One of the daily, dismal forecasts of the male Cassandras of our time is, that in the event of women becoming emancipated from the legal thralldom that disables them, they will acquire a sudden distaste for matrimony, the direful consequences of which will be a gradual extermination of homes, and the extinction of the human species. This is an artless and extremely suggestive lament. In the first place—accepting that prophecy as true—why will women not marry? Because, they will then be independent of men; because in a fair field for competition where ability and not sex shall determine employment and remuneration, women will have an equal chance with men for distinction and reward, for triumphs commercial and professional as well as social, and hence, needing men less, either to make them homes, or to gratify indirectly their ambitions, their affections will become atrophied, the springs of domestic life will disappear in the arid sands of an unfeminine publicity, and marriage, with all the wearying cares and burdens and anxieties that it inevitably brings to every earnest woman, will be regarded more and more as a state to be shunned. The few who enter it will be compassionated much as a minister is who undertakes a dangerous foreign mission. Men will stand mateless, and the ruins of the hymeneal altars everywhere crumble mournfully away, and be known to tradition only by their vanishing inscriptions: "To the unknown god." But it is ill jesting over that which tugs at every woman's heartstrings and which impinges upon the very life-centres of society. If women, on being made really free to choose, will not marry, then we must arraign men on the charge of having made the married state so irksome and distasteful to women that they prefer celibacy when they dare enjoy it. Observe, however, the inconsistency of another line of reasoning running parallel with this in the floating literature of the day: "Motherhood," these writers say, "is the natural vocation of women; is, indeed, an instinct so mighty, even if unconscious, that it draws women toward matrimony with a yearning as irresistible as that which pulls the great sea upon the land in blind response to the moon." If this be true, society is safe, and women will still be wives, no matter how much they may exult in political freedom, no matter how alluringly individual careers may open before them, nor how accessible the tempting prizes of human ambition may become.
Before this reaches you the telegraph will have given you the result of the day's work all over the State, but I thought I would jot down a line while the experiences of the last ten hours were fresh in my mind. Last evening our committee appointed ladies to represent the interests of woman suffrage at the polls. To my surprise, many evaded the work who were, nevertheless, strongly in favor of the measure. Mrs. Dr. Collins and I were the only ones at the lowest and most important precinct until one o'clock, when we were joined by the wife of the Presbyterian minister. Our course was somewhat as follows: On the approach of a voter, we would ask him, "have you voted?" If he had, we usually troubled him no further; if he had not, we asked, "Can you vote for woman suffrage?" If he approved, we supplied him with his ticket; if he disapproved, we asked him for his objections, and we have listened to some comical ones to-day. One man asked me, though not rudely, "Who is cooking your husband's dinner?" I promptly invited him to dine with us. Another spoke of neglected household duties, and when I mentioned a loaf of bread I had just baked, and should be glad to have him see, he said, "I expect you can bake bread," but he voted against us. The Methodist men were for us; the Presbyterians and Episcopalians very fairly so, and the Roman Catholics were not all against us, some of the prominent members of that church working and voting for woman suffrage. The liquor interest went entirely against us, as far as I know.
The observations of the day have led me to several general conclusions, to which, of course, exceptions exist: (1) Married men will vote for suffrage if their wives appreciate its importance. (2) Men without family ties, and especially if they have associated with a bad class of women, will vote against it. (3) Boys who have just reached their majority will vote against it more uniformly than any other class of men. We were treated with the utmost respect by all except the last class. Destitute of experience, and big with their own importance, these young sovereigns will speak to a woman twice their years with a flippancy which the most ignorant foreigner of mature age would not use, and I have to-day been tempted to believe that no one is fitted to exercise the American franchise under twenty-five years of age.
The main objection which I heard repeatedly urged was, women do not want to vote. This seems to be the great stumbling-block to our brethren. Men were continually saying that their wives told them not to vote for woman suffrage. If we are defeated this time I know we can succeed in the next campaign, or just as soon as we can educate enough prominent women up to the point of coming out plainly on the subject. Then all men, or all but the vicious men who always vote against every good thing, will give in right away.
Woman's hour has not yet struck! The chimes that were waiting to ring out the tidings of her liberty—the candles furtively stored against an illumination which should typify a new influx of light, the achievement of a victory whose meaning and promise at least seemed to those who both prayed and worked for it, neither trivial nor selfish—all these are relegated to the guardianship of Patience and Hope. Colorado has refused to enfranchise its women. * * * * * * The Germans, the Catholics, and the negroes were said to be against us. Naturally, those who themselves most keenly feel, or most recently have felt, the galling yoke of arbitrary rule, are most disposed to derive a certain enjoyment from the daily contemplation of a noble class still in bondage. * * * * * * But all opposition, in whatever guise, comes back at last to be written under one rubric—the immaturity of woman. We make this dispassionate statement of a fact. We feel neither scorn nor anger, and we trust that we shall excite none. It is a fault which time will cure, but meantime it is the grand factor in our account. Every other argument has been met—every other stronghold of opposition taken. Woman's claim to the ballot has been shown to rest in justice on the very foundation stone of democratic government—has been, from the Christian standpoint, as completely exonerated from the charge of impiety as ever anti-slavery and anti-polygamy were, and the fact which was the slogan of the anti-suffragists still remains: the mass of the women do not want it. We do not quarrel with the fact, but state it to give the real reason for our failures—the real objective point for our future work.
The complacency with which we are able to state without fear of contradiction that the body of intelligent and thoughtful women do want suffrage must not obscure our perception of the equal truth of what we have just stated above. To accept this verity and turn our energies toward the emancipation of our own sex—toward their emancipation from frivolous aims, petty prejudices, and that attitude toward the other sex which is really the sycophancy born of vanity and weakness; to make them recognize the State as a multiplication of their own families, and patriotism as the broadening of their love of home; to make them see that that mother will be most respected whose son does not, when a downy beard is grown, suddenly tower above her in the supercilious enjoyment of an artificial superiority—a superiority which consists simply, as Figaro says, in his having taken the trouble to be born; to make them see, finally, that in the highest exercise of all the powers with which God has endowed her, woman can no more refuse the duties of citizenship, than she can refuse the duties of wifehood and motherhood, once having accepted those sacred relations. This is our first duty, and this the scope of our work, if we would attain suffrage in 1879, or even in 1900.
FOOTNOTES:
[487] President, Alida C. Avery, M. D., Denver. Vice-Presidents, Rev. Mr. Harford, Denver; Mr. J. E. Washburn, Big Thompson; Mrs. H. M. Lee, Longmont; Mrs. M. M. Sheetz, Cañon City; Mrs. L. S. Ruhn, Del Norte; Mr. N. C. Meeker, Greeley; Hon. Willard Teller, Central; Mr. D. M. Richards, Denver; Mr. J. B. Harrington, Littleton; Mr. A. E. Lee, Boulder; Rev. Wm. Shephard, Cañon City. Recording Secretary, Miss Eunice D. Sewall, Denver. Corresponding Secretary, Mrs. A. L. Washburn, Big Thompson. Treasurer, Mrs. I. T. Hanna, Denver. Executive Committee, Mrs. M. F. Shields, Colorado Springs; Mr. A. L. Ellis, Boulder; Mrs. M. E. Hale, Denver; Mr. W. A. Wilkes, Colorado Springs; Mr. J. R. Hanna, Denver; Mrs. S. C. Wilber, Greeley; Rev. Dr. Crary, Pueblo.
[488] Of the membership of this committee a grateful word is to be said: Mrs. Campbell is a woman of agreeable and stately presence, and adds to thorough information on all points connected with the claims made in this campaign, an unusual facility and persuasiveness of language. Mrs. Shields is one of the most lovable women to be seen in the suffrage panorama; a tower of strength in her own family, where she is at once the comrade and commander of her children—the help-meet and friend of her husband. She inspires immediate confidence whenever she confronts an audience. Mrs. Washburn is also an attractive and large-hearted woman—a "Granger," and thus experienced in united, organized action of men and women for furthering the interests of both. Mrs. Hanna, a tall, graceful blonde, more reserved in speech but entirely intelligent in faith and in labor, represented to many men of the convention the very qualities they liked in their own wives.
[489] President, Dr. Alida C. Avery of Denver; Vice-Presidents, D. Howe, Mrs. M. B. Hart, J. E. Washburn, Mrs. Emma Moody, Willard Teller, J. B. Harrington, A. E. Lee, and N. C. Meeker; Recording Secretary, Birks Carnforth of Denver; Corresponding Secretary, Mrs. T. M. Patterson of Denver; Treasurer, Mrs. H. C. Lawson of Denver; Executive Committee, D. M. Richards, Mrs. M. F. Shields, Mrs. M. E. Hale, H. McAllister, Mrs. Birks Carnforth, J. A. Dresser, A. J. Wilber, B. F. Crary, Miss Annie Figg, H. Logan, J. R. Eads, F. M. Ellis, C. Roby, Judge Jones, General Cameron, B. H. Eaton, Agapita Vigil, W. B. Felton, S. C. Charles and J. B. Campbell.
[490] Consisting of Dr. R. G. Buckingham, chairman, Hon. John Evans, Judge G. W. Miller, Benjamin D. Spencer, A. J. Williams, Captain Richard Sopris, E. B. Sluth, John Armor, Hon. E. L. Campbell, John Walker, J. U. Marlow, Col. W. H. Bright, John G. Lilly, John S. McCool, J. W. Nesmyth, Henry O. Wagoner, and Dr. Martimore.