The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1894-05-20
DON'T WANT TO VOTE
EQUAL-sUFFRAGE IDEA NOT TROU-
BLING ALL NEW YORK WOMEN.
E~ast-sfders still Look Up to Man ms
the Think for Them.

New York Sun.
Woman's rights, or woman's wrongs, or
whatever may be the accepted name for
the new movement boosting along the old
cause, are little known, and less under
stood. on the populOus east side. The be-
nighted sisters who live on the further side
OF Third avenue and the Bowery are Ia
mentally slow; they seem to be forever
occupied with the sterner affairs Of life
the getting OF bread and the bringing up
Of children, principally. II it were not so
they might be as ardent suffragists as any
OF the rest Of them.
But the East-side woman is first of an
a breadwinner; what little time she has
for relaxation she devotes to pleasure of
the most trivial and evanescent sort. She
does not make work of play. She holds
few opinions of any kind, because they are
too costly. They don't bring bread, and
that's what she wants for herself and her
brood When she thinks she doesn't think
OF woman's elevation. She deals with the
concrete. not with the abstract.
Man to the East-side woman is a creature
very different from herself. If he's good,
he brings home his weekly wages and
takes her to Central Park on Sundays
with the children. If he's bad he spends
his time at the corner GROCERY and beats
her. Good and bad, that's about all she
knows of him. Equality with or su-
p~eriority 20 him she never dreams of.
He won't let her. He's an animal indie
pendent and magnificent, and she gets
along with or without him as best she
can.
She generally prefers to get along with
him. Her instincts are domestic. She gets
a husband. when she can, and thereafter he
Is a big man to her. The typical East-side
woman doesn't question her husbands right
TO do as he pleases and to make her do as
he pleases. IL this Is shocking. IL is also
true. and a half days visiting in East-side
for the family.
East-side girls are brought I'D that way.
IL you walk through an East-side street
any OF these evenings you will see how the
man takes the lead. The woman just trails.
II Is not certain that she would prefer to
do otherwise.
A canvass of more than one hundred
East-side women was made by a Sun re-
porter several days ago for the purpose of
nnding out what advance, If any, the suf-
fragist movement had made beyond the
1T, If they thought of it at all; whether or
not they were eager to see the word male
of this State, or whether they knew 1t was
there The salient o~utcroppings of that
canvass were these:
F1rst-That the average East-side woman
IS very uncertain what the movement is
all about; more uncertain what it Is meant
benefit that viii accrue from woman'ss
equality with man from a political point of
view.
second-That she has a very hazy under
tanding that a number Of rich women are
working in behalf Of their poorer sisters,
but thai her understanding that she doesn't
want any such tntercession Is very clear.
she likes man pretty much
as he Is, and, in a great number OF cases,
would cajole him, and paInper him, and
give him an even higher opinion of himself
than the women suffragists say he has now.
Fourth-That, in the case of the married
woman, she demands only that her husband
shall be temperate In his drinking; that he
snail bring home his wages, and that he
shall not beat her and the children; and,
In the case OF the unmarried woman, she
desires thai her sweetheart shall take her
TO all the dances and picnics; hat he shall
not hirt with other girls, and that he shall
work and not spend his time loafing on the
nearest corner.
~Fifth-That she has not a consuming de-
sire 10 vote, and that she would vote pretty
nearly as her husband or sweetheart voted,
anyway.
These are not the views of any one class
or women other than that they are all
poor and nearly all wage earners. They are
the views of the sort of women who COM
pose four-fifths of the female population
OF this city. They do not emanate from any
one district, saving, again, that they come
from the poorest-from the great tenement
Fourteenth street. That district includes
a single block with a population of nearly
TOUT onousand souls; 1t includes another
with a population in the ratio of one mil
lion to the square mile-that bounded by
Stanton. East Houston. Ridge and Pitt
streets, Many OF the women who live in
that district are foreign born, most of them
are or forcing parentage, all of them have
mad meager advantages in the way of ed
ucation.
INTELLIGENT VIEWS.
When the reporter made a tour OF the
district he was in search of the most in
telligent views on the subject to be found.
For that reason the best m were
el~ected-modern structures such as the
houses at 81 Allen street. 6S Stanton street,
100 Orchard street, 1S6 Norfolk street, 9
Avenue B, rs Cannon street, and 300, 324
and 400 Madison street Other
In First street, in Avenue A. I'm Avenue
=, IN Ridge street, In Columb,a street and
In Monroe street were visited. The views
obtained were varied in expressICn, almost
Identical in purport.
standpoint of the German hous ewife was
that Of Mrs. Fuehrli, who lives In Stanton
poor German district. Mrs. Fuehrli is in
telllgent, as are nearly all OF her neigh
bors. Her husband is a tailor. She assists
him They have a family of three grown
daughters and two grown sons. They all
work MIlicent. one of the girls. is the
forewoman in a Broadway bonnet factory;
Fifth avenue; Katie, the youngest, works
in a Grand-street shop for 81 a week.
Inc ldIIlly > OIkdHlLeu Oh the CO-OpcTd-
tive plan. Each member OF it contributes
to the general fund, and they all live at
home. They live respectfully and lay by
money. Their apartments are in a squalid
enement but behind their doors all is neat
and orderly.
When the reporter asked her what she
thought of the suffragist movement, what
she thought Of the proposed constitutional
amendment. what she thought of the over
bearing creature called Man, what she
thought OF the things in general that the
advanced woman thinks of, Mrs. Fuehrli
put her arms akimbo and gazed at her
questioner with the placidity and stolidity
of an untroubled conscience and serene
thought OF those things at all. Ii took the
spur of a complete and discursive explana-
ton OF the ms and outs of the advanced
movement, so far as the masculine mind
can understand and explain them, to get
Mrs Fuehrli to answer. Then she said,
with a curious little difiident manner which
told at once that she would be a useless
recruit for the cause:
THAT thing does not bother me. / have
heard OF IL. yes. My husband has read me
some things about II. We have not time,
whether il would be good or not, but 1t does
not concern US much.
IF we were TO have the same rights as
men? Maybe 1t would be good. I don't
know. We have not much time, you see.
My husband works. / work. my boys
work, my girls work. we all work. We get
enough 10 do. and when we don't, we help
each other. Would what you say give us
work all the time? Well. maybe then Il
would be good.
But. of course. 1t Is just as women feel.
Tor - II 1nnff L,aw~ a. t.