Popular misgovernment in the United States

by Alfred Byron Cruikshank

Not only is woman suffrage a dishonor and a disgrace, but it is a danger, for it threatens the existence of the state; it is a weakening of the foundations at a time when we are menaced with attacks by every band of the rapidly organizing enemies to property and to the social order. Is it fit when the day of stress comes that the power of this country should be in the hands of women and woman-led politicians? If we will not take counsel of common sense, let us be warned of our fears, to step backward while there is time, for the precipice is directly in our path.

The progress of the cause of woman suffrage, like to that of manhood suffrage a century ago, is due to the apathy of half the population and the failure of the other half to understand the question. And just as manhood suffrage was adopted without serious discussion or any real study of its tendencies, so woman suffrage is rapidly making its way in a careless, stupid and bewildered electorate, of which a large portion and that the most intelligent has long ago abandoned politics as hopeless and disgusting. No doubt, the adoption of the manhood suffrage theory prepared the way for this result, first by promulgating the false doctrine of a natural right to vote, and second by weakening the electorate. When the principle of a qualified electorate was abandoned, we lost the only sane and safe basis on which a democratic government can possibly exist; once reject the rule of fitness, and there is no valid reason why all the deficient and worthless should not have their say in government, and the way is laid open for rule by ignorant and incapable numbers instead of by knowledge and capacity. The admission of women to the voting booths is merely a new and wider application of the former doctrine of the right of the ignorant and unfit to govern. Let it be conceded that no voter can be excluded from the polls for incapacity shown by failure in life, and it becomes difficult to exclude for similar incapacity resulting from sex. The abolition of all qualifications for male voters, and the admission of a horde of male incompetents to the ballot box, has prepared the way for the granting of the privileges of the ballot to a sex almost universally incompetent for the exercise of the franchise.

And further, manhood suffrage not only smoothed the path for woman suffrage by weakening and degrading the electorate who were to pass on the question, but incidentally by driving out in disgust great numbers of the wise and worthy from active participation in politics; with the result that the body politic has hardly, if at all, power or virtue sufficient to save itself from the assaults of that clamorous band of female fanatics and triflers who seek diversion in public affairs. The adoption of woman suffrage at the command of this noxious horde is the most degraded performance of and the most mischievous transgression by the manhood suffrage system since its establishment.

The ruling politicians of both parties, who were at first afraid of woman suffrage, and next doubtful or lukewarm, have now generally come to favor it, and are quite ready to welcome an influx of new voters still more ignorant and emotional than those they had already learned to master. They might, of course, have defeated the movement; but they had no motive to exclude from the polls masses of women, mostly ignorant and gullible, and often sordid, who with a little change in methods, may be purchased, deceived and controlled, even more easily than the nondescript men who have heretofore constituted the sure following of the bosses. Besides, the politicians cannot safely or consistently advocate or countenance the establishment of any qualification whatever for the exercise of political functions; the leaders and their instruments being notoriously unfit for the offices and their followers for the voting booths.

That the great state of New York should be one of those to grant full suffrage to women strikingly illustrates and proves the incapacity of the manhood suffrage electorate. The state’s vote in that behalf could only have been given by a constituency grossly stupid, or so neglectful of its duties as to be indifferent to the grotesque scandals already produced in New York by the operation of manhood suffrage. And now, its voting mass, which already was far inferior in intelligence and efficiency to what it should be, has by its own decree provided that hereafter it will be still more ignorant and inefficient. The fact is, that the whole American electorate, especially in states containing great and absolutely machine ruled cities, has become demoralized by manhood suffrage to the extent that it has ceased to study the philosophy of government and finds itself totally unprepared to discuss the suffrage question intelligently. A few cheap catch words such as the “majority must rule” and “every citizen should vote” constitute nowadays the political creed and sum up the political knowledge of the ordinary American. The women suffragists utter mere claptrap; but claptrap perfectly suits the popular ear, and is all that any one has needed to utter on political platforms ever since manhood suffrage was adopted; they press upon the voters their superficial argument that as no qualification was required from a man, none should be required of a woman; they contrast the good respectable women who are refused the suffrage with the miserable male sots, loafers and ignorant boors to whom it has been granted; and they urge that nothing can be worse than our present political condition. In this, by the way, they will find their mistake as time goes on; for Uncle Sam, like the man who is made shaky on his legs by two glasses of whiskey, will not be steadied by doubling the dose that disabled him. However, in these and similar arguments, there appears to the superficial mind so much plausibility that on the strength of them, millions of women have been put on the voting lists; most of them absolutely ignorant of business life and of the practical workings of political institutions built up by men year by year in the centuries gone by; most of them besides almost totally devoid of any realization of the tragedy of the situation, of the tremendous interests involved, or of the dangers to which a nation is subject, which goes drifting along without firm, strict and competent masculine governmental management and control.

Let it be clearly understood before proceeding further, that it is not within the scope or plan of this book to discuss what is called “feminism,” or even to go into the whole case against woman suffrage, but merely to apply to the female suffrage problem, the reasoning herein applied to the manhood suffrage institution. The inquiry here is merely whether or not women may be expected by their votes to contribute to the public welfare. It will be well, however, just to mention the principal points made by those opposed to giving the franchise to woman, which are additional to those included in the argument herein presented, so as to make it clear that the failure of the writer to urge them in detail must not be taken to indicate any disregard of their value; they are not dwelt upon only because outside of the scheme of the work. These miscellaneous points made by the anti-female suffragists are as follows:

That the ultimate sanction for every political decree is force; modern force is expressed in naval and military terms; women are incapable of military or naval service, they cannot back their votes by force. To say that because they can nurse the wounded they are therefore combatants is like saying that the man who blows the organ is a musician. We have also the objections founded on mental or moral deficiency; that government needs creative energy, and that women are not as creative as men, no supreme work of genius for instance having ever been created by a woman; that woman is inferior to man in strength of intellect, in power of concentration and moral perception; that she has no larger view than man on any subject, but on many subjects a much narrower view; that women are more subject than men to passion and prejudice; that they have less public or civic virtue, and that in order to overcome their inferiority in these particulars they would have to pass through all the developing experience of men in all the past centuries. Another: that women are usually dependents, whereas no voter should be a dependent. Also, that the State does not need women except to raise children; all other services, such as agriculture, manufacturing, transportation, military and naval duties, construction, shipping, engineering, finance, literature, science, invention, etc., being better performed by men. There are also biological considerations of great force operating generally against the feminist theory of the natural equality of the sexes; and which though not sufficient to forbid woman’s casting a vote, are effective reasons against her going into political strifes and contests. There are, for instance, the physical weaknesses incidental to their sex, the importance of maternity and of all the functions appertaining thereto; the need in the interests of humanity of guarding the mothers of the race present and future from all undue physical strain and burden; the danger as a result of feminism of the evolution of a type of woman expressing masculine characteristics, and incapable of arousing the passion of love, thus depriving men of the beauty and charm of women, imperiling the comeliness of the race, abolishing the lady and ladyhood, and drying up the source of poetry; then there is the argument that the biological development and evolution of woman, and of the race, is destined to come by means of the growth of greater and greater differences between the sexes, and not by women copying men; that feminism in all its aspects is hostile to marriage; that the years necessary to feminist training would bring women to an age too advanced for the best marriages; that women and men are not equals, there being no equality in nature; and that women need the maintenance and protection of the male for their best advantage and that of their children, whereas the tendency of the woman suffrage movement and of all feminism is clearly towards separation of the sexes and female economic independence.

Having thus merely mentioned these points which have been often presented and discussed by other writers, we may proceed to apply to the question of woman suffrage the same test already applied to manhood suffrage, by propounding the query whether it is for the benefit of the state? And here we find that every objection already urged in this volume to giving the vote to unpropertied men, applies with increased force to giving it to women of all classes. As there is no natural right in man to the vote, so there can be none in woman; and in the light of reason, woman suffrage stands condemned on every ground urged in this book for the condemnation of manhood suffrage. In whatever respects manhood suffrage has in this book been condemned as injurious, woman suffrage is more injurious. In short, the theory upon which woman suffrage is advocated by its supporters is entirely incompatible with the theory of suffrage advanced by the writer, and indeed with any theory on which a property qualification can be imposed upon voters. In dealing with this subject therefore, instead of treading again ground already gone over, the writer prefers to call attention briefly to the doctrines of the woman suffrage creed already dealt with and confuted by him in his discussion of manhood suffrage, as follows:

Woman suffragists adopt the manhood suffrage theory of a natural right to vote, and seek to widen its application; the writer and those who agree with him condemn that theory, and seek to narrow its operation. They insist that political voting is a natural right; we, that it is a public function. They regard the vote as cast for the benefit of the voter; we insist that it be given solely for the benefit of the state. They affirm that the present suffrage is not wide enough; we say that it is too wide. They seek a remedy for misgovernment by going further in our present course; we propose to retrace our steps. They demand that all adults be invited to participate in government; we insist that all but the well qualified should be excluded. They say that the adult population in the mass is competent to pass upon candidates and policies; we say it is not; that a much more competent and honest body for the purpose is furnished by the successful men of business, evolved by the process of natural selection. They seek political counsel of everyone; including the weak, the inexperienced and unreliable; we reject all but that of the strong, experienced and trustworthy. They consider the polling booth as a preparatory school for triflers, fools and the ignorant; we regard it as a seat of judgment from which those three classes should be strictly excluded. They speak of “liberty” and “self government” as ideal products of universal suffrage; we say in the first place that “liberty” and “self government” are impossible in a civilized country; and second, that instead of “self government” manhood suffrage has produced and can only produce machine and ring government; and that the votes of women given under universal suffrage will and must strengthen these rings and machines.

Summarized in the fewest possible words, the gist of the previous chapters, as far as they affect both sexes, women as well as men, is, that voting is not a natural right but a public function, to be exercised solely for the benefit of the state; and that the suffrage should be entrusted only to those who have shown themselves to be duly qualified, and never to the weak, inexperienced or dependent. These simple propositions, accepted or considered established, the question of granting or refusing the vote to women is much simplified, being narrowed to one of political expediency, dependent upon their proven capacity to function as voters.