The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1901-03-17
ANTI-SUFFRAGE ARGUMENT.
1t Is Chiefly This; "women Do Not
Want the Ballot

To the Editor of the Indianapolis Journal:
Every theory against woman suffrage has
been completely demolished in the light of
practical experience until about all that is
left for the opposition is the one which is
being used for all it is worth-"Women do
not want the ballot" whenever a majority
of them 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
a majority of the women ask for it. To'the
unthinking this may seem very reasonable,
but when one considers the history of all
past progress. together with present facts,
this excuse (for it is nothing but an excuse
for deferring j~ustice) seems meager indeed.
A majority of women have never 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
rights has by no means been confined to
the franchise, but has included the right of
women to speak in public, to organize. to a
higher education, to enter the professions
and industrial occupations. to control their
wages and to hold property, all of which
have passed exactly the same gauntlet of
objections and been belabored with precise
ly 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 nature, it would set aside the inten-
tions of the Almighty, are samples of the
objections that have been raised to pevent
the progress of women in the past. But
these privileges have been obtained for
women in spite of the stumbling blocks;
public sentiment overwhelmingly s~ustains
them in their possessions and women them
selves would cry loudest and struggle hard
est against being deprived of a single one
of them. The effort for the right to speak
in public and to organize was made by less
than a hundred women. 1t was with the
utmost difficulty that a few thousand wom-
en- in the State of New York could be per-
suaded to sign a petition for the right to
own property after marriage, and there
was practically no petition for it from the
women of other States. Most of them ex-
pressed themselves satisfied with the laws
as they were. If the universities of the
country and the founders of the great wom-
ems colleges had waited until a majority of
women asked for them not one woman in
the United States to-day would be receiving
the higher education. The majority of
women never asked for anything and they
never will do so. In each case a few, far in
advance of the masses, made a determined
and persistent effort and secured these
privileges for their sex, which, when Sc
cured, the great body of women awaited
themselves of without a thought as TO their
benefactors. No persuasion would have in
duced the majority of the women in any
one of the four Western States where they
now nave full suffrage 10 petition for it.
There was very little demand for it from
tL.a women of Wyoming or Idaho; only a
small proportion of the Colorado women pc
titioned or work. for it. and by no means
a majority in Utah, but when it was grant
ed just as large a 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 petit
toned for the franchise than ever asked for
all the other privileges put together.
Nor is this lack Of interest in their own
progress confined to women. The whole
story of the evolution of liberty is but a
sequence of examples where the few have
asked and the many received. We should
never have had the Declaration of INDIE
pendence if it had been necessary to have a
majority of the colonists declare for it.
Why is it, then, that all presidents must be
set aside in this one particular Of the en-
reimbursement 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?
ELNORA MONROE BABCOCK.