Any classification of citizens, any privileges extended to voters, ought, of course, to be arrived at on a consistent and impartial principle.

Further, under the conditions obtaining in this twentieth century, governments, whether of nations, of states, or of cities, are carried on not by force but by opinion. In the earlier history of mankind, each family was called upon to maintain its existence by physical force. The families the members of which (female as well as male) were not strong enough to fight for their existence were crushed out. Par into the later centuries, issues between individuals were adjusted by the decision of arms. Up to within a very recent date, it may be admitted that issues between nations could be settled only by war. It is, however, at this time the accepted principle of representative government in all communities that matters of policy are determined by the expression of opinion, that is by means of the votes given by the majority of its citizens. It is by intelligence and not by brute force that the world is now being ruled, and with the growth of intelligence and a better understanding of the principles of government, it is in order not only on the grounds of justice but for the best interests of the state to widen the foundations of representative government, so as to make available for voting and for official responsibilities all the intelligence that is comprised within the community. This is in my judgment the most conclusive reply to the objection that the physical weakness of woman unfits her for citizenship.

III. According to the social or political argument, if woman is given equal rights with man, the basis of family life, and hence the foundation of the state itself, is undermined, as a house divided against itself cannot stand. It is said that (1) there must be some one authority in a household and that this should be the man; (2) woman will neglect the home if she is left free to enter politics or a profession; (3) politics will degrade her; (4) when independent and self-asserting she will lose her influence over man; and (5) most women do not want to vote or to enter politics.

It is astonishing with what vehemence men will base arguments on pure theory and speculation, while they wilfully close their eyes to any facts which may contradict their assumptions. It is inconceivable to a certain type of mind that a husband and wife can differ on political questions and may yet maintain an even harmony, while their love abates not one whit. In the four States where women vote—Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and Idaho—there is no more divorce than in other States; and any one who has travelled in these communities can attest that no domestic unhappiness results from the suffrage. Nor does it in New Zealand.

It is said that there must be some one supreme authority; but this depends on the view taken of marriage. Under the old Common Law, the personality of the wife was merged completely in that of her husband; marriage was an absolute despotism. Under the Canon Law, woman is man's obedient and unquestioning subject; marriage is a benevolent despotism. To-day people are more inclined to look upon matrimony as a partnership of equal duties, rights, and privileges.

Sophocles argued in one of his tragedies that children belong entirely to the father, that the mother can assert no valid claim for anything. Lawyers have found this logic excellent; and the records are full of instances of children being taken from a hard-working mother in order to be handed over to a drunken father who wants their wages for his support. It is no longer so in most states. Civilisation has advanced so far, that the pains of bringing forth and raising children are acknowledged to give the mother a right almost equal to that of the father to determine all that concerns the child. There is some reason, therefore, for believing that she should have a voice also in passing upon laws which may make or undo for ever the welfare of the boys and girls for whom she struggles during the years that they are growing to manhood and womanhood. Men are for the greater part so engrossed in business that on certain questions they are far less competent to be "authorities" than women. Against stupid pedagogy, against red-tape, against the policy that morality must never interfere with business principles, against civic dirtiness, against brothel and saloon, women are more active than men, because they see more clearly how vitally the interests of their children are affected by these evil conditions. Wherever women vote, these questions are to the fore.

Closely connected with the "one authority" argument is the old contention, so often resorted to and relied upon, that women, if they are permitted to vote, will neglect the home, and that, if the professions are opened to them, they will find these too absorbingly attractive. Much weight should, however, be given to the great power of the domestic instinct implanted in the nature of woman. In the States where women vote and are eligible for political offices, there are fewer unmarried women in proportion to the population than in States where they have no such rights. The great leaders of the woman suffrage movement from Mrs. Stanton to Mrs. Snowden have in their home circle led lives as beautiful and have raised families as large and as well equipped morally and intellectually as those who are content to sit by the fire and spin.

Thus far I have argued from the orthodox view, that matrimony ought to be the goal of every woman's ambition. But if a woman wishes to remain single and devote herself exclusively to the realisation of some ideal, it is hard to see why she should not. Men who take this course are eulogised for their noble self-sacrifice in immolating themselves for the advancement of the cause of civilisation; women who do precisely the same thing are sometimes unthinkingly spoken of in terms of contempt or with that complacent pity which is far worse. It is difficult for us to realise adequately what talented women like Rosa Bonheur had to undergo because of this curious attitude of humanity.

"The home is woman's sphere." This shibboleth is the logical result of the attitude mentioned. Doubtless, the home is woman's sphere; but the home includes all that pertains to it—city, politics and taxes, laws relating to the protection of minors, municipal rottenness which may corrupt children, schools and playgrounds and museums which may educate them. Few doctrines have been productive of more pain than the "woman's sphere" argument. It is this which has, for a thousand years, made the unmarried woman, the Old Maid, the butt of the contemptible jibes of Christian society, whereof you will find no parallel in pagan antiquity. Dramatic writers have held her up to ridicule on the stage on account of the peculiarities of character which are naturally acquired when a person is isolated from participation in the activities of life. It is the doctrine which has made women glad to marry drunkards and rakes, to bring forth children tainted with the sins of their fathers, and to suffer hell on earth rather than incur the ridicule of the Christian gentleman who may, without incurring the protest of society, remain unmarried and sow an unlimited quantity of wild oats. It is this doctrine which was indirectly responsible for the hanging and burning of eccentric old women on the charge that they were witches. As men found a divine sanction for keeping women in subjection, so in those days of superstition did they blaspheme their Creator by digging out of the Old Testament, as a justification for their brutality, the text, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live."

"Politics will degrade women"—this naive confession that politics are rotten is a fairly strong argument that some good influence is needed to make them cleaner. Generally speaking, it is difficult to imagine how politics could be made any worse. If a woman cannot go to the polls or hold office without being insulted by rowdies, her vote will be potent to elect officials who should be able to secure for the community a standard of reasonable civilisation. There is no case in which more sentimentality is wasted. Lovely woman is urged not to allow her beauty, her gentleness, her tender submissiveness to become the butt of the lounger at the street corner; and in most instances lovely woman, like the celebrated Maitre Corbeau, is cajoled effectively. Meanwhile the brothel and the sweat-shop continue on their prosperous way. By a curious inconsistency, man will permit woman to help him out of a political dilemma and will then suavely remark that suffrage will degrade her.

During the Civil War, Anna Dickinson by her remarkable lecture entitled, "The National Crisis" saved New Hampshire and Connecticut for the Republicans; Anna Carroll not only gave such a crushing rejoinder to Breckinridge's secession speech that the government printed and distributed it, but she also, as is now generally believed, planned the campaign which led to the fall of Forts Henry and Donelson and opened the Mississippi to Vicksburg. How many men realise these facts?

The theory that politics degrade women will not find much support in such States as Colorado and Wyoming. Here, where equal suffrage obtains, women have been treated with uniform courtesy at the polls; they have even been elected to legislatures with no diminution of their womanliness; and the House of Wyoming long ago made a special resolution of its approval of equal rights and attested the beneficial results that have followed the extension of the suffrage to women.[416] Judge Lindsey of Colorado has said that his election, and consequent power to work out his great reforms in juvenile delinquency, was due to the backing of women at a time when men, for "business reasons," were averse to extend their aid. "No one would dare to propose its repeal [i.e., the repeal of equal suffrage], and if left to the men of the State any proposition to revoke the rights bestowed on women would be overwhelmingly defeated." Experience in Colorado and elsewhere has shown that any important moral issue will bring out the women voters in great force; but after election they are content to resume their domestic duties; and they have shown no great desire for political office.[417]

Before I leave the discussion as to whether politics degrade women, it will not be out of place to consider the question whether certain women may not, if they have a vote, degrade politics. Of such women there are two classes—the immoral and the merely ignorant. As to the former, much fear has been expressed that they would be the very agents for unscrupulous politicians to use at the polls. Exact data on this matter are not available. I shall content myself with quoting a statement by Mrs. Ida Husted Harper[418]:

"That 'immoral' class," said Mrs. Harper, "is a bogey that has never materialised in States where women have the suffrage. Those women don't vote. Indeed, Denver's experience has been interesting in that respect. When equal suffrage was first granted, women of that class were compelled by the police to register. It was a question of doing as the police said, of course, or being arrested. The women did not want to vote. They don't go under their real names; they have no fixed residence, and so on. Anyway, the last thing they wanted was to be registered voters.

"But the corrupt political element needed their vote, and were after it, through the police. These women actually appealed to a large woman's political club to use its influence to keep the police from forcing them to register. A committee was appointed; it was found that the story was true; coercion was stopped, and the women's vote turned out the chief of police who attempted it. There is now no coercion, and this class simply pays no attention to politics at all."

The doubling of the number of ignorant voters by giving all women alike the ballot would be a more serious affair. A remedy for that, however, lies in making an educational test a necessary qualification for all voters. In this connection the remarks of Mr. G.H. Putnam are suggestive[419]: "If I were a citizen of Massachusetts or of any State which, like Massachusetts, possesses such educational qualification, I should be an active worker for the cause of equal suffrage. As a citizen of New York who has during the last fifty years done his share of work in the attempt to improve municipal conditions, I am forced to the conclusion that it will be wiser to endure for a further period the inconsistency, the stupidity, and the injustice of the disfranchisement of thousands of intelligent women voters rather than to accept the burden of an increase in the mass of unintelligent voters. The first step toward 'equal suffrage' will, in my judgment, be a fight for an educational qualification for all voters."

Those who maintain that when women are independent and self-asserting, they will lose their influence over men, assume that we view things to-day as they did a century ago and that the thoughts of men are not widened with the progress of the suns. The woman who can share the aspirations, the thoughts, the complete life of a man, who can understand his work thoroughly and support him with the sympathy born of perfect comprehension, will exert a far vaster influence over him than the milk-and-water ideal who was advised "to smile when her husband smiled, to frown when he frowned, and to be discreetly silent when the conversation turned on subjects of importance." It is a good thing for women to be self-asserting and independent. There is and always has been a class of men who, like Mr. Murdstone, are amenable to justice and reason only when they know that their proposed victim can at any time break the chains with which they would bind her.

This brings us to the last of the social or political arguments, viz., "Most women do not want to vote."[420] Precisely the same argument has been used by slave owners from time immemorial—the slaves do not wish to be free. As Professor Thomas writes[421]: "Certainly the negroes of Virginia did not greatly desire freedom before the idea was developed by agitation from the outside, and many of them resented this outside interference. 'In general, in the whole western Sahara desert, slaves are as much astonished to be told that their relation to their owners is wrong and that they ought to break it, as boys amongst us would be to be told that their relation to their fathers was wrong and ought to be broken.' And it is reported from eastern Borneo that a white man could hire no natives for wages. 'They thought it degrading to work for wages, but if he would buy them, they would work for him.'" It is akin to the old contention of despots that when their subjects are fit for freedom, they will make them free; but nobody has ever seen such a time.

Reform of evil conditions does not come from below; leaders with visions of the future must point the way. I once heard of a very respectable lady of Boston who exclaimed indignantly against certain proposed changes in child labour laws in North Carolina, where she owned shares in a cotton mill. She maintained that the children who worked at the looms ten hours a day expressed no discontent; it kept them off the streets; and the operators, in the kindness of their hearts, had actually had the looms made especially to accommodate conveniently the diminutive size of the little workers. Some people might, with great profit to themselves, read Plato's superb allegory of the men in the cave.

The fact that various women's associations have been instituted in opposition to the extension of woman suffrage—as in Boston and New York—is no argument for depriving all women of the franchise. If the women who compose these societies do not care to vote, they do not need to; but they have no right to deprive of their rights those who do so desire. It is said that good women will not go to the polls; yet there are in every large city hundreds of respectable males who disdain to vote. A woman is more likely to have a sense of duty to vote than a man. It is the old cry, "Don't disturb the old order of things. If you make us think for ourselves, we shall be so unhappy." So Galileo was brought to trial, so Anne Hutchinson was banished; and so persecuted they the prophets before them.

IV. Another argument that is made much of is the intellectual inferiority of woman. For ages women were allowed nor higher education than reading, writing, and simple arithmetic, often not even these; yet Elizabeth Barrett Browning, George Sand, George Eliot, Harriet Martineau, Jane Austen, and some scores of others did work which showed them to be the peers of any minds of their day. And if no woman can justly claim to have attained an eminence such as that of Shakespeare in letters or of Darwin in science, we may question whether Shakespeare would have been Shakespeare or Darwin Darwin if the society which surrounded them had insisted that it was a sin for them to use their minds and that they should not presume to meddle with knowledge. When a girl for the first time in America took a public examination in geometry, in 1829, men wagged their heads gravely and prophesied the speedy dissolution of family and state.

To the list of women whose service for their fellows would have been lost if the old-time barriers had been maintained, may be added the name of the late Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi. Mary Putnam secured her preliminary medical education in the early '60's, and found herself keenly troubled and dissatisfied at the inadequacy of the facilities extended to women for the study of medicine. She insisted that if women practitioners were to be, as she expressed it, "turned loose" upon the community with license to practise, they should, not only as a matter of justice to themselves but of protection for the women and children whose lives they would have in their hands, be properly qualified.

At the time in question, the medical profession took the ground that women might enjoy the benefit of a little medical education but they were denied the facilities for any thorough training or for any research work. Mary Putnam secured her graduate degree from the great medical school of the University of Paris, being the first woman who had been admitted to the school since the fourteenth century. Returning after six years of thorough training, she did much during the remaining years of her life to secure and to maintain for women physicians the highest possible standard of training and of practice. It was natural that with this experience of the requirement of equal facilities for women in her own work, she should always have been a believer in the extension of equal facilities for any citizen's work for which, after experience, women might be found qualified. She was, therefore, an ardent advocate of equal suffrage.

One needs but recall the admirable intellectual work of women to-day to wonder at the imbecility of those who assert that women are intellectually the inferiors of men. Madame Curie in science, Miss Tarbell in political and economic history, Miss Jane Addams in sociological writings and practice, the Rev. Anna Howard Shaw in the ministry, Mrs. Hetty Green in business, are a few examples of women whose mental ability ought to bring a blush to the Old Guard. Mrs. Harriman and Mrs. Sage, who manage properties of many millions, are denied the privilege of voting in regard to the expenditure of their taxes; but every ignorant immigrant can cast a vote, thanks to the doctrine that the political acumen of a man, however degraded, is superior to that of a woman, however great her genius—an admirable obedience to the saw in Ecclesiasticus that the badness of men is better than the goodness of women. Let me quote again from Professor Thomas: "The men have said that women are not intelligent enough to vote, but the women have replied that more of honesty than of intelligence is needed in politics at present, and that women certainly do not represent the most ignorant portion of the population. They claim that voting is a relatively simple matter anyway, that political freedom 'is nothing but the control of those who do make politics their business by those who do not,' and that they have enough intelligence 'to decide whether they are properly governed, and whom they will be governed by.' They point out also that already, without the ballot, they are instructing men how to vote and teaching them how to run a city; that women have to journey to the legislature at every session to instruct members and committees at legislative hearings, and that it is absurd that women who are capable of instructing men how to vote should not be allowed to vote themselves. To the suggestion that they would vote like their husbands and that so there would be no change in the political situation, women admit that they would sometimes vote like their husbands, because their husbands sometimes vote right; but ex-Chief-Justice Fisher of Wyoming says: 'When the Republicans nominate a bad man and the Democrats a good one, the Republican women do not hesitate a moment to "scratch" the bad and substitute the good. It is just so with the Democrats; hence we almost always have a mixture of office-holders. I have seen the effects of female suffrage, and, instead of being a means of encouragement to fraud and corruption, it tends greatly to purify elections and to promote better government.' Now, 'scratching' is the most difficult feature of the art of voting, and if women have mastered this, they are doing very well. Furthermore, the English suffragettes have completely outgeneralled the professional politicians. They discovered that no cause can get recognition in politics unless it is brought to the attention, and that John Bull in particular will not begin to pay attention 'until, you stand on your head to talk to him.' They regretted to do this, but in doing it they secured the attention and interest of all England. They then followed a relentless policy of opposing the election of any candidate of the party in power. The Liberal men had been playing with the Liberal women, promising support and then laughing the matter off. But they are now reduced to an appeal to the maternal instinct of the women. They say it is unloving of them to oppose their own kind. Politics is a poor game, but this is politics."

V. The last objection I would call the moral. It embraces such arguments as, that woman is too impulsive, too easily swayed by her emotions to hold responsible positions, that the world is very evil and slippery, and that she must therefore constantly have man to protect her—a pious duty, which he avows solemnly it has ever been his special delight to perform. The preceding pages are a commentary on the manner in which man has discharged this duty. In Delaware, for instance, the age of legal consent was until 1889 seven years. The institution of Chivalry, to take another example, is usually praised for the high estimation and protection it secured for women; yet any one who has read its literature knows that, in practice, it did nothing of the sort. The noble lord who was so gallant to his lady love—who, by the way, was frequently the wife of another man—had very little scruple about seducing a maid of low degree. The same gallantry is conspicuous in the Letters of Lord Chesterfield, beneath whose unctuous courtesy the beast of sensuality is always leering.

In the past the main function of woman outside of the rearing of children has been to satisfy the carnal appetite of man, to prepare his food, to minister to his physical comfort; she was barred from participation in the intellectual. In order to hold her to these bonds a Divine Sanction was sought. The Mohammedan found it in the Koran; the Christian, in the Bible—just as slavery was justified repeatedly from the story of Ham, just as the Stuarts and the Bourbons believed firmly that they were the special favourites of God.

Strangely enough, men who are so sensitive about the moral welfare of women will visit a dance hall where women are degraded nightly, and will allow their daughters to marry "reformed" rakes. Men will not permit any mention of sexual matters in their homes, and will let their children get their information on the street; and all for the very simple reason that they are afraid the truth will hurt, will make people think. Men have been remarkably sensitive about having women speak in public for their rights; but they watch with zest a woman screaming nonsense on the stage.

It is quite possible that many women are swayed too easily by their emotions. We must recollect, however, that for some thousands of years woman has been carefully drilled to believe that she is an emotional creature. If a dozen people conspire to tell a man that he is looking badly, it is not unlikely that he will feel ill. Certainly Florence Nightingale and Clara Barton exhibited no lack of firmness on the shambles of battlefields; and there are few men living who cannot recall instances of women who have, in the face of disaster and evil fortune, shown a steady perseverance and will-power in earning a living for themselves and their children that men have not surpassed.

Having in the preceding pages considered the five capital objections to the concession of equal suffrage, I shall now, in accordance with my plan, say something of the much-mooted question of the superiority or inferiority of one sex to the other. It might be concluded from the foregoing account that I see little difference in the aptitudes and powers of the sexes physically, morally, or intellectually. That does not necessarily follow. It is possible to conceive of each sex as the complement of the other; and between complements there can be no question either of superiority or of inferiority. The great historian of European Morals has analysed the constitutional differences of the sexes as he conceived them; and I may quote his remarks as pertinent to my theme. Lecky writes as follows[422]:

"Physically, men have the indisputable superiority in strength, and women in beauty. Intellectually, a certain inferiority of the female sex can hardly be denied when we remember how almost exclusively the foremost places in every department of science, literature, and art have been occupied by men, how infinitesimally small is the number of women who have shown in any form the very highest order of genius, how many of the greatest men have achieved their greatness in defiance of the most adverse circumstances, and how completely women have failed in obtaining the first position, even in music or painting, for the cultivation of which their circumstances would appear most propitious. It is as impossible to find a female Raphael, or a female Handel, as a female Shakespeare or Newton. Women are intellectually more desultory and volatile than men; they are more occupied with particular instances than with general principles; they judge rather by intuitive perceptions than by deliberate reasoning or past experience. They are, however, usually superior to men in nimbleness and rapidity of thought, and in the gift of tact or the power of seizing speedily and faithfully the finer inflections of feeling, and they have therefore often attained very great eminence as conversationalists, as letter-writers, as actresses, and as novelists.

"Morally, the general superiority of women over men is, I think, unquestionable. If we take the somewhat coarse and inadequate criterion of police statistics, we find that, while the male and female populations are nearly the same in number, the crimes committed by men are usually rather more than five times as numerous as those committed by women; and although it may be justly observed that men, as the stronger sex, and the sex upon whom the burden of supporting the family is thrown, have more temptations than women, it must be remembered, on the other hand, that extreme poverty which verges upon starvation is most common among women, whose means of livelihood are most restricted, and whose earnings are smallest and most precarious. Self-sacrifice is the most conspicuous element of a virtuous and religious character, and it is certainly far less common among men than among women, whose whole lives are usually spent in yielding to the will and consulting the pleasures of another. There are two great departments of virtue: the impulsive, or that which springs spontaneously from the emotions, and the deliberative, or that which is performed in obedience to the sense of duty; and in both of these I imagine women are superior to men. Their sensibility is greater, they are more chaste both in thought and act, more tender to the erring, more compassionate to the suffering, more affectionate to all about them.... In active courage women are inferior to men. In the courage of endurance they are commonly their superiors.... In the ethic of intellect they are decidedly inferior. To repeat an expression I have already employed, women very rarely love truth, though they love passionately what they call 'the truth' or opinions they have received from others, and hate vehemently those who differ from them. They are little capable of impartiality or doubt; their thinking is chiefly a mode of feeling; though very generous in their acts, they are rarely generous in their opinions.... They are less capable than men of perceiving qualifying circumstances, of admitting the existence of elements of good in systems to which they are opposed, of distinguishing the personal character of an opponent from the opinions he maintains. Men lean most to justice, and women to mercy. Men are most addicted to intemperance and brutality, women to frivolity and jealousy. Men excel in energy, self-reliance, perseverance, and magnanimity, women in humility, gentleness, modesty, and endurance.... Their religious or devotional realisations are incontestably more vivid.... But though more intense, the sympathies of women are commonly less wide than those of men. Their imaginations individualise more, their affections are, in consequence, concentrated rather on leaders than on causes.... In politics, their enthusiasm is more naturally loyalty than patriotism. In history, they are even more inclined than men to dwell exclusively upon biographical incidents or characteristics as distinguished from the march of general causes."

Experience, by which alone mankind has ever learned or can learn, will show how far the characteristics enumerated by Lecky are innate and how far they have been acquired in the course of ages by certain habits of belief and education.

The securing of citizens' rights for woman will of necessity depend on the attitude of society. There may be numerous laws for her relief on the statute books; but if society frowns on her appearance in court, it will be only in exceptional cases that she will appeal to the courts. To one who is familiar with the records of daily life a hundred years ago there is little doubt that conjugal infidelity on the part of the husband was more flagrant then than it is to-day; but there were infinitely fewer divorces. The reason for this is simply that public sentiment on the subject has changed. A century ago, a divorced woman could do nothing; the wife was exhorted to bear her husband's faults with meekness; and the expansion of industry had not yet opened to her that opportunity of making her own living which she now possesses in a hundred ways. Women were entirely dependent on men; and the men knew it. To-day they are not so sure.

The old conception of woman's position was subjection, based on mental and physical inferiority and supported by Biblical arguments. The newer conception is that of a complement, in which neither inferiority nor superiority finds place. The old conception was based, like every institution of the times, on fear. Men were warned against heresy by being reminded of the tortures of hell fire; against crime by appealing to their dread of the gallows. Between the death of Anne and the reign of George III one hundred and eighty-eight capital offences were added to the penal code; and crime at once increased to an amazing degree. In a system that is founded on fear, when once that fear is removed—as it inevitably will be with the growth of enlightenment—there remains no basis of action, no incentive to good. It has been tried for centuries and has yielded only Star Chambers and Spanish Inquisitions. It is time that we try a new method. An appeal to the sense of fair play, an appeal to the sense of duty and of natural affection may yield immeasurably superior results. It has been my experience and personal observation that the standard of honour in our non-sectarian schools, where the fair play spirit is most insisted on, is vastly greater than it was in the old sectarian institutions where boys were told morning, noon, and night that they would go to hell if they did not behave.

The new spirit is not going to be accepted at once by society. There must first be some wailing and much gnashing of teeth; and the monster, custom, which all sense doth eat, will still for a time be antagonistic as it has been in the past. "In no society has life ever been completely controlled by the reason," remarks Professor Thomas, "but mainly by the instincts and the habits and the customs growing out of these. Speaking in a general way, it may be said that all conduct both of men and animals tends to be right rather than wrong. They do not know why they behave in such and such ways, but their ancestors behaved in those ways and survival is the guaranty that the behaviour was good. We must admit that within the scope of their lives the animals behave with almost unerring propriety. Their behaviour is simple and unvarying, but they make fewer mistakes than ourselves. The difficulty in their condition is, that having little power of changing their behaviour they have little chance of improvement. Now, in human societies, and already among gregarious animals, one of the main conditions of survival was common sentiment and behaviour. So long as defence of life and preying on outsiders were main concerns of society, unanimity and conformity had the same value which still attaches to military discipline in warfare and to team work in our sports. Morality therefore became identified with uniformity. It was actually better to work upon some system, however bad, than to work on none at all, and early society had no place for the dissenter. Changes did take place, for man had the power of communicating his experiences through speech and the same power of imitation which we show in the adoption of fashions, but these changes took place with almost imperceptible slowness, or if they did not, those who proposed them were considered sinners and punished with death or obloquy.

"And it has never made any difference how bad the existing order of things might be. Those who attempted to reform it were always viewed with suspicion. Consequently our practices usually run some decades or centuries behind our theories and history is even full of cases where the theory was thoroughly dead from the standpoint of reason before it began to do its work in society. A determined attitude of resistance to change may therefore be classed almost with the instincts, for it is not a response to the reason alone, but is very powerfully bound up with the emotions which have their seat in the spinal cord.

"It is true that this adhesion to custom is more absolute and astonishing in the lower races and in the less educated classes, but it would be difficult to point out a single case in history where a new doctrine has not been met with bitter resistance. We justly regard learning and freedom of thought and investigation as precious, and we popularly think of Luther and the Reformation as standing at the beginning of the movement toward these, but Luther himself had no faith in 'the light of reason' and he hated as heartily as any papal dogmatist the 'new learning' of Erasmus and Hutten.... We are even forced to realise that the law of habit continues to do its perfect work in a strangely resentful or apathetic manner even when there is no moral issue at stake.... Up to the year 1816, the best device for the application of electricity to telegraphy had involved a separate wire for each letter of the alphabet, but in that year Francis Ronalds constructed a successful line making use of a single wire. Realising the importance of his invention, he attempted to get the British government to take it up, but was informed that 'telegraphs of any kind are now wholly unnecessary, and no other than the one in use will be adopted.'"

The reader will doubtless be able to add from his own experience and observation examples which will support Professor Thomas's admirable account of the power of custom. Among many barbarous tribes certain foods, like eggs, are taboo; no one knows why they should not be eaten; but tradition says their use produces bad results, and one who presumes to taste them is put to death. To-day, we believe ourselves rather highly civilised; but the least observation of society must compel us to acknowledge that taboo is still a vital power in a multitude of matters.

There is a still more forcible opposition to a recasting of the status of women by those men who have beheld no complete regeneration of society through the extension of the franchise in four of our States. Curiously oblivious of the fact that partial regeneration through the instrumentality of women is something attained, they take this as a working argument for the uselessness of extending the suffrage. They point to other evils that have followed and tell you that if this is the result of the emancipation of women, they will have none of it. For example, there can be no doubt that one may see from time to time the pseudo-intellectual woman. She affects an interest in literature, attends lectures on Browning and Emerson, shows an academic interest in slum work, and presents, on the whole, a selfishness or an egotism which repels. There never has been a revolution in society, however beneficial eventually, which did not bring at least some evil in its train. I cannot do better in this connection than to quote Lord Macaulay's splendid words (from the essay on Milton): "If it were possible that a people, brought up under an intolerant and arbitrary system, could subvert that system without acts of cruelty and folly, half the objections to despotic power would be removed. We should, in that case, be compelled to acknowledge that it at least produces no pernicious effects on the intellectual and moral character of a people. We deplore the outrages which accompany revolutions. But the more violent the outrages, the more assured we feel that a revolution was necessary. The violence of these outrages will always be proportioned to the ferocity and ignorance of the people; and the ferocity and ignorance of the people will be proportioned to the oppression and degradation under which they have been accustomed to live. Thus it was in our civil war. The rulers in the church and state reaped only what they had sown. They had prohibited free discussion—they had done their best to keep the people unacquainted with their duties and their rights. The retribution was just and natural. If they suffered from popular ignorance, it was because they had themselves taken away the key to knowledge. If they were assailed with blind fury, it was because they had exacted an equally blind submission.

"It is the character of such revolutions that we always see the worst of them at first. Till men have been for some time free, they know not how to use their freedom. The natives of wine-countries are always sober. In climates where wine is a rarity, intemperance abounds. A newly-liberated people may be compared to a northern army encamped on the Rhine or the Xeres. It is said that when soldiers in such a situation first find themselves able to indulge without restraint in such a rare and expensive luxury, nothing is to be seen but intoxication. Soon, however, plenty teaches discretion; and after wine has been for a few months their daily fare, they become more temperate than they had ever been in their own country. In the same manner, the final and permanent fruits of liberty are wisdom, moderation, and mercy. Its immediate effects are often atrocious crimes, conflicting errors, skepticism on points the most clear, dogmatism on points the most mysterious. It is just at this crisis that its enemies love to exhibit it. They pull down the scaffolding from the half-finished edifice; they point to the flying dust, the falling bricks, the comfortless rooms, the frightful irregularity of the whole appearance; and then ask in scorn where the promised splendour and comfort are to be found? If such miserable sophisms were to prevail, there never would be a good house or a good government in the world.... There is only one cure for the evils which newly acquired freedom produces—and that cure is freedom. When a prisoner leaves his cell, he cannot bear the light of day—he is unable to discriminate colours or to recognise faces. But the remedy is not to remand him into his dungeon, but to accustom him to the rays of the sun. The blaze of truth and liberty may at first dazzle and bewilder nations which have become half-blind in the house of bondage. But let them gaze on, and they will soon be able to bear it. In a few years men learn to reason. The extreme violence of opinion subsides. Hostile theories correct each other. The scattered elements of truth cease to conflict, and begin to coalesce. And at length a system of justice and order is educed out of the chaos.

"Many politicians of our time are in the habit of laying it down as a self-evident proposition, that no people ought to be free till they are fit to use their freedom. The maxim is worthy of the fool in the old story, who resolved not to go into the water till he had learnt to swim. If men are to wait for liberty till they become wise and good in slavery, they may indeed wait for ever."

The speedy dissolution of family and state was prophesied by men when first a girl took a public examination in geometry; whenever women have been given complete control of their own property; when they have been received into the professions and industries; and now in like manner people dread the condition of things that they imagine might follow if women are given the right to vote and to hold office. We may well believe, with Lecky, that there are "certain eternal moral landmarks which never can be removed." But no matter what our views may be of the destinies, characteristics, functions, or limitations of the sex, certain reforms are indispensable before woman and, through her, family life can reach their highest development. Of these reforms I shall speak briefly and with them close my history.

I. The double standard of morality for the sexes must gradually be abolished.[423] Of all the sad commentaries on Christian nations none is so pathetic or so tragical as the fact that for nineteen centuries men have been tacitly and openly allowed, at least before marriage, unrestrained liberty to indulge in sexual vice and intemperance, while one false step on the part of the woman has condemned her to social obloquy and, frequently, to a life on the street. This strange system, a blasphemy against the Christ who suffered death in order to purify the earth, has had its defenders not merely among the uneducated who do not think, but even among the most acute intellects. The philosopher Hume justifies it by commenting on the vastly greater consequences attendant on vice in women than in men; divines like Jeremy Taylor have encouraged it by urging women meekly to bear the sins of their husbands. This subject is one of the great taboos in modern society. Let me exhort the reader to go to any physician and get from him the statistics of gonorrhea and syphilis which he has met in his practice; let him learn of the children born blind and of wives rendered invalid for life because their husbands once sowed a crop of wild oats with the sanction of society; let him read the Report of the Committee of Fifteen in New York (G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1902) on The Social Evil, the records of the Watch and Ward Society in Boston, or the recent report of the special jury in New York which investigated the "White Slave Traffic."[424]

The plain facts are not pleasant. A system which has been in vogue from the beginning of history cannot be changed in a decade; but the desired state of things will be more speedily achieved and immediate good will be accomplished by three reforms which may be begun at once—have begun, in fact. In the first place, the "age of legal consent" should be uniformly twenty-one. In most States to-day it is fourteen or sixteen.[425] To the ordinary mind it is a self-evident proposition that a girl of those ages, the slippery period of puberty, can but seldom realise what she is doing when she submits herself to the lust of scoundrels. But the minds of legislators pass understanding; and when, a few years ago, a woman in the Legislature of Colorado proposed to have the age of consent raised from sixteen to twenty-one, such a storm of protest came from her male colleagues that the measure had to be abandoned. In the second place the public should be made better acquainted with the facts of prostitution. When people once realise thoroughly what sickness and social ulcers result from the presence in the city of New York of 100,000 debauched women (and the estimate is conservative)—when they begin to reflect that their children must grow up in such surroundings, then perhaps they will question the expediency of the double standard of morality and will insist that what is wrong for a woman is wrong for a man. It is a fact, to be borne carefully in mind, that the vast majority of prostitutes begin their career below the age of eighteen and usually at the instigation of adult men, who take advantage of their ignorance or of their poverty. If the miserable Thaw trial did nothing else, it at least once more called public attention to conditions which every intelligent man knows have existed for years. Something can also be done by statute. New York has made adultery a crime; and the State of Washington requires a physical examination of the parties before marriage. In the third place, physicians should take more pains to educate men to the knowledge that a continent life is not a detriment to health—the contrary belief being more widely spread than is usually suspected.

II. In the training of women, care should be taken to impress upon them that they are not toys or spoiled children, but fellow-citizens, devoted to the common task of advancing the ideals of the nation to their goal.

The woman's cause is man's; they rise or sink Together, dwarf'd or godlike, bond or free: If she be small, slight-natured, miserable, How shall men grow?

TENNYSON, The Princess.

A Being breathing thoughtful breath, A Traveller between life and death; The reason firm, the temperate will, Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill; A perfect Woman, nobly planned, To warn, to comfort, and command; And yet a Spirit still, and bright With something of an angel light.

WORDSWORTH.

Towards a higher conception of their duties, women are steadily advancing. It often happens that the history of words will give a hint of the progress of civilisation. Such a story is told by the use of lady and woman. Not many decades ago the use of the word woman in referring to respectable members of the sex was interpreted as a lack of courtesy. To-day, women prefer to be called women.

III. Women should be given the full right to enter any profession or business which they may desire. As John Stuart Mill says:

"The proper sphere for any human being is the highest sphere that being is capable of attaining; and this cannot be ascertained without complete liberty of choice."

"We are, as always, in a period of transition," remarks Mr. Bjoerkman,[426] "the old forms are falling away from us on every side. Concerning the new ones we are still uncertain and divided. Whether woman shall vote or not, is not the main issue. She will do so sooner or later if it suits her. No, the imperative question confronting us is this: What are we to do that her life once more may be full and useful as it used to be? That question cannot be answered by anybody but herself. Furthermore, it can only be answered on the basis of actual experience. And urged onward by her never-failing power of intuition, woman has for once taken to experimenting. She has, if you please, become temporarily catabolic. But it means merely that she is seeking for new means to fulfil her nature, not for ways of violating it. And the best thing—nay, the only thing—man can do to help her is to stand aside and keep his faith, both in her and in life. Whether it be the franchise, or the running of railroads, or public offices, that her eager hands and still more eager soul should happen to reach out for, he must give her free way. All she wants is to find herself, and for this purpose she must try everything that once was foreign to her being: the trial over, she will instinctively and unfailingly pick out the right new things to do, and will do them."

The opening up of professions and industries to woman has been of incalculable benefit to her. Of old the unmarried woman could do little except sit by the fire and spin or make clothing for the South Sea Islanders. Her limited activities caused a corresponding influence on her character. People who have nothing to do will naturally find an outlet for their superfluous energy in gossip and all the petty things of life; if isolated from a share in what the world is doing, they will no less naturally develop eccentricities of character and will grow old prematurely. To-day, by being allowed a part in civic and national movements, women can "get out of themselves"—a powerful therapeutic agent. Mrs. Ella Young, a woman of sixty, was last year made Superintendent of the great Public School System of Chicago. Fraeulein Anna Heinrichsdorff is the first woman in Germany to get an engineer's diploma, very recently bestowed upon her; an "excellent" mark was given Fraeulein Heinrichsdorff in every part of her examination by the Berlin Polytechnic Institute. Miss Jean Gordon, the only factory inspector in Louisiana, is at present waging a strong fight against the attempt to exempt "first-class" theatres from the child-labour law. Mrs. Nellie Upham, of Colorado, is President and General Manager of the Gold Divide Mining, Milling, and Tunnel Company of Colorado and directs 300 workmen. These are a few examples out of some thousands of what woman is doing.[427] And yet there are men who do not believe she should do anything but wash dishes and scrub.

Much more serious is the glaring discrepancy in the wages paid to men and to women. For doing precisely the same work as a man and often doing it better, woman receives a much lower wage. The reasons are several and specious. We are told that men have families to support, that women do not have such expensive tastes as men, that they are incapable of doing as much as men, that by granting them equal wages one of the inducements to marry is removed. These arguments are generally used with the greatest gravity by bachelors. If men have families to support, women by the hundreds support brothers and sisters and weak parents. That they are incapable of doing as much sounds unconvincing to one who has seen the work of sweat-shops. The argument that men have more expensive tastes to satisfy is too feeble to deserve attention. Finally, when men argue that women should be forced to marry by giving them smaller wages, they are simply reverting to the time-honoured idea that the goal of every women's ambition should be fixed as matrimony. If the low wages of women produced no further consequence, one might dismiss the matter as not of essential importance; but inadequate pay has been found too frequently to be a direct cause of prostitution. No girl can well keep body and soul together on four dollars a week and some business managers have been known to inform their women employees with frankness that a "gentleman friend" is a necessary adjunct to a limited income.

The women who suffer most from low wages are probably the teachers in our primary schools. They start usually on a salary of about three hundred and fifty dollars a year. For this each teacher performs all the minute labour and bears all the nervous strain of instructing sixty pupils six and a half hours a day and of correcting dozens of papers far into the night. And when crime increases or the pupils are not universally successful in business, the school teacher has the added pleasure of getting blamed for it, being told that she ought to have trained them better. These facts lend some colour to Mark Twain's sage reflection that God at first made idiots—that was for practice; then he made school boards.

One of the most interesting examples of recent evolution in the industrial status of women is the decision of the Supreme Court of Illinois in the so-called Ritchie Case. The last Legislature of Illinois passed a law limiting to ten hours the working day of women in factories and stores. Now, as far back as 1893, the Legislature had passed a similar law limiting woman's labour to eight hours; but the Supreme Court in 1895 declared it unconstitutional on the ground that it was an arbitrary and unreasonable interference with the right of women to contract for the sale of their labour. When, therefore, this year a ten-hour bill was tried, W.C. Ritchie, who had secured the nullification of the act of 1893, again protested. The decision of the Court, rendered April 21, 1910, is an excellent proof of the great advance made within two decades in the position of women. Reversing completely its judgment of 1895, the Court left far behind it mere technicalities of law and found a sanction for its change of front in the experience of humanity and of common sense. These are its conclusions:

"It is known to all men, and of what we know as men we cannot profess to be ignorant as judges:

"That woman's physical structure and the performance of maternal functions place her at a great disadvantage in the battle of life.

"That while a man can work for more than ten hours a day without injury to himself, a woman, especially when the burdens of motherhood are upon her, cannot.

"That while a man can work standing upon his feet for more than ten hours a day, day after day, without injury to himself, a woman cannot.

"That to require a woman to stand upon her feet for more than ten hours in any one day and to perform severe manual labour while thus standing has the effect of impairing her health.

"And as weakly and sickly women cannot be the mothers of vigorous children, it is of the greatest importance to the public that the State take such measures as may be necessary to protect its women from the consequences produced by long-continued manual labour in those occupations which tend to break them down physically.

"It would seem obvious, therefore, that legislation which limits the number of hours which women shall be permitted to work to ten hours in a single day in such employments as are carried on in mechanical establishments, factories, and laundries would tend to preserve the health of women and assure the production of vigorous offspring by them and would conduce directly to the health, morals, and general welfare of the public, and that such legislation would fall clearly within the police powers of the State."

IV. All phenomena that concern family life should be carefully studied and their bearing on the state ascertained as exactly as possible. There is no subject, for example, from which such wild conclusions are drawn as the matter of divorce. The average moralist, but more particularly the clergy, seeing the fairly astonishing increase in divorce during the last decade, jump to the conclusion that family life is decadent and immorality flagrantly on the increase. They point to the indubitable fact that a century ago divorces were insignificant in number; and they infer that morality was then on a much higher level than it is now. Such alarmists neglect certain elementary facts. The flippant manner in which marriage is treated by the Restoration dramatists and by novelists of the 18th century, the callous sexual morality revealed in diaries and in the conversations of men like Johnson alone are sufficient to suggest the need of a readjustment of one's view regarding the standard of morality in the past. A century ago it was the duty of a gentleman to drink to excess; and it was presumed that a guest had not enjoyed his dinner unless he was at least comfortably the worse for liquor. This view of drunkenness is admirably depicted in Dickens's Pickwick Papers, where intoxication is treated throughout as something merely humorous.

There were just as many unhappy marriages formerly in proportion to the population as there are to-day; but the wife was held effectually from application for a divorce not only by rigid laws but by the sentiment of society, which ostracised a divorced woman, and furthermore by her lack of means and of opportunity for earning an independent livelihood. To-day women are not inclined to tolerate a husband who is brutal or debauched. Alarmists make a mistake when they place too much emphasis on the seeming triviality of the reasons, justifying their course, which wives advance when applying for a separation. For example, the phrase "incompatibility of temperament" is in a great number of cases merely a euphemism for something much worse. The clergy will counsel a woman to bear with what they call Christian resignation a husband addicted to drink or scarred by the diseases that are a consequence of sin. Abstractly considered, this may conceivably be good advice. But viewed in a common-sense way it is the duty of a woman to reflect on the consequences of conceiving children from such a man; and the researches of physicians will furnish her with incontrovertible facts regarding the impaired health of the offspring of such a union. A law which would permit of no divorce under such conditions, instead of benefiting the state, would injure it in its most vital asset—healthy children, the coming citizens. Doubtless the divorce laws in many States are too lax. But sweeping generalities based on theory will not remedy matters. Divorce may simply be a symptom, not a disease; a revolt against unjust conditions; and the way to do away with divorce or reduce the frequency of it is to remedy the evil social conditions which, in a great many instances, are responsible.

The fact is, the institution of marriage is going through a crisis. The old view that marriage is a complete merging of the wife in the husband and that the latter is absolute monarch of his home is being questioned. When a man with this idea and a woman with a far different one marry, there is likely to be a clash. Marriage as a real partnership based on equality of goods and of interests finds an increasing number of advocates. There is great reason to believe that the issue will be only for the good and that from doubt and revolt a more enduring ideal will arise, based on a sure foundation of perfect understanding.

NOTES:

[415] See an excellent article on "The American Woman" by Miss Ida M. Tarbell, in the American Magazine for April, 1910.

[416] In 1893. "Be it resolved by the Second Legislature of the State of Wyoming:

"That the possession and exercise of suffrage by the women of Wyoming for the past quarter of a century has wrought no harm and has done great good in many ways; that it has largely aided in banishing crime, pauperism, and vice from this State, and that without any violent and oppressive legislation," etc.

[417] Women in Colorado have been of greatest service in establishing the following laws:

1—Establishing a State Home for dependent children, three of the five members of the board to be women.

2—Requiring that at least three of the six members of the county visitors shall be women.

3—Making mothers joint guardians of their children with the fathers.

4—Raising the age of protection for girls to 18 years.

5—Establishing a State Industrial School for girls. There had long been one for boys, but the women could not get one for girls until they had the vote.

6—Removing the emblems from the Australian ballots. This is a little, indirect step toward educational qualifications for voting.

7—Establishing the indeterminate sentence for prisoners.

8—Requiring one physician on the board of the Insane Asylum to be a woman.

9—Establishing truant schools.

10—Making better provision for the care of the feeble-minded.

11—For tree preservation.

12—For the inspection of private eleemosynary institutions by the State Board of Charities.

13—Various steps toward prevention of cruelty to animals.

14—Providing that foreign life and accident insurance companies, when sued, must pay the costs.

15—Establishing a juvenile court.

16—Making education compulsory for all children between the ages of 8 and 16, except those who are ill or those who are 14 and have completed the eighth grade, or those whose parents need their help and support.

17—Making the mother and father joint heirs of a deceased child.

18—Providing for union high schools.

19—Establishing a State travelling library commission.

20—Providing that any person employing a child under 14 in any mine, mill, or factory be punished by imprisonment in addition to a fine.

21—Requiring the joint signature of the husband and wife to a mortgage of a homestead.

22—Forbidding the insuring of the lives of children under 10.

23—Forbidding children of 16 or under to work more than six hours a day in any mill, factory, or other occupation that may be unhealthful.

24—Making it a criminal offence to contribute to the delinquency of children—the parental responsibility act.

25—Making it a misdemeanour to fail to support aged or infirm parents.

26—Providing that no woman shall work more than eight hours a day at work requiring her to be on her feet.

27—Restricting the time for shooting doves.

28—Abolishing the binding out of girls committed to the Industrial School until the age of 21.

29—A pure food law in harmony with the national law.

[418] In the Boston Herald for June 4, 1910.

[419] Quoted in the New York Times of Jan. 9, 1910.

[420] See, for example, Lyman Abbott in the Outlook for Feb. 19, 1910.

[421] American Magazine, July, 1909.

[422] History of European Morals, vol. ii, pp. 379 and following. New York, D. Appleton & Co., 1869.

[423] Note, for example, that in Maryland a man can get a divorce if his wife has had sexual intercourse before marriage; but a wife cannot get a divorce from her husband if he has been guilty of the same thing. In Texas, adultery on the part of the wife entitles the husband to a divorce; but the wife can obtain divorce from her husband only if he has abandoned her and lived in adultery with another woman.

[424] On Jan. 12, 1910, a bill was introduced in the House of Representatives to check the "White Slave Traffic" by providing a penalty of ten years' imprisonment and a fine of five thousand dollars for any one who engages in it.

[425] In some it is even lower; ten in Georgia and Mississippi for example.

[426] In Collier's Weekly, Feb. 5, 1910.

[427] Note what the officers of the Chicago Juvenile Protective Association, many of whom are women, accomplished in 1909-1910. These women are fighting the agencies which make for juvenile crime mostly and each officer has a specified "beat" to patrol. Last year their work amounted to the following:

Complaints of selling liquors to minors investigated 295 Complaints of selling tobacco to minors investigated 52 Complaints of selling obscene postcards investigated 49 Complaints of poolrooms investigated 203 Complaints of dance halls investigated 92 Five and ten cent theatres visited 1,013 Penny arcades visited 67 Saloons visited 735 Relief visits 174 Cases referred to relief organisations 374 Legal aid cases referred 105 Referred to Visiting Nurses' Association 7 Housing cases referred 51 Applications for work referred 264 Placed in hospitals 103 Sent to dispensaries 192 Children placed in homes 240 Slot machines removed 223 Work found for men 57 Work found for women 81 Work found for boys 84 Work found for girls 90 Visits to ice-cream parlors 356 Visits to candy stores 805

VISITS TO COURTS

Juvenile 451 Municipal 1,809 Criminal 211 County 86 Grand Jury 26 Conferences with state or city officials 1,244

PROSECUTIONS

Cases of abandonment 99 Assault and battery 8 Contributing to delinquency and dependency of children 232 Crimes against children 12 Disorderly conduct 141 Immoral dancing 4 Intoxicating liquors 33 Juvenile Court cases 78 Larceny 4 Tobacco 10 Sale of cocaine 4 Other cases 110 Total prosecutions 738

RESULTS Convictions 311 Settled out of court 100 Nolle pros, or nonsuit 52 Dismissed 93 Acquittals 50 Pending 92 ——- Total complaints received 5,047



CHAPTER X

FURTHER CONSIDERATIONS

In the four years intervening since this book was first written, the progress of equal rights for women has been so rapid that the summary on pages 175-235 is now largely obsolete; but it is useful for comparison. In the United States at present (August, 1914), Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Washington, California, Oregon, Kansas, Arizona, and Alaska have granted full suffrage to women. In the following States the voters will pass upon the question in the autumn of 1914: Montana, Nevada, North Dakota, South Dakota, Missouri, Nebraska, and Ohio, the last three by initiative petition. In New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Iowa, New York, and Massachusetts a constitutional amendment for equal suffrage has passed one legislature and must pass another before being submitted to the people. The advance has been world-wide. Thus, in 1910 the Gaekwar of Baroda in India allowed the women of his dominions a vote in municipal elections, and Bosnia bestowed the parliamentary suffrage on women who owned a certain amount of real estate; Norway in 1913 and Iceland in 1914 were won to full suffrage. The following table presents a convenient historical summary of the progress in political rights:

On July 2, 1776, two days before the Declaration of Independence was signed, New Jersey, in her first State constitution, en-franchised the women by changing the words of her provincial charter from "Male freeholders worth L50" to "all inhabitants worth L50," and for 31 years the women of that State voted.

GAINS IN EQUAL SUFFRAGE

Eighty years ago women could not vote anywhere, except to a very limited extent in Sweden and in a few other places in the Old World.

TIME PLACE KIND OF SUFFRAGE

1838 Kentucky School suffrage to widows with children of school age. 1850 Ontario School suffrage, women married and single. 1861 Kansas School suffrage. 1867 New South Wales Municipal suffrage. 1869 England Municipal suffrage, single women and widows. Victoria Municipal suffrage, married and single women. Wyoming Full suffrage. 1871 West Australia Municipal suffrage. 1875 Michigan School suffrage. Minnesota Do. 1876 Colorado Do. 1877 New Zealand Do. 1878 New Hampshire Do. Oregon Do. 1879 Massachusetts Do. 1880 New York Do. Vermont Do. South Australia Municipal suffrage. 1881 Scotland Municipal suffrage to the single women and widows. Isle of Man Parliamentary suffrage. 1883 Nebraska School suffrage. 1884 Ontario Municipal suffrage. Tasmania Do. 1886 New Zealand Do. New Brunswick Do. 1887 Kansas Do. Nova Scotia Do. Manitoba Do. North Dakota School suffrage. South Dakota Do.

TIME PLACE KIND OF SUFFRAGE

1887 Montana . . . . . . . School suffrage Arizona . . . . . . . Do. New Jersey . . . . . Do. Montana . . . . . . . Tax-paying suffrage. 1888 England . . . . . . . County suffrage. British Columbia. . . Municipal Suffrage. Northwest Territory . Do. 1889 Scotland. . . . . . . County suffrage. Province of Quebec. . Municipal suffrage, single women and widows. 1891 Illinois. . . . . . . School suffrage. 1893 Connecticut . . . . . Do. Colorado. . . . . . . Full suffrage. New Zealand . . . . . Do. 1894 Ohio. . . . . . . . . School suffrage. Iowa. . . . . . . . . Bond suffrage. England . . . . . . . Parish and district suffrage, married and single women. 1895 South Australia . . . Full State suffrage. 1896 Utah. . . . . . . . . Full suffrage. Idaho . . . . . . . . Do. 1898 Ireland . . . . . . . All offices except members of Parliament. Minnesota . . . . . . Library trustees. Delaware. . . . . . . School suffrage to tax-paying women. France. . . . . . . . Women engaged in commerce can vote for judges of the tribunal of commerce. Louisiana . . . . . . Tax-paying suffrage. 1900 Wisconsin . . . . . . School suffrage. West Australia. . . . Full State suffrage. 1901 New York. . . . . . . Tax-paying suffrage; local taxation in all towns and villages of the State. Norway. . . . . . . . Municipal suffrage. 1902 Australia . . . . . . Full suffrage. New South Wales . . . Full State suffrage. 1903 Kansas. . . . . . . . Bond suffrage. Tasmania. . . . . . . Full State suffrage. 1905 Queensland. . . . . . Do. 1906 Finland . . . . . . . Full suffrage; eligible for all offices. 1907 Norway. . . . . . . . Full parliamentary suffrage to the 300,000 women who already had municipal suffrage. Sweden. . . . . . . . Eligible to municipal offices. Denmark . . . . . . . Can vote for members of boards of public charities and serve on such boards. England . . . . . . . Eligible as mayors, aldermen, and county and town councilors. Oklahoma. . . . . . . New State continued school suffrage for women. 1908 Michigan. . . . . . . Taxpayers to vote on question of local taxation and granting of franchises. Denmark . . . . . . . Women who are taxpayers or wives of taxpayers vote for all offices except members of Parliament. Victoria. . . . . . . Full State suffrage. 1909 Belgium . . . . . . . Can vote for members of the conseils des prudhommes, and also eligible. Province of Voralberg Single women and widows paying taxes (Austrian Tyrol) were given a vote. Ginter Park, VA . . . Tax-paying women, a vote on all municipal questions. 1910 Washington. . . . . . Full suffrage. New Mexico. . . . . . School suffrage.

TIME PLACE KIND OF SUFFRAGE

1910 Norway. . . . . . . . Municipal suffrage made universal. Three-fifths of the women had it before. Bosnia. . . . . . . . Parliamentary vote to women owning a certain amount of real estate. Diet of the Crown . . Suffrage to the women of its capital city Prince of Krain Laibach. (Austria) India (Gaekwar of . . Women in his dominions vote in municipal Baroda) elections. Wurttemberg . . . . . Women engaged in agriculture vote for Kingdom of members of the chamber of agriculture; also eligible. New York. . . . . . . Women in all towns, villages and third-class cities vote on bonding propositions. 1911 California. . . . . . Full suffrage. Honduras. . . . . . . Municipal suffrage in capital city, Belize. Iceland . . . . . . . Parliamentary suffrage for women over 25 years. 1912 Oregon. . . . . . . . Full suffrage. Arizona . . . . . . . Do. Kansas. . . . . . . . Do. 1913 Alaska. . . . . . . . Do. Norway. . . . . . . . Do. Illinois. . . . . . . Suffrage for statutory officials (including presidential electors and municipal officers). 1914 Iceland . . . . . . . Full suffrage.

In the United States the struggle for the franchise has entered national politics, a sure sign of its widening scope. The demand for equal suffrage was embodied in the platform of the Progressive Party in August, 1912. This marks an advance over Col. Roosevelt's earlier view, expressed in the Outlook of February 3, 1912, when he said: "I believe in woman's suffrage wherever the women want it. Where they do not want it, the suffrage should not be forced upon them." When the new administration assumed office in March, 1913, the friends of suffrage worked to secure a constitutional amendment which should make votes for women universal in the United States. The inauguration ceremonies were marred by an attack of hoodlums on the suffrage contingent of the parade. Mr. Hobson in the House denounced the outrage and mentioned the case of a young lady, the daughter of one of his friends, who was insulted by a ruffian who climbed upon the float where she was. Mr. Mann, the Republican minority leader, remarked in reply that her daughter ought to have been at home. Commenting on this dialogue, Collier's Weekly of April 5, 1913, recalled the boast inscribed by Rameses III of Egypt on his monuments, twelve hundred years before Christ: "To unprotected women there is freedom to wander through the whole country wheresoever they list without apprehending danger." If one works this out chronologically, said the editor, Mr. Mann belongs somewhere back in the Stone Age. In the Senate an active committee on woman suffrage was formed under the chairmanship of Mr. Thomas, of Colorado. The vote on the proposed new amendment was taken in the Senate on March 19, 1914, and it was rejected,[428] 35 to 34, two-thirds being necessary before the measure could be submitted to the States for ratification. In the House Mr. Underwood, Democratic minority leader, took the stand that suffrage was purely a State issue. Mr. Heflin of Alabama was particularly vigorous in denunciation of votes for women. He said[429]:

"I do not believe that there is a red-blooded man in the world who in his heart really believes in woman suffrage. I think that every man who favours it ought to be made to wear a dress. Talk about taxation without representation! Do you say that the young man who is of age does not represent his mother? Do you say that the young man who pledges at the altar to love, cherish, and protect his wife, does not represent her and his children when he votes? When the Christ of God came into this world to die for the sins of humanity, did he not die for all, males and females? What sort of foolish stuff are you trying to inject into this tariff debate?... There are trusts and monopolies of every kind, and these little feminine fellows are crawling around here talking about woman suffrage. I have seen them here in this Capitol. The suffragette and a little henpecked fellow crawling along beside her; that is her husband. She is a suffragette, and he is a mortal suffering yet."

Mr. Falconer of Washington rose in reply. He remarked:[430]

"I want to observe that the mental operation of the average woman in the State of Washington, as compared to the ossified brain operation of the gentleman from Alabama, would make him look like a mangy kitten in a tiger fight. The average woman in the State of Washington knows more about social economics and political economy in one minute than the gentleman from Alabama has demonstrated to the members of this House that he knows in five minutes."

On February 2, 1914, a delegation of women called upon President Wilson to ascertain his views. The President refused to commit himself. He was not at liberty, he said, to urge upon Congress policies which had not the endorsement of his party's platform; and as the representative of his party he was under obligations not to promulgate or intimate his individual convictions. On February 3, 1914, the Democrats of the House in caucus, pursuant to a resolution of Mr. Heflin, refused to create a woman suffrage committee. So the constitutional amendment was quite lost. In the following July Mr. Bryan suddenly issued a strong appeal for equal suffrage in the Commoner. Among his arguments were these:

"As man and woman are co-tenants of the earth and must work out their destiny together, the presumption is on the side of equality of treatment in all that pertains to their joint life and its opportunities. The burden of proof is on those who claim for one an advantage over the other in determining the conditions under which both shall live. This claim has not been established in the matter of suffrage. On the contrary, the objections raised to woman suffrage appear to me to be invalid, while the arguments advanced in support of the proposition are, in my judgment, convincing."

"Without minimising other arguments advanced in support of the extending of suffrage to woman, I place the emphasis upon the mother's right to a voice in molding the environment which shall surround her children—an environment which operates powerfully in determining whether her offspring will crown her latter years with joy or 'bring down her gray hairs in sorrow to the grave.'

"For a time I was imprest by the suggestion that the question should be left to the women to decide—a majority to determine whether the franchise should be extended to woman; but I find myself less and less disposed to indorse this test.... Why should any mother be denied the use of the franchise to safeguard the welfare of her child merely because another mother may not view her duty in the same light?"

The change in the status of women has been significant not only in the political field, but also in every other direction. A brief survey of the legislation of various States in the past year, 1913, reveals the manifold measures already adopted for the further protection of women and indicates the trend of laws in the near future. Acts were passed in Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, New Mexico, and Ohio to punish the seduction of girls and women for commercialised vice, the laws being known as "White Slave Acts"; laws for the abatement of disorderly houses were passed in California, Minnesota, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Washington; Oregon decreed that male applicants for a marriage license must produce a physician's certificate showing freedom from certain diseases; and it authorised the sterilisation of habitual criminals and degenerates. The necessity of inculcating chastity in the newer generation, whether through the teaching of sex hygiene in the schools or in some other form, was widely discussed throughout the country. Mothers' pensions were granted by fourteen States; minimum wage boards were established by three; and three passed laws for the punishment of family desertion, in such wise that the family of the offender should receive a certain daily sum from the State while he worked off his sentence. Tennessee removed the disability of married women arising from coverture. Ten States further limited the hours of labour for women in certain industries, the tendency being to fix the limit at fifty-four or fifty-eight hours a week with a maximum of nine or ten in any one day. The hours of labour of children and the age at which they are allowed to work were largely restricted. A National Children's Bureau, under the charge of Miss Julia Lathrope, has been created at Washington; and Mrs. J. Borden Harriman was appointed to the Industrial Relations Commission. The minuteness and thoroughness of modern legislation for the protection of women may be realised by noting that in 1913 alone New York passed laws that no girl under sixteen shall in any city of the first, second, or third class sell newspapers or magazines or shine shoes in any street or public place; that separate wash rooms and dressing rooms must be provided in factories where more than ten women are employed; that whenever an employer requires a physical examination, the employee, if a female, can demand a physician of her own sex; that the manufacture or repair for a factory of any article of food, dolls' clothing, and children's apparel in a tenement house be prohibited except by special permit of the Labor Commission; that the State Industrial Board be authorised to make special rules and regulations for dangerous employments; and that the employment of women in canning establishments be strictly limited according to prescribed hours.

The unmistakable trend of legislation in the United States is towards complete equality of the sexes in all moral, social, industrial, professional, and political activities.

In England the House of Commons rejected parliamentary suffrage for women. Incensed at the repeated chicanery of politicians who alternately made and evaded their promises, a group of suffragettes known as the "militants" resorted to open violence. When arrested for damaging property, they went on a "hunger strike," refusing all nourishment. This greatly embarrassed the government, which in 1913 devised the so-called "Cat and Mouse Act," whereby those who are in desperate straits through their refusal to eat are released temporarily and conditionally, but can be rearrested summarily for failure to comply with the terms of their parole. The weakness in the attitude of the militant suffragettes is their senseless destruction of all kinds of property and the constant danger to which they subject innocent people by their outrages. If they would confine themselves to making life unpleasant for those who have so often broken their pledges, they could stand on surer ground. The English are commonly regarded as an orderly people, especially by themselves. Nevertheless, it is true that hardly any great reform has been achieved in England without violence. The men of England did not secure the abolition of the "rotten-borough" system and extensive manhood suffrage until, in 1831, they smashed the windows of the Duke of Wellington's house, burned the castle of the Duke of Newcastle, and destroyed the Bishop's palace at Bristol. In 1839 at Newport twenty chartists were shot in an attempt to seize the town; they were attempting to secure reforms like the abolition of property qualifications for members of Parliament. The English obtained the permanent tenure of their "immemorial rights" only by beheading one king and banishing another. In our own country, the Boston Tea Party was a typical "militant outrage," generally regarded as a fine piece of patriotism. If the tradition of England is such that violence must be a preliminary to all final persuasion, perhaps censure of the militants can find some mitigation in that fact. Some things move very slowly in England. In 1909 a commission was appointed to consider reform in divorce. Under the English law a husband can secure a divorce for infidelity, but a woman must, in addition to adultery, prove aggravated cruelty. This is humorously called "British fair play." In November, 1912, the majority of the commission recommended that this inequality be removed and that the sexes be placed on an equal footing; and that in addition to infidelity, now the only cause for divorce allowed, complete separation be also granted for desertion for three years, incurable insanity, and incurable habitual drunkenness. The majority, nine commissioners, found that the present stringent restrictions and costliness of divorce are productive of immorality and illicit relations, particularly among the poorer classes. The majority report was opposed by the three minority members, the Archbishop of York, Sir William Anson, and Sir Lewis Dibdin, representing the Established Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church. Thus far, Parliament has not yet acted and the old law is still in force.

On the Continent, with the exception of a few places like Finland, the movement for equal suffrage, while earnestly pressed by a few, is not yet concentrated. Women have won their rights to higher education and are admitted to the universities. They can usually enter business and most of the professions. Inequities of civil rights are gradually being swept away. For example, in Germany a married woman has complete control of her property, but only if she specifically provided for it in the marriage contract; many German women are ignorant that they possess such a right. The Germans may be divided into two classes: the caste which rules, largely Prussian, militaristic, and bureaucratic; and that which, although desirous of more republican institutions and potentially capable of liberal views, is constrained to obey the first or ruling class. This upper class is not friendly to the modern women's-rights movement. Perhaps it has read too much Schopenhauer. This amiable philosopher, whose own mother could not endure living with him, has this to say of women[431]:

"A woman who is perfectly truthful and does not dissemble, is perhaps an impossibility. In a court of justice women are more often found guilty of perjury than men.... Women are directly adapted to act as the nurses and educators of our early childhood, for the simple reason that they themselves are childish, foolish, and shortsighted.... Women are and remain, taken altogether, the most thorough and incurable Philistines; and because of the extremely absurd arrangement which allows them to share the position and title of their husbands they are a constant stimulus to his ignoble ambitions.... Where are there any real monogamists? We all live, at any rate for a time, and the majority of us always, in polygamy.... It is men who make the money, and not women; therefore women are neither justified in having unconditional possession of it nor capable of administering it.... That woman is by nature intended to obey, is shown by the fact that every woman who is placed in the unnatural position of absolute independence at once attaches herself to some kind of man, by whom she is controlled and governed; that is because she requires a master. If she is young, the man is a lover; if she is old, a priest."

Essentially the opinion of Schopenhauer is that of the Prussian ruling class to-day. It is indisputable that in Germany, as elsewhere on the Continent, chastity in men outside of marriage is not expected, nor is the wife allowed to inquire into her husband's past. The bureaucratic German expects his wife to attend to his domestic comforts; he does not consult her in politics. The natural result when the masculine element has not counterchecks is bullying and coarseness. To find the coarseness, the reader can consult the stories in papers like the Berliner Tageblatt and much of the current drama; to observe the bullying, he will have to see it for himself, if he doubts it. This is not an indictment of the whole German people; it is an indictment of the militaristic-bureaucratic ruling class, which, persuaded of its divine inspiration and intolerant of criticism,[432] has plunged the country into a devastating war. It is not unlikely that the end of the conflict will mark also the overthrow of the Hohenzollern dynasty. The spirit of the Germans of 1848, who labored unsuccessfully to make their country a republic, may awake again and realise its dreams. In concluding this chapter, I wish to enlarge somewhat upon the philosophy of suffrage as exhibited in the preceding chapter. The "woman's sphere" argument is still being worked overtime by anti-suffrage societies, whose members rather inconsistently leave their "sphere," the home, to harangue in public and buttonhole legislators to vote against the franchise for women. "A woman's place," says the sage Hennessy, "is in th' home, darning her husband's childher. I mean——" "I know what ye mean," says Mr. Dooley. "'Tis a favrite argument iv mine whin I can't think iv annything to say." A century ago, the home was the woman's sphere. To-day the man has deliberately dragged her out of it to work for him in factory and store because he can secure her labor more cheaply than that of men and is, besides, safer in abusing her when she has no direct voice in legislation. Are the manufacturers willing to send their 1,300,000 female employees back to their "sphere"? If they are not, but desire their labor, they ought in fairness to allow them the privileges of workmen—that is, of citizens, participating actively in the political, social, and economic development of the country.

As women enter more largely into every profession and business, certain results will inevitably follow. We shall see first of all what pursuits are particularly adapted to them and which ones are not. It has already become apparent that as telephone and typewriter operators women, as a class, are better fitted than men. They have, in general, greater patience for details and quickness of perception in these fields. Similarly, in architecture some have already achieved conspicuous success. One who has observed the insufficient closet space in modern apartments and kitchenettes with the icebox in front of the stove, is inclined to wish that male architects would consult their mothers or wives more freely. In law and medicine results are not yet clear. We shall presently possess more extensive data in all fields for surer conclusions.

A second result may be, that many women, instead of leaving the home, will be forced back into it. This movement will be accelerated if the granting of equal pay for equal work and a universal application of the minimum wage take place. There are a great number of positions, especially those where personality is not a vital factor, where employers will prefer women when they can pay them less; but if they must give equal pay, they will choose men. Hence the tendency of the movements mentioned is to throw certain classes of women back into the home. The home of the future, however, will have lost much of the drudgery and monotony once associated with it. The ingenious labor-saving devices, like the breadmixer, the fireless cooker, the vacuum cleaner, and the electric iron, the propagation of scientific knowledge in the rearing of children, and wider outlets for outside interests, will tend to make domestic life an exact science, a profession as important and attractive as any other.

The home is not necessarily every woman's sphere and neither is motherhood. Neither is it every woman's congenital duty to make herself attractive to men. The "woman's pages" of newspapers, filled with gratuitous advice on these subjects, never tell men that their duty is fatherhood or that they should make themselves attractive or that their sphere is also the home. Until these one-sided points of view are adjusted to a more reasonable basis, we shall not reach an understanding. They are as unjust as the farmer who ploughs with a steam plow and lets his wife cart water from a distant well instead of providing convenient plumbing.

Women who are fitted for motherhood and have a talent for it can enter it with advantage. There is a talent for motherhood exactly as there is for other things. Other women have genius which can be of greatest service to the community in other ways. They should have opportunity to find their sphere. If this is "Feminism," it is also simple justice. One reason that we are at sea in some of the problems of the women's-rights movement, is that the history of women has been mainly written by men. The question of motherhood, the sexual life of women, and the position of women as it has been or is likely to be affected by their sexual characteristics, must be more exactly ascertained before definite conclusions can be reached. At present there is too much that we don't know. We need more scientific investigations of the type of Mr. Havelock Ellis's admirable Studies in the Psychology of Sex[433] and less of pseudo-scientific lucubrations like Otto Weininger's Sex and Character. When human society has rid itself of the bogies and nightmares, superstitions and prejudices, which have borne upon it with crushing force, it will be in a better position to construct an ideal system of government. Meanwhile experiments are and must be made. Woman suffrage is not necessarily a reform; it is a necessary step in evolution.

One venerable bogey I wish to dispose of before I close. It is that the Roman Empire was ruined and collapsed because the increasing liberty given to women and the equality granted the sexes under the Empire produced immorality that destroyed the State. The trouble with Rome was that it failed to grasp the fundamentals of economic law. Slavery, the concentration of land in a few hands, and the theory that all taxation has for its end the enriching of a select few, were the fallacies which, in the last analysis, caused the collapse of the Roman Empire. The luxury, immorality, and race-suicide which are popularly conceived to have been the immediate causes of Rome's decline and fall, were in reality the logical results, the inevitable attendant phenomena of a political system based on a false hypothesis. For when wealth was concentrated in a few hands, when there was no all-embracing popular education, all incentives to thrift, to private initiative, and hence to the development of the sturdy moral qualities which thrift and initiative cause and are the product of, were stifled. A nation can reach its maximum power only when, through the harmonious cooperation of all its parts, the initiative and talents of every individual have free scope, untrammeled by special privilege, to reach that sphere for which nature has designed him or her.

NOTE: The official organ of the National American Woman Suffrage Association is The Woman's Journal, published weekly. The headquarters are at 505 Fifth Avenue, New York City.

England has two organisations which differ in methods. The National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies has adopted the constitutional or peaceful policy; it publishes The Common Cause, a weekly, at 2 Robert Street, Adelphi, W.C., London. The "militant" branch of suffragettes forms the National Women's Social and Political Union, and its weekly paper is Votes for Women, Lincoln's Inn House, Kingsway, W.C.

The International Woman Suffrage Alliance issues the Jus Suffragii monthly at 62 Kruiskade, Rotterdam.

A good source from which to obtain the present status of women in Europe is the Englishwoman's Year Book and Directory for 1914, published by Adam and Charles Black.

NOTES:

[428] Twenty-six senators did not vote. The question of negro suffrage complicated the matter with Southern senators. Mr. Williams of Mississippi wished to limit the franchise to "white citizens"; but his amendment was voted down. The list of senators voting for and against the woman suffrage amendment appears on page 5472 of the Congressional Record, March 19, 1914. The debate is contained in pages 5454-5472. Senator Tillman of South Carolina inserted a vicious attack on northern women by the late Albert Bledsoe, who advised them to "cut their hair short, and their petticoats, too, and enter a la bloomer the ring of political prizefighters." Bledsoe's article will be found in the Record, July 28, 1913, 3115-3119.

[429] Record, May 6, 1913, 1221-1222.

[430] Record, May 6, 1913, 1222.

[431] Essays of Schopenhauer. Translated by Mrs. Rudolf Dircks Pages 64-79.

[432] Any criticism of the Kaiser leads to arrest. The most vigorous checks to Bourbon rule come from the Socialists, who in 1912 polled 4,250,300 votes. But as the Kaiser, as King of Prussia, controls a majority of votes in the Bundesrath, or Federal Council, can dissolve the Reichstag, or House of Representatives, at any time with the consent of the Bundesrath, has sole power to appoint the chancellor, and is lord supreme of the army and navy, anything like real popular government is far off.

[433] Philadelphia, 1906. The F.A. Davis Company.



INDEX

A

Adultery, under Roman Law, laws modified by Justinian, among Germanic peoples, see also under various States.

Age of Consent, under English Law, in the United States, see also under various States.

Alabama,

Apostles, teachings about women,

Arizona,

Arkansas,

Attainder, bills of, in Roman Empire, laws of Arcadius, Honorius, and Constantine, of Pope Innocent III.

THE END