The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1900-02-26
WOMAN SUFFRAGISTS' REPLY.

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Answer Arguments Made Before Con
gressional Committees and Contend
for Right to Vote
The following statement has been sent
out by the National Woman Suffrage
association in reply to the arguments
presented by the anti-suffragists at the
congressional hearing recently given be-
fore the suffrage committees in the
house and senate:
With entire respect for the good in
tentions of the anti-suffragists we be-
lieve that all their objections are found
ed upon ideas which are to-day either
obsolete or obsolescent.
The arguments made by them before
the congressional committee fall url-
der three main heads-the military OBJ
lection, the objection from prophecy,
and the objection that women do not
! want to vote.
The military objection is perhaps the
weakest of the three since in not one of
the forty-five states of the Union is any
mans right to vote made dependent on
his ability to bear arms. Secretary of
the Navy Long says. Imagine
arguing with a sober face against any
man whose brains are reduced to such
minimum that he solemnly asserts
woman should not vote because she can
not fight. In the first place. she can
fight; in the second, men are largely eX-
enpt from military service; and in the
third, there is not the remotest relatio
between firing a musket and casting
ballot
All men over forty-five years of age
are exempt from military service, yet
they vote. Doctors, lawyers, ministers
and about twenty other classes of men
are exempt from jury duty. yet they
vote, Military statistics taken during
our civil war show that out of every
one thousand lawyers in the prime Of
life examined for military service 544
were found to be physically disqualified;
of doctors, $40; of journalists, 740, and
of preachers, 974. Whenever suffrage
is limited to men who are able and will
ling to perform military, police and jury
duty, fair argument may be made for
debarring women on this ground. But
as long as the Old the infirn, the halt
the lame and the blind among men are
freely admitted to the ballot-box, some
better reason must be found for exclud-
ing women than the fact that they do
no: fight.
prophesled that the inevitable result of
prophesiedthatth inevitable result of
equal suffrage would be the neglect of !
homes and children, and a variety of |
other disasters This is no longer
question of theory. Women are now
voting throughout a considerable part
of the English-speaking world. Ii Ire
land more than one hundred thousand
women, both married and single, can
vote for all officers except members of
parliament, and Lord Mayor Talon of
Dublin says that they do it without
loss of either dignity or domesticity"
In England more than two hundred
thousand women have municipal suf-
frage, and Gladstone acknowledged that
they had exercised it without detri-
ment and with great advantage" In
New Zealand 1O9,461 women registered
to ote at the first election after they
had obtained the full blot. In Austria
liza, Canada and five Of our own western
states, women have the suffrage: in
some of them they have had it for
generation
The only evidence offered at the hear
ing to show that equal suffrage had
worked badly in any of these places was
three letters from two men and one
in Colorado The woman in
question (Mrs NaiD was the chief oppo-
nent of equal suffrage in Colorado be-
fore it was granted, and she is of the
same opinion still. On the other hand,
IN Colorado and all the other places
where equal suffrage is in operation I'M
Ter normal conditions, the most es-
eemed and distinguished men and wo-
men testify in large numbers that the
'esults are good, and that none of the
predicted disasters have happened.
Tho officers cf the Anti-suffrage ass0-
'iation say that the majority of women
10 not wish to vote, The majority of
women are Indifferent on the question.
IF those who take any lively interest in
he subject either way, the great major
ty are in favor This has been conclu-
;ively demonstrated wherever the mat
er has been brought to test. For the
asst quarter of a century in New York,
Massa chusetts. Maine, Illinois, Iowa
n short, in every state where petitions
or suffrage and circumstances against
t have been sent in, the petitioners
nave always outnumbered the ramon-
trants at least five TO one. and oftener