The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1907-01-05
WOMEN SHOULD HAVE
RIGHT OF SUFFRAGE
Alice Priest Takes Fall Out Of
Anti -Suffragists Who Re-
tard Women.
Recites History and Shows That
Many Men Neglect Duties
of Citizen.
(By Alice Priest.)

Wy Alice TrleSC.l
Thousands of women have felt the
sting OF the woman anti-suffragist.
Not that the anti has been so HARM
ful to the cause of woman suffrage.
1t Is quite possible that on the whole
she has been helpful. A little oppos-
ition may be better than all apathy.
Even the consequent kindly condescen-
sion OF some men to all Women-as to
members of sex lacking the mental
capacity to be interested in public af-
fairs-could be borne with equanimity
and confident reliance on time.
The sting, the humiliation to women
lay in feeling that perhaps they be-
longed to peculiarly inferior sex; Pc
culiarly one, as the philosopher puts
it, "the very nature Of which has been
to some extent warped and enfeebled
by prolonged subjugation and must
have time to recover ITSELF"
To be quite frank, I think the phil
osopher probably right. But this, it
was ordinarily taken for granted, was
a great gulf ordinarily separating men
and women. No amount of subjuga-
tion, it was assumed, had ever re-
duced men to opposition to a reform
in. their own behalf. While she! The
inf1nestimal minority condemned the
whole sex.
There is no joy in seeming to drag
another down, but one is sure that our
chtvalric brothers will after all be
glad to feel that the mother-sex is
not abnormal, peculiar, essentially in
ari0 in, ho{r Iod
conditions. All nature is kin in this
worst effect Of injustice.
Here are a few interesting items
from history:
Concerning the England of eighty
five years ago George Eliot writes
and J. w. Cross quoted: After the
coach had ratified over the pavement
of manufacturing town, the scene
of riots and trades union meetings, it
would take the traveller in another
ten minutes into a rural region where
men with a considerable bank account
were accustomed to say that "they
never meddled with politics them
selves."'
OF Germany in the time of Fred
erick the Great, who died 120 years
ago, the Britannica Encyclopedias.
writes: The position of the peasant
Die
to a great extent existed, and the mem
tai attitude Of the rural population
was serVile in the extreme. One H.
lustration of this is afforded by the
fact that the private soldiers felt no
resentment at being struck at by their
Yav v1 mn 1nfa -
Frederick's reign, as future events
proved was the neglect Of any effort
to encourage independence and power
of self-government among the people,
Public opoininn on political matters
could not be said to exist
Last winter in Russia, the great
army, recruited from the common
people, "has undoubtedly stood by the
bureaucracy" the papers have report
ed, and so fostered reaction and their
own and their brothers degradation.
Regarding Japan, so rightly admired
Clement writes in his Handbook of
Modern Japan" 1.-THE masses do not
yet possess the franchise, and may be
said to be practically unconcerned
about the government. They will even
endure heavy taxation and some in
justice before they will bother them
selves about politics. The people are
conservative and the government is
progressive; and the people are SIM
ply under the necessity of growing up
to political privileges that are grad
ually bestowed upon them"
An able article on Morocco states:
"The government is an absolute des-
potism. The sultan stands quite alone
at the head of state and church alike
(The present sultan) had received a.
good education and had progressive
ideas, which he proceeded to put into
practice, much to the disguest of his
subjects. He began with a reform Of
the prisons, and also attempted some
better system Of customs. For all
this he received no thanks, but, on the
contrary, stirred up serious insurrec-
tions. which have reduced his control
over the southern provinces to a.
thread. This frankly modern spirit of
the young sultan has been probably the
most influential cause Of the aliena-
ton of many OF his subjects to the
support Of the pretender."
MI. bIydu WIOLo from emma that
for twenty centuries Society was
stratif1ed; those in power seemed to
have no higher aspiration than to live
upon the labor Of the masses, and the
masses to entertain no thought of
emancipation. But change is taxi
ing place in China such as has revolu-
tionized Japan within the last half a
century. There was a vitality among
her people which even two thousand
years of political apathy could not
exhaust"
James Bryce says: 1T is now a.
century and half since the idea of
equality among men began to be con-
stantly discussed, and to influence
the world Of practice as we'll as that
Of abstract justice. Certain modern
conditions) have stimulated the appe-
tite Of those humber classes whose
ancestors humbly acquiesced in an in
equality of condition as part of the
order of nature"
The great majority Of us mon and