Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1901-04-12
THE WOMAN's SUFFRAGE MOVE
MENT

Mrs. Caroline F. Corbin president OF
the Illinois Association opposed to the
Extension of Suffrage to Women, in a re-
cont letter as. is that the suffrage
movement and the suffragists have had
nothing to do with the advance of the
last half century in regard to women's
education, property rights, etc. AS proof
of this, she mentions that few slight
changes for the better in the laws relat
ing to women We're made before the
ganized movement for equal rights began.
But more Improvements have been made
during the fifty years since this organized
movement began than in all the centur-
les that went before. 1t is an historical
fact that the equal rights conventions adj
vocated all these good things for at least
a generation before the general public
came to favor them.
Replying to Mrs. Corbin, Alice Stone
Blackwell, leader in the fight for equal
suffrage, writes to the Inter Mountain as
! follows:
Mrs. Corbin says all the improved laws
|
islative action originated with men of
| course, for there We're no women in the
legislature. But they We're men of the
same stripe as those who now bring in
bills for equal suffrage, not like those who
cling to the past and fight every proposed
! innova ton. And in the great majority
of cases these progressive men, generally
| suffragists, acted under the direct in
| spiration of progressive women.
| Mrs. COrbn mentions the laws of Mas
| sachusetts. The late venerable Samuel E.
Sewall (who was an officer of the Massa-
chusetts Woman Suffrage Association
did more than any other one man to Sc.
cure improved laws for women in that
state For thirty years it was he who
drew the bills, helped the women to
plead their cause before legislative COM
mittees. and obtained a long succession of
legal changes. In the Boston Woman's
Journal of Oct. q, 1877, Judge Sewall Tt.
viewed the progress made in Legislation
for women up to that time, and said:
How has this work been accomplish
ed By the steady growth of public opln-
ion, promoted and aided in a very great
degree, if not entirely created, by the
labors of the suffragists. l may add
that when the suffragsts first began to
move the prejudice against them alter
ing the status Of wives, and giving wom-
en- the public offices into which they have
since been introduced, was stronger than
that which now ressts granting them the
ballot
Mrs. Corbin mentions also the laws of
Rhode Island. Col. i. w. Higginson said
at a legislative hearing a year or two
ago:
I'VE are told that women are getting
all the things they need. one after the
other, without the ballot. But how are
they getting them? Through the woman
suffrage movement, for the last fifty
years. In saying this, I know whereof
speak. One outrage after another ha:
been removed from the path of womer
as an incident in the course of a suffrag,
convention held at the same time am
, place. Some would get up in the leg
; islature the next day and move the re
peal of the unjust laws to which tn
speakers had called attention. Judg,
Greene, chairman of the Rhode Islant
5 judiciary committee. said to me after on
of those high minded. high hearted, sill
ver-voiced pleas of Lucy Stone: L an
ashamed to think of that list of lega
wrongs which she enumerated. They ar
all true; and have sat on this judiciar
committee for years and never realize
them till woman came to tell me o
them
When the Kentucky Equal Rights As
5 ISOLATION was formed thirteen years age
' the laws of that state in regard to WON
en- We're medieval. Now they have bee
. largely revolutionized. and the chang
has been due wholly to the efforts of tn
D association. which has caused every bi