Waterbury Democrat., 1901-03-13
WOMEN DO NOT WANT BALLOT.

Every theory against woman suf- frase has been completely demolished in the light of practical experience un- til about all that Is left for the oppo- sition is the one which is being used for all it is worth: "Women do not want the ballot" "Whenever q major ity of women ask for it they will get it." Many of the opposers frankly admit that this is the only argument worth considering but still claim that it is sufficient reason for withholding the ballot until such time as q major ity of the women ask for it.
 To the minimizing this may seem very reasonable, but when one con- siders the history of all past progress together with present facts this ex- cuse (for 1t is nothing but an excuse for deferrinc iustice) seems meager in- deed. A majority of women have nev- CT demanded a single privilege that has been granted them in the past. nor was one of them ever asked for by even a small majority.
 The long discussion over "Woman's Riphts' has by no means been con- fined to the franchise, but has included the right of women to speak i'll public, to organize, to a higher education. to enter the professions and industrial oc- equations, to control their wages and to hold property. all of which have passed exactly the same gauntlet of objections and been be1abored with precisely the same clubs that have been used to prevent women receiving the citizens right to the ballot: It would unseX women, it would destroy the domestic ties. it would thwart na- ture. it would set aside the intentions of the Almighty. are samples of the objections that have been raised to prevent the progress of women in the past But these privileges have been obtained for women ill spite of the stumbling blocks; public sentiment overwhelmingly sustains them in their possessions and women themselves would cry loudest and struggle hardest against being deprived of single one of them.
 The effort for the right to speak in public and to organize was made by less than a hundred women. It was with the utmost difficulty that few thousand women in the state of New York could be persuaded to sign pe- | tition for it from the women of other states. Most of them expressed them selves satisfied with the laws as they were. If the universities of the cOun- try and the founders of the great wom- en's colleges had waited until q ma
 jority of women asked for them, not one woman in the United States to-day would be receiving the higher educa- ton.
 The majority of women never asked for anything and they never will do so. In each case q few far in advance of the masses, made q determined and persistent effort and secured these privileges for their sex, which when se- cured the great body of women availed themselves of without q thought as to their benefactors.
 No persuasion would have induced the majority of the women in any one of the four western states where they now have full suffrage. to petition for it. There was very little demand for it from the women of Wyoming or Idaho: only small proportion of the Colorado women petitioned or worked for it, and by no means q majority in 1 Utah; but when it was granted, just as large q number of women pro rata, as of men took advantage of it, and have continued to do so. This much can be said: A larger number of women have petitioned for the franchise than ever asked for all the other privileges 1 put together.
 | Nor is this lack of interest in their own progress confined to women. The
 whole story of the evolution of liber- i ty is but q sequence of examples where the few have asked and the many re- ceived. We should never have had | the declaration of independence if it had been necessary to have a maiori- | ty of the colonists declare for it. Why | is 1t then that all precedents must be set aside in this one particular of the enfranchisement of women, and this measure of equity be withheld from the hundreds of thousands of women who are progressive enough to demand it until that impossible time when the whole body shall be lifted up to this | level?
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