The History of Woman Suffrage Volume IV Part 47

Women in England, qualified women, have every local vote, everything which would correspond with your State and munic.i.p.al vote here, they have all except the Parliamentary vote.

In England we have opponents, just as you have here. I do not know whether they are more illogical or less so, but they certainly do one extraordinary thing--they are in favor of everything that has been won and take advantage of it. A large number of the 2,000 women who are sitting on the various local bodies in England are opposed to the Parliamentary vote for their s.e.x, and yet they are really in political life. Now, gentlemen, if you want to have the women stop coming here, give us the vote and then we won't come; give the "antis" the vote, and then they will have the political life that they are really longing for.

Almost always, if you a.n.a.lyze the anti-suffrage idea in either a man or a woman you find it is anti-democratic. I have begun to think that I am the only good democrat left in America. I believe in the very widest possible suffrage. Why do I believe it?

Because I have lived and seen the other thing in England, and I have seen that as democracy broadened politics was purified. That has been the history from the beginning. No politics in the world was more corrupt than the English at the beginning of this century, but as democracy has come farther and farther into the field, England has become politically one of the purest nations in the world.

The paper on Woman Suffrage in the British Isles and Colonies was prepared by Miss Helen Blackburn, editor of the _Englishwoman's Review_; and Woman Suffrage in Foreign Countries was described by Mrs.

Jessie Ca.s.sidy Saunders. The last address was given by Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt (N. Y.), Why We Ask for the Submission of an Amendment:

A survey of the changes which have been wrought within the past hundred years in the status of women--educational, social, financial and political--fills the observing man or woman with a feeling akin to awe. No great war has been fought in behalf of their emanc.i.p.ation; no great political party has espoused their cause; no heroes have bled and died for their liberty; yet words fail utterly to measure the distance between the "sphere" of the woman of 1800 and that of the woman of 1900. How has the transformation come? What mysterious power has brought it?

On the whole, men and women of the present rejoice at every right gained and every privilege conceded. Not one jot or t.i.ttle would they abate the advantage won; yet when the plea is made that the free, self-respecting, self-reliant, independent, thinking women of this generation be given the suffrage, the answer almost invariably comes back, "When women as a whole demand it, men will consider it." This answer carries with it the apparent supposition that all the changes have come because the majority of women wanted them, and that further enlargement of liberty must cease because the majority do not want it. Alas, it is a sad comment upon the conservatism of the average human being that not one change of consequence has been desired by women as a whole, or even by a considerable part. It would be nearer the truth to say women as a whole have opposed every advance.

The progress has come because women of a larger mold, loftier ambitions and n.o.bler self-respect than the average have been willing to face the opposition of the world for the sake of liberty. More than one such as these deserve the rank of martyr.

The sacrifice of suffering, of doubt, of obloquy, which has been endured by the pioneers in the woman movement will never be fully known or understood....

With the bold demand for perfect equality of rights in every walk of life the public have compromised. Not willing to grant all, they have conceded something; and by repeated compromises and concessions to the main demand the progress of woman's rights has been accomplished.

There are two kinds of restrictions upon human liberty--the restraint of law and that of custom. No written law has ever been more binding than unwritten custom supported by popular opinion.

At the beginning of our century both law and custom restricted the liberty of women.

It was the edict of custom which prohibited women from receiving an education, engaging in occupations, speaking in public, organizing societies, or in other ways conducting themselves like free, rational human beings. It was law which forbade married women to control their own property or to collect their own wages, and which forbade all women to vote. The changes have not come because women wished for them or men welcomed them. A liberal board of trustees, a faculty willing to grant a trial, an employer willing to experiment, a broad-minded church willing to hear a woman preach, a few liberal souls in a community willing to hear a woman speak--these have been the influences which have brought the changes.

There is no more elaborate argument or determined opposition to woman suffrage than there has been to each step of progress....

Had a vote been taken, co-education itself would have been overwhelmingly defeated. In 1840, before women had studied or practiced medicine, had it been necessary to obtain permission to do so by a vote of men or women, 8,000 graduated women physicians would not now be engaged in the healing art in our country. In 1850, when vindictive epithets were hurled from press, pulpit and public in united condemnation of the few women who were attempting to be heard on the platform as speakers, had it been necessary to secure the right of free public speech through Legislatures or popular approval, the voices of women would still be silent.... The rights of women have come in direct opposition to the popular consensus of opinion. Yet when they have once become established, they have been wanted by women and welcomed by men.

There are a few fanatics who, if they could, would force the women of this generation back into the spheres of their grandmothers. There are some pessimists who imagine they see all natural order coming to a speedy end because of the enlarged liberties and opportunities of women. There are sentimentalists who believe that the American home, that most sacred unit of society, is seriously imperiled by the tendencies of women to adopt new duties and interests. But this is not the thought of the average American. There are few intelligent men who would be willing to provide their daughters no more education than was deemed proper for their grandmothers, or who would care to restrict them to the old-time limited sphere of action. Thinking men and women realize that the American home was never more firmly established than at the present time, and that it has grown n.o.bler and happier as women have grown more self-reliant.

The average man and woman recognize that the changes which have come have been in the interest of better womanhood and better manhood, bringing greater happiness to women and greater blessings to men. They recognize that each step gained has rendered women fitter companions for men, wiser mothers and far abler units of society.

The public acknowledges the wisdom, the common sense, the practical judgment of the woman movement until it asks for the suffrage. In other words, it approves every right gained because it is here, and condemns the one right not yet gained because it is not here.

Had it been either custom or statutory law which forbade women to vote, the suffrage would have been won by the same processes which have gained every other privilege. A few women would have voted, a few men and women would have upheld them, and, little by little, year after year, the number of women electors would have increased until it became as general for women to vote as it is for men. Had this been possible the women would be voting to-day in every State in the Union; and undoubtedly their appearance at the polls would now be as generally accepted as a matter of fact as the college education. But, alas, when this step of advancement was proposed, women found themselves face to face with the stone wall of Const.i.tutional Law, and they could not vote until a majority of men should first give their consent.

Indeed the experiment was made to gain this sacred privilege by easier means. The history of the voting of Susan B. Anthony and others is familiar to all, but the Supreme Court decided that the National Const.i.tution must first be amended. It therefore becomes a necessity to convert to this reform a majority of the men of the whole United States.

When we recall the vast amount of illiteracy, ignorance, selfishness and degradation which exists among certain cla.s.ses of our people the task imposed upon us is appalling. There are whole precincts of voters in this country whose united intelligence does not equal that of one representative American woman. Yet to such cla.s.ses as these we are asked to take our cause as the court of final resort. We are compelled to pet.i.tion men who have never heard of the Declaration of Independence, and who have never read the Const.i.tution, for the sacred right of self-government; we are forced to appeal for justice to men who do not know the meaning of the word; we are driven to argue our claim with men who never had two thoughts in logical sequence. We ask men to consider the rights of a citizen in a republic and we get the answer in reply, given in all seriousness, "Women have more rights now than they ought to have;" and that, too, without the faintest notion of the inanity of the remark or the emptiness of the brain behind it.

When we present our cause to men of higher standing and more liberal opinion, we find that the interest of party and the personal ambition for place are obstacles which prevent them from approving a question concerning whose popularity there is the slightest doubt.

The way before us is difficult at best, not because our demand is not based upon unquestioned justice, not because it is not destined to win in the end, but because of the nature of the processes through which it must be won. In fact the position of this question might well be used to demonstrate that observation of Aristotle that "a democracy has many striking points of resemblance with tyranny...."

It is for these reasons, gentlemen, that we appeal to your committee to aid in the submission of a Sixteenth Amendment. Such an amendment would go before the Legislatures of our country where the grade of intelligence is at least higher than we should find in the popular vote.

Though you yourselves may doubt the expediency of woman suffrage, though you may question the soundness of our claim, yet, in the name of democracy, which permits the people to make and amend their const.i.tutions, and in the name of American womanhood, prepared by a century of unmeasured advance for political duties, we beg your aid in the speedy submission of this question. We ask this boon in the direct interest of the thousands of women who do want to vote, who suffer pangs of humiliation and degradation because of their political servitude. We ask it equally in the indirect interest of the thousands of women who do not want to vote, as we believe their indifference or opposition is the same natural conservatism which led other women to oppose the college education, the control of property, the freedom of public speech and the right of organization.

Years ago George William Curtis pleaded for fair play for women.

It is the same plea we are repeating. We only pet.i.tion for fair play, and this means the submission of our question to the most intelligent const.i.tuency which has power to act upon it. If we shall fail, we will abide by the decision. That is, we will wait till courage has grown stronger, reason more logical, justice purer, in the positive knowledge that our cause will eventually triumph. As the daughters of Zelophehad appealed to Moses and his great court for justice, so do the daughters of America appeal to you.

Miss Anthony closed the hearing in a speech whose vigor, logic and eloquence were accentuated in the minds of the hearers by the thought that for more than thirty years she had made these pleas before congressional committees, only to be received with stolid indifference or open hostility. She began by saying: "In closing I would like to give a little object lesson of the two methods of gaining the suffrage. By one it is insisted that we shall carry our question to what is termed a popular vote of each State--that is, that its Legislature shall submit to the electors the proposition to strike the little adjective "male" from the suffrage clause. We have already made that experiment in fifteen different elections in ten different States. Five States have voted on it twice." She then summarized briefly the causes of the defeats in the various States, and continued:

Now here is all we ask of you, gentlemen, to save us women from any more tramps over the States, such as we have made now fifteen times. In nine of those campaigns I myself, made a canva.s.s from county to county. In my own State of New York at the time of the const.i.tutional convention in 1894, I visited every county of the sixty--I was not then 80 years of age, but 74....

There is an enemy of the homes of this nation and that enemy is drunkenness. Every one connected with the gambling house, the brothel and the saloon works and votes solidly against the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of women, and, I say, if you believe in chast.i.ty, if you believe in honesty and integrity, then do what the enemy wants you not to do, which is to take the necessary steps to put the ballot in the hands of women....

I pray you to think of this question as you would if the one-half of the people who are disfranchised were men, if we women had absolute power to control every condition in this country and you were obliged to obey the laws and submit to whatever arrangements we made. I want you to report on this question exactly as if the masculine half of the people were the ones who were deprived of this right to a vote in governmental affairs. You would not be long in bringing in a favorable report if you were the ones who were disfranchised and denied a voice in your Government. If it were not women--if it were the farmers of this country, the manufacturers, or any cla.s.s of men who were robbed of their inalienable rights, then we would see that cla.s.s rising in rebellion, and the Government shaken to its very foundation; but being women, being only the mothers, daughters, wives and sisters of men who const.i.tute the aristocracy, we have to submit.

The Rev. Anna Howard Shaw (Penn.) presided over the hearing before the House Judiciary Committee.[128] The Const.i.tutional Argument was made by Mrs. Lillie Devereux Blake (N. Y.), who said in the course of a long and logical address:

We find that it is declared in Article IV, Section 4, that "the United States shall guarantee to every State in the Union a republican form of Government." What is a republican form of Government? In a monarchy, the theory is that all power flows directly from the monarch; even in const.i.tutional monarchies each concession has been obtained "by consent of our gracious sovereign." When the laws are based on the idea that the caprices of the ruler regulate the privileges granted to the people, it is at least logical, even if it is cruel, to refuse the right of suffrage to any cla.s.s of the community. You will agree that this is not a monarchy, where power flows from the sovereign to the people, but a republic, where the sovereign people give to the Executive they have chosen the power to carry out their will. Can you really claim that we live under a republican form of government when one-half the adult inhabitants are denied all voice in the affairs of the nation? It may be better described as an oligarchy, where certain privileged men choose the rulers who make laws for their own benefit, too often to the detriment of the unrepresented portion of our people, who are denied recognition as completely as was ever an oppressed cla.s.s in the most odious form of oligarchy which usurped a government.

Article XIV, Section 2, provides that "Representation shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians, not taxed." What sort of justice is there in excluding from the basis of representation Indians who are not taxed and including in this basis women who are taxed?

The framers of this amendment were evidently impressed with the tenet that taxation and representation should be a.s.sociated, and that as the Indian paid no taxes, and was not, therefore, forced to carry the burdens of citizens.h.i.+p, he might, with justice, be denied the privileges of citizens.h.i.+p. But by what specious reasoning can any one maintain that it is honest to tax the great body of women citizens, to count them in the basis of representation, and yet deny to them the right of personal representation at the ballot box? What excuse can be made for this monstrous perversion of liberty? Each one of you, gentlemen, sits here as the representative of thousands of women who, by their money, have helped to build this Capitol in which you a.s.semble and to pay for the seats in which you sit; nay, more, they pay a part of the salary of every man here, and yet what real representation have they? How often do you think of the women of your States and of their interests in the laws you pa.s.s?

How much do you reflect on the injustice which is daily and hourly done them by denying to them all voice in this body, wherein you claim to "represent the people" of your respective States....

Some years ago, when the bill regulating affairs in Utah was under discussion Senator Edmunds said, "Disfranchis.e.m.e.nt is a cruel and degrading penalty, that ought not to be inflicted except for crime." Yet this cruel and degrading penalty is inflicted upon practically all the women of the United States. Of what crime have we been guilty? Or is our mere s.e.x a fault for which we must be punished? Would not any body of men look upon disfranchis.e.m.e.nt as "a cruel and degrading penalty?" Suppose the news were to be flashed across our country to-morrow that the farmers of the nation were to be disfranchised, what indignation there would be! How they would leave their homes to a.s.semble and protest against this wrong! They would declare that disfranchis.e.m.e.nt was a burden too heavy to be borne; that if they were unrepresented laws would be pa.s.sed inimical to their best interests; that only personal representation at the ballot box could give them proper protection; and they would hasten here, even as we are doing, to entreat you to remove from them the burden of "the cruel and degrading penalty of disfranchis.e.m.e.nt."

And now, I desire to call your attention to a series of declarations in the Const.i.tution which prove beyond all possibility of contravention that the Government has solemnly pledged itself to secure to the women of the nation the right of suffrage.

Article XIV, Section 1, declares that "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." The women of this country are, then, citizens thereof and ent.i.tled to all the rights of citizens.

Article XV speaks of "the right of a citizen to vote," as if that were one of the most precious privileges of citizens.h.i.+p, so precious that its protection is embodied in a separate amendment.

If we now turn to Article IV, Section 2, we find it declares that "the citizens of each State shall be ent.i.tled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States."

What do these a.s.sertions mean? Is there one of you who can explain away these n.o.ble guarantees of the right of individual representation at the ballot box as mere one-sided phrases, having no significance for one-half the people? No. These grand pledges are abiding guarantees of human freedom, honest promises of protection to all the people of the republic.

You, gentlemen, have sworn to carry out all the provisions of the Const.i.tution. Does not this oath lay upon you the duty of seeing that this great pledge is kept and that the Fifty-sixth Congress sets its mark in history by fulfilling these guarantees and securing the ballot to the millions of women citizens, possessing every qualification for the intelligent use of this mighty weapon of liberty?

The Dome of this Capitol is surmounted by a magnificent statue representing the genius of American freedom. How is this mighty power embodied? As a majestic woman, full-armed and panoplied to protect the liberty of the republic. Is not this symbol a mockery while the women of the country are held in political slavery? We ask you to insist that the pledges of the republic shall be redeemed, that its promises shall be fulfilled, and that American womanhood shall be enfranchised.

Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton (N. Y.), as had been her custom during all the years since she had ceased to appear in person before these committees, sent a strong appeal for justice, beginning as follows:

In adjusting the rights of citizens in our newly-acquired possessions, the whole question of suffrage is again fairly open for discussion in the House of Representatives; and as some of the States are depriving the colored men of the exercise of this right and all of the States, except four, deny it to all women, I ask Congress to submit an amendment to the National Const.i.tution declaring that citizens not allowed a voice in the Government shall not be taxed or counted in the basis of representation.

To every fair mind, such an amendment would appear pre-eminently just, since to count disfranchised cla.s.ses in the basis of representation compels citizens to aid in swelling the number of Congressmen who may legislate against their most sacred interests. If the Southern States that deny suffrage to negro men should find that it limited their power in Congress by counting in the basis of representation only those citizens who vote, they would see that the interests of the races lay in the same direction. A const.i.tutional amendment to this effect would also rouse the Northern States to their danger, for the same rule applied there in excluding all women from the basis of representation would reduce the number of their members of Congress one-half. And if the South should continue her suicidal policy toward women as well as colored men, her States would be at a still greater disadvantage....

By every principle of our republic, logically considered, woman's emanc.i.p.ation is a foregone conclusion. The great "declarations,"

by the fathers, regarding individual rights and the true foundations of government, should not be glittering generalities for demagogues to quote and ridicule, but eternal laws of justice, as fixed in the world of morals as are the laws of attraction and gravitation in the material universe.

In regard to the injustice of taxing unrepresented cla.s.ses, Lord c.o.ke says: "The supreme power can not take from any man his property without his consent in person or by representation. The very act of taxing those who are not represented appears to me to deprive them of one of their most sacred rights as free men, and if continued, seems to be in effect an entire disfranchis.e.m.e.nt of every civil right; for what one civil right is worth a rush when a man's property is subject to be taken from him without his consent?

Woman's right to life, liberty and happiness, to education, property and representation, can not be denied, for if we go back to first principles, where did the few get the right, through all time, to rule the many? They never had it, any more than pirates had the right to scour the high seas, and take whatever they could lay hands upon.

Miss Elizabeth Sheldon Tillinghast (Conn.) considered The Economic Basis of Woman Suffrage:

....However we may explain it, and whether we like it or not, woman has become an economic factor in our country and one that is constantly a.s.suming larger proportions. The question is now what treatment will make her an element of economic strength instead of weakness as at present. The presence of women in business now demoralizes the rate of wages even more than the increase in the supply of labor. Why? Princ.i.p.ally because she can be bullied with greater impunity than voters--because she has no adequate means of self-defense. This seems a hard accusation, but I believe it to be true.

Trade is a fight--an antagonism of interests which are compromised in contracts in which the economically stronger always wins the advantage. There are many things that contribute to economic strength besides ability, and among them the most potent is coming more and more to be the power which arises from organization expressing itself in political action. Without political expression woman's economic value is at the bottom of the scale. She is the last to be considered, and the consideration is usually about exhausted before she is reached.

She must do better work than men for equal pay or equal work for less pay. In spite of this she may be supplanted at any time by a political adherent, or her place may be used as a bribe to an opposing faction. Women are weak in the business world because they are new in it; because they are only just beginning to learn their economic value; because their inherent tendencies are pa.s.sive instead of aggressive, which makes them as a cla.s.s less efficient fighters than men.