The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1899-05-01
BALLOTS AND BAYONETs.

/ BALLOTS AND BAYONETS.
Editor of The Spy-Mrs. William T.
Sedgwick, in her address against equal
suffrage, before the Worcester Wom-
ans Club, is reported as saying: "Men
have been chosen to vote.because their
sex ENSURES to them the physical
strength to defend principle" If this
theory were sound, all men who can
fight would be admitted to vote, and
all men who cannot would be excluded.
But the theory has not a vestige of
foundation. In this country, suffrage
has at different times been conditioned
upon property. intelligence, moral
character; in some cases, even upon re-
ligious opinions and church member
ship; but never upon the ability to bear
arms.
By a kind of comic fatality, this ar
gument that women ought not to vote
/ because they cannot fight, is especial
! ly apt to be used by men who could not
fight themselves. At the recent legis-
! lative hearing, a letter urging this OBJ
lection was read from a peaceable, ven
cradle old clergyman, who would be
as useless for military purposes as any
woman-far less useful than Clara Bar
ton. l have even heard this argument
brought forward by a man who had
been stone blind ever since he was
three years old. He voted at every
election. but he was quite sure that a
woman ought not to vote, because she
could not shoulder a musket in time
of war.
If no one were allowed to help choose
the lawmakers except those who can
help to enforce the laws, there would
be no inconsistency in ruling out wo-
men, along with other non-combatants.
But so long as the old, the infirm, the
halt. the lame and the blind among
men are freely admitted to vote, some
better reason must be found for ex-
Guiding women than the fact that they
do not fight.
1t may be said that we have to leg
islate for classes, not for individual eX-
ceptions, and that men as a class can
fight, while women as a class cannot.
But there are large classes of men who
are regarded as unable to fight, and
are legally exempt from military ser
vice. and who are nevertheless allowed
to vote. All men over As years of age
are exempt; so are all who are not ply
sically robust. Col. 7. w. Higginson
calls attention to the United States
military statistics taken at the time
of the civil war. which show that the
majority of the professional men exam
ined for military service were found to
be physically disqualified. Col. Hig-
ginson says:
Among lawyers, 544 out of 1000 are
disqualified; among physicians, $40;
among journalists, TAO; among clergy
men, 954. Grave divines are Mortified
at the thought of admitting women to
vote when they cannot fight; though
not one in twenty of their own number
is fit for military duty, if he volun-
teered. OF the editors who denounced
woman suffrage, only about one in
four could himself carry a musket;
while, of the lawyers who fill congress,
the majority could not be defenders Of
their country, but could only be de-
Tended"
Since professional men, as a class,
are unfit for military service, ought
they to be debarred from suffrage?
1t is said that the men most fit for
military service are chosen to fight
first, but that when circumstances
grow more desperate, even the old and
infirm have to fight. When circum-
stances grow a step more desperate
still, the women have to fight also, as
lately in Cuba. Secretary of the Navy
Long saws:
Think of arguing with a sober face
against a man whose brains are re-
duced to such a minimum that he SOL
EMMY asserts a woman should not
vote because she cannot fight! In the
first place, she can fight; in the second,
men are largely exempt from military
service; and in the third, there is not
the remotest relation between firing
musket and casting a ballot"
1t is sometimes objected that even
men exempt from military service NAV
be called upon to help put down a riot.
But a blind man or a cripple could not
respond to the call. Moreover such
calls are altogether exceptional.
Not one voter in thousand is
ever called upon to help in suppressing
riot. In all ordinary cases, the en-
forcement of the civil law is done by
the police, and women contribute to
it in exactly the same way that the
majority of men do, i. e., they help to
pay for it. No man is compelled to
serve on the police, but out of those
who volunteer a sufficient number
are hired, and they are paid with tax
money that is levied equally upon the
property oe men and women
It is emphasized and e-emphasized
that a man unable to fight is an excep-
ton, and that the law cannot take ac-
count of exceptions. But the law does
take account of exceptions. Men as a
class are of sound mind; men as a class
are uncOnvicted of crime; men as a class
are able to read and write. But when a
man is an exception. in anything that
is regarded as essential to suffrage, he
is treated as an exception, and is for
hidden to vote.
Either the ability to fight is a neces-
sary qualification for suffrage, or it
is not. If it is, the men who lack it
ought to be excluded. If it is not. the
lack Of it is no reason for excluding
women. There is no escape from this
conclusion.
Alice Stone Blackwell.
Dorchester Mass