Copyright, 1916, by
J. A. HAIEN
All Rights Reserved
Gratefully Dedicated
to the 295,939 Massachusetts Men
Who, on Election Day, 1915
Endorsed the Anti-Suffrage Sentiments
of the Women of Massachusetts
INTRODUCTION
THE ANTI-SUFFRAGE VICTORY IN
MASSACHUSETTS
The essays in this little book are by anti-suffrage women who were prominent speakers, writers, and organizers, in the campaign of 1915. They voice sentiments which gained the largest measure of popular support ever accorded in the history of Massachusetts politics.
The largest number of votes any political party polled in Massachusetts before 1915 was 278,976. The anti-suffragists polled 295,939. Since 1896 there has been but one instance in which the voters gained a plurality amounting to 110,000 votes. The anti-suffragists won by 133,447 votes. Alton B. Parker's defeat by Theodore Roosevelt in 1904 is commonly regarded as typifying political annihilation; but the suffragists in 1915 did not poll as many votes as Mr. Parker, and the anti-suffragists polled 38,000 more than President Roosevelt at the height of his popularity. Such outworn words as "overwhelming" and "landslide," which have been regularly used to describe victories not half so great as this, understate the actual extent of the anti-suffrage triumph. The pronounced aversion which Massachusetts showed towards Horace Greeley in the presidential campaign of 1872, and towards William J. Bryan in that of 1896, scarcely exceeded that which she feels towards the suffragists today.
The grounds of this aversion are so numerous that it is difficult to determine which of the many causes of the anti-suffrage victory were the most powerful. In my opinion, however, Massachusetts men defeated woman suffrage chiefly because (1) they discovered that nine women out of ten did not want to vote; (2) they knew that the creation of a large body of stay-at-home voters would result in bad government; and (3) they grew disgusted with the temperament, the notions, and the methods typical of the few women who clamored for the vote.