THAT NEGLIGIBLE WOMAN VOTE

Manawatu Times, 25 March 1926, Page 4

THAT NEGLIGIBLE WOMAN VOTE

I suppose the women are still voting as their husbands do," solemnly pronounced the Budding Statesman.

"Unless their husbands ask them to," grinned the Grizzly Boss.

“Unspeakable farce, this suffrage for women,’’ yawned the Budding Statesman. "You’H never got the dappers to the polls unless you offer a permanent wave for every vote cast. Why don't those wonmn’s organisations campaign for a bill to provide more attractive polling booths? Have them dolled up with chintz and chiffon, put in mirrors that flatter and remove all visual trace of wrinkles. Some of these toilet-ware manufacturers would jump at the chance to provide pink powder and rouge, lipsticks and eyebrow crayons." "Shush, shush,” chided the Grizzly Bose. "The strong-minded minority are not all dead yet. They would wreck the booths once you began to feminise them. More and more equal rights is what the ladies want; and don’t take them lightly when they arc roused, my young friend. Some of the merry-minded veterans have done that, and they were pretty badly scorched. The secret of playing politics against the ladies is to pour oil on troubled waters. Keep them lulled with promises and gentle controversy.” “But it’s a fact, isn't it,” demanded the Budding Statesman, “that most of their organisations are a joke when it comes to political effectiveness ?’’

“Not all, by a long shot," returned the Grizzly Boss. “Take that League of Women Voters and study its record of the past five years. They put ail of their organisation pressure behind four hundred and twenty measures in the legislatures of forty-five States and got them passed. Add to that thirteen of their pet laws passed by Congress, and as an embryo politician you’ve got something to ponder on. All these bills had to do with the promotion of child welfare, greater efficiency and economy in government and the removal of legal discriminations against women. I don't know of any non-partisan he-man organisation, my lad. that can match that record.”

“But it was good politics. I take it,” commented the Budding Statesman, "to ride the band wagon with them in all these causes for high Ideals.”

“It is always good politics,” chuckled the Grizzly Boss, "to walk behind a steam roller when it is travelling in high.”

‘‘But wait a minute,” cried the Budding Statesman. ‘‘How about the enforcement of all these bills and measures? It seems to me that all the shouting I have heard has been about the passing of these bills. There hasn’t been much more than a twitter about What about the horrible example of prohibition? The women are chiefly to blame for the Eighteenth Amendment, but what haije they done to prevent It becoming a shrieking comedy for the whole world?” _ “Like all the kindergarten politicians,” replied /thie Grizzly Boss, ‘‘you are jumping at snappy little conclusions. You are reading the stars through the comic strips and the chltter-chatter of the newspaper columnists. Prohibition (enforcement isn’t as mirthful to the wet interests and their political dumb-bell allies as the bright lads of the press would lead you to suppose.

“Those college presidents and internationally minded publiclsts r who go abroad and cheer up the British brewers and the French wine barons with facetious remarks on how our prohibition amendment has resulted only in creating a new class of bootlegger millionaires are babes in the wood when it comes to understanding how the organised women of the U.S.A- have cemented the Eighteenth Amendment Into the Constitution and riveted the Volstead Act into the Federal statutes. “Just let any little old party throw down the challenge to the ladies that they are going to make cause with the brewers and distillers and pledge themselves to emasculate the Volstead Act. That’U put the ladies back into their fighting clothes, my son, and crowd the highways with petticoats, short, long and medium, on election day.”

“But the issue has got to be met some time,” exclaimed the Budding Statesman. “A tolerant and broadminded majority defies and Jridicules the law. It is only supported by an intolerant minority, the same crape-hanger minority that foisted it on us while we were groggy with war mania.”

"I have never heard of any honest count up of the ayes and nays on the subject,” returned the Grizzly Boss, “but I want to remind you of the fact that the Lady of the House is most usually and always an intolerant minority when it comes to protecting her offspring and husband from their unpleasant sin. You will likewise find that while the Lady of the House is engaged in her grim and emotional inhibitions, the gay and festive majority in the household, consisting of husband and the younger generation, accept the rule and dominance of the intolerant minority after the manner of lambkins. "And so it is now with the Lady of the House in this great and free democracy of ours. Give her her head as an up-a.nd-activc intolerant minority, housed and bristling with warrior zeal, armed at all points with canal rights and privileges, and she can lick any'tolerant majority you over heard of to a Rooseveltian frazzle."

“Hence, my boy, take a little bit of wisdom from an old battle-scar-

red cynic, and don’t go out of your 1 way to moot the prohibition on a S grand and liberal scale. For if you [do, they’ll have to pick some of you upu with tweezers after the smoko I blows over. Governor A 1 Smith j seems to have tnado some happy y nd successful gestures that have

roused the hopes of the moist majorities in the metropolis; but if he ever tries to map out a path for himself to the White House, he'll have to take his hat in nand and go to the ladies for his marching orders. He’ll tell you, just as 1 have, my young friend, ‘Don’t rouse ’em—keep ’em lulled!’ ” “Well, they appear to be pretty thoroughly lulled at present," remarked the Budding Statesman. "Tl/o only shouting I’ve hoard recently was about getting out t,he vote.”

"Getting out the vote,” philosophised the Grizzly Boss, “may or may not bo good politics, though I suppose you could call it a good sign of aruscd and patriotic Interest in the manners and modes of government. It is only safe to bring out floods of votes when you can read th e signs of how the voters aro going to vote. The too-lazy-to-vote citizen is a dangerous ally to any cause when you have interfered with his whittling and golf on election day. He can change his mind back and forth with every beat of his pulse while on his reluctant way to the poll.s and half the time, when you have helped him make up his mind for himself, he won’t know how to mark his ballot when ho gets to the booth.” “I suppose you include both sexes in this judgment,,*’ said the Budding Statesman, ironically. "I do not,” resonded the Grizzly Boas. “I refer specifically to the votes and voting of the superior male, and I am informing the ladies that they are Wasting their time and much caluablo effort in directing their getting-out-the-vote campaigns to both sexes. If they would concentrate on the feminine vote, they would at least have the satisfaction of knowing that the reluctant vote they brought out would exhibit intelligence and decision at j the polls. Women of voting age i will not go to the polls for any such aimless purpose as just voting and being one of the herd. • There must be a definite objective; their minds must be made up: and once they are. don’t waste your time trying to change them. It would be easier to try and shake down a stone mountain,”

“All my political wisdom,” sighed the Budding Statesman, “is evidently topsy-turvy, notwithstanding that I have done a world of studying and reading.”

“The only way to understand women voters or non-voters,” grinned the Grizzly Boss, “is to disbelieve what is easy to believe and gamble on what you doubt.”