At the time of our entrance into the European conflict your organization condemned our government for entering the war. When it became evident that this course would result in disaster for their organization they changed their course and made an eleventh-hour claim to pure loyalty, but notwithstanding this claim the National Non-Partisan League is a party of discontent. It has drawn to it the pro-German element of our State. Its leaders have been closely connected with the lawless I. W. W. and with Red Socialists. Pacifists and peace advocates whose doctrines are of benefit to Germany are among their number.
The League’s activities in obstructing conscription and other war measures have been the subject of investigation by military and civil authorities. The Leader, the official organ of the party, recently printed, heavily capitalized, this sentiment, “The Government of the People by the Rascals for the Rich,” as the key-note of its hostility to America’s participation in the war.
The West is greatly given to sober second thoughts. Hospitable to new ideas as it has proved itself to be, it will stop short of a leap in the dark. There is a point at which it becomes extremely conservative. It will run like a frightened rabbit from some change which it has encouraged. But the West has a passion for social justice, and is willing to make sacrifices to gain it. The coming of the war found this its chief concern, not under the guidance of feverish agitators but from a sense that democracy, to fulfil its destiny, must make the conditions of life happy and comfortable for the great body of the people. It is not the “pee-pul” of the demagogue who are to be reckoned with in the immediate future of Western political expression, but an intelligent, earnest citizenry, anxious to view American needs with the new vision compelled by the world struggle in the defense of democracy.
The rights and privileges of citizenship long enjoyed by women of certain Western States ceased to be a vagary of the untutored wilds when last year New York adopted a constitutional amendment granting women the ballot. The fight for a federal amendment was won in the House last winter by a narrow margin, but at this writing the matter is still pending in the Senate. Many of the old arguments against the enfranchisement of women have been pretty effectually disposed of in States that were pioneers in general suffrage. I lived for three years in Colorado without being conscious of any of those disturbances to domesticity that we used to be told would follow if women were projected into politics. I can testify that a male voter may register and cast his ballot without any feeling that the women he encounters as he performs these exalted duties have relinquished any of the ancient prerogatives of their womanhood.
There is nothing in the experience of suffrage States to justify a suspicion that women are friendlier to radical movements than men, but much to sustain the assertion that they take their politics seriously and are as intelligent in the exercise of the ballot as male voters. The old notion that the enfranchisement of women would double the vote without changing results is another fallacy; I am disposed to think them more independent than their male fellow citizens and less likely to submit meekly to party dictation.
In practically every American court- and State-house and city hall there are women holding responsible clerical positions, and, if the keeping of important records may be intrusted to women, the task of defending their exclusion from elective offices is one that I confess to be beyond my powers. Nor is there anything shocking in the presence of a woman on the floor of a legislative body. Montana sent a woman to the national Congress, and already her fellow members hear her voice without perturbation. Mrs. Agnes Riddle, a member of the Colorado Senate, is a real contributor, I shall not scruple to say, to the intelligence and wisdom of that body. Mrs. Riddle, apart from being a stateswoman, manages a dairy to its utmost details, and during the session answers the roll-call after doing a pretty full day’s work on her farm. The schools of Colorado are admirably conducted by Mrs. C. C. Bradford, who has thrice been re-elected superintendent of public instruction. The deputy attorney-general of Colorado, Miss Clara Ruth Mozzor, sits at her desk as composedly as though she were not the first woman to gain this political and professional recognition in the Centennial Commonwealth. I am moved to ask whether we shall not find for the enfranchised woman who becomes active in public affairs some more felicitous and gallant term than politician—a word much soiled from long application to the corrupt male, and perhaps the Federation of Women’s Clubs will assist in this matter.
V
As the saying became trite, almost before news of our entrance into the world war had reached the nation’s farthest borders, that we should emerge from the conflict a new and a very different America, it becomes of interest to keep in mind the manner and the spirit in which we entered into the mighty struggle. It was not merely in the mind of people everywhere, on the 2d of April, 1917, that the nation was face to face with a contest that would tax its powers to the utmost, but that our internal affairs would be subjected to serious trial, and that parties and party policies would inevitably experience changes of greatest moment before another general election. When this is read the congressional campaign will be gathering headway; as I write, public attention is turning, rather impatiently it must be said, to the prospects of a campaign that is likely to pursue its course to the accompaniment of booming cannon overseas. How much the conduct of the war by the administration in power will figure in the pending contest is not yet apparent; but as the rapid succession of events following Mr. Wilson’s second inauguration have dimmed the issues of 1916, it may be well to summarize the respective attitudes of the two major parties two years ago to establish a point of orientation.
It was the chief Republican contention that the Democratic administration had failed to preserve the national honor and security in its dealings with Mexico and Germany. As political platforms are soon forgotten, it may be of interest to reproduce this paragraph of the Republican declaration of 1916:
The present administration has destroyed our influence abroad and humiliated us in our own eyes. The Republican party believes that a firm, consistent, and courageous foreign policy, always maintained by Republican Presidents in accordance with American traditions, is the best, as it is the only true way to preserve our peace and restore us to our rightful place among the nations. We believe in the pacific settlement of international disputes and favor the establishment of a world court for that purpose.