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 1902 
 

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 BEFORE THE 
 
 SELECT COMMITTEE ON WOMAN SUFFRAGE/ 
 
 UlSriTED STATES SENATE, 
 
 ON THE 
 
 JOINT RESOLUTION (S. R. 53) PROPOSING AN AMENDMENT TO THE 
 
 CONSTITUTION OP THE UNITED STATES EXTENDING 
 
 THE RIGHT OF SUFFRAGE TO WOMEN. 
 
 : .yvASKmaTOT^: 
 
 GOVBRllMBNT PRINTING OFFICE. 
 1902. 
 
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 JK1888 1902 
 
 Woman suffraj 
 
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 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 Washington, D. C, Tuesday, February 18, 1902. 
 
 The committee met at 10 o'clock a. m. Present: Senators Bacon 
 (chairman), Berry, Wetmore, Bard, and Mitchell. Also, Miss Susan 
 B. Anthony, Mrs. Harriet Taylor Upton, Miss Harriet May Mills, 
 Mrs. Lucretia L. Blankenburg, Rev. Olympia Brown, Miss Gail 
 Laughlin, Mrs. Jennie A. Brown, Mrs. Mary W. Swift, Mrs. Lucy 
 Hobart Day, Miss Alice Stone Blackwell, Mrs. Mariana W. Chapman, 
 Mrs. Gudrun Drewsen, Miss Vida Goldstein, Mrs. Emmy Evald, Rev. 
 Anna H. Shaw, and other representatives of the National American 
 Woman Suffrage Association. 
 
 The Chairman. The committee have met this morning to hear such 
 remarks as may be submitted upon the joint resolution now pending 
 in the Senate, providing for an amendment to the Constitution in the 
 interest of impartial suffrage. After having the resolution read by 
 the clerk, the committee wifl surrender control of all the details of the 
 meeting entirely to the officers of your associatiouj in order that they 
 may indicate who shall speak and the length of time which shall be 
 occupied by each speaker. The clerk will now read the resolution, in 
 order that it may be before the committee. 
 
 The clerk read as follows: 
 
 JOINT BESOLDTION (S. R. 53) proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States 
 extending the right of suffrage to women. 
 
 Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in 
 Congress assembled (two-thirds of each House concurring therein). That tne following 
 article be proposed to the legislatures of the several States as an amendment to the 
 Constitution of the United States, which, when ratified by three-fourths of the said 
 legislatures, shall be valid as part of said Constitution, namely: 
 
 "Article 
 
 "Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied 
 or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. 
 
 " Sec. 2. The Congress shall have power, by appropriate legislation, to enforce the 
 provisions of this article." 
 
 STATEMENT OF MISS STJSAN B. ANTHONY. 
 
 Miss Anthony. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, 
 this is the seventeenth Congress that has been addressed by the women 
 of this nation. That means that we have been cpming to Congress thirty- 
 three years. In 1887 the Senate brought the bill to a discussion and 
 to a vote. 
 
 S 
 
4 WOMAN STTB'FEA&B. 
 
 We ask for a sixteenth amendment because your honorable body, 
 the Congress of the United States, has power to submit the proposi- 
 tion to the legislatures of the several States, and it is much easier to 
 canvass a legislature— it is much easier to persuade the members of a 
 legislature to pass on the ratification of this amendment^than it is to 
 get the whole three millions or six millions, as the case may be, of the 
 rank and filex)f the men of the different States to vote for it. 
 
 I appeal to you that you bring this question before the Senate of the 
 United States. . I think we are of as much importance as are the Fili- 
 pinos, Porto Ricans, Hawaiians, Cubans, and all of the different sorts 
 of men that you have before you. [Laughter.] When you get those 
 men, you have an ignorant and unlettered set of people, who know 
 nothing about our institutions. 
 
 The 600 women teachers sent over to the Philippines are a thousand 
 times better qualified than are the men who go there to make money. 
 The women go there to teach, to educate, and to get something to build 
 a State upon. 
 
 The women of the islands, as well as the women at home, are quite 
 as well qualified to govern and have the charge of affairs in their hands 
 as are the men. 
 
 But I do not propose to talk this morning. I am simply here to 
 introduce those who are to address you. 
 
 I have here the report of the hearing two years ago, which contains 
 a statement of the workings of suffrage in the different States of the 
 Union. This report is published at tne expense of Uncle Sam. The 
 only thing we ever get out of him is the printing of that document. 
 [Laughter.] This bears the frank of Hon. Cushman K. Davis, and 
 during his lifetime these reports were sent over the country in that 
 way. Before that the reports of these hearings were sent out under 
 the frank of Senator Daniel, former chairman of the committee, aqd 
 we shall expect Senator Bacon and Senator Berry and all of you gen- 
 tlemen to do your part. Senator Mitchell here is an old war horse. 
 I traveled with him thirty-one years ago over the Union Pacific, and 
 we were snowed in together for nine days. [Laughter.] 
 
 Senator Mitchell. We ^ot pretty well acquainted then, did we not? 
 
 Miss Anthony. Yes; and you have been a good suffrage man e^per 
 since. 
 
 Senator Mitchell. You made one convert. 
 
 Miss Anthony. Yes; and there were several others. A man came 
 to me at the hotel the other night, who was with us on that trip, who 
 remembered the trials we had. 
 
 I now have the pleasure of introducing Harriet May Mills, the 
 organizer of New York State. 
 
 STATEMENT OF MISS HAERIET MAY MILLS. 
 
 Miss Mills. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committeej I 
 speak this morning as a taxpayer, in behalf of the great principle that 
 taxa^^ without representation is tyranny; not because I believe that 
 the cl*f women who should vote are those who are taxed, but because 
 I believe that taxpaying women suffer an added injustice, since they 
 
 •~ not only governed by laws which they can not help to make, but 
 use they also are obliged to pay taxes while they are powerless to 
 
WOMAN SUFFEAGB. 5 
 
 This great principle, of course, is not a new one to us. But there 
 are people in these days who say that all those great declarations of 
 the fathers are outgrowii. It seems to me we do not realize that the 
 women of to-day are much larger shareholders in the Government 
 than they have ever been before, and we can not certainly believe that 
 the principles for which our fathers died will ever be outgrown. 
 
 In my State of New York we tried a few years ago to make a list of 
 the taxpaying women, and although it was necessarily more or less im- 
 perfect, we found that outside of New York City, in three-fourths of 
 the towns and villages of the State, the women paid taxes on $369,000,000. 
 I notice in the press a statement somebody has made lately that the 
 women of New York State pay taxes on over $100,000,000. They must 
 certainly pay taxes on three or four times as much as that. In one city, 
 near my own home, a recent investigation has been made, and we find 
 there that women pay as much as one-half, that they are assessed on 
 15,032,476 real and personal property, and that they" also own a great 
 deal of stock in the banks and other large corporations. 
 
 Of 88 stockholders in one national bank in mat city, 60 are women; 
 so that it is fair to estimate that the women pay at least one-half of 
 the taxes, and I believe that this city is not exceptional in my State. 
 
 The otner day in our convention we took a vote to determine the 
 number of women present who paid taxes. All who paid taxes were 
 asked to rise, and out of some 300 women all save 20 rose, showing 
 the great proportion of women who to-day are directly assisting in 
 the support of the Government. This is largely due, of course, to 
 two great influences: First, the fact that women can now own prop- 
 erty, whether married or single. 
 
 At the beginning of the nineteenth century no married woman could 
 own a cent of property. At the beginning of the twentieth century 
 women, married or single, may own and often do own millions. 
 
 In Chicago the largest schedules of personal tax that were filed 
 recently were filed by two women, Mrs. Emmons Blaine and Mrs. 
 Mary Sturgis. I suppose that does not mean that they necessarily 
 had the largest amount of personal property, but they confessed to 
 all they had. [Laughter.] 
 
 Then another reason for this large increase in the property of 
 women is that they are now allowed to earn their own living in almost 
 any business, and there are to-day at least 4,000,000 of us earning 
 independent incomes. We feel that it is a great injustice, gentlemen, 
 when we are such large shareholders in the Government, when we are 
 such large participants in business affairs, to be denied any voice in 
 the Government. 
 
 It was quite different in the old days, when married women were 
 always under tutelage and had no lights of their own, when they did 
 not even own the clothes they wore. There might have been a little 
 more justice in giving the votes to the man and denying it to the 
 woman, but certainly it can not be fair to-day. 
 
 Some people say that this property is all represented by the men, 
 and that they cast the votes for us. Gentlemen, in my State of New 
 York there are 40,000 more women than men; and is it not a great 
 burden to put upon the men to ask them to represent not only them- 
 selves, but 40,000 more women than the double of themselves? 
 
 I do not see how it is possible for any man to represent a woman. 
 In Belgium I believe they have a law which gives a married man two 
 
Q WOMAN STJFFKAGE 
 
 votes, but we have no such law in our country; and even that law 
 does not stipulate that the second vote shall always express the opinion 
 of the wife. So that even there a man does not usually represent his 
 
 In our constitutional convention, in 1894, we had a glaring instance 
 of the way men sometimes represent their wives. There was a woman 
 there who was very much interested in the amendment which we hoped 
 to have submitted, striking the word "male" from the State consti- 
 tution. She was very much interested all through the campaign, and 
 on the night when the vote was taken was very, much excited lest her 
 husband should not express her opinion. He expressed it by voting 
 the other way. [Laughter. ] And I am quite sure that men very often 
 express their wives' opinions in that way. It is quite right that they 
 should express their own opinions and not those of their wives. 
 
 "We are not asking this because we are women or because we want 
 anything that is not justly ours; but we are asking justice for the 
 excluded class, which now happens to be women, in this country. 
 
 The principle that taxation and representation are inseparable is 
 being taught very well to the children in a little republic in our State — 
 the George Junior Republic. There they are trying to institute a 
 true republic among these young boys and girls. A few years ago the 
 girls thought, as some women think to-day, that they did not wish to 
 vote, and there was a boy running for president who was very much 
 opposed to the enfranchisement of the girls, and he said: ' ' It would be 
 unwomanly for you to vote. You do not wish to vote, do you ?" And 
 somebody foolishly said they did not. But a little while afterwards a 
 tax was levied, and the girls found that they were taxed much more 
 heavily in the republic man the boys, and then they began to open 
 their eyes, and they thought if it was womanly for a girl to pay ner 
 taxes, and to pay such heavy taxes, it might be womanly for her to 
 vote and decide what the taxes should be. That is the justice we ask 
 at your hands to-day; and I say there can be no reason for denying 
 to public shareholders the same rights that we give to private share- 
 holders in all the corporations of this country. 
 
 People say this principle is dead, that it is outgrown, but, gentle- 
 men, our forefathers did not believe that. There was once a man 
 named John Hampden, and when he was called to pay a tax unjustly 
 levied he said, "No, gentlemen, I would be content to loan my King, 
 but I fear to call down upon my head the curses pronounced in Magna 
 Charta against anyone who thus broke or disregarded its provisions." 
 He was rewarded by imprisonment in the tower, and the old chroni- 
 cler says that never again did he look the man he was before. 
 
 Such patriots had our country of old, and we stand here to-day the 
 lineal descendants of such men and many another. We are the true 
 daughters of the Revolution, who believe to-day as our forefathers 
 believed, and as they fought and died to prove, that taxation without 
 representation is unjust. [Applause.] 
 
 Miss Anthony. The next in order will be Mrs. Lucretia L. Blanken- 
 burg, daughter of Dr. Hannah Longshore, who was the first woman 
 that was graduated as a physician in Philadelphia. Mrs. Blankenburg 
 is the president of the State society of Pennsylvania. 
 
WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 7 
 
 STATEMENT OF MKS. LUCKETIA L. BLANKENBURG. 
 
 Mrs. Blankenbubg. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, 
 my theme to-day will be the home. I am a home maker. AH through 
 song and story we read of woman as the queen of the home, where she 
 reigns supreme. Now, in fact, she is the sharer of the home. There- 
 fore politics enters the home. It enters through the water department, 
 and the more corrupt the politics the dirtier the water. [Laughter.] I 
 live in Philadelphia, gentlemen, and I am very familiar with the sub- 
 ject. Politics enters the home through the gas pipes and along the 
 electric wires. It also enters the home through the doors and win- 
 dows, in the form of dust. The poor asphalt pavements that we have 
 are very manifest, as are also the neglected streets. 
 
 Municipal housekeeping is simply homekeeping on a larger scale. 
 Men do not make a special study of housekeeping, yet it is our experi- 
 ence that men are elected to take charge of a whole city of homes. 
 Now, what we wish to do is to take the home into politics. The ward 
 in which I live in the city of Philadelphia is in the center of the city, 
 and to find out how many of our own members are interested in taking 
 the home into politics we have made a house-to-house canvass. We 
 have a population of about 20,000 inhabitants in that ward, and a very 
 remarkable fact in our locality is that we have more men than women; 
 and at the last election in November more than half of the male popu- 
 lation in our ward voted! 
 
 We visited 1,227 homes of women in this ward and interviewed them, 
 and we found a great many, of course, that have no opinions on these 
 subjects, and we found some that did not care to express their opinion, 
 for, they said to the canvasser, " We belong to the gang and we are 
 not going to talk to you on this subject." Then we had others that 
 had never thought about it and were not interested, but over 50 per 
 cent of these women were interested in the politics that come into 
 their homes, and most of them who expressed an opinion said they 
 thought women should serve on the school boards and on the health 
 boards. 
 
 We hope to follow this matter up and hold meetings from time to 
 time in this ward, and educate these women to help make our city a 
 cleaner and better place in which to live. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, we not only want to take the home into the city 
 
 Politics, but we want to take it into the State and national assemblies, 
 his would not be a strange precedent. I read the other day in 
 Gurden's Antiquities of Parliament that during the reign of Edward 
 III no less than ten women had writs served upon them to serve as 
 members of the Parliament. They were peeresses, and 1 suppose 
 received this honor on account of their birth. But we are all peeresses 
 in America, and we are ready and anxious to sit in the parliament of 
 the nation. [Applause.] 
 
 Miss Anthony. I now introduce Eev. Olympia Brown, a regularly 
 ordained minister, and president of the Wisconsin State society. 
 
 STATEMENT OF REV. OLYMPIA BROWN. 
 
 Kev. Oltmpia Bbown. Gentlemen of the committee, I do not come 
 to make any special plea in behalf of women or to ask any particular 
 favora for them, nor even to speak of the awful iniquity and the gross 
 
8 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 wickedness of making women pay the bills and submit to f go^ern^«^* 
 in which they have no voice; but I come rather to speak in the mteiest 
 of the State Itself, .the rulers of the State, the men of the nation, and 
 especially the Congressmen, .-, ^. ^ „„„+ 
 
 I ask your attention to the fact that in the consideration of any great 
 subject it is not enough to take observations from a single point of view. 
 You remember the story of the two knights who fought about the coloi 
 of a shield, one saying it was red and the other that it was white. Alter 
 they had fought about it for a long time, each looked on the other side 
 and found that the shield was both white and red. Now, as I under- 
 stand it, you gentlemen who are ruling the country are looking only 
 on one side of the shield, and that is the red side. Will jou not look 
 upon the white side also? [Applause.] Will you not bring in testi- 
 mony from both sides ? . .V J- i 
 
 1 am told that when our astronomers wish to determine the distance 
 of any heavenly body, they take a great number of observations from 
 a great number of points, and then they compare and collate, and the 
 result of this comparison and collation gives them the true position ot 
 the subject which they are studying. Now, when you have before 
 you any great question of importance, you need to take observations 
 from different sides. . » . „ 
 
 Woman has a different standpoint, a different point ot view ±rom 
 
 that of man. 
 
 Even if we should admit, as some claim, that the masculine and the 
 feminine souls, or brains, or minds, or spirits are all alike, neverthe- 
 less, the different experiences of life, the different positions they 
 occupy, give them still a different point of view from that of men, and 
 you want both points of view in order to get the whole well-rounded 
 truth. 
 
 But women a/re different from men. As Mr. Fmck well says, there 
 is sex in mind. They approach every subject from a different side. 
 They view it from a different standpoint, and in order to get the truth 
 you must have woman's testimony as well as man's testimony. She 
 must speak out of experience, out of the soul life which has been given 
 to her, and that will be the necessary supplement to man's observation. 
 Wise men tell us that woman is intuition and man is reason. Very 
 good. Why not have both ? A little intuition in our legislative bodies 
 would save an immense amount of time and cut a vast deal of red tape, 
 and I think we need it and I believe anyone thinks so who has ever had 
 anything to do with any kind of legislative process. 
 
 We need both observations, and then, having the best thought of 
 man, supplemented by the best thought of woman, we shall get the 
 truth on the great subjects that are to be acted upon by our legislators. 
 
 You may say, perhaps, that you get woman's thought from her con- 
 versation and through her writing, but you do not. You can not get 
 her thought in that way any more than you can breathe the morning 
 air through two thicknesses of cheesecloth. You prefer to go out 
 into the air and take it at first hand. Now, when you take a woman's 
 opinion or her observation, percolating though pages of dusty print 
 paper, or through the report of the men with whom she converses, 
 you have not her opinion; you have only a dull, dim, blurred photo- 
 graph of what her opinon is. You can only get her opinion when she 
 gives it at first hand through the ballot. 
 
 The human being is twofold, masculine and feminine. The masculine 
 
WOMAN SUFFBAGE. 9 
 
 and the feminine together constitute the human beinff. The human 
 brain is twofold, the masculine and the feminine. Most men realize 
 this, and take to themselves the feminine heart, and so make them- 
 selves complete men. Why should Uncle Sam be the only fellow to 
 go about doing his work with half a brain ? [Laughter.] W hy should 
 he not be allowed the feminine half of the brain to help him to solve 
 the questions and the problems of peace and war and finance with 
 which he is confronted? We want all the intellect and all the reason 
 and all the intuition that God has given us, to adjust the varied rela- 
 tions of the people in such a country as ours. With these varied 
 peoples of all nationalities, how absurd it would be and how unjust it 
 womd be to suppose that the men in Maine, for instance, could under- 
 stand and properly determine what should be the policy of this whole 
 country. 
 
 What would South Carolina say to a proposition to leave all ques- 
 tions of government to the men of Maine. Or suppose on the other 
 hand the men of South Carolina should be set up to determine the 
 interests of Maine. Would they understand what the men of Maine 
 want at all ? No ; because they have an entirely different point of view. 
 So men can not understand women's point of view. 
 
 And then, again, we desire the ballot in the hands of women because 
 we desire an entire reform in our suffrage laws, for the sake of the 
 Congressmen of the country. We wish to help them all we can. Our 
 Congressmen at present are placed in a very uncomfortable position. 
 They desire to do their best for the people whom they represent. 
 They must fulfill the wishes of their constituency. They must be 
 responsible and answerable to that constituency. . 
 
 Now, you do not stand on an equality, on a level plane, on the floor 
 of Congress. A man from Iowa has behind him a constituency of 
 male citizens — men who have lived in this country at least five years, 
 consequently men who can read our language, men who probably own 
 property and have real estate interests here, and when he has been 
 elected by those citizens and has come to Congress, and has done his 
 best in mind and thought to please them — when he goes home he 
 meets the same men there. They live there; that is their home; they 
 know what he has done; they voted for him before, and they have 
 applauded his course. That man can stand up quite strongly on the 
 floor of Congress; feeling that his action will be understood at home. 
 
 Take Wisconsin and some of the other Northwestern States. The 
 Representative in Congress has behind him no such constituency as 1 
 have described, but he has behind him a. voting population that may 
 have landed in the State within the last year, or within the last six 
 months, or in some of the States in the last four months. A large 
 number of them can not speak the language. Very many of them 
 know nothing of our institutions or our history. They have voted for 
 this man because they have been following some leader, or been gov- 
 erned by some chance circumstance. They are not capable of follow 
 ing his acts in Congress; and when, at the end of his term of service, 
 he comes back he finds strangers in their places. He does not meet 
 the same men who voted for him, for they have gone on to make new 
 homes in other places. He finds in their places a lot of people who do 
 not know anything about him. He is not on an equality with the man 
 from Iowa. We ask you to make these Congressmen equal, by giving 
 us some kind of a uniform suffrage law, whereby all the citizens, and 
 
10 WOMAN SUFFBAGB. 
 
 only the citizens of the United States, will have an equal right of 
 suffrage everywhere. [Applause.] , » -. xr 
 
 Miss Anthony. Mrs. Mariana W. Chapman, president ot the JNew 
 York State society, will now address the committee. 
 
 STATEMENT OF MRS. MARIANA W. CHAPMAN. 
 
 Mrs. Chapman. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, 
 we come to you asking for a sixteenth amendment to the Constitution 
 of the United States forbidding disfranchisement by the States on 
 account of sex, because we believe it to be a part of the grounds of 
 justice on which this Government was established. On the top of the 
 Dome of this great Capitol is the figure of a women as the emblem of 
 freedom in this so-called Republic. Is it consistent, when a woman is 
 the only permanently disfranchised citizen of the country? 
 
 Even criminals, if they be men, may assume the prerogative of the 
 franchise so soon as they are out of the penitentiaries. Lunatics, if 
 men, may recover their reason and do likewise. Paupers, if men, are 
 released from the almshouses a few days before election and present 
 themselves at the polls. Aliens, if men, which they are in a larger 
 proportion, may overcome their exclusion by varying periods of resi- 
 dence in the different States. Minors, if boys, will vote at twenty- 
 one, but their mothers are minors forever in the eyes of the law. 
 ThOT are legislated for and governed and, to some extent, protected. 
 
 We acknowledge the chivalry of this, but we ask for something 
 more precious — ^the jewel of justice. We ask for it because we are 
 individual human beings who average well with men in inte iligence, 
 in virtue, and in sobriety. We ask for it as taxpayers, because we 
 help to maintain the expense of this great Capitol and other buildings, 
 and to pay the salaries of those who serve in them. We desire it for 
 our own protection just as men desire it for theirs. We ask it because 
 we are the only civilized country in the world which makes its women 
 subjects of foreign men, educated and uneducated, of the negro, and 
 the American Indians. We ask it because, except in four States, we 
 are the only Anglo-Saxon country where women have so low a political 
 status. 
 
 In England and all her colonies women have all but the Parliamen- 
 tary vote. Shall the men of the United States be less generous ? We 
 ask this Congress to make itself historic by asserting that the Declara- 
 tion of Independence refers to all rational human beings as the possess- 
 ors of the inalienable rights there affirmed. [Applause.] 
 
 Miss Anthony. The next speaker will be Miss Gail Laughlin, who 
 will speak of this matter as it affects the wage- earner. 
 
 Miss Laughlin is a graduate of Wellesley College and of the Cornell 
 University Law School, so that she is competent to speak on this ques- 
 tion. [Applause.] 
 
 STATEMENT OF MISS GAIL LAUGHLIN. 
 
 Miss Laughlin. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, 
 within the last few years the United States has taken* its place among 
 the nations of the earth as one of the great world powers. The 
 countries of Europe which a century ago viewed with contemptuous 
 
WOMAN SUFFKAGE. 11 
 
 scorn the new nation for which they predicted but a short life are 
 now rivals for our friendship, and considerable space in their news- 
 papers is at the present time devoted to setting forth their respective 
 claiifls upon us for favorable consideration. The immediate cause of 
 this is to be found in our economic importance. Political power has 
 always been the outgrowth of economic strength, as the history of the 
 world shows. It is of primary, it is of paramount importance that the 
 nation should be economically strong, and the nation will be econom- 
 ically strong just in proportion as its people are intelligent, developed, 
 and efficient. Whatever therefore brings about the best development 
 of the people and makes them most intelligent and efficient promotes 
 most the economic strength of the country and therefore add^ most to 
 its power and importance among the nations of the world. 
 
 There is no one force, there is no combination of forces so potent in 
 the development of the people as is individual liberty. We have 
 learned this as a nation, and we are beginning to teach it to the world. 
 There is no workman on the face of the earth so efficient as is the 
 American workman. Manufacturer after manufacturer testified to 
 this fact before the United States Industrial Commission. One wit- 
 ness before the Commission, Mr. Jacob Weidmann, a silk manufac- 
 turer of Paterson, N. J. , who has been an employer of labor both in 
 this country and abroad, stated not only that the workmen in the silk 
 mills in this country are more efficient than those across the water, but 
 went so far as to say that foreign workmen coming to this country 
 become in the course of time wholly different men and fully a third 
 more efficient. Why is this so? Why, except that the workman 
 feels in this country the vivifying influence of liberty? His ambition 
 is stimulated by the greater opportunities which are opened up to 
 him, and is reinforced by the self-respect which grows out of the 
 knowledge that here he may become a sovereign citizen — an equal 
 ruler with other sovereign citizens. In his own hands, through his 
 possession of the right of suffrage, lies the power of control over the 
 conditions which affect him. Not only does this fact make more of a 
 man of him by inspiring him with confidence and hope and with a 
 sense of power, but it has a practical and immediate value as well, in 
 that it enables him directly to resist oppression and injustice. 
 
 "Xiife, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; to secure these rights, 
 governments are instituted among men," says the Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence. Life itself is wrapped up in the possession of industrial 
 opportunity. "Earning a living" is the short and familiar phrase for 
 economic activity. To secure just and equitable industrial conditions 
 then is one of the primary functions of government. That just and 
 equitable conditions may be secured for any individual or class of indi- 
 viduals, that individual or class of individuals must have a share in the 
 government whose function it is to secure these rights. 
 
 That the share in the government possessed by the workmen of the 
 country is no empty, is conclusively evidenced by the mass of labor 
 legislation which has been enacted in recent years. There is no need, 
 though, to use up time in proving that the right of suffrage is the most 
 valuable possession of the workingman and the only guaranty of his 
 liberty. But there are working women as well as working men, women 
 who stand side by side with the men in our shops and factories, doing 
 similar work for the same employers, and under similar conditions. 
 
 There were in 1890, accordmg to the census of that year, 3,914,571 
 
12 WOMAN SUFFBAGE. 
 
 women engaged in labor other than that of their own households, 
 2 611 843 of them being engaged in other than domestic service. 
 Unfortunately the figures for the Census of 1900 are not yet available. 
 Such advance bulletins as have been issued, however, show an increase 
 in the number of women wage-earners. At the same ratio of increase 
 in the decade from 1890 to 1900 as is shown m the decade from 1880 
 to 1890 the number of women engaged in wage-paid occupations would 
 be 5,789:650 and the number engaged in occupations other than tbat 
 of domestic service would be 4,069,251. Such an army of women con- 
 stitutes an important factor in the industrial life of the country. IJiat 
 it should be the most efficient factor possible is of vital importance. 
 To women, as to men, the fullest individual liberty will be productive 
 of the greatest development, and therefore of the greatest efficiency. 
 Not only is it their inalienable right as individuals, as shareholders 
 equally with men in this Government of the people, to be given the 
 fullest opportunity for development, but by giving to them the fullest 
 opportunity for development the country as a whole will gain m 
 
 strength. , .j <• -^ 
 
 This is the country's side of it; then there is the man's side ot it. 
 The woman worker is deprived of the protection which the ballot would 
 give to her. She can therefore be the more easily bullied, can be 
 forced to accept conditions and wages which could never be forced 
 on man. Since she is man's competitor, she is a factor in dragging 
 him down to her lower standard. He suffers through her, and it is for 
 his interest that woman should be made equally strong with him to 
 resist industrial oppression. 
 
 Then there is the woman's side of it. The power of self-defense 
 which is wrapped up in the ballot is her right as well as that of man, 
 and her need for it is equally great. In the industrial world as no- 
 where else men and women meet simply as human beings. Sex has no 
 place. There are no separate functions, no family ties to complicate 
 the situation. The labor performed is exactly similar in character. 
 There there is no possible opportunity for the claim that a woman's 
 interests are protected by her husband, her father, her son, or her 
 brother. The men with whom she works side by side are her rivals 
 and competitors, each looking for every chance to get an advantage 
 over his neighbor. 
 
 If woman is to be protected at all she must protect herself. She 
 can not protect herself while the man by her side competing with her 
 possesses a power by which he may determine the conditions under 
 which both he and she may work, possesses the power to make condi- 
 tions less favorable for her than for himself, and thus obtain for him- 
 self an unfair advantage over her. This, however, is the situation 
 to-day. Men, through their right of suffrage and their consequent 
 power over legislation, have the power to handicap their women 
 competitors. Already there has been some discriminating legislation, 
 some restriction on the hours and occupations of women which do not 
 apply to men, and there.are not lacking propositions on the part of 
 labor leaders and others to restrict further the economic activity of 
 women. Some of the restrictions made may be for the benefit of 
 women workers, but women should be the ones to decide what is for 
 their benefit rather than to have it decided for them by their business 
 rivals, whose advantage it is to further their own interests. 
 
 If men and women stood on an equality industrially in all other 
 
WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 13 
 
 respects, women would need the right of suffrage in common with men 
 in order to protect that equality. And they do not stand on an equal- 
 ity. Without considering whether or not the original cause of their 
 unequal position is due to their inferior political position, the fact 
 remains that inequality exists and that women in industrial life are at 
 a serious disadvantage as compared with men. The restrictions on 
 their movements which tradition and prejudice have imposed have 
 made it less easy for them to move about in search of new occupations 
 and wider opportunities. Their wages average only 40 per cent of 
 the average wages paid to men. The report of the Senate Committee 
 on Finance on prices, wages, and transportation, published some ten 
 years ago, showed the average rate of men's wages in this country in the 
 industries enumerated to be 12.17 per day; the special report of the 
 National Department of Labor published in 1889, showed the average 
 wages of working women in twenty -two principal cities of the country 
 to be 87 cents per day. In part this difference between the wages of 
 men and women is due to the fact that the more important positions 
 are given to men. In part it is due to the. fact that for exactly similar 
 work, women receive only a fractional part of the wages paid to men. 
 Whichever cause operates in any particular case, the fact remains 
 unaltered that the woman is at a disadvantage. 
 
 Not only is this true in purely business occupations, but it is equally 
 true in respect to public positions. In Massachusetts the salaries of 
 the women school-teachers average only one-third of the salaries of 
 the men teachers. The school law in the State of New York, where 
 the amount of salary is graded according to length of service, and 
 where retention in office depends on efficiency, discriminates between 
 men and women in favor of men in respect to salaries. 
 
 It is true that the wage rate paid in business occupations can not be 
 directly affected by legislation. The salaries paid to those holding 
 public positions, however, are directly under the control of the voting 
 population, and the equalizing of the salaries of men and women 
 teachers in the public schools and of men and women employed in any 
 public position could be accomplished directly through legislation. In 
 fact, this is what has been done in the State of Wyoming, where men 
 and women share equally in the government. The equalizing of con- 
 ditions for men and women in the schools and in other public posi- 
 tions would affect wages and conditions in other occupations, even as 
 the shortening of the hours and the raising of the wages of men 
 employed on public works, which has been done in some States, has 
 already had an effect on hours and wages in private enterprises. 
 
 There is more than a personal question involved in this question of 
 wages for women, more than a mere economic question. There is 
 a moral question, for in too many cases the wages of women are 
 depressed below the cost of living, and there are presented to women 
 the alternatives of starvation or immorality. The New York bureau 
 of labor in 1886, and again in 1895, when investigations were made, 
 found large numbers of women obliged to work nineteen hours a day 
 in order to earn 26 cents. In view of the existence of such conditions, 
 it is not strange that vice flourishes. Here again, then, the commu- 
 nity as a whole is as vitally concerned in the economic elevation of 
 women as are the women themselves. 
 
 Weighed down in the beginning by their lower wages and by the 
 greater tendency on the part of their employers to take advantage of 
 
14 WOMAN SUFFBAGE. 
 
 them, women are placed at further disadvantage in comparison with 
 the men with whom they must compete, by their utter inability to affect 
 industrial conditions through the exercise of the right of suffrage. It 
 is a handicap race, but one conducted contrary to all rules, for the handi- 
 cap is placed on the competitor who is already at a disadvantage. In 
 asking for the removal of the handicap of disfranchisement from women 
 we are not asking for them an advantage over men to compensate for 
 the disadvantage from which women suffer because of the inferior posi- 
 tion given to them and the extra burdens laid upon them in the past, 
 but are asking simply for a fair field and no favors. 
 
 There has been in some quarters a disposition to regard the pres- 
 ence of women in industrial life as an abnormal condition of affairs, 
 and therefore as something to be discouraged by all means possible. 
 This opinion is the opinion of those who looK at the question only super- 
 ficially, those who fail to appreciate economic history, and fail to com 
 prehend the working of economic laws and to understand the changes 
 in industrial conditions which have taken place during the last half cen- 
 tury. The industrial history of the last half century is not a history 
 of the increased employment of women. It is simply a history of 
 industrial readjustment. . Women have always been workers, but 
 changes have taken place in the conditions under which they work. 
 
 Before the development of the factory system much of the work now done in the 
 factories was performed in the home and by women. 
 
 This is especially true of spinning, carding, weaving, and of all labor entering into 
 the manufacture of textiles. While it is true that large numbers of women are 
 employed in textile mills, it is true also that large numbers of men are employed in 
 those mills, and are thus employed in the performance of labor formerly performed 
 by women. What is true of textile manufa<?ture is, in a less degree, true of many 
 other occupations, as laundry work, the canning of fruit, the making of butter and 
 cheese, etc. 
 
 The specialization of labor, which has taken work from the home to the factory, 
 has brought about a readjustment of the labor of both men and women. The trans- 
 fer of the work and the substitution of the labor of men for that of women has 
 deprived many women of employment which they formerly found within the home, 
 and has forced them to look outside and find occupation wherever there may be 
 opportunity. Many of them have found employment directly in the occupations 
 taken from home to factory, but there has not been room for all in these occupations, 
 inasmuch as much of the labor is now being performed by men, and consequently 
 many others have been forced to look for employment in occupations from which 
 there have been withdrawn the men who are now employed in occupations formerly 
 monopolized by women. 
 
 Again, industrial changes have created many new occupations, such as stenography 
 and typewriting, in which large numbers of women have found employment, and in 
 which there has been no displacement of either men or women. 
 
 It can not he said, therefore, that women are taking men's work from them or that 
 they are displacing men in the sense that more women and fewer men are being 
 actually employed in labor.* 
 
 The change lies in the facts that an increasing number of women are 
 doing their work in factories and that they are being paid a definite 
 money wage for their work instead of being obliged to be dependent 
 for compensation on the caprice of the head of tiie household within 
 which their work may lie. 
 
 The idea is held more or less broadly in this country that the ideal 
 condition for women is that of leisure. This ideal is both modern 
 and artificial. Women have always been factors in the world's work, 
 and in the past were so recognized. The Statutes of Laborers enacted 
 
 * Taken from article on "Labor of Women," for the Industrial Commission by 
 Miss Laughlin and embQdied m their reports. 
 
WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 15 
 
 in Edward Ill's time exacted service from men and women alike. Tlie 
 Statute of Apprenticeship authorized magistrates to seize upon any 
 woman between 14 and 40 years of age who was unmarried and out of 
 service and set her to work "for such wages and in such reasonable 
 sort or manner as they shall think fit." The false modern ideal has 
 been produced by the changed conditions which make it necessary for 
 a large proportion of women workers to find their work outside the 
 home. Because the activities of women have been confined to the 
 home in the past the, scope and value of their work have not been 
 recognized. The world, however, could not have done without their 
 labor and it can not do without it now. No nation can be strong and 
 support a large leisure class, whether that class consist of men or 
 women. There is not such a surplus of force and ability in the world 
 that we can afford to waste one-half of the available supply. The 
 world needs the work of women for its development. Women need 
 work for their own development. The active, intelligent, capable 
 women of this country will never accept either as a fact or as an ideal 
 an aimless, occupationless life, which would mean the dissipation of 
 their energies, the dwarfing of their abilities, and the limitation of 
 their possibilities. Women will continue to be workers in the future 
 as they have been workers in the past. There will be no going back 
 from the factory system, no retransfer of industry from factory to 
 home. Women therefore in order to do their share of the world's 
 work in the future must in large numbers find occupation outside the 
 home. The woman wage-earner has come to stay. The existence of a 
 large body of wage-earning women is a normal, therefore a permanent 
 feature of our industrial life and one which must be reckoned within 
 the shaping of national policies. All that they ask is an opportunity 
 equal to that of their brothers to do good, honest work in the world, 
 an equal opportunity to make the most of the abilities which God has 
 given them with equal power to secure for themselves protection of 
 their inalienable rights of " life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," 
 to secure which rights is the fundamental object of government. 
 [Applause.] 
 
 Miss Anthony. The next speaker will be Mrs. Jennie A. Brown, of 
 Minneapolis, Minn. 
 
 STATEMENT OF MRS. JENNIE A. BBOWN. 
 
 Mrs. Beown. Just a word for the women of the Northwest, gentle- 
 men: We, the women of the Northwest, the land of broad acres and 
 prosperity, do not come to-day with a tale of wrongs to be righted. 
 We are not a discontented, envious class of women, but when the 
 governor of Colorado in his charge to the young women graduates of 
 the Denver University told them, "You»are now equally with your 
 brothers qualified citizens of our great Eepublic. You receive the 
 same privileges and upon your shoumers fall the same responsibilities, 
 and you are in every respect as fully prepared to perform the duties, 
 discharge the responsibilities in as creditable manner as they, your 
 brother classmates "—might we be excused a feeling of jealousy, a 
 twinge of envy, of those our fortunate sisters? 
 
 For, gentlemen, we are not in every respect citizens of this great 
 Republic. As you very well know, our great Northwest is sprinkled 
 
16 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 liberally with coeducational universities, where the young women of 
 the day breathe the spirit of equality and comradeship, and it is only 
 when they leave the protection of their alma mater where they have 
 stood side by side with their brother students in the legal, the med- 
 ical, and the literary classics, that the male students can say, "Now 
 step aside; 'we are the people,' you are female." 
 
 For as scientists have discovered, the spiritual, the mental, the 
 intellectual is superior to the distinction of sex. Therefore we come 
 to you urging this very natural right which men are every day tacitly 
 acknowledging — "the right of equal legalized recognition." We are 
 not socialists; we have no anarchistic motives; but in our very climate 
 we breathe the spirit of energy and courage, and many of us who 
 would not start at the blood-curdling cry of the coyote tremble with 
 nervous dread at the very thought of coming to the national capital 
 and facing the Senatorial dignity of this gracious but august commit- 
 tee. True. As our French sister would say, "Voila." It is in the 
 atmosphere and the training of the new century. 
 
 Some very astute observers from the European countries have 
 remarked the great influence of the American woman with her hus- 
 band and brothers. In no other land, say they, is the wife so much 
 the companion, the adviser, the comradp, as in this great America. 
 Our Austrian friends claim that the American women are w6ak, that 
 they neglect the development of the muscular system. WhUe in 
 Austria the wife may as often beat her husband as he can beat her, in 
 America the wife is in the power of the husband. In New Zealand 
 the women are politically equal to the men, and in many European 
 countries they seem to be ahead of us in a few particulars; yet in the 
 main it is in America that the woman is accorded a high place socially, 
 practically, and theoretically, and in no other country is the spirit of 
 reform so favorable to the uplifting of women. 
 
 We, the American women of the Northwest, do not ask for the 
 earth. We would not be modern Atlases. We only ask our share — only 
 a legal claim to half; only share and share alike — the lesson our 
 mothers taught us in infancy. Why unlearn in mature years the best of 
 their teaching? And because we are the helpmates, the comrades, of 
 our husbands and brothers, reading the same papers, listening to the 
 same arguments, interested vitally in the same government, trained 
 along the same lines, we to-day ask the equal share. We would like 
 to vote on all these great absorbing questions upon which you, together 
 with the Sioux Indian, are voting. Is it unreasonable? Is it unnatural? 
 
 You yourselves are partially responsible. The Goddess of Liberty 
 is always a female figure. If this is not natural, if this is not seemly, 
 then pull her down and erect in her place the Colossus of Ehodes 
 and give him the American flag to hold. 
 
 I beg pardon, gentlemen. This is not a recommendation. I have not 
 come to advise. I have only come to plead for that which the new 
 woman, the young woman of the Northwest, would applaud you for 
 giving. [Applause.] 
 
 Miss Anthony. The next in order will be Mrs. Mary Wood Swift. 
 She was formerly the president of the State of California Suffrage 
 bociety, and she is now the president of the National Council of 
 Women of California. Her husband was a foimer minister to Japan. 
 
WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 17 
 
 STATEMENT OF MRS. MARY WOOD SWIFT. 
 
 Mrs. Swift. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, in all sincerity I thank 
 you for this privilege of speech. "Women can not stand still while 
 the world goes on. To hold that the world is not moving ahead 
 were absurd; hence we have the admitted fact that women must pro- 
 gress. Department stores have crowded out small stores in many 
 cities and towns. The small storekeepers have vainly protested against 
 this form of competition. You know as well as 1 know that these 
 protests have not even made a dent in economic conditions. In no 
 single instance have they checked the department-store combination. 
 The department store, whatever the equities may be, has come to stay. 
 It is one form of modern mercantile progress. The same progress in 
 a large degree is seen in the vast aggregations of capital that control 
 American manufacturing and transportation interests, that are reach- 
 ing out in all directions, that aim to dominate the trade and commerce 
 of the world.- 
 
 I am not discussing the equities of this material progress, gentlemen; 
 I simply call your attention to vital facts. It is true that the material 
 progress of the nation is one source of our national pride. The com- 
 plement of this material progress should be moral or political progress, 
 involving proper privileges to women. There can not be even and 
 symmetrical progress unless these privileges be granted. The law 
 should recognize woman as a factor in the great progress problem. 
 The law should recognize the fact that the woman of to-day is liberally 
 educated, is abreast of the world on current topics, is honestly patri- 
 otic, and, given a fair chance, can assist in making a greater United 
 States. Does any thinking person doubt for a single moment that 
 the thousands and thousands of women educated in our universities, 
 colleges, and similar institutions are unequal to the great responsibili- 
 ties of active and representative citizenship? And does it not strike 
 you, gentlemen, that the cohesive intellectual strength of these intel- 
 ligent women should be at least measurably utilized in shaping the 
 progress of the country? 
 
 You see and note and are influenced by progress in other directions. 
 Why not see and note and be influenced by the progress of woman 
 toward suffrage? Why not work for amendments to the law that will 
 protect women in their property rights ? Money quarrels are the basis 
 of family discord. Most of these quarrels would not occur if the wife 
 had the property rights to which she is justly entitled. 
 
 If I have presented my ideas in a homely way, if I have left the 
 paths usually followed in a discussion of this kind, remember, gentle- 
 men, that 1 am mindful of the constant drain on your time and atten- 
 tion and have tried to be brief and suggestive. We who are working 
 for this cause ask that you, gentlemen, as lawmakers, carefully read 
 the signs of the times and assist in promoting the progress for which 
 we specially stand. Woman suffrage is one of the several forms of 
 progress which are forcing themselves to the front and becoming 
 national issues. One by one they defy evasion and in the end have to 
 be met and decided. 
 
 I lay no claim to the gift of prophecy, but I do say that political 
 convulsions of the future, possibly the very near future, will throw 
 woman suffrage into such prominence that at least one of the great 
 
 w s 2* 
 
18 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 political parties will find it expedient, if not absolutely necessary, to 
 put a woman suffrage plank in its platform. The United States is 
 moving swiftly forward in a political as well as material sense. Had 
 any man five years ago predicted the national conditions of to-day, the 
 war with Spain, and our annexation and expansion programme, he 
 would have been laughed to scorn. Is it not possible, aye even prob- 
 able, that the political changes of the next few years will be equally 
 startling? Is it not possible that aside from its merits, on general 
 principles, woman suffrage will be utilized by one or both of the 
 parties in trimming the ship of state? [Applause.] 
 
 Miss Anthony. Next in order will be Mrs. Lucy Hobart Day, presi- 
 dent of the Maine Woman Suffrage Association. She is the daughter 
 of a Methodist minister, and I do not think she will preach anything 
 but good gospel. 
 
 STATEMENT OF MRS. LUCY HOBART DAY. 
 
 Mrs. Day. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, a great 
 reform never has spontaneous birth, but exists in embryo, often for 
 years, waiting the fullness of time when it shall be born, and this is 
 especially true of the reform under consideration at the present time. 
 Such a movement as this requires and deserves the best and most earn- 
 est thought of its advocates, and in the promulgation of the theory of 
 "equality for all and special privileges for none" it should be remem- 
 bered that we are not advancing a new doctrine, but simply an old 
 one revived, which formerly had a promoter in the person of Plato, 
 the greatest philosopher of his time, who has left this maxim on 
 record. 
 
 Neither a man as a man nor a woman as a woman has any special function in the 
 administration of a State, but the gifts are equally diffused in the sexes. 
 
 If this be true, as we believe it is, it may be said that the nonrecog- 
 nition of women in affairs of state is simply and purely an arbitrary 
 distinction, which from time immemorial has been made by men against 
 women, and is not founded either on justice or equity. 
 
 It may be untrue, but there seems to be a lurking suspicion in the 
 minds of those who administer affairs of state that women would scarcely 
 be satisfied with an equal participation, and that there is great danger 
 of an endeavor to secure a trifle more than our proportionate share. 
 
 I believe I voice the sentiments of every person in the world who 
 believes in equality of rights for men and women when 1 say that if 
 such a suspicion exists it is utterly without foundation. 
 
 We hear a great deal in these days about the "iron hand in the vel- 
 vet glove," and are frequently told by our would-be opposers that we 
 rule now by our indirect influence— altogether ignoring the fact that 
 this IS not a question of anybody's ruling. 
 
 Instead, it is a question of sharing equally with men all the rights, 
 privileges, and duties which they enjoy, while every one who con- 
 siders the subject intelligently can but acknowledge that an influence 
 which has no responsibility back of it is a dangerous element which 
 needs to be carefully watched and guarded. 
 
 urJ^fiF®'?^™^" ^^° ^* ^ ^^^^^^ V^^^y proposed the following toast: 
 io tlie ladies, once our superiors, now our equals," had small con- 
 ception of the term superiority. If being superior means "taxation 
 without reoresentation," if it means that mothers are not coguardians 
 
WOMAir SUFFRAGE. 19 
 
 of their own children; that their property and personal rights are dis- 
 regarded; that they are classed with paupers, idiots, and lunatics, then 
 we are perfectly willing, aye, desirous of relinquishing all claims to 
 superiority, and taking our chances on terms of equality. 
 
 We. are fully alive to the fact that every reform in past centuries 
 has witnessed a struggle between opposing parties, and it has even been 
 said that "Christianity has progressed from stake to stake, from 
 guillotine to guillotine," but in every age there have been those who 
 have fearlessly stood for truth and right regardless of consequences to 
 themselves. 
 
 If I were an adept in the science of palmisti-y I would read the past, 
 present, and future of this hand of woman's progress something after 
 this fashion: 
 
 Its general appearance has ever been indicative of strength of char- 
 acter and purity of purpose. 
 
 Its headline has been as strong and vigorous as the minds of the 
 many famous men who have fearlessly espoused the cause of the 
 oppressed. 
 
 Its heart line has been and is as true and pure as the lives and hearts 
 of the devoted army of women which has led and is still leading us to 
 victory. 
 
 Its fate line, straight as the line of duty, constantly points toward 
 the desired goal, wnile its life line, a curving line of beauty yet 
 unbroken, will not be ended until the women of these United States 
 have had placed in their hands that sacred token of citizenship, the 
 ballot. 
 
 Miss Anthony. Next in order will be Miss Alice Stone Blackwell, 
 daughter of Lucy Stone and Henry B. Blackwell, editor of the 
 Woman's Journal. 
 
 STATEMENT OF MISS ALICE STONE BLACKWELL. 
 
 Miss Blackwell. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, 
 I wish to submit to you to-day a few -remarks, in very brief compass, 
 simply from the standpoint of common sense. 
 
 I wish to recall to your memory the fact that every step of progress 
 toward improvement in the condition of women has been opposed by 
 exactly the same predictions of disaster as are now made in regard to 
 equal suflFrage. When my mother was trying to secure for married 
 women the right to control their own property it was said that it would 
 entirely destroy the home. 
 
 When school suflFrage was granted to women in my own State, some 
 twenty years ago, one of our State senators. Senator Winne, of Franklin, 
 said in his address: "If we make this experiment we shall destroy the 
 race, which will be blasted by the vengeance of Almighty God." That 
 was twenty years ago. Since then half the States in the Union have 
 
 f ranted the school franchise to women, and the vengeance of the Deity 
 as not descended upon us in any appreciable manner. 
 When Vassar College was opened, a woman, who was the head of a 
 band of missionaries going out to the Holy Land, said one thing she 
 was sure of, that no refined Christian mother would ever send her 
 daughter to Vassar College; that the mere fact that it was called a 
 college for women was enough to condemn it. The popular belief was 
 that it would surely be the destruction of the home. 
 
20 "WOMAN SUFFBAGB. 
 
 These reiterated predictions of disaster that never materialize sug- 
 gest the story of a very valuable mare which only had one fault, bhe 
 would always shy at an open umbrella. Her owner undertook to cure 
 her. She was very fond of raw potatoes, and he put a raw potato on 
 the end of an umbrella which was tightly furled, took it into her stable, 
 and gave her the potato off the tip of the umbrella. The next day he 
 took another, and opened the umbrella an inch. The next day he 
 opened it a little farther, and the next day a little farther, until it was 
 wide open. The first time that he took the umbrella into the stall 
 wide open the mare looked at it rather suspiciously for a moment, 
 but end^d by eating the potato off the tip of it, as usual. The next rainy 
 day he took her out, and when they met an umbrella he waited to see 
 what she would do. Instead of shying, she walked deliberately across 
 the street toward the umbrella, and looked for a potato on the tip of it. 
 She got one when she reached home, and she never shied at an umbrella 
 again. 
 
 Now, the gradual broadening of woman's sphere has been ]ust like 
 the gradual opening of that umbrella. Every successive widening of 
 it has proved to be entirely without danger, and has always beejj fol- 
 lowed by something good. The only question is, How long will it take 
 us to develop enough "horse sense" to see that the unfolding of the 
 last inch is not going to do any harm ? 
 
 Gentlemen of the committee, every one of you, and probably every 
 member of Congress, has received or will receive from my State a doc- 
 ument published by a little knot of ladies who oppose equal suffrage, 
 setting forth their arguments against it. I will not take your time 
 longer, inasmuch as we have our foreign delegates here, whom I know 
 you are desirous to hear, but I will ask permission to print a condensed 
 statement of the arguments on the other side, which we have prepared 
 in reply. [Applause.] 
 
 The Chairman. Ordinarily we do not print anything in the Senate 
 which is not read, but we will make an exception in this case. 
 
 The document is as follows: 
 
 PKOGEBSS OF EQUAL SUFFRAGE. 
 
 The annual Remonstrance, just issued by the Massachusetts Associ- 
 ation Opposed to the Further Extension of Suffrage to AVomen, says: 
 "With the growth of civilization women's political power has dimin- 
 ished." On this point let the facts speak for themselves. 
 
 Seventy years ago women could not vote anywhere. In 1838 Ken- 
 tucky gave school suffrage to widows. In 1850 Ontario gave it to 
 women both married and single. In 1861 Kansas gave it to all 
 women. In 1867 New South Wales gave women municipal suffrage. 
 In 1869 England gave municipal suffrage to single women and 
 widows, Victoria gave it to women both married and single, and 
 Wyoming gave full suffrage to all women. 
 
 In 1871 West Australia gave municipal suffrage to women. School 
 suffrage was granted in 1875 by Michigan and Minnesota, in 1876 by 
 Colorado, in 1877 by New Zealand, in 1878 by New Hampshire and 
 Oregon, in 1879 by Massachusetts, in 1880 by New York and Ver- 
 mont. In 1880 South Australia gave municipal suffrage to women. 
 
 In 1881 municipal suffrage was extended to the single women and 
 widows of Scotland. Nebraska gave women school suffrage in 1883, 
 
WOMAN SUFFKAGE. 21 
 
 Ontario and Tasmania gave them municipal suffrage in 1884, and Wis- 
 consin gave them school suffrage in 1885. In 1886 municipal suffrage 
 was given in New Zealand and lifew Brunswick. 
 
 In 1887 municipal suffrage was granted in Kansas, Nova Scotia, and 
 Manitoba, and school suffrage in North and South Dakota, Montana, 
 Arizona, and New Jersey. In the same year Montana gave taxpaying 
 women the right to vote upon all questions submitted to the taxpayers. 
 
 In 1888 England gave women county suffrage and British Columbia 
 and the Northwest Territory gave them municipal suffrage. In 1889 
 county suffrage was given to the women of Scotland and municipal 
 suffrage to single women and widows in the Province of Quebec. In 
 1891 school suffrage was granted in Illinois. In 1893 school suffrage 
 was granted in Connecticut and full suffrage in Colorado and New 
 Zealand. In 1894 school suffrage was granted in Ohio, bond suffrage 
 in Iowa, and parish and district suffrage in England to women both 
 married and single. In 1895 full suffrage was granted in South 
 Australia to women both married and single. In 1896 full suffrage 
 was granted in Utah and Idaho. 
 
 In 1898 the women of Ireland were given the right to vote for all 
 oflScers except members of Parliament, Minnesota gave women the 
 right to vote for library trustees, Delaware gave school suffrage to 
 taxpaying women, French women engaged in commerce were given 
 the right to vote for judges of the tribunals of commerce, and Louis- 
 iana gave taxpaying women the right to vote upon all questions sub- 
 mitted to the taxpayers. In 1900 West Australia granted full Parlia- 
 mentary suffrage to women both married and single. 
 
 In 1901 New York gave taxpaying women the right to vote on ques- 
 tions of local taxation, and Norway gave them municipal suffrage. 
 
 Years ago, when equal suffrage was much more unpopular than it is 
 now, somebody asked Bishop Gilbert Haven if it were true that he 
 had been speaking at a suiBfrage meeting. 
 
 "Yes," answered the Bishop. "I don't want to fall in at the rear 
 of this reform; I mean to march with the procession." 
 
 There can be no doubt as to which way the procession is moving. 
 
 THE M. A. O. F. E. S. W. 
 
 The Massachusetts Association Opposed to the Further Extension 
 of Suffrage to Women claims to have 9,865 members in 191 cities and 
 towns. This statement gives a greatly exaggerated idea of its strength, 
 when unaccompanied with an explanation as to what constitutes mem- 
 bership. In most societies those who join pay a membership fee and 
 renew their membership from year to year. Those who join the M. 
 A. O. F. E. S. W. pay no membership fee; they merely sign an anti- 
 suffrage document, in many cases only a return postal card; and the 
 woman who wrote down her name seven years ago and has never 
 given any sign of interest since is still counted as a "member " to-day. 
 
 As Mrs. Livermore has pointed out, those women who join the M. 
 A. O. F. E. S. W. show the same amount of interest as those who 
 sign a suffrage petition; no more, no less. If all the women in Massa- 
 chusetts who have ever signed apetition for suffrage were counted as 
 members of the Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association, it would 
 count at least 100,000 members. 
 
22 WOMAN StTFFBAGE. 
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE IN ENGLAND. 
 
 Mr. I. N. Ford is quoted in the Remonstrance as saying that in 
 England, for many years past, "public interest in the political enfran- 
 chisement of women has steadily declined." 
 
 The first petition for woman suffrage presented to Parliament, in 
 1867, was signed by only 1,449 women. The petition of 1873 was 
 signed by 11,000 women. The petition presented to the members of 
 the recent Parliament was signed by 257,000 women. 
 
 THE CASE OP KANSAS., 
 
 The Remonstrance intimates that municipal woman suffrage in 
 Kansas must be a failure because a constitutional amendment to grant 
 women full suffrage was voted down. The Georgia legislature has 
 just voted down a bill to admit women to the State university. Does 
 it follow that girls have not done well as students in the grammar 
 and high schools of Georgia? 
 
 Suppose the Georgia legislature had just voted down, unanimously 
 and with ridicule, a bill to exclude girls from the high schools; should 
 we nevertheless be justified in insisting that girls must have proved 
 failures in the high schools because the legislature refuses as yet to 
 admit them to the university ? After fourteen years' experience of 
 municipal woman suffrage, the last Kansas legislature voted down, 
 almost unanimously, and amid "a ripple of amusement," a bill to 
 repeal it. 
 
 An amendment to grant women full suffrage has been twice sub- 
 mitted in Kansas. It was first submitted some years before women 
 obtained municipal suffrage, and it then received only 9,100 votes. It 
 was submitted again after seven years' experience of municipal suf- 
 frage, and it received 95,302 votes. 
 
 Somebody says few women would vote if enfranchised. Well, it 
 often happens in an election that more than half the men refuse to 
 vote. But if one man or woman wants to exercise the right to vote, 
 what earthly reason is there for denying it because other men and 
 women do not wish to exercise it? If I desire to breathe the fresh air 
 of heaven, shall I not cross my threshold because the rest of the family 
 
 froup prefer the stale atmosphere indoors? — Secretary of the Navy 
 lOng. 
 
 "the indifference 
 
 It is often said that whenever the majority of women ask for suf- 
 frage they will get it. But it is a simple historical fact that every 
 , improvement thus far made in the condition of women has been 
 secured, not by a general demand from the majority of women, but 
 by the arguments, entreaties, and " continual coming'" of a persistent 
 few. In each case the advocates of progress have had to contend not 
 merely with the conservatism of men, but with the indifference of 
 women, and often»with active opposition from some of them. 
 
"WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 23 
 
 When a man in Saco, Me. , first employed a saleswoman the men 
 boycotted his store, and the women remonstrated earnestly with him 
 on the sin of which he was guilty in placing a young woman in a posi- 
 tion of such publicity. When Lucy Stone began to try to secure for 
 married women the right to their own property women asked, with 
 scorn, "Do you think I would give myself where I would not give 
 my property? " When Elizabeth Blackwell began to study medicine 
 the women at her boarding house refused to speak to her, and women 
 passing her on the streets held their skirts aside, so as not to touch her. 
 
 It is a matter of history with what ridicule and opposition Mary 
 Lyon's first efforts for the education of women were received, not 
 only by the mass of men, but by the mass of women as well. In Eng- 
 land, when the Oxford examinations were thrown open to women, the 
 Dean of Chichester preached a sermon against it, in which he said: " By 
 the sex at large, certainly, the new curriculum is not asked for. I 
 have ascertained, by extended inquiry among gentlewomen, that with 
 true feminine instinct thej^ either entirely distrust or else look with 
 downright disfavor on so wild an innovation and interference with the 
 best traditions of their sex." 
 
 In Eastern countries, where women are shut up in zenanas and for- 
 bidden to walk the streets unveiled, the women themselves are among 
 the strongest upholders of these traditional restrictions, which they 
 have been taught to think add to their dignity. The Chinese lady is 
 as proud of her small feet as any American " anti" is of her political 
 disabilities. Ramabai tells us that the idea of education for girls is 
 so unpopular with the mass of Hindoo women that when a progressive 
 Hindoo proposes to educate his little' daughter it is not uncommon 
 for the women of his family to threaten to drown themselves. 
 
 All this merely ^hows that human nature is conservative, and that 
 it is fully as conservative in women as in men. The persons much 
 interested in any reform are always comparatively few, whether 
 among men or women, and they are habitually regarded with disfavor, 
 even by those whom the pi'oposed reform is to benefit. Thomas 
 Hughes says, in Tom Brown at Rug^by: " So it is and must be always, 
 my dear boys. If the Angel Gabriel were to come down from heaven 
 and head a successful rise against the most abominable and unright- 
 eous vested interest which this poor old world groans under, he would 
 most certainly lose his character for many years, probably for centu- 
 ries, not only with the upholders of the said vested interest, but with 
 the respectable mass of the people whom he had delivered." 
 
 Women as a sex are not belligerent, apd under whatever conditions 
 of injustice or hardship they have been placed, the majority of them 
 have never protested. Prof. James Bryce says, in "Transcaucasia and 
 Ararat:" 
 
 Nothing strikes a Westerner with more disgust than the way he sees women treated 
 in Mohammedan countries. It is not so much the enforced seclusion that revolts 
 you as the tacit assumption that women are inferior creatures altogether, unfit to be 
 companions for man, but rather to be reckoned a link between him and the brutes, 
 and treated with little more regard than the latter. That they acquiesce uncomplain- 
 ingly in this view, and assert their power in hidden and crooked ways, does not 
 make the sight less offensive or the results less mischievous. 
 
 Many changes for the better have been made during the last half 
 century in the laws, written and unwritten, relating to women. Every- 
 body approves of these changes now, because they nave become accom- 
 plished facts. But not one of them would have been made to this day 
 
24 WOMAN SPFFKAGB. 
 
 if it had been necessary to wait till the majority of women asked for 
 it. The change now under discussion is to be judged on its merits. 
 In the light of history, the indifference of most women and the oppo- 
 sition of a few must be taken as a matter of course. It has no niore 
 rational significance now than it has had in regard to each previous 
 step of women's progress. 
 
 TAXATION AND THE BALLOT. 
 
 The Remonstrance declares that the payment of taxes has no bearing 
 upon the right to vote. United States Senator Hoar has well said: 
 
 We have driven our leading opponents from one position to another, until there 
 is not a thoughtful opponent of woman suffrage to be found who is not obliged to 
 deny the doctrine which is affirmed in our Declaration of Independence. 
 
 Last year the New York legislature gave tax-paying women in all 
 the towns and villages throu^out the State the right to vote upon 
 questions of local taxation. This bill had passed the popular branch 
 of several successive legislatures by heavy majorities — one year unani- 
 mously — before it succeeded in getting through the senate. When it 
 finally became a law, the fact was hailed with gratification even by 
 newspapers that had always been opposed to equal suffrage. The 
 Chicago Evening Post voiced a very general sentiment when it said: 
 
 The question of letting all women vote on all questions may be debatable; but 
 the question of letting all taxpayers vote for all officers concerned in taxation hardly 
 seems to have two sides. 
 
 Even the New York Times said that the passage of the bill was 
 "not so much a victory for woman suffrage as the perfecting of 
 women's property rights." 
 
 The New York Association Opposed to the Extension of Suffrage to 
 Women, which fought this bill with all its might, is now largely recon- 
 ciled to it, and says in its recent annual report: 
 
 As the months have slipped by we have come to feel that in neither house was 
 the bill considered as a suffrage measure, any more than the married women's 
 property bill. 
 
 Last year, at the legislative hearing at Albany on this bill, the spokes- 
 woman of the "antis" said she had ascertained, by extended inquiry, 
 that hardly any women favored taxpayers' suffrage except those who 
 favored general suffrage for all women. At a meeting held a few 
 weeks ago in Buffalo, the chairman of the New York State Anti-Suf- 
 frage Association, Mrs. Arthur M. Dodge, was reported in the papers 
 as saying that about half the members of the " Anti" Association now 
 believe in suffrage for taxpaying women. In other words, within 
 less than a year after taxpayers' suffrage became an accomplished fact 
 in New York, its satisfactory working has converted half of the very 
 women who were most intensely opposed to it beforehand. 
 
 ANARCHY, SOCIALISM, AND SUFFRAGE. 
 
 The members of the Massachusetts legislature have received from 
 Chicago a quantity of documents aiming to persuade them that Massa- 
 chusetts women ought not to be allowed to vote. The most consider- 
 
"WOMAN 8UFFEAGE. 25 
 
 able pamphlet is by Mrs. Caroline F. Corbin, of Chicago, who says in 
 substance that anarchism, socialism, woman suffrage, and the abolition 
 of marriage are all practically one and the same thing. In proof of 
 this she refers to the excesses of the French Revolution, and says: 
 
 The French Revolution, as everybody knows, proclaimed the abolition of marriage, 
 and put men and women on a so-called equal basis as regarded political rights. 
 Women were to enjoy equal rights as to suffrage and political emoluments. 
 
 The French Revolution, as everybody knows who knows anything 
 about history, did nothing of the kind. When Paris was ringing with 
 the cry of "Liberty, equality, and fraternity!" a deputation of women 
 came before the Assembly and asked that their equal rights also might 
 be recognized in the new order of things. The blood-stained revolu- 
 tionary leaders ordered them back to their kitchens, with a lecture on 
 woman's sphere that might have emanated direct from the Anti-Suf- 
 frage Association. Rousseau, who, as Mrs. Corbin mentions, sent his 
 children to the Foundling Asylum, held views on the woman question 
 almost identical with those of Mr. Henry T. Finck. Among the promi- 
 nent French revolutionists, Condorcet was almost the only one who 
 believed in equal political rights for women. Since the French Revo- 
 lution gave suffrage to men and denied it to women, and since Mrs. 
 Corbin wishes to give suffrage to men and deny it to women, Mrs. 
 Corbin probably believes in the abolition of marriage and of religion, 
 and would inaugurate a reign of the guillotine if she could. At least 
 this is the basis on which she argues about the suffragists. 
 
 Mrs. Corbin intimates that the second French Revolution of 1848 
 was another woman's rights outbreak. " But the second French 
 Republic did not ^ive the ballot to women any more than the first. 
 Madame de Girardm wrote in 1848: 
 
 A loyal republic is the dream of all generous and independent minds. But alas, 
 those who have proclaimed it do not understand it. The proof that they do not 
 understand the republic is that in their fine promises of universal enfranchisement 
 they have forgotten woman. The stableman a voter! And the author of Consuelo 
 and so many chefs d'ceuvre, George Sand — O deputies too proud of your masculine 
 obscurity! George Sand haa not the right to trace on a ballot with her immortal 
 pen a single one of your unknown names. 
 
 The excesses of the French Revolution are often quoted in Europe 
 as an argument against a republican form of government for men, but 
 it is hard to see how they constitute an argument against the ballot for 
 women. 
 
 Mrs. Corbin is as imperfectly informed upon philosophy as upon his- 
 tory. She declares anarchism to be "a phase of socialism." Socialism 
 and anarchism represent opposite extremes. The anarchist thinks 
 that government should be abolished; the socialist, that the powers 
 and scope of government should be vastly extended. No anarchist 
 believes in suffrage for anybody ; hence no anarchist believes in suf- 
 frage for women. The essence of anarchistic doctrine is that there 
 should be no government and no voting. Not long before President 
 McKinley's assassination, at a meeting where Mrs. Carrie Chapman 
 Catt, the president of the National Suffrage Association, had spoken, 
 Emma Goldman rose in the audience at the close of her address, and 
 denounced her for her folly in seeking the ballot for women. Emma 
 Goldman does not believe in woman suffrage, and Mrs. Corbin does 
 not believe in woman suffrage. Does it follow that Mrs. Corbin is an 
 anarchist? 
 
26 WOMAN SUFFBAGE. 
 
 The Empress of China has just issued an edict to permit the unbind- 
 ing of women's feet. The advocates of equal suffrage also favor -the 
 unbinding of women's feet. Does it follow that the suffragists must 
 be Boxers in disguise? 
 
 Theodore Roosevelt recommended woman suffrage in his inaugural 
 message to the New York legislature. Are we to assume that Mr. 
 Roosevelt is an anarchist? 
 
 Mrs. Corbin quotes arguments in favor of the abolition of marriage 
 from a number of European socialistic writers, most of whom the 
 majority of Americans never heard of. No doubt some European 
 socialists hold queer and objectionable views on the marriage question. 
 Does it follow that Mrs. Julia Ward Howe and Mrs. Mary A. Liver- 
 more wish to "emancipate women from the bonds of purity by bring- 
 ing them down to the level of promiscuity," or that American women, 
 if they had the ballot, would vote to abolish marriage? The insinu- 
 ation is not only absurd, but monstrous. 
 
 The first woman in America to ask for a vote was Mrs. Margaret 
 Brent, of Maryland, a kinswoman of Lord Baltimore, in 1647, more 
 than a century before the French Revolution. The next was Abigail 
 Adams, of Massachusetts, an irreproachable wife and mother, who 
 wrote to her husband, John Adams, in 1776: 
 
 I long to hear that you have declared an independency. And in the new code of 
 laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make, I desire that you would 
 remember the ladies, and be more generous and favorable to them than your 
 ancestors. We will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice 
 or representation. 
 
 THE FAMILY UNINJURED. 
 
 Equal suffrage does) not injure the family. In Wyoming full suf- 
 frage was granted to women in 1869. During the twenty years from 
 1870 to 1890 divorce in the United States at large increased about 
 three times as fast as the population. In the group of Western States, 
 omitting Wyoming, it increased nearly four times as fast as the popu- 
 lation. In Wyoming it increased only about half as fast as the popu- 
 lation. 
 
 " An ounce of fact is worth a ton of theory." 
 
 "the eights of the MAJORITY." 
 
 The small number of wonien who protest against suffrage claim to 
 represent "the overwhelming majority of their sex." This is totally 
 . untrue. The majority of women are neither suffragists nor remon- 
 v/ strants; they are indifferent. Of those who take any lively interest 
 m the question either way, the great majority are in favor. This has 
 been shown conclusively wherever the matter has been brought to a 
 test. 
 
 In Massachusetts, New York, Maine, Iowa— in short, wherever dur- 
 ing the last twenty-five years petitions for suffrage and remonstrances 
 
WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 27 
 
 against it have been sent in, the petitioners have always outnumbered 
 the remonstrants at least 5 to 1, and oftener 50 or 100 to 1. The so- 
 called referendum in Massachusetts merely demonstrated the same 
 thing by an official count. 
 
 The Remonstrance says that on the referendum out of 608,500 women 
 who might have voted yes, "only 22,204 did so." But, on the other 
 hand, out of 608,500 who might have voted no, only 864 did so. The 
 antis invoke "the time-honored American principle that the will of the 
 majority should govern." The American principle is that the major- 
 ity of those who care enough about a question to express themselves 
 should govern. The indifferent are not counted on either side. 
 According to the women's vote, every county and every representa- 
 tive. Congressional, and senatorial district in Massachusetts went for 
 equal suffrage by an average majority of 25 to 1. 
 
 It is remarkable that 22,204 women in Massachusetts should have 
 taken the trouble to cast a mere mock vote, which was to have no u^ 
 legal validity, and was to give the women nothing if it went in their 
 favor. On that occasion 22,204 women were found in one day who u^ 
 cared enough about suffrage to go to the polls and cast a vote for it. 
 In seven years of diligent effort the Antisuffrage Association has 
 found less than 10,000 who care enough about opposing it to sign their 
 names on a return postal card. 
 
 The majority of women are indifferent on the question, a minority ^^ 
 are strongly in favor of suffrage, and a much smaller minority are 
 strongly opposed to it. That is the situation in a nutshell. 
 
 The Remonstrance says- that the women's school vote in Boston is 
 " subject to marked fluctuations. " The men's vote in Boston also shows 
 marked fluctuations. 
 
 At the municipal election of December, 1901, the choice of the 
 school committee was a question of exceptional interest. Ten mem- 
 bers were to be elected instead of eight (the usual number), and several 
 daily papers had been for months making an active campaign against 
 corruption in the school board and urging everyone to vote. Yet, 
 out of 85,000 men in Boston who voted for mayor, more than 41,000 
 neglected to mark their ballots for school committee after they were 
 actually at the polls. How many of them would probably have taken 
 the trouble to register and go to the polls in order to vote for the 
 school committee only 1 
 
 When school suffrage was first granted to the women of Boston, in 
 1879, only 934 women voted, and for the first seven years the average 
 was only 940. During the last seven years their vote has never fallen 
 below 6,000, and has averaged nearly 8,000. For some years past 
 there has been a steady increase. In 1898 5,201 women voted; in 
 1899, 7,090; in 1900, 9,542, and in 1901, 11,620. 
 
 In answer to the objection that the best women would not vote. Col. 
 T. W. Higginson says: "In Massachusetts, under school suffrage, the 
 complaint has been that only the best women vote." 
 
28 WOMAN 8UFFEAGE. 
 
 "in colokado and WTOMING." 
 
 The Remonstrance, referring to recent articles on equal suffrage by 
 Professor Le Rossignol, of the University of Denver, Ciolo., and Pro- 
 fessor Roberts, of tie University of Wyoming, says: 
 
 These reports are the first testimony which has been given from impartial 
 observers, and they are in marked contrast with the extravagant claims of the 
 
 Professor Le Rossignol says: "Woman suffrage has done no harm, 
 while it has done some good, and it has been adopted by Colorado 'for 
 better, for worse.' " Professor Roberts says substantially the same of 
 Wyoming. This is certainly in marked contrast with the extravagant 
 claims of the antisuffragists that equal suffrage would infallibly do no 
 good and much harm, and that it would probably soon be repealed. 
 
 The suffragists for the past fifteen years have had a standing chal- 
 lenge, inviting its opponents to find two respectable men in all Wyo- 
 ming who will assert over their own names and addresses that equal 
 suffrage has had any bad results whatever. The opponents have thus 
 far failed to respond. 
 
 NEW ZEALAND SCHOOL BOARDS. 
 
 The Remonstrance quotes an anonymous New Zealand woman as 
 saying: "A woman in New Zealand can not legally take her seat on 
 school boards." Women have served on school boards there for more 
 than twenty years. 
 
 Hon. Hugh H. Lusk, a former member of the New Zealand parlia- 
 ment, had much to do with framing the education act of 1877, which 
 gave women the school vote and made them eligible to membership on 
 school boards. While visiting America for nis health, he spoke at 
 the May festival of the New England Woman Suffrage Association, 
 and gave a sketch of the history of woman suffrage in New Zealand. 
 He said: 
 
 The women got the school vote and used it. They did not say, "Oh, dear, no; 
 it wouldn't be proper." They went to the polls and voted for the best men. They 
 took 80 much interest that at the next election some women were elected to the 
 school boards; and they showed so much aptitude for this sort of work that when, in 
 1882, the license question came up, it was proposed that women ratepayers should 
 help choose the board of commissioners in each district who control the issuing of 
 licenses. This met with great objection. We were told that now, indeed, we should 
 utterly destroy the character of the ladies, for all the worst element would be brought 
 m contact with them, and would make things very unpleasant for them. We said: 
 " We don't believe the men of New Zealand are as bad as you think; and if they 
 are, they are not to be trusted to vote alone for these boards of license commission- 
 ^l^- , . ^^^ women were given the license vote. To the surprise and disappointment 
 of their opponents they voted well and met with no trouble, and certainly they 
 greatly improved the licensing boards. 
 
 Then we felt that we could go a little further, and gave women the right to vote 
 at mimicipal elections and to serve on municipal boards. I know one woman who 
 acted for two years as mayor of a very prosperous little town, and did as well as any 
 mayor could have done. The women used their municipal vote well, and so finally 
 in 1893 they were given the full parliamentary franchise. 
 
"WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 29 
 
 LOWERING THE MOKAL TONE. 
 
 The Remonstrance quotes a Mr. J. Grattan Gray, resident some- 
 where in the immense area of " Australasia '!— not necessarily in New 
 Zealand— as saying: "Public and political life and the personnel of 
 parliament have degenerated to a most deplorable degree ever since 
 the introduction of female franchise " in New Zealand. 
 
 Hon. Hugh H. Lusk says of the effect of equal suffrage: 
 
 We see it in the changed character of the men who are elected. Character is 
 more regarded than cleverness. It is asked about every candidate, "Has he a good 
 record? Is he above suspicion, an honorable man, a useful citizen, pure of any sus- 
 picion of complicity with corrupt politics?" That is the man who, under the com- 
 bined suffrage of men and women, gets the largest number of votes and is elected. 
 
 At the Church Congress in Nottingham, England, the Most Rev. 
 William Gordon Cowie, D. D., Bishop of Auckland and Primate of 
 New Zealand, read a paper on the Colonial Clergy, in which he said: 
 
 Our young New Zealand clergy would also be able to show, from personal experi- 
 ence, how the conferring of the parliamentary franchise on all our women of the age 
 of 21 years has led to no harm or inconvenience, but that the men of New Zealand 
 were wondering why the women of the colony had remained so long without the 
 right to vote at parliamentary elections. 
 
 WOMEN AND OFFICE. 
 
 The Remonstrance payB a merited tribute to the late president of 
 the Massachusetts Antisuffrage Association, Mrs. J. Elliot Cabot. 
 Mrs. Cabot's personality and life furnished a stronger argument for 
 the fitness of women to vote than any words of hers could furnish 
 against it. In the early days, when the suffragists were trying to 
 obtain for women the opportunity to serve on public boards, a bigoted 
 opponent remarked: "When a man comes home tired at night, he 
 does not want to kiss an overseer of the poor or a member of the 
 school board." Mrs. Cabot served for many years in Brookline as an 
 overseer of the poor, and for ten years as a member of the school 
 board. She was not beloved the less by her family and friends on that 
 account, or less esteemed by the community in which she lived. For 
 her opportunities to render these public services, she was indebted 
 shieliy to the suffragists. 
 
 The late venerable Samuel E. Sewall (who was an officer of the 
 Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association) did more than any other 
 man to secure improved laws for women in that State. For thirty 
 years it was he who drew the bills, helped the women to plead their 
 cause before legislative committees, and obtained a long succession of 
 legal changes. In the Woman's Journal of October 27, 1877, Judge 
 Sewall renewed the progress that had been made in legislation for 
 women up to that time, and said: 
 
 How has this work been accomplished? By the steady growth of public opinion, 
 promoted and aided in a very great degree, if not entirely created, by the labors of 
 the suffragists. I may add that, when the suffragists first began to move, the preju- 
 dice against altering the status of wives, and giving women the public offices mto 
 which they have since been introduced, was stronger than that which now resists 
 giving them the ballot. 
 
 A pamphlet issued by the "anti" association objects to equal suf- 
 frage on the ground that it " involves the holding of office." Is not 
 this rather inconsistent, in view of the fact that its president and 
 several of its leading members have been holders of public offices? 
 
 i/ 
 
30 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 THE TEST OF EXPERIMENT. 
 
 Women have now for years been voting, literally by hundreds of 
 thousands, in many different parts of the English-speaking world— 
 in England, Scotland, Ireland, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia; 
 in Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Idaho, and Kansas. In all these places 
 put together, the opponents have not yet found a dozen respectable men 
 who assert over their own names and addresses that equal suffrage has 
 had any bad results whatever. This scarcity of adverse testimony is 
 the more remarkable in view of the fact that active antisuffrage asso- 
 ciations in New York and Massachusetts have been at work for years 
 diligently gathering all the evidence against it they could find. Mean- 
 while testimony to its good results has been given by the chief justices 
 and all the judges of the supreme court in Wyoming, Colorado, Kan- 
 sas, and Idaho; by a long list of governors, college presidents, clergy- 
 men and representative men and women, and in two of the enfranchised 
 States, by a practically unanimous vote of the State legislature. 
 
 STATE ASSOCIATIONS. 
 
 The Remonstrance claims that there are antisuffrage associations in 
 four States, and committees in four more. There are suffrage associ- 
 ations in almost every State and Territory of the Union. 
 
 Mr. Amos R. Wells, editor of the Christian Endeavor World, the 
 organ of the Christian Endeavor societies, lately addressed letters of 
 inquiry to twenty-five ministers of several different denominations, 
 choosing their names at random among his subscribers in the enfran- 
 chised States. He asked, "Is equal suffrage working well, fairly 
 well, or badlv ? " One of the twenty-five answered that it was working 
 badly and three that it was working fairly well, while the twenty-one 
 others were positive and emphatic in saying that it worked well. 
 
 Miss Anthony. Now, I wish to present to j-ou Norway, in the per- 
 son of Mrs. Gudrun Drewsen. 
 
 STATEMENT OF MRS. GUDRTJN DREWSEN. 
 
 Mrs. Drewsen. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, 
 Norwegian women look back to the 26th of May as a day of great 
 victory; for on the 25th of May last a bill was passed in our Parlia- 
 ment which granted municipal suffrage to all women paying taxes on 
 a certain limited income, about $100 a year, or whose husbands pay 
 taxes on such income. 
 
 This law has thoroughly changed the position of married women in 
 Norway. From having always been a minor, the married woman has 
 suddenly become of age. 
 
 It may be of interest to you people of the United States— who can 
 show so many taxpaying women without ahy right to vote— to know 
 that we were not able to get the men of our Parliament interested in 
 the taxpaying woman suffrage question until the bill was put in such a 
 form that it included the married women also. It seemed to hurt these 
 
■WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 31 
 
 men's family feelings. It seemed to them so unjust that the wife and 
 mother should still be standing idle on the market place while their 
 aunts and sisters were the only ones to reap the harvest. 
 
 But once having the bill before them in the proper form, our men 
 in Parliament changed their opinion, and liked it so well that not only 
 the radical party, that had presented the bill, but many of the con- 
 servative party, that for jrears had been defiant, also gave their vote 
 and made strong speeches in favor of woman suffrage. 
 
 The result of this law has been the election of several women to 
 important municipal positions; for instance, members of the common 
 council in the capital, members of the board of aldermen, and at one 
 place a woman has become chief assessor. Women may act on juries 
 and grand juries, and have been appointed members of special con- 
 gressional commissions. Several women doctors are appointed at the 
 public institutions, on boards of health as experts for the Govern- 
 ment, etc. Matrons have been employed at prisons where women 
 are, and special prisons for .women in charge of a matron have been 
 established. 
 
 On the whole, we begin to see the glory of the rising sun, which 
 will give us, within a little while, the bright, clear day. [Applause.] 
 
 Miss Anthony. I now have the pleasure of introducing to you Mrs. 
 Vida Goldstein, of Australia, where women vote. 
 
 STATEMENT OF MISS VIDA GOLDSTEIN. 
 
 Miss Goldstein. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I 
 am very proud to think that I have come here from a country where 
 the woman-suffrage movement has made such rapid strides as it has 
 in Australia. The woman-suffrage note was first struck in America, 
 and yet women to-day are struggling here for what we have had in 
 Australia for years and years. And because we have proved all the 
 statements and arguments against woman suffrage to be utterly with- 
 out foundation, I will take a few minutes of your time just to tell 
 you what our political status is. 
 
 It seems incredible to us that the women here in America have not 
 even the school and municipal suffrage, except in a very few States. 
 
 We have had woman suffrage in Australia for over forty years, and 
 we never hear a word said against it. It is simply taken as a mere 
 matter of course that the women should go and vote. I have a vote 
 in the municipal council, so I can speak from experience in this matter. 
 I have not had it very long, but for the last five or six years, and 
 although I had always taken the very keenest interest in questions of 
 local government, I never before found that members and candidates 
 and canvassers were ready to listen to my opinions on questions of 
 municipal government; but now I find that things are very different. 
 They tell us as soon as women get these privileges they are going to 
 lose the chivalrous attentions of men. Let me assure you that a woman 
 has not the faintest conception of what chivalry means until she gets a 
 vote. [Laughter.] 
 
 In the school boards in Australia women are eligible for election as 
 members. I can remember the time, in Australia, when I was quite 
 a young girl, when there was a howl of opposition to women occupy- 
 ing seats op the school board. They had had the school vote for some 
 time but whefl it was suggested that a woman should stand for election 
 
32 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 as a member of one of these boards there was a howl of indignation on 
 the part of the general public. But the first woman who stood hap- 
 pened to be put up by the suffrage society, which was the strongest 
 m the country, and they were returned at the head of the poll. From 
 that time women have continued to be members of those boards, and 
 in all the districts now many of them are returned; and the work that 
 they do is considered so satisfactory that the men themselves are the 
 very first to acknowledge that it is desirable to have women on every 
 school board in the country. 
 
 As regards parliamentary suffrage, the position is this: South 
 Australia, New Zealand, and West Australia have full parliamentary 
 suffrage for women, and the result has been most satisfactory. The 
 elections are the most orderly that have ever been conducted there. 
 The women have not raided the platforms; they have not neglected 
 their homes; they have not gone away and left their babies. Every- 
 thing goes on in just the same way as before, except that they manage 
 to get alterations in the laws that previously they nad been asking for 
 years and years. 
 
 In South Australia, Victoria, Queensland, aud Tasmania they have 
 not yet got the parliamentary suffrage, but it is sure to come within 
 this year. The bill for woman suffrage has been introduced in the 
 Houses of Assembly, which are the lower and representative houses of 
 Parliament, over and over again, and every time the bill has been 
 introduced it has secured an increased majority. Eight times now it 
 has passed in Victoria, but it has been blocked by tne unrepresenta- 
 tive upper house, which is not elected by the people, but only by a 
 portion of the people. 
 
 But now those gentlemen who stood there and blocked our bill every 
 time win have to give way presently, because we now have a federated 
 Australia. And to prove to you the strength of the suffrage move- 
 ment, I may tell you that the framers of the federal constitution bill 
 were forced 'to admit that the electors now desired women to have the 
 vote, and they inserted a clause in that instrument giving women the 
 suffrage when they came to deal with their own federal franchise. 
 The elections took place on the franchise existing for the lower house 
 in each state, and as the women in South and West Australia had the 
 right to vote they helped to frame our great Australian Common- 
 wealth. 
 
 The federal constitution bill also provides that the suffrage must be 
 made uniform throughout Australia, so that the federal Parliamant 
 will have to ^ass it on the widest franchise existing, and that is in 
 South Australia, where women not only vote but have the right to sit 
 in Parliament; but no woman has ever yet aspired to a seat in Parlia- 
 ment, and that disposes of the argument that the moment women get 
 the vote they are going to rush into Parliament. 
 
 Women do not seek public office. That has been the fact in South 
 Australia. When we get national suffrage, state suffrage will follow 
 as a matter of course; because it would be utterly ridiculous to think 
 that we should have the right to vote in national affairs and not in the 
 states, and then these obstructing upper houses will have to give wav 
 
 This habit of blocking these bills by the upper house has become 
 such a scandal in our country that there are bills bemg introduced to 
 reform the upper houses. In Victoria a bill will be introduced almost 
 immediately, and the main plank will be woman suffrage; Then it 
 
WOMAN SUFFBAGE. 33 
 
 will be very inspiriting to us to see these gentlemen having to give 
 way. 
 
 When Mr. Reeves, the agent general for New Zealand, was speak- 
 ing at a large public meeting in London four years ago, he said that 
 he was so absolutely convinced that the suffrage had made such prog- 
 ress in South Australia and New Zealand — and nad resulted in so much 
 good — that he was quite certain that within a very few years women 
 m the whole of Australia would be fully enfranchised. Since he made 
 that statement, West Australia has given women full parliamentary 
 suffrage, and the position is such there that the federal Parliament is 
 bound to give it. The federal houses are both of them elected by the 
 people, and of the first national Parliament elected by the people, 
 four-fifths of the members are pledged to give women the vote. 
 
 Miss Blackwell referred to a paper published by the Anti-Suffrage 
 Association. In that paper some statements are made against woman 
 suffrage in Nfew Zealand. The source of that information is a Mr. J. 
 Grattan Grey, a journalist "long resident in Australasia." When you 
 remember that Australasia is bigger than the United States, you can 
 see the absurdity of quoting the opinions of a journalist "long resi- 
 dent in Australasia" against woman suffrage. It would be just as 
 reasonable for some one to quote "a journalist long resident in the 
 United States" against woman suffrage in Clolorado or anj' other one 
 State of the American Union. It does not appear that Mr. Grattan 
 Grey ever resided in New Zealand at all. But this gentleman says: 
 
 Not only has woman suBrage not falfllled any one of the improving and refining 
 services which were claimed for it when the measure was before Parliament, but as 
 an absolute fact public and political life and the personnel of Parliament itself has 
 degenerated to a most deplorable degree ever since the introduction of the female 
 franchise at parliamentary elections in that colony. 
 
 You will probably believe me rather than this "journalist long 
 resident in Australasia " when I tell you that those two statements are 
 absolutely untrue. I do not simply voice my own opinions on this 
 matter. I have here the statements of leading i-epresentative men and 
 women about the result of woman suffrage in New Zealand. I cite 
 the case of New Zealand because they nave had it longest there. 
 They have had it over nine yeai-s. These gentlemen are lawyers, 
 clergymen, and educators, men occupying leading positions in the (!om- 
 munity, representative men occupying good social position. 
 
 They say it has distinctly affected legislation. Laws have been 
 made because of it; others have been modified. Changes have been 
 made in the administration of the public service. Changes are being 
 made in public opinion outside the public service. It has raised the 
 tone of political life, since a better class of men are i-eturned to Par- 
 liament. It has raised the tone of election meetings. An election 
 meeting now-a-days is as quiet and orderly as any ordinary public 
 meeting. All the saloons are closed on election day, and a place 
 where liquor is sold may not be used as a polling booth. Every elec- 
 tion sees an improvement in the quality of the women's vote. 
 
 The statement made in the Victoria legislature that the granting of 
 the suffrage to the women of New Zealand had resulted in tne election 
 of men of immoral character to seats in the House of Representatives 
 is not true, and is an undeserved reflection upon the women of this 
 colony. The moral tone of the present House of Representatives is 
 equal, if not superior, to that of any of its predecessors, and the legis- 
 
 w s 3* 
 
34 "WOMAlir SUFFRAGE. 
 
 lative assembly and council of Victoria might with advantage take a 
 lesson in regard to the quorum and procedure from New Zealand. It 
 goes without saying that a candidate whose moral character is tainted, 
 or who has not been good to his wife and children, will never get the 
 women's vote. This last is well known, and has a restraining influ- 
 ence in preventing men otherwise well qualified for standing for seats 
 in parliament. As a matter of fact, they will not face the ordeal. 
 
 It is largely owing to the women of New Zealand that it is in the 
 van of progress and social reform. The enfranchisement of the 
 women of New Zealand was the result of years of hard fighting. Suc- 
 cess crowned our eflPorts in the end, and the result has been so satisfac- 
 tory that you never hear any suggestion that these rights should be 
 taken from them. 
 
 Now, I want to say to you that if Australia, that land tucked away 
 in that far corner of the world, can trust its women with a vote, why 
 can not you American men do the same'^ You trust the Indian, you 
 trust thousands and tens of thousands of ignorant, illiterate foreigners 
 who arrive on your shores every year. 
 
 I am proud to have the privilege of coming to-day to plead with you 
 to trust your women, xou will find your trust is not misplaced. 
 [Applause]. 
 
 Miss Anthony. The next speaker will be Mrs. Emmy Evald, who 
 comes to us from Sweden. 
 
 STATEMENT OF MRS. EMMY EVALD. 
 
 Mrs. EvALD. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I stand 
 here representing a country that gave its women the right of voting 
 in the seventeenm century. Swedish women have voted on the same 
 terms as their brothers in everything except the Second Chamber of 
 the Reichstag; but there is now a bill pending, in which we hope that 
 right will also be granted. 
 
 "Women are members of school boards, boards of guardians of the 
 poor, parochial boards, and the Government, appreciating women's 
 work, has openly declared that it could not do without them in munici- 
 pal affairs. I should have stated that it is the real-estate owners that 
 vote in Sweden, irrespective of the sex of the owner. The women in 
 Sweden have voted in the Lutheran Church, which is a State church, 
 since 1736. These Swedish women come here to America, being mem- 
 bers of our Lutheran Church. Here it is free; it is not a Government 
 church. Every one of them pays taxes, but they have no vote; they 
 have not voice. The Swedish Americans blame the Americans because 
 their clergy are educated in America, and we feel that they have imbibed 
 the false spirit of liberty and freedom taught by the illiberal men of 
 America. 
 
 We do have some women who are equal with men in America, but 
 they are the women who are bad. But what a crying wrongl You 
 say that women are inferior, and you can not give them the bdlot, but 
 your law says that you consider bad women equal with men and you 
 mete out the same punishment for them. Would you deny to women 
 the privilege of paying taxes? If they were murderers would you 
 know any difference in the law between the man and the woman? 
 These are not my words, but the words of one of your own Swedish- 
 American citizens, the greatest orator we have in our Lutheran Church. 
 
"WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 35 
 
 He is a liberal-minded man, because he was educated in Sweden. You 
 can not trust the ballot in the hands of women teachers in the public 
 schools, but you give it to men who can not write. You do not trust 
 the ballot to women who are controlling millions and who are support- 
 ing the country, but you give it to loafers and vagabonds who know 
 nothing, have nothing, and represent nothing. You can not trust the 
 ballot in the hands of women who are the wives and daughtei-s of your 
 heroes, but you will "give it to the tramp, or to anyone who is willing 
 to sell it for a glass of beer. You have not trusted the ballot in the 
 hands of Mrs. McKinley simply because she is a woman, but you do 
 trust it in the hands of anarchists. 
 
 So, men, let justice speak, and may the public weal demand that 
 this disfranchisement of the noble American women shall be stopped. 
 My heart cries for justice for these American women. I am sure that 
 you men are ashamed of your laws. When it comes to the ballot for 
 women, you withhold it because all do not want it. Do you withhold 
 education because some people do not want it? Do you withhold 
 order and justice because all do not want it? Oh, men, our Lord and 
 Father, the Creator, did not withhold salvation because there are some 
 who do not want it. 
 
 A well-known American judge, attempting to convince a fugitive 
 slave that he had made a mistake— this was before your civil war — ^put 
 the following questions to him: 
 
 What did you run away for? 
 
 Well, Judge, I wanted to be free. 
 
 You had a bad master, I suppose. 
 
 Oh, no; berry good massa. 
 
 Well, you hadn't a good home? 
 
 Haven't I? You should see my pretty cabin in Kentucky. 
 
 Had to work hard? 
 
 Oh, no; a fair day's work. 
 
 If you had plenty to eat, was not overworked, had a good home, and a good master, 
 I don't see why on earth you wanted to run away. 
 
 Well, Massa Judge, •! spec de situation am still open, if you would like it. 
 [Laughter.] 
 
 The judge saw the point and gave the fugitive a |5 bill to help him 
 on his way to freedom. [Applause.] I think we woman suffragists 
 feel something like this fugitive slave. If you ask us, " What in the 
 world do the women want the ballot for ? " we reply, ' ' Oh, men, because 
 we want to be free." 
 
 But further than that, our situation is open for you. Senators and 
 Representatives of America, if you would like it. 
 
 Oh, men, we hail the day and hope and look to the future when 
 American women will be declared equal with men politically as well 
 as socially, as citizens and as human beings. [Applause.] 
 
 Miss Anthony. I now have the pleasure of introducing to you Rev. 
 Anna Shaw. 
 
 STATEMENT OF EEV. ANNA H. SHAW. 
 
 Rev. Anna H. Shaw. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, 
 in closing what we women have to say to you this morning in our own 
 behalf I am not going to make an argument, but to recall to your 
 minds 'again, as Miss Anthony did in the beginning, that for thirty^ 
 two years we have been commg before your honorable body asking 
 
86 WOMAN SUFFEAGE, 
 
 that your committee shall report to the honorable Senate of the United 
 States a bill for a sixteenth amendment to the Constitution. 
 
 Miss Anthony gave you the reasons why we want our measure to 
 come before the people in this way rather than by submitting it in State 
 after State and having the laborious work that we have been performing 
 in these past thirty years continued in the years that are to come. 
 I am not going to talk on that point, but there is a point upon 
 which I wish to speak to you. Our association desires you as the rep- 
 resentatives of these women not only to report the bill for a sixteenth 
 amendment favorably, but we want you to recommend the appoint- 
 ment of a committee to investigate this subject. Years ago when our 
 women came before your honorable body we had nothing but theory 
 to give you — what we believed would be the result of woman suffrage 
 if it were granted. The opponents of woman suffrage had their 
 theories, and they stated the evils that they believed would follow if 
 the right of suffrage were granted to the women of the country. The 
 theory of one person is as good as that of another until it has been put 
 to the test. But after we have tested the matter both sides must lay 
 aside all theory and stand or fall upon facts as they are presented. 
 
 Now, we woman suffragists would like, more than anything else, to 
 stand on the record of woman suffi-age where it has been extended in 
 this country. 
 
 In four States of our Union women have the full suffrage. For 
 more than thirty years they have been experiencing it in Wyoming 
 equally with the men; in Colorado for nine years, and in Uteh and 
 Idaho for about six years. In these different States suffrage has been 
 tested, and while we do not claim that women will be able to change 
 conditions in one year, or ten years, we do believe that twenty-one 
 years at least is a long enough time to measure the effect of a mode of 
 action upon the life of an individual or that of a company of individuals. 
 
 We women are perfectly willing to let our case rest'upon the result 
 of suffrage in those States. What we would like better than anything 
 else is that the Congress of the United States should grant a committee 
 of investigation; such a committee as you appoint to obtain informa- 
 tion in regard to other measures about which you desire the fullest 
 knowledge and information; that such a committee be appointed to 
 investigate the result of woman suffrage in the States- where it has 
 already been granted in the Union. 
 
 The opponents of woman suffrage come to you with letters from 
 individuals. Everyone of us knows it is absolutely impossible that any 
 matter of legislation should suit everybody. I have no doubt that we 
 eould get a large number of letters denouncing the Christian religion 
 from people who consider it an utter failure. 
 
 We could doubtless secure an equally large number of letters against 
 man suffrage. To-day the great danger in this country is, not that the 
 women are not loyal to the fundamental principles of our national life, 
 but that the ideal of democracy is dying out in the hearts of the men 
 of the country; and we could get many letters from all over the coun- 
 try to prove that man suffrage in this country is an absolute failure. 
 One of the leading ministers in one of the New England States said to 
 ^?Jr?^* ^°^^ ^^^^^> ^^^^ I lectured in his church upon this subject. 
 Why do you want to vote? I have not voted for twenty years. 
 Our republican form of government is an absolute failure. Man suf- 
 frage has never succeeded and never will. There is but one ideal form 
 
"WOMAN SUFFEAGE. 37 
 
 of government in the world and that is an absolute monarchy tempered 
 by assassination." 
 
 Now, that was the opinion of a leading niinister in this country 
 whose name is known from one end of it to the other. 
 
 It is easy to quote the opinions of men and women against the working 
 of any good thing. And so our friends come to us with letters, which 
 I have no doubt are bona fide, letters from people in the States where 
 woman suflfaee already exists, saying it is a failure. It is quite 
 natural that here and there there should be one who should state 
 this, but we can get hundreds and hundreds of letters stating that it is 
 a success. 
 
 This might not convince you gentlemen of the Congress of the 
 United States; but a committee appointed by your body to investigate 
 the subject thoroughly, as it can be investigated by no other body, is 
 and ought to be the way by which you gentlemen can be convinced 
 whether suffrage has or has not been a success in the States where it is 
 already granted. 
 
 So sure are we women that your report will be more than favorable 
 to our measure, that we are perfectly willing to stand or fall by its 
 results. So sure are we of the good that has been started in those 
 States by the cooperation of good men and good women, that we know 
 the result would be on our side and not on the other, and we are will- 
 ing to stake our future by it. 
 
 While we do not claim that all good is to come from woman suffrage, 
 or that all women would always vote on the right side of important ques- 
 tions, we do believe that among all the people of a community or of a 
 nation there are more good men and good women than there are bad 
 men and bad women, and that when we unite the good men and good 
 women in any community they will be able to carry measures for the 
 good of the community. 
 
 Now the difficulty with so many of our legislators who do not do 
 the will of the best classes of people is not that the legislators do not 
 want the good, it is simply because a large number of the best classes 
 ,of the people whom they would be glad to serve are not their constit- 
 uents, and they have not the support and backing of that element; 
 and I believe when all the good men and good women are back of the 
 legislators of our country we will have different laws, we will have 
 different conditions; and instead of the criticism that is passed to-day 
 it will be an altogether different criticism — not because the men will 
 be more deserving than to-day, but because the men will dare to stand 
 up for what the people desire, because of the constituency which is 
 behind them. 
 
 While we do not claim, as I say, that women possess all wisdom or 
 all knowledge or all intelligence, or know what is always best for the 
 people, we believe that all the people know more than any part of the 
 people, and that all men and all women know better what is for the gen- 
 eral good of the community or the State in which they live than all men 
 alone or all women alone; and that the only way by which we can come 
 to the best interests of a State or the best interests of a family or a church, 
 or any other organized form of existence, is by taking the consensus of 
 opinion of all flie people who are old enough and wise enough to give 
 their views upon the subject under consideration. 
 
 Therefore the one thing I am here to plead for this morning is the 
 appointment of a committee from the Congress of the United States 
 
38 WOMAN SUFFBAQE. 
 
 to investigate the workings of suffrage in the States where women 
 already have the full vote. 
 
 You will notice that our opponents come to you and say the women 
 do not want to vote, because in States where they have had school 
 suffrage no large mass of them have taken advantage of their privilege. 
 They never come to you with that statement concerning States where 
 women have the full suffrage as men have it. It is only where they 
 have this partial suffrage, this educational suffrage, that they make 
 that claim. 
 
 You know as well as I do that when a measure relating to education 
 is before the people the only ones who will be interested in it are the 
 people who have their attention directly turned to educational matters; 
 and while it is true that women have not voted upon those questions as 
 numerously as some people might have expected, yet if men were 
 forced to pay a tax and to register every year in order to vote simply 
 on this measure the vote of the men upon those matters would not 
 exceed the vote of the women to-day. 
 
 I know in Massachusetts, when I voted for school director, I not 
 only had to register, but when we went to register we found the reg- 
 istrar was out m the hayfield. I took several of the ladies of my own 
 parish and went with them to register. We had to take him away in 
 from the, hayfield. He was very busy, and on his way between the hay- 
 field and the house he said many things that are not in the decalogue, 
 and declared that women were a nuisance. 
 
 Now, when you go as a citizen to perform your citizen's duty, and 
 the official not only feels but says that you are a nuisance, there is a 
 feeling of timidity that makes you shrink a little. When the whole 
 community look upon you as eccentric and absurd you naturally shrink 
 from doing it, even if it is a duty and you feel obligated to do it. 
 
 Then we had to swear to our possessions. I inquired of the men of 
 my parish if they had ever sworn to their possessions in order to pay 
 taxes. They said no, they always waited until after the tax -came in 
 before they did that. We women not only have to swear to them 
 beforehand, but we have had to pay pretty dearly for the privilege. 
 In that community a number of women live year after year on a 
 meager bit of an income, as women will. I had an income of |105 a 
 year from a little property which was left me in the will of a friend. 
 I had never gone before the tax collector or hunted him up and 
 told him I had that little bit of property; and being a Methodist 
 preacher he nevei suspected I had any. [Laughter.] Consequently 
 I was never asked about it. , But in ordei to vote for a member of the 
 school board — not to vote on any appropriation or on any question con- 
 cerning the school at all, but just to vote for a member of the school 
 board— I had to swear to this property and pay a tax of $22.50 on an 
 income of $105. 
 
 Now, while the right of citizenship is a great right and a great priv- 
 ilege, if one has to live on $105 a year, $22.50 is a good deal to pay 
 for the privilege of voting for a member of the school board. I might 
 not have objected had I been able to vote for every officer, from Presi- 
 dent to pathmaster. So, because of these objections, because of the 
 sentiment of the community in which our women live, because it is 
 not generally regarded to be quite the thing, women do not come out 
 in large numbers to vote where they have only partial suffrage: but 
 where women have the f ull.suffrage, where they can make their influence 
 
WOMAN SUFFRAGE 39 
 
 felt upon the great measures of State and national affairs and all the 
 local questions in the communities where they live, from such places, 
 where they have full suffrage, our opponents never come to you with 
 a statement of the number of the women who do not or who do vote. 
 
 Therefore we who favor woman suffrage are perfectly willing to 
 stand or fall on the result of such investigation as would be made by 
 a committee appointed by your honorable Dody to look over the whole 
 ground. [Applause.] 
 
 Miss Anthony. The hearing is now over; but we ask if the com- 
 mittee have any questions to put to any of us? If so, we feel confi- 
 dent that these women can answer them. 
 
 Senator Berry. No, I think not. 
 
 Miss Anthony. Now, we ask you to get the leave of the Senate to 
 print as many copies of this hearing as you possibly can. 
 
 The Chairman. How many copies were printed last year? 
 
 Miss Anthony. Five thousand; but we should very much like to 
 have 10,000 this year. We can use all you will , print, and more too. 
 
 drhe committee, at 11.55 a. m., adjourned 
 
 o 
 
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