Los Angeles herald., 1909-09-28

Madam Caroline NJ. Severance sends
to the readers of the woman's page
the following communication:
The accompanying extracts should
suffice to answer all honest objection
to the effects of Woman's suffrage IN
Colorado. They are from the pen OF
Mrs. Grenfell, a thoroughly well in
formed citizen of Colorado, and more
than once elected state superintendent
of schools. They are conf1rmatory of
the testimony, under oath, of the state
officials given more in detail some
years ago, which all who write upon
the matter shall know of and accept
Those who argue, as in a late issue
of our Pacific outlook, and as does
President Taft, that when all women
wish it they will get the ballot, should
be reminded that our government did
not wait for the asking Of suffrage by
the negro race, and that our constitu-
tion and boasted Declaration does not
limit the bestowal of "the freeman S
weapon to those who will gather the
petitions for it from all the voters
Nor do they say that taxation with
out representation is only tyranny
when the voters have, to the last
man, protested against it.
Nor do they say that governments
derive lllGlI just pOWGlS lLOlli lllC SCAa
sent only of those who have presented
a unanimous petition to be so gov
erned
All, no, the question of rights and
duties does not turn in any case, log
ically, upon the personal wish or whlm
of the individual, but to eternal laws
to whose existence our race has slowly
awakened, and is more slowly applying
to it's own needs and welfare.
Is it not so? Is not the Golden Rule
but now being seen and applied to our
business and economic life? Are we
not coming to realize that hate breeds
hate, and that love is the fulfilling
of the brightest human and eter-
nal law? When we have learned
and applied the laws which regu-
late the we'll being of our domes-
tic animals, the growth of our
crops and preservation of our natural
resources, may we not look for the
dawn of the day, when childhood will
be safeguarded and race suicide be
thus eliminated as well as by changed
social conditions and the abolishment
of war?
The article referred to by Madam
Severance Is entitled Equal Suffrage:
From the Ideal to the Real" one Of a
series on the same topic by Mrs. Helen
L. Grenfell, and is given below:
The citizens who made their politi-
cal debut in Colorado in 1898 were not
the beings created by the imagination
of enthusiasts concerning the sex.
From the troubadours of old, whose
profession was to sing of an impossi-
bly, exalted and radiant heroine, down
to the chivalrous and high-minded Fa-
ther O'Ryan, who sixteen years ago
voted to give the ballot to woman be-
lieving that her entrance into the po-
litical arena would at once wipe out
vice and corruption, mans ideal of
woman has been an abnormal creature
removed from the errors and foibles of
mere male humanity.
But in the immortal words of Betsy
Prig, whose comon sense finally re-
volted from the pretense of belief in
Sairey Camps fabulous Mrs. Harris:
There amt no sich a person."
The fascinating yelled lady Of the
harem very often proves on acqualnt-
ance to be fat and past forty.
AS long as woman's sphere was the
home only (save in the cases of a few,
gifted as singers or actresses), she con-
tinued to be idealized and to be viewed
through that light that never was on
sea or land. But since, whether she
would or not, she has been forced to
emerge into the broad light of day be-
cause industrial conditions have trans
formed modern life, because men are
making by machinery the shirts and
soap that were once women's hand ac-
complishments-since woman has been
forced to face the world as a bread
winner she has come as never before,
in contact with men on the same plane.
When she is seen daily, in the morn
ing hurrying to office or shop, at noon
in public restaurants, at all business
hours engaged in the same pursuits
and often in the same quarters as men,
there is no longer the glamour of the