The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-08-16


exercise of the suffrage in the territory,
under the organic act, was TO restrict the
suffrage to persons male. 1t is beyond
controversy that the intent of congress,
when the organic act of the territory ives
passed, was that the 'citizen" who should
be voter was the male over q years of
age. Women are acitizens," and SO are
"children," but congress in using the
word ''citizen" in relation to the privilege
of voting has never used it with intent to
include them. OF this fact there is no
question. 1t was fairly argued at the time
that Exercise of the suffrage in territory
is regulated by the meaning of the organic
act Of such territory, which is the law of
congress. No territorial law can over
ride it,"
A state, if it sees fit, can give women
the suffrage, but if women ever get the
suffrage in Washington it will be by
amending the constitution, not by over
turning it with reversal of the decision
of the territorial supreme court by the
United States supreme court. We pub
lish elsewhere some so-called arguments
for woman suffrage which are character
istically feminine in their, can we say,
Sweet unreasonableness. To illustrate,
we are told that Mary Livermore, Julia
Ward Howe, Lucy Stone, Susan B.
Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton think
that woman suffrage would be good
thing for society, but these women are
not more thoughtful, intelligent and gifted
representatives of the sex than are
Louise Chandler Moulton. Celia Thaxter.
Rose Terry Cooke, Rebecca Harding Davis,
Marion Harland, Mrs. Henry Ward
Beecher, Mrs. Julia C. r. Dorr, Augusta
Evans, Ella Wheeler Wilcox, who are
among the many eminent women who say
they do not want the ballot, and that to
force it upon them would be not only an
injustice to women, but would lessen their
influence for good and imperil the COM
munity. And just here is the secret of the
universal and increasing reluctance among
thoughtful, conservative men to grant
suffrage to women. The great mass Of
women, who think at all about it, not
only do not think it expedient at present
to grant so sweeping and revolutionary en-
largement of the suffrage, but are not
simply passiyely, but actively, hostile to it
whenever there is the slightest disposition
on the part of legislature to grant it.
The conviction that neither the world in
general, nor women in particular, would
be any better off for the ballot is the real
reason why so many thousands of women
of education, intelligence, good sense and
good feeling feel no desire to vote, not be-
cause they are Indifferent to the welfare of
their sex and society, but because they
think woman suffrage would be super
fuous, since in a large sense their interests
today are as efficiently protected by men as
they possibly could be if all women voted,
and because they see that when woman
suffrage ceases to be superfuous it makes
for error rather than for good government
by its periodical passion for the
application of legal nostrums and
sentimental legislation to social diseases
that can be successfully treated only with
moral tonics and purely police regulation.
The real explanation of the unpopularity of
woman suffrage with the great majority of
any commensurate political or social bene-
fit in the gift of ballot to women, and they
do see that where it alters the present
weight of the family unit it is more likely
to change it for error than for truth and
the increased safety and welfare of the
state. The weight of this objection, viz,
the opposition of the intelligent mass of
the sex to its endowment with the suffrage,
is treated with contempt by the cheap agi-
tators for woman suffrage, but able men,
who are not unfriendly to this REFORM"
acknowledge its overpowering force. Sem
ator ingalls,, in a recent address, said:
believe that the reason why woman suffrage
does not prevail through this country is re-
cause women don't want to vote. If women,
our wives and sisters, wanted to vote, the priv
ilege would be conceded TO them in twenty-four
hours by the watch. The difficulty that stands
in the way of female suffrage is not the bru-
tslity OF man, but the indifference of woman
Colonel Thomas w. Higginson, a life
long advocate of woman suffrage, con-
cedes that the hostility or the indifference
of the mass of women to the extension of
the suffrage is an objection grave enough
to be considered. He SAYS: II cannot
go along with those who think that a very
few women should be allowed to vote,
even if the sex, as whole, be ever so dis
inclined to it, for the acknowledgements of
women will affect the sex as a whole: il
will throw new responsibility upon all
whether they wish it or no." This reso-
lutte opposition Of women to the git
of the suffrage is the chief stumbling-block
to its enactment, and until this female op-
position is reduced in weight and num-
bers, woman suffrage will continue TO be
what it is today, slowly dying agitation,
which tries to put OFF the day of its death
and burial by riding every ''two-penny"
reform. Third party prohibition"
"free silver" ''free trade" income tax"
'fat money" are among the leading
broomsticks that the great witches and
wizards of woman suffrage ride as they
dart to and fro through our political sky.
The use the women have made of limited
suffrage thus far shows that it is either
utterly silent in practical politics that
makes for good government, or duplicates
the masculine vote, the woman voting
with her man, good or bad. or becomes an
ELUSIVE unit in the sentimental politics
that always establishes bad government BY
enacting sermon when an efficient law is
wanted, by confusing vice with crime.
and S5rpara mi