Anti-Suffrage Essays Part 1

Anti-Suffrage Essays.

by Various.

INTRODUCTION

THE ANTI-SUFFRAGE VICTORY IN Ma.s.sACHUSETTS

The essays in this little book are by anti-suffrage women who were prominent speakers, writers, and organizers, in the campaign of 1915.

They voice sentiments which gained the largest measure of popular support ever accorded in the history of Ma.s.sachusetts politics.

The largest number of votes any political party polled in Ma.s.sachusetts before 1915 was 278,976. The anti-suffragists polled 295,939. Since 1896 there has been but one instance in which the voters gained a plurality amounting to 110,000 votes. The anti-suffragists won by 133,447 votes.

Alton B. Parker's defeat by Theodore Roosevelt in 1904 is commonly regarded as typifying political annihilation; but the suffragists in 1915 did not poll as many votes as Mr. Parker, and the anti-suffragists polled 38,000 more than President Roosevelt at the height of his popularity. Such outworn words as "overwhelming" and "landslide," which have been regularly used to describe victories not half so great as this, understate the actual extent of the anti-suffrage triumph. The p.r.o.nounced aversion which Ma.s.sachusetts showed towards Horace Greeley in the presidential campaign of 1872, and towards William J. Bryan in that of 1896, scarcely exceeded that which she feels towards the suffragists today.

The grounds of this aversion are so numerous that it is difficult to determine which of the many causes of the anti-suffrage victory were the most powerful. In my opinion, however, Ma.s.sachusetts men defeated woman suffrage chiefly because (1) they discovered that nine women out of ten did not want to vote; (2) they knew that the creation of a large body of stay-at-home voters would result in bad government; and (3) they grew disgusted with the temperament, the notions, and the methods typical of the few women who clamored for the vote.

For at least two generations suffragists have been spending a huge amount of energy and money in spreading their doctrine. Contributions, mainly drawn from a few rich women, have enabled them to send professional speakers into every district of the state, to distribute tons of "literature," to supply the press with a constant stream of "news" written from their point of view, and in general to advertise their claims in the most lavish way. A propaganda so subsidized would have been successful decades ago if sound principles and common sense were on its side. But to their consternation the suffragists found that the vast majority of Ma.s.sachusetts women turned a deaf ear to their plausible appeals, and that their strongest opponents were those of their own s.e.x.

Suffragists continued to talk about what "we women" want. But men presently began to see that these women had no right to pretend to represent their s.e.x. Even their own claims as to the number of women supporting them showed that they represented only between 5% and 10% of the women of Ma.s.sachusetts. At least 90% of the women--either by open opposition, or by a marked indifference to the subject--showed that they did not believe in woman suffrage. It became obvious that no general statement could be more emphatically true than that Ma.s.sachusetts women did not want to vote.

When this truth was insistently pressed upon the suffragists, they were apt to call the indifferent women "unenlightened." This was felt to be an insult rather than an explanation. The average Ma.s.sachusetts man does not think his mother, wife, and sister "unenlightened"--certainly not on the suffrage question. She has heard and read the suffrage notions again and again. He knows that if she felt that man was her oppressor, or that the welfare of herself or her family would be increased by her enfranchis.e.m.e.nt, she would say so. She is a sensible, observant woman, who knows what she wants, does not hesitate to ask for it, and usually gets it. But she was not asking for the ballot. It did not take her long to see through the suffrage fallacy that "only those women would need to vote who want to." She realized that the vote would mean an obligation as well as a privilege, and that she could not honorably accept the privilege without undertaking the obligation. Her life being already crowded with duties that only she could discharge, she would not add to them one that her husband, brother, or son can discharge at least as well.

If any man wondered whether his personal inquiries among the women of his acquaintance gave a sufficiently broad basis for the belief that women did not want to vote, he became convinced of the fact when he learned about the Drury bill of 1913. This bill would have given Ma.s.sachusetts women a chance to vote "Yes" or "No" on woman suffrage.

The proposal resulted in the amazing revelation that the suffragists were afraid to let women vote on the question. They worked against the bill because they knew that an official count would disclose how pitiably small a fraction of women were on their side. They thought that their little group, by noisy publicity, could be made to appear a considerable number. But the men, when they discovered who opposed the Drury bill, were not deceived. They saw that a small minority of women was trying to induce them to coerce the great majority. They awoke to the fact that the suffragist's demand was not that men should grant women an expressed desire, but that men, contemptuously disregarding the evident wishes of women, should force upon them a heavy responsibility.

The nature of that responsibility brings us to what seems to me the second important cause for the suffrage defeat. Men--more than politically inexperienced women,--know that good government depends upon the willingness of the electorate to do its duty vigilantly and regularly. The greatest good of the greatest number of cla.s.ses (including the women and children in each cla.s.s) can be secured only when a large proportion of the eligible voters vote. Those voters who are led by bosses, or by selfish interests, go to the polls steadily.

Their influence can be offset only when the rest of the electorate goes likewise. The results of elections in which a small proportion of the eligible voters take part, are poor laws and incompetent or corrupt government. The leading political issues--the tariff, trusts, transportation, military and police force, taxation, finance, etc.--bear directly upon the work of men in their trades and business, and under male suffrage a fairly large proportion of the vote is cast. The life-work of women removes them from contact with these political questions, and the nature of most women is not attracted by the contentious spirit in which political warfare is conducted. As long as no more than 10% of the women took an interest in the woman suffrage question itself, no man could reasonably expect them to be otherwise than indifferent to the regular subjects of political conflict. To impose political duties upon the s.e.x against its will was simply to create conditions that encouraged corrupt and feeble government. The soundness of this principle was, furthermore, being demonstrated in woman-suffrage territory, such cities as Seattle and such states as Colorado showing that sooner or later a neglectful electorate leads to the downfall of good government.

The third cause for the defeat of woman suffrage was the disgust which the manners, methods, and unethical sentiments of the suffragists aroused. This is not pleasant to dwell upon, but was too important an influence in the campaign to leave unmentioned. The suffragists professed to "occupy higher moral ground," to uplift politics, and to elevate womanhood. The longer one observed their deeds and words, the surer one became that they were not uplifting politics and that they tended to disgrace women in men's eyes. The tone of politics can be improved if the contestants will avoid false a.s.sertions and unnecessary personal attacks. The suffragists said and did things which were, like militancy, excusable only on the immoral ground that the end justifies the means.

As an example of their disingenuous statements, the following may serve.

The National Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation circulated a flyer ent.i.tled "Twenty Facts About Woman Suffrage." "Fact No. 15," under the heading, "How Women Vote," read: "Arizona, California, Colorado and Was.h.i.+ngton are the only states in the Union which have eight-hour laws for working women." Any unsuspecting reader would infer just what he was intended to infer--namely, that it was woman suffrage that brought about all these eight-hour laws, and that male suffrage had not brought about any of them. A more nearly truthful heading for this "fact" would have been "How Men Vote." The credit for pa.s.sing the eight-hour law in California and in Was.h.i.+ngton (also in Arizona so far as laundry workers are concerned) belongs to legislatures elected by men alone. False suggestions of this type no doubt gained many proselytes in parlor meetings; but when they were made in the open forum of a public campaign, their untruth was exposed, and the voters grew indignant that women should thus have tried to mislead them. The suffragists only made a bad matter worse by alleging that their anti-suffrage sisters were given to misrepresentations and to every other crime in the political calendar; for men thereupon concluded that if this initial partic.i.p.ation in politics had such a demoralizing effect on the women of each side, it was best to keep both parties out of the arena altogether.

The suffragists' tendencies to make bitter personal attacks was repeatedly shown. Not wis.h.i.+ng to resurrect some of the venemous charges brought against anti-suffrage women, I take leave to ill.u.s.trate the baseless characters of such attacks by one made against myself. In the spring of 1915, I gave a series of lectures on the fundamental principles of anti-suffrage. The audiences were gratifyingly large; there was a demand for several repet.i.tions of the lectures; and, apparently, the suffragists felt that something must be done to destroy my pernicious influence. Instead of answering my arguments, the President of the Ma.s.sachusetts Suffrage a.s.sociation, Miss Alice Stone Blackwell, wrote an editorial in her "Woman's Journal," saying:

"This young gentleman is a Dane, and he has been very fluent and somewhat contemptuous in giving reasons why American women should not be allowed to vote."

The statement was, as usual, spread broadcast through the suffrage columns of the Ma.s.sachusetts newspapers; and doubtless my opponents indulged the hope that in the wave of national feeling which was then beginning to rise, anybody thus branded as a foreigner would be badly discredited. As a matter of fact, I was born in Brooklyn, N. Y. (If I had chosen to imitate Miss Blackwell's method of controversy, I might have retorted that my father, who was born in Denmark, but who came to America in 1855, fought as a volunteer officer in the Navy of the United States in the Civil War, at a time when Miss Blackwell's father was engaged in a safer occupation.)

The repellant impression made upon men by the suffragists' misstatements and personal abusiveness was deepened by their support of militancy and feminism. As to the unethical character of the latter, Mrs. Foxcroft's essay in this book presents startling and irrefutable testimony. As to militancy, it may be said that this furnished the most glaring (though not the only) evidence of the evil effect of political activity on women. Much is usually made of the fact that Mrs. Pankhurst and her accomplices in crime destroyed a large amount of valuable property.

But the greatest injury she and her American idolizers did was to lower man's ideal of woman. They tried to make the virago a heroine. They did not succeed; but the more Mrs. Pankhurst's apologists glorified her, the more men were determined not to endorse a party that tempted women to abandon real womanliness for mock masculinity.

ERNEST BERNBAUM CAMBRIDGE, Ma.s.s.

_February, 1916_

N. B.--

To prevent misunderstanding, it should be said that though the following essays represent in general the views of Ma.s.sachusetts anti-suffragists, the responsibility for the facts and opinions given in the various essays rests with the individual writers alone.

ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS

WHO THE Ma.s.sACHUSETTS ANTI-SUFFRAGISTS ARE

MRS. JOHN BALCH

_Katharine Torbert Balch, wife of John Balch; Treasurer of the Summer Industrial School of Milton; member of the Executive Committee of the Milton Branch of the Civil Service Reform a.s.sociation; director of the Ely Club of New York City; member of the Executive Committee of the special Preparedness Committee appointed by Governor Walsh; President of the Ma.s.sachusetts Women's Anti-Suffrage a.s.sociation._ _J. A. H._

In reply to oft-repeated calumnies about the members.h.i.+p and affiliations of the Anti-Suffrage a.s.sociation, I offer a plain statement of facts which can be verified.

36,761 Ma.s.sachusetts women, twenty-one years of age or over, are to-day registered members of the Ma.s.sachusetts Women's Anti-Suffrage a.s.sociation. They are not confined to one section of the state, but are found distributed among no less than 443 cities, towns, and villages.

Each year the organization increases; and each year the members of the 137 state branches draw closer together in their opposition to suffrage and their striving for the true progress of woman and of civilization.

These women are not of only one cla.s.s or type. An examination of our enrollment reveals among our members not only the very large group of homemakers, but also authors, doctors, lawyers, teachers, librarians, newspaper-writers, stenographers, social service workers, cooks, housemaids, nurses, milliners, insurance agents, restaurant-keepers, clerks, shopkeepers, private secretaries, dressmakers, seamstresses, etc., etc. During the recent campaign, the co-operation, devotion, and self-sacrifice of this body of women was inspiring. From the wage-earner who endured systematic nagging, if not persecution, from suffragists, to the woman of wealth who gave of her vitality to the breaking point, daily came the evidences of immovable faith in the righteousness of their cause.

Many of our leaders are prominent in public welfare activities. The late Mrs. Charles D. Homans, one of the founders of our organization, was an active and important member of the Ma.s.sachusetts Prison Commission. Mrs.

James M. Codman, our beloved ex-President, has served twenty years on the State Board of Charities, was one of the first women overseers of the poor ever elected in this state, and has long been one of the managers of a large private hospital. Miss Mary S. Ames, a former President, is a member of the Executive Council (New England section) of the National Civic Federation, Chairman of the Committee on Practical Training for Girls, a Trustee of the Boston Home for Incurables, one of the managers of the Women's Free Hospital, a director of the Brook House Home for Working Girls, a member of the Easton Agricultural Vocational Training Committee, a Trustee of Unity Church (Easton), and a member of the Advisory Board of the Belgian Relief Committee. Mrs. Henry P.

Kidder, of our Executive Board, is President of the Woman's Educational a.s.sociation. Mrs. Robert S. Bradley, also of our Executive Board, is Chairman of the Sanitation Department of the Women's Munic.i.p.al League, and has led in the fight for exterminating the typhoid fly. Were I to continue to enumerate the characteristic activities of our anti-suffrage women, I could fill pages with the record of their partic.i.p.ation in philanthropy, education, and all good works. The brief notes prefixed to the essays in this book give additional evidence to the same effect.

I

SUFFRAGE FALLACIES

MRS. A. J. GEORGE

_Alice N. George, widow of Dr. Andrew J. George; graduated from Wellesley in 1887; is President of the Brookline Branch of the Ramabai a.s.sociation; American Representative of the National Trust (English) for the Preservation of Historic Places; a director of the College Club; a member of the Research Committee of the Educational and Industrial Union, of the Welfare Department of the National Civic Federation of the Woman's Trade Union League, of the American Society for Labor Legislation, etc., etc._ _J. A. H._

Woman suffrage must ultimately fail. It is based upon a fallacy, and no fallacy has ever made a permanent conquest over mankind.

The fallacy of woman suffrage lies in the belief that there is in our social order a definite s.e.x division of interests, and that the security of woman's interests depends upon her possession of the elective franchise.

"The history of mankind," declared the founders of the suffrage movement, "is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having as the indirect object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her." "Man has endeavored in every way he could," continues this arraignment of the fathers, husbands, and sons of these self-styled _Mothers of the Revolution_, "to destroy her confidence in her own powers, to lessen her self-respect and to make her willing to lead a dependent and abject life."

On this false foundation was built the votes-for-women temple. How shall it endure? The s.e.xes do not stand in the position of master and slave, of tyrant and victim. In a healthy state of society there is no rivalry between men and women; they were created different, and in the economy of life have different duties, but their interests are the common interests of humanity. Women are not a cla.s.s, they are a s.e.x; and the women of every social group are represented in a well-ordered government, automatically and inevitably, by the men of that group. It would be a fatal day for the race when women could obtain their rights only by a victory wrested at the polls from reluctant men. These truths are elementary and self-evident, yet all are negatived by the votes-for-women movement.

That the vote is not an inalienable right is affirmed by Supreme Court decisions, the practice of nations, and the dictates of common sense. No state can enfranchise all its citizens, and since the stability of government rests ultimately upon a relentless enforcement of law, the maintenance of a sound fiscal policy, and such adjustment of the delicate interweaving of international relations as makes for peace and prosperity, it is right that the state should place the responsibility of government upon those who are best equipped to perform its manifold duties.