Alice N. George, widow of Dr. Andrew J. George; graduated from Wellesley in 1887; is President of the Brookline Branch of the Ramabai Association; American Representative of the National Trust (English) for the Preservation of Historic Places; a director of the College Club; a member of the Research Committee of the Educational and Industrial Union, of the Welfare Department of the National Civic Federation of the Woman's Trade Union League, of the American Society for Labor Legislation, etc., etc.
J. A. H.
Woman suffrage must ultimately fail. It is based upon a fallacy, and no fallacy has ever made a permanent conquest over mankind.
The fallacy of woman suffrage lies in the belief that there is in our social order a definite sex division of interests, and that the security of woman's interests depends upon her possession of the elective franchise.
"The history of mankind," declared the founders of the suffrage movement, "is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having as the indirect object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her." "Man has endeavored in every way he could," continues this arraignment of the fathers, husbands, and sons of these self-styled Mothers of the Revolution, "to destroy her confidence in her own powers, to lessen her self-respect and to make her willing to lead a dependent and abject life."
On this false foundation was built the votes-for-women temple. How shall it endure? The sexes do not stand in the position of master and slave, of tyrant and victim. In a healthy state of society there is no rivalry between men and women; they were created different, and in the economy of life have different duties, but their interests are the common interests of humanity. Women are not a class, they are a sex; and the women of every social group are represented in a well-ordered government, automatically and inevitably, by the men of that group. It would be a fatal day for the race when women could obtain their rights only by a victory wrested at the polls from reluctant men. These truths are elementary and self-evident, yet all are negatived by the votes-for-women movement.
That the vote is not an inalienable right is affirmed by Supreme Court decisions, the practice of nations, and the dictates of common sense. No state can enfranchise all its citizens, and since the stability of government rests ultimately upon a relentless enforcement of law, the maintenance of a sound fiscal policy, and such adjustment of the delicate interweaving of international relations as makes for peace and prosperity, it is right that the state should place the responsibility of government upon those who are best equipped to perform its manifold duties.
Woman's citizenship is as real as man's, and no reflection upon her abilities is involved in the assertion that woman is not fitted for government either by nature or by contact in daily experience with affairs akin to government. She is weak along the lines where the lawmaker must be strong. In all departments where the law is to be applied and enforced, woman's nature forbids her entrance. The casting of a ballot is the last step in a long process of political organization; it is the signing of a contract to undertake vast responsibilities, since it is the following of the ballot to its conclusion which makes the body politic sound. Otherwise political power without political responsibility threatens disaster to all.
Thus far we have made a few crude experiments in double suffrage, but nowhere has equal suffrage been tried. Equal suffrage implies a fair field with favor to none—a field where woman, stripped of legal and civil advantages, must take her place as man's rival in the struggle for existence; for, in the long run, woman cannot have equal rights and retain special privileges. If the average woman is to be a voter, she must accept jury service and aid in the protection of life and property. When the mob threatens, she must not shield herself behind her equal in government. She must relinquish her rights and exemptions under the law and in civil life, if she is to take her place as a responsible elector and compete with man as the provider and governor of the race. Such equality would be a brutal and retrogressive view of woman's rights. It is impossible, and here we have the unanswerable answer to woman suffrage theories.