Mrs. Bacon was supported by the Federated Woman's Clubs of her State, and enlisted the aid of earnest men and women citizens throughout the State. Her bill was bitterly contested by the worst class of landlords, but after three sessions of the Legislature, at which Mrs. Bacon was obliged to appear in person and explain her bill, it was passed. She says of that day: "The women, the homes of Indiana, were honored that day by the men of the Legislature, and we had won a law for the 101 cities of our State. No wonder the women applauded as some of the men who gave their reasons, added 'and because the women wanted it'." Her conclusion is: "Most strongly have I desired to show how much can be done by women's organizations by simply demanding right legislation, and to show their equally important part of helping to enforce legislation after they get it."
Speaking of her own work, she says: "Having no hand in the management of political affairs, I may leave to the various political parties the care of reaping the thorns in each other's fields. It has been my pleasand task to gather only the grapes.... I have encountered more figs than thistles, and fewer thistles than what seems to be a sort of cacti, that, I firmly believe, might be Burbankized for human good. Would that they might be, and that we might include in the conservation of vital resources those great powers for good that are now so wasted by constant warring for political supremacy."
That last sentence forms a scathing indictment of the shortsightedness of suffrage policy. It is pitiful to think of the energy and ability which today is diverted from channels of human helpfulness to this sensational struggle for a mistaken cause. It is not to be thought of that we can permit woman's energy to be permanently dissipated in political warfare or handicapped by party vicissitudes.
These examples of achievements by women of our own day, in our own country, should convince the clear thinker that woman's contribution to community organization and progress is best accomplished as a non-partisan. The stories of Miss Schuyler and Mrs. Bacon prove that whenever a woman has a righteous cause or a sane ideal, she will be successful in its realization without the ballot. The three women cited above whose work most depended on legislation for its accomplishment, Miss Addams, Miss Barnard and Mrs. Bacon, have all in their penned words lauded the power of non-partisanship.
And, borrowing from Miss Barnard, the anti-suffragist may say to the woman who seeks to enfranchise her sister, thus destroying the power of that great, womanly contribution towards the solving of the vexed questions of the day made by the disinterested, because disfranchised citizenness: "Stand by me till the hand of partisan politics is wrested from the control of society's charities, till prisons, almshouses, children's homes, public hospitals, are administered for the public good rather than private profit; till decent housing, progressive education, adequate recreation, pure food, living wages have been made a matter of public, rather than political, concern." Let us not dissipate our energies in internecine warfare, nor yet seek to perpetuate the drawbacks of our partisan system of government by enfranchising the women who now stand outside politics.
XII
WOMAN SUFFRAGE A MENACE TO SOCIAL REFORM
MARGARET C. ROBINSON