After more than two decades spent in active business life, I am of the opinion that members of my sex do not need the ballot, and that it would be a distinct and unnecessary encumbrance to them. For more than twenty years, I regret to state, my life has been more that of a man than of a woman. A home-supporter by the actual work of my hands and my brain, rather than a home-maker; my life has been past amid the heat and turmoil of business life, working shoulder to shoulder with men, pitting my brain against the brains of men; and having no male relative to represent me in the business of the government, a taxpayer "without representation." That business life has been satisfactory to me in many ways, I admit; but in order to wrest its satisfactions from the turmoil, I have been forced to summon up the determination, the endurance, the physical and mental labor, which by all the laws of nature belong not to the "female of the species" but to the male. Its successes have been apparent successes when considered as parallel with man's work in the world, but failures when one considers that not for the sharp, insistent contact of business life was woman created. I still feel no desire to assist the male sex in the business of government, nor do I think I am fitted so to do. I desire to be permitted to continue my present freedom from political activities, and I am content to leave that part of life's work in the hands of the sex which, to my mind, has managed it hitherto exceedingly well.
I have never seen any point or place where the power to cast a ballot would have been of the slightest help to me. For myself I should regard the duties and responsibilities of thorough, well-informed, and faithful participation year after year in political matters as a very great misfortune; even more of a misfortune than the certainty of being mixed up in the bitter strife, the falsifications, and publicity often attendant upon political campaigns. Though my work has trained me to use my mind in matters pertaining to law and to business, it would certainly be incumbent upon me to make a thorough study of the theory and practice of government before attempting to exercise the franchise. I feel sure that the average business woman cannot make such a study or engage in politics without interference not merely with her physical, but with her mental business life, which should command her constant and best attention.
Many women are now undertaking to engage in business, not as a life-work, but as an incidental experience. It is true, however, that of the many thousands of women so engaged, very, very few climb up the ladder of success to the top rounds. It is the rare exception rather than the rule for women to attain marked distinction, great wealth, or fame in the business world. This is not caused by any unfairness of the male sex, but by the nature, the physical and mental limitations, of the members of the female sex. The trivialities of the afternoon tea are too often present in the work of the wage-earning woman—too often she has too slight a regard of her duty to return full value for the pecuniary consideration she receives. The career of too many wage earning women is now entirely haphazard, the result of necessity rather than well-grounded choice. It is fair to assume that political matters would receive the same degree of smattering knowledge and thought as is too often received by the daily occupation into which many women drift.
It is much to be deplored that the trend of some modern young women is more towards the commercial life in which her success is doubtful, rather than toward the home-keeping, child-bearing, social, religious, and philanthropic life for which she was physically and mentally designed. These latter duties women faithfully and successfully perform as their natural function, and through them they may rise to the greatest distinction. Femininity should be cherished by the woman whom circumstance or necessity drives into the wage-earning world, and she can cherish it by retaining her hold on social, religious, and charitable interests; but she cannot hope to do so if she attends political meetings, serves on political committees, canvasses districts for votes, watches at the polls, serves on juries, and debates political questions or records and promises of political candidates. We have seen the loss of femininity produced by the constant campaigning for suffrage.
The instability of the female mind is beyond the comprehension of the majority of men. The charm, the "sweet unreasonableness," the lack of power of consecutive thought upon any intricate problem, which mark the average woman are sometimes attractive and in personal or family relations not without compensating advantages. In the business world, however, these attributes are wholly detrimental. Business women might possibly bring to political matters such training and experience as they acquired, but to restrict the franchise to them would be to create a class franchise. We must remember that suffrage would bring to the electorate not merely the small number of business women, but the great mass of women who have had little or no experience of life outside of their homes.
In brief, then, the voting privilege granted to women, and particularly to business women, would be a detriment to the women, and it would not be of sufficient value to the government to outweigh the loss to them.