor! Cow- ard," etc. He was only saved from further rough treatment by the police shoving him into a motor car, which sped away, followed by a screaming mob of suffragists. It is only LADIES' BATTLE just to say that there is a body of self-respect- ing suffragists in England who deplore these shocking proceedings and realize that it is disgracing the cause. Nothing illustrates better the political ig- norance of the militant suffragists than the notion that the legislative body of any civil- ized country in time of peace, would dare to legislate at the dictation of a mob. When that is done, it means, as was sometimes the case in the French Revolution and the Com- mune in 1871, that the mob rules, and a sec- tion of it legislates. If the Liberal govern- ment had so much as mentioned the suffrage bill, with the shrieking rioters outside the building, it would have been hurled from pow- er inside of twenty-four hours. To yield to a mob of suffragists one day, would be to yield to a mob of socialists the next day, and a mob of anarchists the day after. Mrs. Pankhurst, in a speech in Paris in January, 1911, openly threatened to make trouble at 68 THE LADIES' BATTLE the coronation of King George if the suf- frage bill was not passed. But in civilized countries, laws are not passed under threats of violence. Mrs. Pankhurst ought to read history. In considering woman suffrage in the United States, as compared with woman suf- frage in other countries, it must not be for- gotten that women in the United States oc- cupy a far more favored condition than those in any country in the world. But here appears a singular, a vital, and a stupendous fact that in no country is woman suffrage so utterly unworkable as under the American system of government. There are five car- dinal principles of woman suffrage which are in direct conflict with five cardinal principles of the government of the United States. This means, if woman suffrage should pre- vail, it would be necessary to change the present form of government. The first is. the suffrage contention that 69 THE LADIES' BATTLE voting is a moral right. The Supreme Court of the United States has decided that voting is not a moral right, but a privilege. It would be necessary to change the Consti- tution of the United States in order to over- ride the Supreme Court. Second, women voters would inevitably become a privileged class, their mere exemp- tion from military and naval duty making them such. The first fundamental of our present form of government is, that there shall be no privileged classes among voters. Third, the suffrage claim, that the United States could live under an electorate of which less than half could enforce its laws, would necessitate a large standing army, as in those countries where the electorate is not strong enough to enforce its laws. Fourth, the government of the United States is based upon the rule of the majority, and not on the consent of the governed; and the suffragists, by their own showing, have 70 THE LADIES' BATTLE less than three per cent, of women of the country on their side. Therefore, when wo- men vote, the present form of government must be fundamentally changed, to admit of the overruling of the Supreme Court, privi- leged classes of voters, a large standing army and and the rule of the minority. Fifth, the tendency of woman suffrage is inevitably toward Socialism, the State doing everything possible for the individual. The republican theory of government is, that the State shall only do what is absolutely neces- sary for the individual, and the individual must do everything possible for himself. In addition to this, the taking away from women of their enormous property privi- leges, exemptions and immunities, which has become a component part of our social and political structure, would mean the tearing up the foundations of that structure. It must be true that suffrage would work less harm in any country in the world than in the 71 THE LADIES' BATTLE United States. It is a significant fact, that the one coun- try in Europe in which there is practically no agitation for woman suffrage is in France, with forty years' experience of a republican form of government. Does this indicate that the higher the form of popular repre- sentative government, the less room there is for woman suffrage, with its privileged classes, and its minority rule ? Already, the State of Washington, in adopting suffrage, has violated a principle of republican govern- ment, by exempting women from jury duty. Woman suffrage, however, necessarily in- volves privileged classes. ' VI IT must be said, of American suf- fragists in the past, that their course has generally been one of dignity and de- corum. A few painful absurdities have been committed, like the "Woman's Bible," which was an effort to edit the Bible so that it might become a suffragist document. This attitude of dignity on the part of the suffra- gists has been recently disturbed by that strange psychic law which makes violence contagious. The shocking conduct of a part of the English suffragists has not been with- out its evil effects on American suffragists. The first marked departure from the or- derly procedure which had heretofore ob- tained among American suffragists occurred at the Spokane Convention, in July, 1909. The Convention was presided over by the Reverend Anna Howard Shaw, President of 73 THE LADIES' BATTLE the National Woman Suffrage Association. The delegates grew violent, and finally about thirty dissidents were forcibly turned out of the church in which the sessions were held, and into an adjoining room, where they were locked in. The proceedings then became riotous, and above the confusion, the im- prisoned delegates could be heard, shrieking, "We will get even with you !" and other menaces. The Reverend Anna Howard Shaw, who was in the chair, burst into tears, and said, "This has worked a ruinous influence -J upon the cause of suffrage." At the forty-second annual meeting of the National Woman Suffrage Association, in Washington in April, 1910, the suffragists carried on a street campaign which was not without humorous aspects. Women, standing up in motors, would represent pathetically their miserable situation without the ballot, and make passionate appeals for a vote to men who themselves had no votes. The official 74 THE LADIES' BATTLE proceedings and speeches showed a lamenta- ble want of legal and governmental knowl- edge. One lady announced, "We will make a noise until we get a vote." This singular sentiment was applauded in apparent forget- fulness that the only creature who gets what it wants by making a noise is a baby. An- other delegate publicly advocated race-sui- cide, giving the perfectly logical reason that women could not attend properly to public affairs and look after their families as well. On the day when their petition was presented in the Senate, the galleries were crowded with suffragists, who became so noisy that the presiding officer, Senator Kean of New Jersey, was obliged to announce that if the disorder did not cease the galleries would be cleared. The most shocking impropriety of all was the public insult to President Taft when he was their invited guest. The President yielded to strong pressure, and on the even- 75 THE LADIES' BATTLE ing of April 15 made a short address to the suffragists assembled at the Arlington Hotel. The President spoke with the utmost courtesy and dignity, but on his making some guarded reference to the dangers attending the exten- sion of the franchise, the suffragists proceeded to make history by hooting and hissing the President of the United States. This has never before occurred in the history of the country. No matter how hostile a crowd might be, or of what rough elements it might consist, the President of the United States has always been treated with respect, A number of the suffragists, realizing their frightful blunder, sent a letter of apology to the President. The action, however, was not unanimous. At no time during the meeting was there any discussion, or even allusion to any changes which might result to the prop- erty privileges of women in the event of ac- quiring a vote. Many strange ideas of gov- ernment, however, were presented. A bril- 76 THE LADIES' BATTLE liant and prominent advocate of woman suf- frage gave the following as the chief objects of woman suffrage : "Woman suffragists stand for sanitation, education, and the uplift of six million work- ing women in the United States." A very slight analysis of this formula will show many fallacies. First, is the universal fallacy on the part of the suffragists that all women will vote alike, and will vote right. Second: neither sanitation nor education can be the first or even the most important object of government. Good laws well ad- ministered, a pure and competent judiciary, internal order, national defense, and many other things, must take precedence of sanita- tion and education. Neither sanitation nor popular education was known to the found- ers of the Republic; yet these founders add- ed more to the forces of civilization than any group of sanitarians or educators that ever 77 vr> ^* si THE LADIES' BATTLE lived. Third: neither sanitation nor education is a national affair, but both are the business of states and municipalities. Fourth: sanitation and education are al- ready well attended to by men, and as large a share of the public income is devoted to them as the people will bear. Fifth: the proposition that one-half the electorate of the country shall devote its en- ergies to the uplifting of six million working women in the United States is a bald propo- sition to create a privileged class. This is a thing abhorrent to republican institutions, and is the line of demarkation between re- publics and monarchies. There is not, and never can be, a line on any statute book in the United States, regulating work and wages between private individuals. Any proposition to that effect is Socialism run mad. There is a socialistic association, high- ly favored by suffragists, to bring about that 78 THE LADIES' BATTLE no shop-girl shall work for less than four dollars a week. It is only just to the well- meaning but ill-informed women who have gone into this movement, to say that their un- familiarity with governmental problems is the reason that such a grotesque association exists. The innocent blunders of equally well-meaning and ill-informed suffragists in New York City have involved them in viola- tions of law, and several of their leaders were indicted in June, 1910, for boycotting and conspiracy. Suffrage is neither a philanthropic scheme inor an economic measure, but a registering machine not only of the numbers who wish a certain thing done, but of the force which canbe brought tobear upon it. Thestock argument of the suffragists has ever been, that the suffrage would enable a woman to get the same pay for the same work as a man. What they probably mean by this Is, that a woman work- ing the same number of hours at the same 79 THE LADIES' BATTLE employment as a man, should receive the same pay. But it has been tested in the Gov- ernment departments at Washington, in the public schools of New York City and in many other places, and needs no test, that the work of women for the same time at the same employment as men is not so good in quality or quantity, and for obvi- ous reasons. A woman cannot stand physi- cal effort and nervous strain as a man can; nine hundred and ninety-nine women go into work with a fixed intention of abandoning it at the first possible moment. A woman at the a period of her greatest energy is liable at any moment to make a contract of marriage, which vitiates all other contracts ; and women are less amenable to discipline than men. Suffrage would not increase the physical strength of women; it would not keep them at work if they had a good opportunity to es- cape from it; it would not prevent them from marrying if they wished to; and it 80 THE LADIES' BATTLE would not make them any more amenable to discipline. Suffrage will not enlarge the scope of a woman's employments. It will not enable them to climb telegraph poles or to construct battleships or to build sky-scrap- ers. It would have no effect upon either their work or their wages, work and wages being entirely controlled by the law of sup- ply and demand. It is, however, the steady and universal con- tention of the suffragists that a vote would put } the wages of women on a level with that of men, doing the same work. If that were true, the wages of women in the suffrage states would exceed those of women in the non-suf- frage states. Such is not the case. In the suffrage states, women are no better paid than in the non-suffrage states, and in some employ- ments, not so well paid. In no one of the suffrage states do women teachers receive as high a wage as men teachers. In Wyoming and Utah, women teachers are paid a trifle 81 THE LADIES' BATTLE over 69 per cent, of the wage as compared with men; in Indiana and Missouri, 90 per cent, and in New Mexico, 99 per cent. In no case does suffrage or non-suffrage affect the result. It is regulated by the inevitable law of supply and demand. It is more interesting to study the suffrage body than their principles. The suffragists are no doubt, honest in their convictions, but they seem to think that the science of govern- ment may be acquired in twelve easy lessons, and that it is not necessary to acquire it at all in order to speak and write on suffrage. Many women are born with socialistic and communistic, rather than domestic tendencies. They have an antagonism to men, or think that men have an antagonism to them. These women readily become suffragists, without tak- ing the trouble to investigate suffrage. Then, there is a large class, like the promoters of Hull House in Chicago, who mistake philan- thropy for government, not knowing that 82 THE LADIES' BATTLE too much philanthropy will ruin the best gov- ernment on earth. The best exposition of this class of suffragists is given in an article by Miss Jane Addams, entitled "Why Women Should Vote," and published in the Ladies' Home Journal for January, 1910. Miss Ad- dams gives, as the direct objects for which women should be given the ballot, pure milk, fresh vegetables, school and factory inspec- tion, keeping children off the streets, and cleaning up the town generally. She says, "If conscientious women were convinced that it were a civic duty to be informed in regard to their grave industrial affairs, and to express the conclusions they had reached by deposit- ing a piece of paper in a ballot box, one can- not imagine that they would shirk simply be- cause the action ran counter to old tradition." If these excellent things, good food, and sanitation could be secured by merely deposit- ing a piece of paper in a ballot box, no sane woman would hesitate a moment. But a wo- THE LADIES' BATTLE man of some governmental ideas might rea- son thus. "Here I am told that great benefits can be secured for everybody, merely by women de- positing a piece of paper in a ballot box. But great benefits are never secured so cheaply. The person who tells me this, treats philan- thropic measures and city ordinances as fund- amentals of government, and calls them "in- dustrial affairs." Philanthropy and city or- dinances are not fundamentals of government. Nothing is said to me of any dangers or re- sponsibilities pertaining to the simple process of depositing a piece of paper in a ballot box, but they are very numerous. I might, if I had a vote in Chicago, secure the election of magistrates pledged to good food and sanita- v tion. They might keep their word, but they might divert so much of the city's Income to these measures, as to impair the efficiency of the police and fire departments. They might sell the city franchises for a song, and allow 84 THE LADIES' BATTLE it to be throttled by corporation. Or, they might not keep their word, and the only re- dress the women voters would have, would be a recourse to the law, with men to enforce it, and that they have now. Then, if all wo- men did not vote right and vote alike on philanthropy and sanitation, it would necessi- tate a law like the celebrated act of a Parlia- ment, of Henry the Eighth of England, whicK he caused to be passed and called, with austere simplicity, "An Act to abolish Diver- sities of Opinion." But not even Henry the Eighth could carry that law into effect, and he was one of the most powerful sovereigns who ever lived, and had more personal influ- ence than Miss Jane Addams. Then, there are already in Chicago, enough city ordinances and state and federal laws to make archangels of everybody in the town, if legislation could make people virtuous. It is indeed a simple business to deposit a piece of paper in a ballot box, but to enforce that ballot is something * THE LADIES' BATTLE There would be great danger in an elec- torate in a huge city like Chicago, in which one-half, and a moiety of the second half, would be totally irresponsible, and unable to lift a finger for the enforcement of the law. Suppose I should be walking in the street with Miss Jane Addams, and should see a Greek killing a sheep in his basement, and disregard- ing the helpless protests of a number of wo- men voters. Those women voters would un- doubtedly call upon the nearest policeman to arrest that newly imported Greek armed with a butcher knife. The policeman might call upon all citizens, as he would have a right to do, to assist him in pursuing and disarming the Greek. Neither Miss Addams nor I would be of the slightest practical assistance in the emergency, and would be compelled to defy the law, and fail to assist the officer. Again, nothing is said in Miss Addams' plea for suffrage of any loss to be sustained by wo- men acquiring the ballot. But I know that 86 THE LADIES' BATTLE in the suffrage states, women have no dower. They are jointly responsible for the su port of the children and may, under certain circumstances, be required by law to support their husbands. In addition, they are liable for jury duty, have no exemption from arrest and enjoy no immunities. Would it not be better for me and for my children, to retain the enormous property privileges I now have, the right to be maintained by my hus- band, to have an unalienable share in his prop- erty and earnings, exemptions from jury duty and an enormous number of immunities, and endeavor to have all violators of sanitary and educational laws to be prosecuted and pun- ished? Besides, how has this simple business ^"ww^***^^* r-^ worked, of a woman depositing a piece of paper in a ballot box? Utah and Idaho have failed to put a stop to polygamy; on the con- trary, the polygamists are the chief support- ers of woman suffrage. Colorado has been proved by official figures to be the most cor- 87 THE LADIES' BATTLE rupt electorate in this country, and New Zea- land, where women have full suffrage, has been proved to be the most corrupt electorate in the British Empire. Again, Miss Addams, who is recognized as a leader in the suffrage movement, gives no indication of her views upon the really great governmental matters with which the American press is full, and the public mind much concerned, such as na- tional defense, the control and fortification of the Panama Canal, ship subsidies, deep wa- terways, direct primaries and many other sub- jects of like consequences. No man would attempt political leadership without knowl- edge and conviction on these great questions. What am I to think of a movement in which nobody has given the slightest indication of knowing such matters exist? No, I thank you. I see something beyond that infantile suggestion of putting a piece of paper In a bal- lot box. It is not so simple as it looks. I have read a little history, and I have a few 88 r THE LADIES' BATTLE rudimentary ideas of government, and I promptly and positively decline a vote." There are, of course, in the suffrage body, that proportion of professional agitators which are found in all movements. , Then, there are numbers of women, who wish to be prominent and to get into print. Suffrage af- fords an easy method of doing this, because the suffragists have assumed that any and '* everybody may speak and write on this sub- ject. But the great contributory cause to suf- frage, is the general absence of conscious humor among women. The suffragists have not that subtle sixth sense, which tells them when they have aroused "the unextinguish- able laughter of mankind." It is that lack, which makes them plan in New York City a suffrage parade, with carriages full of old ladies, and drawn by young ladies, and in gen- eral, resembling more a Mardi Gras proces- sion than a serious performance; which filled Carnegie Hall with eager suffragists, listen- So THE LADIES' BATTLE ing breathlessly to the lucubrations on suf- frage of a twenty-year old English girl; and which caused a prominent New York suf- fragist to proclaim boldly her belief in polyg- amy. There is no lack of unconscious humor among the suffragists. They plead for a voter's share in the government, but the science of government, itself, they treat as if it were, like Romeo's first love, an incon- siderable thing, hardly worth mentioning. VII AS to the actual working of woman suffrage, one community Colo- rado affords the best available test after adopting suffrage in 1893, and suf- frage under conditions more nearly resembl- ing these in older civilizations and in time of profound peace. Charges that the Colorado electorates as well as those of the other three suffrage states, was peculiarly corrupt, have been brought forward alongside of the coun- ter-claim by the suffragists that Colorado led in reform the great procession of States. As far back as 1902, however, there seems to have been grave apprehension as to the working of suffrage in Colorado. On the 6th of May, 1902, the Denver Republican printed an interview with Judge Moses Hail- ett, who had been United States Circuit Judge for the Colorado District for twenty- 91 THE LADIES' BATTLE t seven years, and previously, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Colorado as a Terri- tory. Judge Hailett said: "Our State has had the female suffrage plan a sufficiently long time to form a fair idea of its workings. I am not prejudiced in any way, but honestly do not see where the experiment has proved of benefit. The presence of women at the polls has only aug- mented the total vote; it has worked no radical changes. It has promoted no special reforms, and it has had no particularly purifying effect upon politics. There is a growing tendency on the part of most of the better and more intelligent fe- male voters of Colorado to cease exercising the ballot. They still go to the polls, but need to be urged by some of their male rela- tives. I do not believe there will be any ab- rogation of the suffrage rights of women of our State, for the reason that no man who as- pires to office would risk their displeasure by 92 THE LADIES' BATTLE advocating the repeal of the law. At the same time, if it were to be done over again, the people of Colorado would defeat woman suffrage by an overwhelming majority." The women voters of Colorado seem to have gone rapidly from bad to worse, as the celebrated contested election case of Bonynge versus Shafroth shows, in the First Congres- sional District of Colorado, containing the city of Denver. This case was investigated during the second session of the Fifty- eighth Congress (H. R. report, No. 2705). The methods prevailing in the Colorado electorate were there fully and officially set forth. In this case, the certificate of election had been given to Mr. Shafroth, but it was contested by Mr. Bonynge, and the ballot-boxes were brought to Washing- ton and opened in the House of Represent- atives. The ballot-boxes disclosed a state of cor- ruption comparable only with the worst days 93 THE LADIES' BATTLE of reconstruction in the South. Out of a to- tal of nearly nine thousand ballots cast, six thousand were fraudulent. In this orgy of fraud and forgery, the women voters held their own gallantly. It was found that a bogus ballot had been placed in the boxes, and in many cases that six or eight or ten of these bogus ballots were folded together in such a way that they could not have been voted separately or legally. The handwrit- ing experts testified that all these bogus bal- lots had been filled in by four persons, one of them a woman ; that this woman had num- bered hundreds of these bogus ballots, and had them placed in the ballot-boxes. On page 23 of the report, it will be noted that the polling-list contained 422 names, and was in the handwriting of a woman clerk of the poll. On page 24 it was shown that this woman voted three times, and she also wrote iin the party designation for many of the bal- lots. On the same page it is shown that an- 94 THE LADIES' BATTLE other woman signed the certificate in two places purporting to have been signed by two other clerks. Certificates in a poll-book, purporting to be signed by each of the judges, were found to be in the handwriting of a woman, a clerk of the poll. On page 5 it is stated that although the names of seven- ty-five women appear on a poll-list, the com- mittee found but two ballots on which the party name at the top appeared to be in the handwriting of women. It was also proved that two women ar- ranged to have a fight started so as to dis- tract the attention of the watchers at the polls, while a third woman stuffed the ballot- boxes. This gives a slight idea o'f tKe corrupt methods prevailing among the women voters of Colorado. The whole exhibition was such that Mr. Sha froth did what has never before been done in the history of a contest- ed election case in the Congress of the United 95 THE LADIES' BATTLE States. He rose and formally resigned the seat which had been given him upon the prima facie evidence of the certificate of elec- tion. Colorado has but three Congressional districts, and in the First District is the city of Denver. Therefore, the state of affairs prevailing in the First Congressional District may be reasonably taken as representing one- third of the electorate of Colorado, and that the wealthiest and most enlightened third. Concerning the alleged purifying effect of women voters on politics, it is not indicated by the following Associated Press dispatch, dated Denver, May 17, 1910: "That Denver has gone 'wet,' seems as- sured by the returns received up to eight o'clock to-night. Betting on a 'wet' majority is two to one, with very little 'dry" money in sight." The election went, two to one in favor of the "wets." This moved a leading Color- ado newspaper, the Fort Collin's Express, to 96 THE LADIES' BATTLE say, in its issue of May iyth, 1910: "On moral questions the laws of Color- ado are famous for their weakness or ab- sence. The liquor laws of Colorado are not up to the standard of other states. No search or seizure law is in effect in the state, and without such a law the illicit sale of liquor cannot be suppressed. The women of Colorado are on trial in regard to the suffrage movement. Their failure to bene- fit Colorado by their suffrage is doing more to retard woman suffrage in other states and nations than anything else. If Colorado, as a result of woman suffrage had laws above the average, especially on moral questions and where the rights of women are affected, if it was a state that could be pointed to with pride in regard to its laws and their enforce- ment, if the city of Denver as a result of their ballot could be changed from the worst city, morally, in the land, to one of even aver- age decency, then the suffragists could give 97 THE LADIES' BATTLE a reason for asking for the franchise in other states." Newspapers may be depended upon not to make these statements concerning their own communities, unless the proof be obvi- ous and overwhelming. It would be ruinous to the newspaper otherwise. Some details of this election are furnished by Mr. Richard Barry, a representative of the Ladies' Home Journal, in the issue of November ist, 1910. The election was pre- ceded some months before by a meeting of a woman's political organization, at which the women fought with fists. At the election in May, 1910, the sale of women's votes was open and shameless. At each of the 211 vot- ing precints in Denver, there were four wo- men working in the interest of the saloon- keepers. These women had previously visited the headquarters of the saloonkeepers and openly accepted each a ten dollar bill for her services. In this, and in other ways, Mr. 98 THE LADIES' BATTLE Barry says he saw about $17,000 paid to women voters, who apparently made no effort to conceal it, as indeed it would have been useless. One woman, whose business it was to challenge every temperance voter at a cer- tain polling place, did her work so well that by twelve o'clock, only fourteen temperance votes had been cast. The policeman on duty threatened to arrest her, when the manager of the "wets" replied, "You'll not arrest her. If you do, I'll have the polls closed and post a notice, ' Closed. Women intimidated at the polls by the police.' ' The woman was not arrested. Such whole- sale corruption has probably never been ap- proximated in any city in the United States. It is not surprising, after these revelations, that a strong movement was inaugurated, in January, 1911, among the soberer and more intelligent women of Colorado, headed by Mrs. Goddard, wife of the Chief Justice, to secure the repeal of the woman suffrage 99 THE LADIES* BATTLE amendment to the constitution of the State. Mr. Barry also discovered that in Denver, the rate of juvenile crime was abnormally high, and the chief of police of Denver told him it was increasing alarmingly. In juvenile illiter- acy, he also found that Colorado had one illit- erate child in every sixty, the highest rate among the white population of any city in this country. It is possible that the aboli- tion of the dower, that practical ownership of the home, may affect these questions. It is sometimes claimed by suffragists that women in the suffrage states enjoy an equivalent for dower. But there is no equivalent. A home is generally the first and only property acquired by a man. Few unmarried men own homes. Under the present dispensation, the women of the country, in effect, own it. Except in the suffrage states, there is practically no conveyance of real estate in the United States, without the consent of some 100 THE LADIES' BATTLE woman. From Utah, the stronghold of woman suffrage, came on the loth June, 1910, the following Associated Press dispatch from one of the principals in a proposed prize fight which had been prohibited in California by Governor Gillett : " Salt Lake City can handle the fight, and it can be put on July 4th " prize fighting not being illegal in Utah as in California. The introduction of the woman-suffrage question into politics in the last two or three years has already made difficulties. Men, be- ing the arbiters, have naturally and wisely kept, in general, out of the discussion. It has been mainly carried on by women, who must, of course, settle it among themselves, for it has been shown that men are willing to grant the ballot to women as soon as it is proved that a majority of women want it and so far, long before this is proved. Whenever it has come to a test of numbers 101 THE LADIES' BATTLE and political management between the suf- fragists and the anti-suffragists, the latter have secured an easy and overwhelming vic- tory. There is something comic in the spectacle of the anti-suffrage women displaying a shrewd- ness of political management that would put a professional politician to shame. It is no part of the contention of the anti-suffragists that women are not intelligent enough to vote, and the conduct of the anti-suf- frage campaigns in New Yorlc and Massa- chusetts alone could prove this. In 1894, a strong effort was made by the suffragists in New York State to have the Constitutional Convention of that year adopt a woman-suffrage amendment. The anti- suffragists were not aroused until the amend- ment appeared to be certain of a majority of votes. Then, a rapid campaign was organ- ized, a delegation of women went to Albany, and by masterly tactics they defeated, in a few 102 THE LADIES' BATTLE weeks, the result of twenty-five years of ef- fort on the part of the suffragists. This has been repeated at nearly every ses- sion of the New York legislature since. When the suffragists, after a strenuous and expen- sive campaign, get to Albany, they find at the doors of the Committees on Elections, a band of quiet and resolute women who make a firm protest against the sacrifice of their property privileges, their immunities and ex- emptions, at the demand of an insignificant minority, and the suffrage bill is killed. In Massachusetts the anti-suffragists were brilliantly successful in the matter of the so- called Referendum of 1895. The Massa- chusetts Legislature passed a bill, submitting to the men voters, and to the women voters entitled to vote on school committees, the question whether municipal suffrage be grant- ed to women. The suffragists sought to avoid the test and appealed to the governor to veto the bill after it had passed. Both 103 THE LADIES' BATTLE sides among women went actively into the campaign. The anti-suffragists, with admir- able strategy, decided to remain away from the polls, while exerting all their influence against the proposed measure. The votes of the men and the women were kept separate. The result was a majority of men opposed to the bill of 100,006. Out of an estimated number of 575,000 women of voting age, only 22,204 voted in favor of the bill. In 47 towns, not one woman's vote was recorded in favor of it, and in 138 towns the suffragists secured in each 15 votes or less; 864 votes were cast against it. This illustrates a fact very important for legislators to recognize the insignificant number of suffragists in the whole body of women. At the National Woman Suffrage convention in April, 1910, a petition bearing the names of 404,825 persons asking for woman suffrage was presented to the Congress of the United States. Of these 163,438 were 104 THE LADIES' BATTLE the names of women, 122,382 the names of men, and 119,008 unclassified. When it is re- called that there are about twenty million women of voting age in this country who have not asked for a change in their status, it will be seen that the commotion made by the suffragists bears a very small relation to their importance. The idea of forcing suffrage, with all its attendant complications, and changing the whole status of forty-five million women and girls and girl-children at the bidding of four hundred thousand persons, is in itself a mon- strous proposition. If the suffragists believe that suffrage would be advantageous to women, they are justified in urging women to ask for it. But to demand of men that the status of ninety- nine per cent, of the women of the country be wholly changed at the solicitation of less than one per cent, certainly shows an admir- able hardihood. 105 I IX suffragists have said repeat- edly that if a suffragist amend- ment to the Constitution were adopted, no woman need vote who did not wish to vote. This is equivalent to saying that if a sixteenth amendment, authorizing polygamy were adopted, no one need prac- tice polygamy who did not wish to do so. Nevertheless, it would change the status of every woman in the United States. Opposi- tion to suffrage does not mean that women should not study public affairs, and take an intelligent interest in them. If women would read the proceedings of Congress and inform themselves upon state and national affairs, and especially upon the American form of government, it would broaden their minds immensely, and there would be fewer suffra- gists. It would also add to their charms, be- 106 THE LADIES' BATTLE cause they could take a sympathetic interest in those public questions in which most men are more or less engaged. It was this abil- ity to meet men on their own ground that gave the women of the French salons their power. Those glorious French women en- chanted by their grace, their sweetness, and their exquisite femininity, and they ruled by virtue of their intellect and their profound knowledge of affairs. American women could, by the same means, exercise equal power. The suffragists are quite correct in assert- ing that there are certain public questions in which women have a larger stake, and have probably a better knowledge, than men. One of these questions is divorce and remarriage. It is not overstating the fact to say that di- vorce in the United States has reached the point of a national leprosy. Perhaps the greatest contributing cause has been the ex- traordinary indulgence shown to women by 107 THE LADIES' BATTLE the divorce laws, which unfortunately make divorce cheap and easy, and force the hus- band to pay for it. There is always a de- mand for a uniform divorce law through- out the country, but the difficulties in the way have so far prevented any serious attempt to pass such a federal law. It has also been conceded for many cen- turies that women are the chief beneficiaries of monogamy, and the chief sufferers by lax marriage and divorce laws. The proposi- tion need only be stated to prove itself that the limiting, if not actual wiping out, of divorce is the greatest question, not only of the family, but of the state, before the wo- men of this country. But it is a striking and vital fact, although claiming to be the party of reform, that so far as the suffragists are concerned, they have avoided in all their pub- lic and printed utterances, the slightest allu- sion to, much less condemnation of, divorce, except recommendations to make it easier. In 108 THE LADIES' BATTLE New York State, the suffragists, under the , lead of the late Miss Anthony, strove for years to have habitual drunkenness made a cause of absolute divorce, instead of legal separation. This illustrates in a peculiar man- ner, the short-sightedness of most of the leg- islation proposed by the suffragists. A man, anxious to get rid of his wife, but having no legal cause, could, by the simple process of continually getting drunk, offer a strong in- ducement to his wife, to get a divorce. It would be vain for the suffragists to say that divorce cannot be checked, and even abolished. In South Carolina there is not, and never has been, any divorce; but a hus- band and wife, in extreme cases, may get all the relief which is necessary by a legal separ- ation. Among the fifteen million Catholics in the United States there are no divorces, and very few legal separations. In all of the Protestant denominations there are found numbers of earnest clergymen who decline to 109 THE LADIES' BATTLE remarry divorced persons. In the Episcopal Church, especially, a band of conscientious and farrseeing men exists which takes the only ground which has so far proved tenable, that no divorced person should remarry, that neither the guilt nor the innocence of the di- vorced persons can be considered, that a cer- tain percentage of innocent persons must suf- fer in the operation of the most beneficent laws, and that the only thing to be reckoned is the greatest good to the greatest number. So far, however, from the suffragists showing any antagonism to divorce, there seems to be a close relation between suffrage and divorce. It would be interesting to fig- ure out the percentage of divorced women among the suffragists. Some of their most prominent leaders are divorced women. To introduce the subject of divorce at a suffrage meeting would be to organize a riot. Like the effect of suffrage on the property privileges of women, the divorce question no THE LADIES' BATTLE cannot be publicly debated by the suffragists. In the five suffrage states, all the causes for divorce exist that are recognized in the non- suffrage states, and special causes which are peculiar to the suffrage states. For exam- ple, witness the fact alluded to before, the six women in Utah were divorced by their hus- bands for non-support. In Colorado, divorce may be obtained on the ground of "mental cruelty." Divorce statistics are very complicated, ow- ing chiefly to three things the number of Catholics in a State, the number of negroes, and the number of Mormons. In Texas, for instance, the divorce rate is enormous, but the Census Bureau estimates that seventy-five per cent, of the divorces are granted to negroes. In Colorado, at the time of its admission to the Union, the divorce rate was the highest in the United States. The divorce rate showed a slight falling off from 1890 to 1900, the Catholic population having increased in THE LADIES' BATTLE largely in that decade. In the census of 1910, although the Catholic population of Colo- rado had increased to 28 per cent, of the whole, the state was third in point of divorce and that, with few negroes or Mormons, and many Catholics. Wyoming, a suffrage state, with few negroes or Mormons, is seventh in the order of divorce. Owing to the dominance of the Mormon Church in Idaho, that State is ninth, and Utah is nineteenth in the ratio of divorce, Mormonism decreasing divorce. The five suffrage states show that their abnormal rate of divorces prevails under con- ditions which are usually adverse to divorce. It is agreed among sociologists, and is proved by statistics, that divorce in general follows wealth, luxury, a highly artificial mode of life, and complex social conditions. In the suffrage states, however, the general mode of life is simple and the social conditions primitive. These circumstances enhance very much the probable connection be- 112 THE LADIES' BATTLE tween suffrage and divorce. It may be noted that the provisional government in Portugal immediately after commiting itself to woman suffrage, proposed a divorce law, more ut- terly unrestrained than any in existence. If suffrage gives any encouragement to divorce, that is enough to condemn it in the eyes of all political economists, all sociologists, all pub- licists, and all who love honor and decorum. But that woman suffrage tends to divorce, is plain to all who know anything of men and women. Political differences in families, be- tween brothers, for example, who vote on differing sides, do not promote harmony. How much more inharmonious must be po- litical differences between a husband and wife, each of whom has a vote which may be used as a weapon against the other? What is likely to be the state of that family, when the husband votes one ticket, and the wife votes another? Human nature is so im- perfect that most men vote for what they THE LADIES' BATTLE believe to be their material interests, and they can readily bring themselves to believe that their moral interests are identical with their material interests. Even when a voter is willing to vote against his temporary ad- vantage, he always expects to profit in the long run. The woman voter will think like- wise. It is doubtful if many marriages could withstand the strain of the husband and wife antagonizing each other's supposed interests, prejudices and convictions. The more high- ly civilized the community, the more these causes of difference would occur. Whoever expects woman suffrage to have a wholesome effect on marriage, will expect grapes from thorns and figs from thistles. And here comes in a question so vast and so far reach- ing, that it cannot be measured, and is "deep- er than ever plummet sounded." What will be the effect of suffrage on women them- selves? Will it make them more intelligent, more courageous, more patient, more tender, 114 THE LADIES' BATTLE in short, more feminine, for feminity is the glory of a woman? Would Jeanne d'Arc have done more for her country, if she had been a voter? Or would a vote have doubled the strength of Charlotte Corday's slender arm? Would Isabella of Castile, Maria Theresa and Queen Victoria have been abler sovereigns if they had believed in woman suffrage? Would Mary, the mother of Wash- ington, have been able to do a better part by her man-child, who said, "All that I am, my mother made me," if she had been a voter? These women managed, without a vote, to do immortal things. The suffragists cannot hope to surpass them. I ask pardon for introducing a personal note. My excuse is that I may help to dis- prove the fallacy that it is the woman who works who would profit by the ballot. I was but little past my twenty-first birthday when, on the strength of having earned about seven hundred dollars by my pen, I rashly assumed THE LADIES' BATTLE the support, by literature, of my family. The rashness, ignorance, and presumption of this can only be excused by the secluded life I had led in the library of an old Virginia country house, and in a community where conditions more nearly resembled the eighteenth than the nineteenth century. That I succeeded was due to tireless effort, unbroken health, a number of fortunate circumstances, and above all, what I am neither afraid nor ashamed to say, the kindness of the good God. In the course of time, I became, through literature alone, a householder, a property- owner, a taxpayer, and the regular employer L j _ t j of five persons. My experience, therefore, has been more varied than that of most wo- men, and I know something of the interests both of the woman who works and of the woman property-owner, the taxpayer, and the employer. I can say with positiveness that there never was a moment when the pos- 116 THE LADIES' BATTLE session of a vote would not have been a hind- rance and a burden to me. I had no claim on any man to help me fight my way to the polls in case of opposition. I should have been called upon to vote di- rectly or indirectly upon naval and military affairs, police, shipping and navigation, rail- ways and mines and many other subjects up- on which neither I nor any other woman could cast an intelligent vote. I could not enforce my vote after it was cast. I might have been forced, at great loss and inconveni- ence, to do jury duty, just as men are forced to do it, at a loss and inconvenience. These considerations, great in any wo- man's case, would have been frightfully mul- tiplied in the case of a wife and a mother, to whom would have been added the loss of all property privileges, and the terrible conflict of political and family relations. I never attempted or even wished to do anything in which a vote would have been of the slight- 117 THE LADIES' BATTLE est assistance to me. Editors and publishers did not ask whether I was a voter or not, in judging my work, but if it suited them better, took it in preference to the work ,of a voter. I had the full protection of the law, and a vast number of immunities and ex- emptions denied to voters, including women who vote. I admit I should particularly object to be divorced for non-support, like the six ladies in Utah. I cannot, of course, be expected to admit that my earnest objection to a vote comes, as some suffragists allege, from mere lack of brains, "of which," as Sir Thomas Browne says, "every one think- eth he hath a sufficiency." , But none of the disadvantages of the bal- lot for me which I have mentioned, exist for men. They can fight their way to the polls, and enforce their votes; the controversies, which are so disastrous and undignified for women, are by no means so among men. In short, men have certain natural qualifications THE LADIES' BATTLE as voters which women have not, and never can acquire, and are perfectly adapted to working the great registering machine called suffrage. In conclusion, it is my earnest hope and belief that the sound good sense of Ameri- can women will defend them from suffrage, and protect their property privileges, their right to maintenance from their husbands, and their personal dignity. And if the wo- men of this country will unite upon any true reform, such as the abolition of divorce, I believe their power to be so great that they can carry through measures which thinking men desire, but cannot effect without the as- sistance of women. I believe that the most important factors in the state are the wives and mothers who make of men good citizens to govern and protect the state, and I believe woman suffrage to be an unmixed evil. 119 r I^HE following pages contain advertisements of a few of the Macmillan books on kindred subjects BY Miss JANE ADDAMS, HULL-HOUSE, CHICAGO Democracy and Social Ethics I2mo, cloth, leather back, $f^J net; by mail, $ /\J5 " Its pages are remarkably we were about to say refreshingly free from the customary academic limitations . . . ; in fact, are the result of actual experience in hand to band contact with social problems." Review of Reviews. The Newer Ideals of Peace izmo, cloth, leather back, $ /_?j net ; by mail, $J.J5 " A clean and consistent setting forth of the utility of labor as against the waste of war, and an exposition of the alteration of standards that must ensue when labor and the spirit of militar- ism are relegated to their right places in the minds of men." Chicago Tribune. 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