Anti-Suffrage Essays Part 6

The degree to which the lesson is learned, depends upon two things; namely, the quality of the teacher and the extent of her influence.

Accordingly, two questions arise. Would woman suffrage give us better teachers? Would it increase the power which they already hold? One may get some light on the first point by studying the placing of normal school graduats. The connection between the schools and politics is already lamentably close. Many districts, with administrations predominantly of one party or religious sect choose first teachers of that sect, good or bad, and sisters and daughters of voters of that party; then enough women to complete the necessary number. Suppose that the teacher, instead of being the daughter of the voter, holds the vote herself. The evil would become universal. There is no indication that a woman's salary and position under such circ.u.mstances be more directly conditioned upon her abilities as a teacher. The chances are that woman suffrage would tend to make the school more truly the servant of the party in power than of the general good. Moreover, a vote can be used as a commodity of exchange; and the woman-voter who amid the fluctuations of city politics would protect her position by a shrewd use of her ballot would hardly be the best school mistress of American youth.

The effect of suffrage upon the teacher's influence in the schoolroom would not be beneficial. Her treatment of some subjects, like grammar, nature study, and raffia work, would of course remain unchanged. It has, however, been said by suffragists that her discussion of civic problems would be more intelligent. Would her judgments be cooler because she is in the thick of the fight, and her statements more convincing because she is in direct conflict with the fathers and mothers of half her cla.s.s? It is of the utmost importance that the child shall look upon the teacher as impartial. He may consider her in some respects his natural enemy, but he must none the less regard her as one of the immutable things of the universe. For this reason public commotions over school affairs, however well intentioned, injure the inst.i.tutions they design to benefit. Anything which tends to increase the possibility of opposition between the teacher and the child's family, and makes the child's att.i.tude partisan is a menace. Suffrage in this field as in so many others, offers no compensation for the increased friction and unrest.

XI

SUFFRAGE AND THE SOCIAL WORKER

DOROTHY G.o.dFREY WAYMAN.

_Dorothy G.o.dfrey Wayman, wife of C. S. Wayman; was educated at Bryn Mawr and at the School for Social Workers in Boston; has done organized charity and settlement work in Fitchburg and Boston; was for one year state organizer of the Ma.s.sachusetts Womans'

Anti-Suffrage a.s.sociation; is a member of Ma.s.sachusetts Civic League._ _J. A. H._

Among people who have what has been called "the sheep type of mentality," it is frequently a.s.serted that since Miss Jane Addams, Miss Julia Lathrop, Dr. Katherine Davis, and other "servants of humanity" are suffragists, it follows that all women should become suffragists. Such people do not, however, carry this line of thought to its logical conclusion; for even they do not consider themselves bound to become Progressives because that is Miss Addams's political party, nor to become members of her church.

This _argumentum ad hominem_ has great weight in the suffrage propaganda, and it is high time that it should be considered less superficially. Having been a social worker myself in a large city, I have been much interested in the history and career of such workers, and find therein one of the most positive anti-suffrage arguments.

It is a striking fact that the very women whom suffragists use as personal exhibits accomplished the social work that won them fame, under male suffrage. Conversely, in the long list of women's names honored for their social service, not one of national reputation earned that reputation in a woman suffrage state.

The National Inst.i.tute of Social Science awards a gold medal for distinction in social service. Men like William H. Taft and Charles W.

Eliot have been thus decorated. Miss Jane Addams, Miss Lillian D. Wald of the Henry Street Nurses' Settlement in New York, Miss Mabel Boardman of the National Red Cross, and Miss Anne Morgan of New York are the women who have been presented with this medal in past years.

On February 25, 1915, the National Inst.i.tute of Social Sciences conferred this medal for distinction in social service upon Miss Louisa Schuyler of New York City. In a long life of useful citizens.h.i.+p, though unblessed by the ballot, Miss Schuyler has contrived to inaugurate several undertakings and lived to see them grow, till from radical innovations, they have become the groundwork of much of our modern charity. Miss Schuyler discovered the shocking conditions prevailing in almshouses fifty years ago, and organized a series of volunteer visiting committees which eventually became the N. Y. State Charities' Aid a.s.sociation, with headquarters in New York City. Miss Schuyler was the organizing genius of the Bellevue Visiting Committee, which from visiting the poorhouses of Westchester County, progressed to the establishment of the first training school for nurses in this country.

Trained nurses have come to be such a necessity today, that I imagine few suffragists realize that they are indebted to one woman's initiative for the ministrations of skilled hands that so often may mean the difference between life and death. Today there are 1100 training schools for nurses, whose existence can be traced to the ideas of a woman living and working in a male suffrage state. Another feat, more political in its aspects, accomplished by Miss Schuyler was the inauguration of the system now in force of State care for the insane, and of the removal of insane persons and children from the physically and morally degrading atmosphere of the almshouse where they were formerly cared for. In 1908, Miss Schuyler grappled with another of our great modern problems and organized the first committee in this country, composed of physicians and laymen, for the prevention of blindness. What a long way behind the world would be today if Miss Schuyler had done as Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, and devoted her great organizing genius to suffrage propaganda!

Miss Jane Addams' achievements in Chicago at Hull House, are too widely known to require any enumeration, but I would emphasize the fact that her work was done while Illinois was still a male suffrage state. In _Twenty Years at Hull House_, which was published in 1910, three years before women attained partial enfranchis.e.m.e.nt in Illinois, Miss Addams gives her estimate of the field of a settlement in social work for a community: "It seems impossible to set any bounds to the moral capabilities which might unfold under ideal civic and educational conditions. But, in order to obtain these conditions, the Settlement recognizes the need of cooperation, both with the radical and the conservative, and from the very nature of the case, the Settlement cannot limit its friends to any one political party or economic school."

Since these words were written, Miss Addams has allied herself definitely with a political party, at great loss of personal prestige, but that does not alter the truth of her written opinion. The end of every public spirited woman is identical with that of the Settlement, "to obtain ideal civic and educational conditions" for her community; and "the very nature of the case," as Miss Addams says, demands that they be not obliged to limit their friends to any one political party, but remain free from political affiliations in order that their disinterestedness may not be cavilled at.

Miss Lillian D. Wald's work as a district nurse at the Henry Street tenement she chose to occupy on graduating from her training course as a nurse showed the way to the efficient Visiting Nurses' a.s.sociations that are being organized today all over the country, and also to the public recognition of the value of instruction in health which is finding expression in the staffs of nurses maintained in many cities by the Board of Health and School Departments whose services are free to the people. This humanitarian work manifestly had no connection with the ballot.

Miss Kate Barnard, the "Girl Commissioner of Charities" in Oklahoma, is a striking figure of our day. The neighboring state of Kansas is a woman suffrage state, yet Miss Barnard seems to prefer residence in the male suffrage state of Oklahoma and has done great things there. When Oklahoma was admitted to statehood, it was Miss Barnard who wrote the child labor, prison reform, and other humanitarian measures into the State const.i.tution; and she was made State Commissioner of Charities, which position she holds today. Miss Barnard, too, recognizes the power for evil of partisan politics. She is at present waging a bitter fight for the property rights of the Indian wards of her state, and writing in the _Survey_, says: "I want the people of the U.S. to stand by me until the hand of _partisan politics_ is wrested from the control of Indian affairs in Oklahoma and in the nation."

In 1912, when the Children's Bureau was established at Was.h.i.+ngton, we might have expected that one of the women const.i.tuents of the petticoated West would be placed at its head. Instead, President Taft appointed Miss Julia C. Lathrop, a resident of Hull House in Chicago, and a former member of the Illinois State Board of Charities, where she was credited with the enlargement of the Illinois State charitable inst.i.tutions and their thorough reorganization, though, of course, obliged to work without the ballot. Time has proved the wisdom of Mr.

Taft's appointment and also borne witness to the peculiar advantage enjoyed by women in politics, provided they are not shackled with the ballot.

One of the thought-inspiring books of 1914 was also a splendid argument for the anti-suffragists. It was _Beauty for Ashes_, Mrs. Albion Fellowes Bacon's account of the securing of the Indiana Model Housing Act, which was accomplished through the initiative and leaders.h.i.+p of this one woman, mother, and home-maker, with no political prestige, with no previous reputation built by long publicity, without the all-powerful ballot.

Mrs. Bacon was supported by the Federated Woman's Clubs of her State, and enlisted the aid of earnest men and women citizens throughout the State. Her bill was bitterly contested by the worst cla.s.s of landlords, but after three sessions of the Legislature, at which Mrs. Bacon was obliged to appear in person and explain her bill, it was pa.s.sed. She says of that day: "The women, the homes of Indiana, were honored that day by the men of the Legislature, and we had won a law for the 101 cities of our State. No wonder the women applauded as some of the men who gave their reasons, added 'and because the women wanted it'." Her conclusion is: "Most strongly have I desired to show how much can be done by women's organizations by simply demanding right legislation, and to show their equally important part of helping to enforce legislation after they get it."

Speaking of her own work, she says: "Having no hand in the management of political affairs, I may leave to the various political parties the care of reaping the thorns in each other's fields. It has been my pleasand task to gather only the grapes.... I have encountered more figs than thistles, and fewer thistles than what seems to be a sort of cacti, that, I firmly believe, might be Burbankized for human good. Would that they might be, and that we might include in the conservation of vital resources those great powers for good that are now so wasted by constant warring for political supremacy."

That last sentence forms a scathing indictment of the shortsightedness of suffrage policy. It is pitiful to think of the energy and ability which today is diverted from channels of human helpfulness to this sensational struggle for a mistaken cause. It is not to be thought of that we can permit woman's energy to be permanently dissipated in political warfare or handicapped by party vicissitudes.

These examples of achievements by women of our own day, in our own country, should convince the clear thinker that woman's contribution to community organization and progress is best accomplished as a non-partisan. The stories of Miss Schuyler and Mrs. Bacon prove that whenever a woman has a righteous cause or a sane ideal, she will be successful in its realization without the ballot. The three women cited above whose work most depended on legislation for its accomplishment, Miss Addams, Miss Barnard and Mrs. Bacon, have all in their penned words lauded the power of non-partisans.h.i.+p.

And, borrowing from Miss Barnard, the anti-suffragist may say to the woman who seeks to enfranchise her sister, thus destroying the power of that great, womanly contribution towards the solving of the vexed questions of the day made by the disinterested, because disfranchised citizenness: "Stand by me till the hand of partisan politics is wrested from the control of society's charities, till prisons, almshouses, children's homes, public hospitals, are administered for the public good rather than private profit; till decent housing, progressive education, adequate recreation, pure food, living wages have been made a matter of public, rather than political, concern." Let us not dissipate our energies in internecine warfare, nor yet seek to perpetuate the drawbacks of our partisan system of government by enfranchising the women who now stand outside politics.

XII

WOMAN SUFFRAGE A MENACE TO SOCIAL REFORM

MARGARET C. ROBINSON

_Margaret Ca.s.son Robinson, wife of Professor Benjamin L. Robinson of Harvard University; President of the Public Interests League of Ma.s.sachusetts; President of the Jaffrey Village Improvement Society; Vice-President of the Cambridge Hospital League; Vice-President of the Friends of Poland; member of the Executive Board of the Cambridge Anti-Tuberculosis a.s.sociation; Editor of the "Anti-Suffrage Notes," and a frequent contributor to the press._ _J. A. H._

The truth of our anti-suffrage doctrine that woman suffrage will destroy the present non-partisan power of women and give us nothing worth having in its place is constantly confirmed by the current happenings in suffrage states. We have now, in the eastern and middle states, a body of non-political women workers of incomparable value, and one is amazed at the wrong-headedness which would deprive society of their influence.

Under present conditions the intelligent woman interested in public affairs brings the full force of her influence to bear upon legislation; her influence is a moral influence--it is direct and can be used with men of all political parties. The possession of this unprejudiced, unrestricted power is something which anti-suffragists value so highly that the threat of the suffragists to destroy it is a very serious grievance.

It is surprising that social workers and club women in larger numbers are not awake to this danger; but, as has well been said, deciding wisely on this question is not a matter of intelligence but of information; and it is easier to accept suffrage theories and the _mis_information which suffrage orators generously supply as to how suffrage _will_ work than to study the happenings in suffrage states and learn for oneself how it _does_ work.

Social workers and club women know their present strength and how many good laws they have helped to put on the statute books. What they seemingly do not realize is how quickly this power will be gone when they divide into political parties. Many of them are apparently too ignorant of politics to understand that _as voters_ it is only those men for whom they will vote that they can influence.

A despatch from Topeka, Kansas, describing the recent campaign in that state says that three years ago the Kansas Federation of Women's Clubs lined up solidly for suffrage, and won it--and that they have not been lined up solidly for anything since! Instead of throwing their influence as a unit for good legislation, as women's clubs are wont to do in male suffrage states, these women are divided into Republicans, Democrats, Progressives, and Socialists, and the friction among them is greater than ever before.

At the time Jane Addams joined the Progressive party it was very striking that such ardent suffragists as Ida Husted Harper and Edward Devine, editor of "The Survey," should have protested publicly in the strongest terms against her action. They realized perfectly that political partisans.h.i.+p narrows a woman's sphere of influence, and that Miss Addams as a member of the Progressive party could exercise much less influence upon Democrats and Republicans. She had before been able to reach men of all parties, but now her field had suddenly become immensely restricted in its scope. And while Mrs. Harper and Mr. Devine were perfectly willing, even eager, that other women should enter politics and ally themselves with political parties, Miss Addams was too valuable to the causes they had at heart, namely, suffrage and social service, for them to view with equanimity such a narrowing of her field of influence.

In an article on the "Legislative Influence of Unenfranchised Women," by Mary R. Beard, which appeared in the "Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science," for November, 1914, Mrs. Beard, although an ardent suffragist, admits that women without the vote have been a strong influence toward good legislation. She says:

"National as well as state legislation has been affected by women, if the testimony of men like Harvey W. Wiley is accepted. In his campaign for pure food laws, he stated repeatedly that his strongest support came from women's organizations. That support was not pa.s.sive and moral, merely expressed to him privately, but these women inundated congress with letters, telegrams, pet.i.tions, pleading for the pa.s.sage of the laws in question. These communications were presented to congress by their recipients who often urged as their reason for supporting pure food laws the appeals of women whose interests in food should not be ignored.

"The Consumers' League of New York helped the national food committee to defeat a mischievous amendment to the Gould bill, which requires that all package goods should be labelled as to the amount of their contents.

"Mrs. Albion Fellowes Bacon, of Indiana, practically single-handed, secured the first tenement house laws of value for Evansville and Indianapolis. She did this before the National Housing a.s.sociation, of which she is now a director, was formed. The recent improvements in the Indiana housing legislation are due apparently to her continued leaders.h.i.+p and to the public opinion which she has helped to create. In her case it was personal initiative and moral persuasion.

"Another example of personal influence on legislation exerted by women is that of Frances Perkins, of New York, in her fight for the fifty-hour bill for the women workers of her state. Unlike Mrs. Bacon, Miss Perkins represented a society--the Consumers' League--which asked for this measure, and she was supported in her demand by the Women's Trade Union League and other organizations. The measure would have been defeated, as is widely known and acknowledged in New York, had it not been for the personal sagacity and watchfulness of Miss Perkins.

"The social service committee of the 'American Club Woman' states that in the first year of its existence it has done important and effective work. It was largely responsible for the pa.s.sage of an ordinance by city councils regulating dance halls.

"Similar activities, both positive and negative, can be discovered in the records of practically every woman's a.s.sociation not organized for purely literary purposes."

We all know that this is true. Mrs. Beard also says:

"The woman's influence lies not in physical force, but in the occasional subservience of the mind of man to the actual presence of a moral force."

The influence of this moral force is so strong and has come to be so well recognized that certain types of politicians and commercial interests rebel against it. They wish to destroy it, and as the best means to that end they advocate--woman suffrage! That is not at all in line with what one is told at suffrage meetings. We are told that women need the ballot in order that they may improve the conditions in the home, that they may help the working girl, and put through good legislation. But the rank and file of suffragists are being deceived in these matters, for suffrage works, and will work directly the other way. The New York World has committed a great indiscretion and has let this cat out of the bag. The World recently came out for suffrage and gave its reasons. One of them is that a few women, representing perhaps ten per cent of the s.e.x, have under present conditions too much influence. These women, the World says, "have maintained at times a reign of terror over legislative bodies, in consequence of which half the country is now bedeviled by some form or other of harem government, and legislators are forever making ridiculous concessions to women agitators." These "women agitators" are, of course, the club women, social workers, and others interested in social welfare. In order to make it unnecessary for legislators to make "ridiculous concessions" to this type of woman, the World advocates--what? Giving the vote to all women! It has certainly hit upon the most effective expedient, and it is because the vote will do exactly what the World claims for it, that anti-suffragists are so opposed to it. The World says that most of the reasons urged in favor of suffrage are fantastic and unreal, that women are not purer and more n.o.ble than men, and that they are not so wise as men in general affairs. It admits that they will not purify politics--indeed, that they will confuse and disorganize government, without reforming it; but nevertheless it believes in woman suffrage because it will destroy the power of the ten per cent of women whose influence is now so strong!

The question for intelligent women to decide is whether or not they _want_ this influence destroyed. If they wish to give up the moral influence which a body of women, educated, public-spirited, non-partisan, can wield--an influence so strong that legislators feel obliged to make what the World calls "ridiculous concessions" to it--if in its stead they wish to depend on political influence gained through the ballot, which can be applied only to one party, which can be entirely offset by the votes of women who are ignorant, boss-controlled, and whose votes are purchasable--if they prefer that, they will get their wish if woman suffrage wins. That is exactly how it is working out in the suffrage states. In Wyoming the politicians were clever enough to foresee this. Woman suffrage was granted by one of the most corrupt legislatures Wyoming ever had. These men knew that at that time good women were few in that spa.r.s.ely settled State, and they knew they could "manage the others."

Nevada is offering us a most perfect example of the good woman's loss of influence by entering politics. The easy divorce laws of that state, in force until three years ago, were a national scandal. This was realized by certain women of the state, who in consequence brought their moral influence to bear upon the legislature for the repeal of these laws.

Their efforts were successful and the laws were repealed. Woman suffrage was granted in Nevada last fall, and one of the very first acts of the legislature was to re-enact the easy divorce laws! These women again protested, but with no success. They were now voters, and the legislature knew perfectly well that plenty of women's votes could be secured to offset those of the protesting women. The moral influence of this minority of Nevada women who cared for social betterment was gone since the vote had been given to all women.