Lecky in his valuable book “Democracy and Liberty” writes on page 547: “It has been gravely alleged that the whole character of the female sex would be revolutionized, or at least seriously impaired, if they were brought by the suffrage into public life. There is perhaps no subject in which exaggerations so enormous and so grotesque may be found in the writings of considerable men. Considered in itself, the process of voting is now merely that of marking once in several years a ballot-paper in a quiet room, and it may be easily accomplished in five minutes. And can it reasonably be said that the time or thought which an average male elector bestows on the formation of his political opinions is such as to interfere in any appreciable degree with the currents of his thoughts, with the tendencies of his character or life? Men wrote on this subject as if public life and interests formed the main occupation of an ordinary voter. It is said that domestic life should be the one sphere of woman. Very many women—especially those to whom the vote would be conceded—have no domestic, or but few domestic duties to attend to, and are compelled, if they are not wholly frivolous or wholly apathic, to seek spheres of useful activity beyond their homes. Even a full domestic life is scarcely more absorbing to a woman than professional life to a man. Scarcely any woman is so engrossed in it that she cannot bestow on public affairs an amount of time and intelligence equal to that which is bestowed on it by thousands of masculine voters. Nothing can be more fantastic than to argue as if electors were a select body, mainly occupied with political studies and public interests.
“Women form a great section of the community, and they have many special interests. The opening to them of employments, professions and endowments; the regulation of their labor; questions of women’s property and succession; the punishment of crimes against women; female education; laws relating to marriage, guardianship, and divorce, may all be cited; and in the great drink question they are even more interested than men, for though they are the more sober sex, they are also the sex which suffers most from the consequences of intemperance. With such a catalogue of special interests it is impossible to say that they have not a claim to representation.”—
Among the arguments in favor of woman suffrage the most important are the following: As women are citizens of a Government of the people, by the people, and for the people, and as women are people, who wish to do their civic duty, it is unfair that they should be governed by laws in the making of which they have no voice. As women are equally concerned with men in good and bad government, and equally responsible for civic righteousness, and as they must obey the laws just as men do, they should vote equally with men.
If it is true that “taxation without representation is tyranny” then tax-paying women who support the government by paying taxes, should have the right to vote to elect such representatives, who protect them against unjust taxation.
Working women need the ballot to regulate the conditions under which they work. Millions of women are wage-earners and their health is often endangered by bad working conditions and sweat-shop methods that can only be remedied by legislation.
Business women need the ballot to secure for themselves a fair opportunity in their business, and to protect themselves against adverse legislation.
Mothers and housekeepers need the vote to regulate the moral and sanitary conditions under which their families must live. Women are forever told that their place is in the home. But what do men expect of them in the home? Merely to stay there is not enough. They are a failure unless they do certain things for the home. They must minister, as far as their means allow, to the health and welfare, moral as well as physical, of their family, and especially of the children. They, more than anybody else, are held responsible for what becomes of the children. Women are responsible for the cleanliness of the house, for the wholesomeness of the food, for their children’s health and morals. But mothers cannot control these things, if the neighbors are allowed to live in filth, if dealers are permitted to sell poor or adulterated food, if the plumbing in the house is unsanitary, if garbage accumulates and the halls and stairs are left dirty. They can take every care to avoid fire, but if the house has been badly built, if the fire-escapes are insufficient or not fire-proof, they cannot guard their children from the horrors of being maimed or killed by fire. They can open the windows to give the children the air that we are told is so necessary. But if the air is laden with infection and contagious diseases, they cannot protect the children from this danger. They can send the children out for air and exercise, but if the conditions that surround them in the streets are immoral and degrading, they cannot protect them from these influences. Women alone cannot make these things right. But the City administration can do it. The administration is elected by the people, to protect the interests of the people. As men hold women responsible for the conditions under which the children live, the women should have something to say about the city’s housekeeping, even if they must introduce an occasional house-cleaning.
What enormous influence women are able to exert in vital questions has been demonstrated in the Temperance Movement; which originated in the United States. Since the beginning of the colonization of the Western Hemisphere Americans have been heavy consumers of rum, whiskey, and other intoxicating liquors. “Everybody drank, and on all occasions,” says a writer who has left us a pen picture of these bibulous days. Drunkenness and all the evils resulting from it increased with the gradual development of the “saloon” and the habit of “treating,” two institutions peculiar to America and almost unknown in Europe.
For generations the women were the greatest sufferers from the intemperance of the men, because many husbands came home besotted, their faculties benumbed to an unconsciousness of their own degradation, with wages gone, and employment forfeited. The purer and gentler the wife in such case, the more intense her suffering. So it was but natural, that when the first “Anti-Spirits Association” was formed in 1808 in Greenfield, Saratoga County, New York, several women should join it. The movement made rapid progress, and in 1826 the “American Temperance Society” was founded. In 1829 and 1830 similar associations were started in Ireland and England; and in 1846 the first “World’s Temperance Convention” was held at London. In 1873 women became a real force in the field when the women inhabitants of Hillsborough, a small town in Ohio, started what became known as “The Women’s Crusade.”
Frances E. Willard, one of its principal leaders, described the proceedings in the following graphic manner: “Usually the women came in a long procession from their rendezvous at some church, where they had held a morning prayer meeting. Marching two and two in a column, they entered the saloon with kind faces, and the sweet songs of church and home upon their lips, while some Madonna-like leader with the Gospel in her looks, took her stand beside the bar and gently asked if she might read God’s word and offer prayer. After that the ladies seated themselves, took their knitting or embroidery, and watched the men who patronized the saloons. While some of them cursed the women openly, and some quietly slunk out of sight, others began to sign the pledge these women brought with them. In the meantime one of the ladies pleaded with the proprietor to give up his business. Many of these liquor dealers surrendered and then followed stirring scenes, and amid songs and the ringing of the church bells the contents of barrels and bottles were gurgling into the gutter, while the whole town assembled to rejoice in this new fashion of exorcising the evil spirits.