WOMANHOOD SUFFRAGE

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1847, 31 July 1907, Page 1

WOMANHOOD SUFFRAGE

HOW IT WORKS IN THE UNITED STATES. (By an American.) In America the woman's suffrage movement has never shown any sign or retrogression. ' It was started along national lines at the first Woman s Rigms Convention, at Seneca Falls, New iork, in 1848. That it has made progress, is demonstrated by the fact that ax the present moment full or fractional siufrage' for women prevails in tiyeiivy-six American commonwealths. F°ur of these extend to women, all the political rights and privileges enjoyed by men. In eighteen others women possess school suffrage alone. In four more they enjoy school suffrage and some other political rights, without being admitted to full political equality with men. These four are Kansas, where they vote for all municipal officials; Montana and ioiia, where they vote upon the issuance of municipal bonds; and Louisiana, where they cast their ballots upon all questions of municipal expenditure.

In Colorado, Idaho, Wyonmig and Utah the sexes stand, politically, upon absolutely the same plane. Colorado has enjoyed tlie services of ten women m the Lower House of tlie Stare Legislature, but never of more than three ac the same time, liigh-water mark oi female political power was readied m that State six years ago, when one legislator, twenty-nine county school superintendents, 808 school directors, oim countv clerk, one county treasurer, one assessor, one clerk of County Court, and one clerk of District Court wore petticoats. Never before or since has the number oi female office holders great at one time in any Stale in the Union.

In the four States in which women enjoy equal political rights with men the experiment has worked out in a way equally disappointing to its enemies and to its" advocates. There has been no catastrophe holding those States up as “horrible examples’’ to serve as everlasting warnings to all the rest of mankind to beware of. trusting wily woman within reach of the ballot. Ou the other hand, there has been no perceptible purification of political methods, nor has there been any discoverable elevation of tlie standard of citizenship. Never before were fraud, corruption and intimidation at tlie polls so brazen and unashamed as in tlie Colorado guoeina to rial election three years ago. io attribute this to female suffrage would be both false and unfair. It proves, however, that the purification oi politics by the simple expedient of permitting women to vote is an iridescent dream.

The man who sells iiis vote lor three fingers of whisky or a glass of beer Ims been made the target for many stinging shafts of sarcasm. Lucidly > di tlicii headlong pursuit of the masculine, women as a class have not yet acquired a dangerous liking lor tlie beverages that both cheer and inebriate, but from the standpoint of good citizenship, the man who sells his vote for a dollar or for a drink is not on a very much lower level than the woman who permits herself to be bribed by a ride in a carriage or automobile. The number of these is legion. Few women vote on principle. The meek and clinging woman invariably casts her ballot the way her father, husband, brother, or most esteemed male acquaintance tells her to. The business woman, the intellectual woman, the woman with “views,” all think they have voted in just the way their closest male friends advise them not to vote. The great mass of woman-kind that lie between these extremes vote on caprice or impulse. They have no political convictions, and care for neither candidates, parties, nor principlesThese are the women that the political workers cultivate. It is not a particularly expensive proposition to get their votes. A ride to and from the voting

place is usually all that is necessary, if the proffer of a carriage ride will not do the work, all that is needed is to bring a big motor-ear tooting and chugchugging to the door. It is advisable that it makes plenty of noise, ir order to attract all the neighbours to the windows. The motor-car, therefore, plays a part in Colorado politics fully as important as the role of the whisky bottle or cheque-book. The moment the women of any State are given the right to vote, the evolution of the “lady politician” becomes inevitable. The lady politician is a character deserving of careful study on the part of aspirants fir political preferment. She is a hustler —full of vim, vigour, nervous energy, and personal magnetism. She may come from any walk in life —the highest or the lowest. Free of speech and free in manner, siie is rarely couched by the breath of scandal. Very often she is reputed, to have nad “a past”; but she is mightily capable of taking care of the present, and of providing for the future. It she Happens to lie young and pretcy, well and good; but some of the most successful of her class are as ugly as sin, anti Oid enough to boast of their age instead of trying to conceal it. It is not often mat she is ambitious to attain political eminence for herself. True, women have been elected to almost every office snort of th.B (jovcrJiorbiup, witliiu tiiG gift of the people; but the women so elected have not come from the ranks of the lady politicians. Generally they have been business women, or professional women, who found their opportunity iu tne discord of party leacierß, or who seized the psychological moment of popular revolt against the reign or “bossisin.” The lady politician is paid for her services in cold cash not in patronage or promises. Her advent upon the political arena has introduced a new hazard to character, to reputation, and to tenure oi office that the shrewdest oi mule poll tieians confess their inability to estimate with any degree of accuracy, or to control with any degree of success, bhe has been instrumental in working the irretrievable w reck of many a promising career, and has brought more than one forlorn hope triumphantly to the house of fulfilment. She has been the tie us ex machina that has shaped most of the political “accidents that have confounded the calculations of machine leaders and party managers in Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, and idaiio since she first took a hand in the game. it is difficult to gauge the social effects of female suffrage m the States m which it has been adopted. So many other elements must be taken into consideration that it is quite impossible to ascribe to each its due share in the moulding of existing conditions. Many wieil-inkormed women think that the sex has lost very much more than k has -mined. These believe tnat to place women on the same level with men is roc to elevate but to degrade tnem. They think that this is one very important contributing cause to the fact' that the divorce courts ol Colorado are worked harder and faster than those of any other State with approximately the same population, and that the juvenile courts oi Denver have a greater number of youthful delinquents to deal with ihau have the courts of any other city of the same size in the voild. .the woman who takes to politics is not a conspicuous success as a home niakei, nor is the man whose wife becomes a power to political circles genera lly much of a home builder. One politician m about all any family can stand without discord and ultimate disintegration. Female suffrage, also, is held responsible for the fact that in Denvei wages for women are higher and for men Lower than in any other large American, city. Here women compete cn equal, or superior, terms with men in almost every walk of life. In most of the States, for example, the * lady barber is almost unknown. In Denver lady barbers” are the rule in the down-town shops. So it is in many oilier callings Lnerally considered “for men only. ° This is a doubtful advantage, even for the women. It is responsible tor the astonishing percentage of the married women of the city who arc foundm the ranks of the breadwinners. inat a wife can earn as much money as her husband may appear to tlxo uiichinknig to be a good thing. In reality it often proves disastrous. If both husband and wife work in office, store, or factory, there can bo no real home life. it children come, they are regarded m the li-dit of unwelcome, if unavoidable, nuisances, cutting the family income in hull, and interfering with the whole scheme “Emancipation” of women, thereloie, is not regarded as an unqualified sue cess, even in the house ol its friends. It hasn't brought the millennium perceptibly nearer. It sounds well, and it looks well on paper, but it hasii t worked out quite right. It has proven bad for the women, bad tor the men, bau for the little ones, bad for the municipality, for the commonwealth, and the nation. Women have signally iailed to purify politics, but politics have not failed to besmirch and degrade the noblest work of God.