The Daily Missoulian. [volume] (Missoula, Mont.) 1904-1961, 1909-04-24
SPOKANt'S FLOAT
IS VERY FINEST

Spokane, April 23.-"Spokane's float
the finest in the largest womens pa
rade ever held in London"
Mrs. La Refine Baker of Spokane,
who with the three Misses Kangley
of Seattle, participated in the street
demonstration in London on April II
in honor of the release from Galloway
Jail of Mrs. Pethick Lawrence, sent
the foregoing cablegram to Mrs. May
Arkwright Hutton, president of the
Spokane Equal Suffrage association.
The four women, who are delegates
to the convention of the International
Suffrage societies, rode in an open
carriage, which was decorated with
the Stars and Stripes.
The message was read at a largely
attended meeting at the home of Mrs.
Elizabeth Cooling, 227 Ermina avenue,
where Mrs. Hutton, who was the
principal speaker, said, in part:
lone of the various objections ad-
vancetd against granting women po-
litical liberty is that if the women
have the ballot the home and babies
may be neglected and that the pub
licity at the polls may mar her chief
charm-modesty. The fact that cleo
ton day rolls around once in two
years or once each year at the most
and that an opinion can be written
and placed in a box in about five
minutes does not seem to consume
much of the years time. This duty
of voting is less arduous than some
that have fallen to the lot of women
And vet another objection. Women
might have to sit on juries if they
voted. l think that women who stand
behind counters or in factories at the
cook stove, washtub, ironing table
dish sink and baby crib would be
mighty glad to sit on almost anything
for a rest.
Il am aware that at present women
do not take any great interest in
public affairs, but the average woman
is a dutiful member of society and as
soon as she could realize that hei
duty as a citizen would require hei
voice in solving the great problems
she would not only think and act
but vote intelligently. At least this
is her record where she now possesses
the absolute franchise in the foul
free states.
Women who want the ballot stand
for a school suffrage. If young
mother is capable of choosing mem
bers for a school board who must pass
upon the qualifications of teachers
who will guide her children through
school years, how much more capable
must she be with the added wisdom
of mature years to aid in selecting
men to make laws that shall govern
her children through their manhood
| and womanhood. A mothers inter
est in the welfare of her childrer
| does not cease with their school years
| In summing up this entire question
/ there are no logical reasons why
women should be deprived of a voice
| in making laws which she and hel
children are bound to obey
| There are two classes of men WIFI
oppose woman suffrage. One clas.
places woman on a pedestal and wor
ships at her shrine, He would work
| think and vote for his womankind
| denying her all individual thought o
action. Another class degrades womel
and desires that all womankind shall
be held in subsection.
But there is still another class, com
posed of common people, whom Lin
coin said the Lord loved, because h
made so many of them These ar
demanding a square deal for all, re
CARELESS of sex The heads of fam
lilies of this class know that the ballo
in the hands of wives and daughter
mean votes for decency, as an offse
against corruption, graft and rim
| rule.
1.-THE statement of The Baltimor
American that $4,000 of the $500
stockholders of the Pennsylvania rail
way, or AZ per cent, are women, who's
interests aggregate about $14S,OO ,O0'
may account for the interest manifest
ed in the woman's suffrage move
ment by the Goulds, Mackays an
Vanderbilts, besides scores of Jesse
lights in the feminine finnancit
world. .....
while the founders of the republi
may not have felt the need of tn
ballot for woman at the time it wa
inaugurated, the public men of toda
can not deny that women are import
ant factors in the financial and II
dustral, as well as the social worl'
and are entitled to representation
affairs.
"Old things and old ideas are giN
ing place to newer and better thought
and with these should 60 the prejl
dice against making woman man
political equal. as she has alway
been his intellectual, moral and 81
cial equal. To longer withhold p'
litical emancipation from women is