It has also long been recognized that women who rear finest sons and daughters must sometimes turn away from the cradle to refresh their lives with the touch of other interests. It has also been demonstrated a thousand times over that women do not incite the lawless element to riot about the polls; but that, instead, their presence tends to remove the polling-place from the saloon and make it safer for men to go there on election-day. The plea that women would introduce a new element of sex into politics, thereby confounding its real issues, is certainly not well grounded. Sex has always played a great part in politics, as it has in all the vital affairs of life. In the open competitions of education, business or politics, sex ceases to be as significant as it is in the drawing-room.
Nor do thoughtful people imagine to-day that if women participated in political life they would suddenly bring about a reign of universal peace and righteousness. It has taken many centuries for men to learn to play the game of politics indifferently well as they do. The first effect of woman's participation would probably be to lower the efficiency of the electorate in some directions; but they are starting much farther along than men began, and they would learn more rapidly than men have learned.
It is often claimed that women do not want to vote; and, of course, there are many who do not care to assume such arduous and often difficult duties, if they can avoid it. The same holds true of many intelligent, but selfish men who desire the advantages of good government without its burdens. All such must be urged to do their duty to the state. Those who have vision and a large sense of duty can be trusted to do their fair part in caring for the public welfare. Those who wish to enjoy the benefits of peace and settled government, participating in the advantages of education, engaging in business, and having their persons and property protected, without sharing the burdens of government, should be forced to play their part.
If a woman should board a street-car to-day and, when asked for her fare, should hide her face with womanly modesty and declare that she did not wish to be involved in such public matters, but preferred that the man swinging on the strap before her should pay, she would be informed that all who use the cars must pay for their maintenance. Women in America now have more than their share of education and leisure. If they do not wish to pay their fair proportion of service, they should withdraw from the high schools and colleges, from literature and music, from offices and factories, and not crowd into places where they are unwilling to play the game. The woman who leads the movement against equal suffrage in England has made a fortune in the open market as a writer, protected by the national copyrights; she maintains a house where she is protected in person and property by the city of London, the organization and administration of which calls for the constant attention of all intelligent citizens; and yet she urges women to take what they can get, but to refrain from doing their fair share of the city and national housekeeping, lest they lose their feminine charm. Surely those who profit by government should give their share of service.
It is idle to claim that equal suffrage will make no change in women. It will certainly accentuate the changes already made by higher education and by a freer business life. Some loss there must inevitably be in any such far-reaching change. We lost something of chivalry and of the spirit of noblesse oblige in the transition from feudalism to democracy. In transferring causes of personal difference from the dueling field to the courts of law, we lost a degree of poetic feeling and tragic exaltation, of personal initiative and physical courage. So when women passed from slavery to serfdom we lost something of male dominance and of female submission. We shall lose something in the present transition; but one must be content to lose Louis XIV and Versailles if one thereby finds modern France; one must be satisfied to lose an institution which gave us the tragically pathetic death of Alexander Hamilton, if it increases human justice and saves fathers to their families. We must even be content to lose the languishing and weeping lady of chivalry, and the coquetting, crocheting and confiding maiden of the eighteenth century if we gain in return fair minded comrades in daily living, devoted partners in family life, and strong, intelligent mothers for the coming generations. The sex instinct needs no fostering; it has led us to our best developments in civilization; and its work has only begun.
So far we have taken the popular position, and have discussed this matter as though it were still in the period of debate. The fact is, it long ago passed from the field of theory; it is now a condition. In six of our States, women have now full participation in managing public affairs. In Wyoming, since 1869; in Colorado, since 1893; in Idaho, since 1896; in Washington, beginning in 1910; and in California, since 1911, women have been sharing the vote with men. In twenty-nine States they have school suffrage, and in many places municipal suffrage.[47] In newer parts of the world, like New Zealand and Australia, women have complete suffrage, while in old countries, like Norway, Sweden and Finland, they have essentially all the rights of men. In England, there are 1,141 women on Boards of Guardians and 615 on Educational Committees; and they are demanding full participation in all political life. In Canada they have school and municipal suffrage. It is no longer a time for argument; it is time for adjustment.
[47] Bertha Rembaugh, The Political Status of Women in the United States, G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1912, gives complete information to date.
Meantime the results of woman's full participation in political life, even where they have had the suffrage for some years, are difficult to determine, because of the fact already pointed out that political life in a modern democracy is so closely bound up with all the other life about it. It is quite as difficult to estimate these effects as it would be to estimate the effects of housekeeping or of woman's special costume. And yet some results are clear enough to have a large bearing on the extension of woman's suffrage in new localities.
In 1906, the Collegiate Equal Suffrage League engaged Miss Helen Sumner to make a careful study of the actual working of equal suffrage in the State of Colorado. Miss Sumner, aided by several assistants, spent nearly two years in the investigation. She gathered and carefully analyzed written answers to an extended set of questions from 1,200 representative men and women of Colorado, some opposing and some favoring equal suffrage; and she and her assistants interviewed many more. They also made a general study of industrial conditions and of legislation for the State as a whole, and a detailed study of election records and newspaper files for representative cities and counties. Her report is a masterpiece of patient research and scientific exposition.[48]
[48] Helen L. Sumner, Equal Suffrage. The Results of an Investigation Made in Colorado for the Collegiate Equal Suffrage League of New York State. New York: Harper & Bros., 1909.