Many good women do not care to vote, and they give this as a reason why equal suffrage should not be allowed. The logic is so faulty that it really serves as a reason for the antis. A woman’s reason is often the work of the genus male ❦ An Englishman, recently arrived in New York City, stopped at the Hotel Majestic. After two days he notified the proprietor that no more circulars which came by mail should be sent to his room. “Because,” said this son of ’Appy Halbion, “I find it a task too great for my strength to acknowledge receipt of all of them, and have, therefore, decided not to accept any more.” When asked, “What’s the matter with the wastebasket?” he carefully examined that useful article and said that, so far as he could see, it was all right. “Give decisions, but never reasons,” said the wise old judge to the young judge ❦ “Your decisions will usually be right, but your reasons seldom.” Women who do not want to vote should not stand in the way of women who do. Voting is not compulsory, upon either male or female ❦ Voting is a privilege. Voting is simply the expression of your political preferences. Every one should have preferences, because they have opinions. We grow through the expression of opinions and through making decisions. Voting is deciding between this candidate and that, this policy or the other ❦ Hence, it tends to definite, logical thinking. One of the old arguments made against Woman Suffrage was that, if women were allowed to vote, they would be compelled to do jury duty, because the jurors are selected from the poll-list. This is one of the piffling reasons—“woman’s reasons.” Everything in Nature tends to adjust itself ❦ It is quite natural for women to express themselves. In fact, they always have, if history and experience are worth anything. But why they should be forbidden this particular form of political expression, only the male knows, and, in fact, to use a Hibernicism, he doesn’t. ¶ In the State of Washington, a woman can accept the subpoena to do jury duty, or she can decline it. The law, which is only crystallized custom, defers to her wishes ❦ If she simply tells the deputy sheriff, “Nothing doing!” he marks her name off the list. She is not obliged to give any reason why she does not wish to serve as a juror, any more than she is obliged to give a reason why she does not vote ❦ This seems eminently consistent, right, proper, and well within human rights. Suffrage simply is a recognition by the State that woman is a human being. Where women have served on juries, they have been found to be eminently attentive and anxious to view the question involved from every standpoint, and to reach a sane and just conclusion. ¶ Judge W. W. Black, of Everett, Washington, has recently said from the bench: “My experience with the ladies in the jury-box has been that the trial of the case has been expedited, and the whole proceedings marked with a dignity and decency which did not before exist ❦ And the verdicts, for the most part, were well within the legal limits, eminently just and proper ❦ I do not find that woman’s mental ability to grasp a point in law is inferior to that of man’s.”
Just Boys
Be patient with the boys. You are dealing with soul-stuff. Destiny awaits just around the corner. Boys evolve into men, and men sometimes change the boundary-lines of States. They make political parties; they crown kings, and they put them to flight. They bring contention or they make peace. They may build or they may destroy. But boys misused, abused, betrayed, never forget and seldom forgive. It is a terrible thing to plant the germs of suspicion and hate in the mind of a child ❦ Tyranny visited on a boy may implant in his heart dragons’ teeth that spring up and grow into armed men. The breath of hate consumes, and its voice affrights. Gluttony and greed sometimes leave the boy out of the equation ❦ Gluttony and greed fatten and forsake. They invite and they alienate. They welcome and they repel. Grasping greed sometimes forgets. It is the thing that brings mental and moral diseases and disorders of the state that can not be cured. ¶ Boys can not be deceived. Naturally, they are truthful. They are elemental. They do not know how they judge or why. The words of your lips count for little. They know the things that are hidden in your heart. To arrest boys and fasten upon them the strong hand of the law is a tragic thing. A slight, a boy will forgive; but injustice, never. Boys can be led: they can’t be driven. They respond to love, but tyranny may set their hearts aflame. My heart goes out to the boys. ¶ In Kansas City I know one newsboy who supports a widowed mother and several brothers and sisters younger than he. I know two newsboys, brothers, whose scanty savings are sending an elder sister to the State Normal School, that she may be fitted to become a teacher. ¶ Thomas A. Edison was a newsboy. He sold papers on the streets of Detroit, and on the Grand Trunk trains. While selling papers on the rail-road platform at Mount Clemens, he saw a little youngster toddle out on the track, in front of an approaching train. At the risk of his own life, Tom Edison, the newsboy, grabbed the youngster, sprang upon the footboard of the engine and saved the life of the baby. For this deed the station-agent rewarded Edison by teaching him the telegraph-key. We know the rest. ¶ Paginini was a street musician when a boy, playing his violin and holding up his hat for pennies ❦ Martin Luther was an outcast and a street singer when a youngster ❦ Occasionally the proud and the strong would push him out of the way into the gutter. Such treatment made scars on his soul that time did not efface. It is a terrible thing to kill animation and joy and enthusiasm in the heart of a child. Boys should be encouraged, and not ground down to a starvation-point in all of their worthy and useful little industries. ¶ Give the boys a chance to grow, to enjoy, to work, to save their pennies and become men ❦ I used to know a newsboy who cried his wares up and down in front of the hotel where I stopped. The years went by, as the years do. Twenty-five years passed, and I stood in a court of appeal to present a motion which was of vital importance to me. The judge who sat on the bench looked to me strangely familiar. All at once it came over me with a flash that this judge was once the newsboy from whom I had bought newspapers in front of the hotel. He now held for me the ability to wither or to bless, to destroy or to protect. Fortunately, for me, his heart and brain were right. ¶ Be patient with the boys. Bad boys are good boys who misdirect their energies. The hope of the race lies with the boys. In a year or two we will be going to hear them preach from pulpits; we may go to them to borrow money; they may operate on us for appendicitis—aye, they may preach our funeral sermons. Nobody can prophesy the success to which a boy will attain. Difficulty, trial, hardship, work—these are the things that evolve boys into men. Boys can be led. They can not be driven. ¶ Be patient with the boys ❦ You are dealing with soul-stuff. Destiny awaits around the corner.
