The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1910-08-01
University Of Kansas Graduate
Teaches in New York.
Makes Mark as Orator on WO.
mems Franchise Question.
ARGUES IN SENATE.
Tells Committee at Washington
Value of the Ballot.
Says She Would Arouse Fair
Sex to Conscious Dignity.

New York, Aug. miss Lima E.
Gano. a. Kansas girl who graduated
from Kansas university. now is
teacher in the public schools of New
York city and is making her mark as
a women's suffrage orator. Recently
she was called upon by the leaders OF
the movement to makes an argument in
favor of a monster suffragist petition
before the Women's suffrage committee
of the senate at Washington MISS
Gano said:
sAs citizens under the fourteenth
amendment of the constitution We
claim the honored and inherited right
to petition our government for re
dress ofsgrievances that very PLAINLY
exist because of the present Iesds
status of women in forty-one states Oh
the Union. We ask that our Pe .I''i'
which is signed by hundreds of thous-
ands of law abiding citizens, snail re-
ceive the same serious and courteous
attention that a petition would receive
If signed by the same numper Oh cl1l-
zens of any class.
Would Arouse Women.
ssIf the suffrage movement does moth
ing more than to arouse the women TO
a consciousness of their own dignity
and worth in the great scheme Oh
civilization, it will have no apologies
to make in asking that the state snail
women the same legal protectlon ana
consideration that it accOrdS to men.
How any socalled system of justice can
denv to them the same legal protecIlon
is to be explained only by the fact that
Justice still is a term to Juggle with
and that systems of justice still are III
the various stages of evolution. ! am
asked to speak of women VINO nave
made teaching profession In 1917
Al per cent of the teachers in the
United States were men. Today only
21 per cent of the teachers are men
The work is being recognized gradual
ly as a woman's.
'sApproximately 80 per cent of the
children of the country are taught al
most entirely by women. In New YORK
CITY only Z per cent of the 100000
children in the public schools ever en-
ter grades higher than the elementary
schools. In western cities a few more
enter advanced classes. Practically all
of the schooling that ninety out of 100
ever get they receive from the hands
and hearts and minds of women.
Whatever this great number OF future
citizens knows of citizenship and cor
rect standards of morals and industry
they have learned from the mothers
and the women teachers. The very
foundations of law and equity and JUS
tice are in the hands of women who
are in the eyes of the law but wards
and dependents.
Shows Value of Ballot.
eff these women teachers and moth
ers had keener sense of their re-
sponsibilities by actual participation
in civic life what might be the results
in one short decade?
Thousands of these women teachers
are college graduates with fine train
ing and all are women of more than
average intelligence. They not only
are bread winners, but very often are
the heads of families which they have
inherited. 1t has been said that the
men of each class will protect the
women of each class. Witness the
IN 1900 secured a state statute that
gave to themselves salaries from 80
per cent to 100 per cent greater than
to women doing the same grade of
work In New York city a woman
teacher in the elementary schools must
work nine years in order to receive the
salary that the man teacher begins
with. She may and often does super
wise men-because of having passed a
difficult examination-and receives
$500 a year less than the men whom
she supervises. A woman principal
receives $1,000 less than a man prin-
cipal in the same grade of work, hav-
ing made the very same qualifications
Governor Hughes has characterized
these determinations against women
as glaring and gross inequalities, but
in spite OF the efforts of 15,0 900 women
teachers for the last four years, the
inequalities continue. 1t is easy TO see
the use of the ballot to the men teach
ers of the city of New York. On the
other hand. witness the statement of
Governor Shafroth of Colorado, where
women teachers have the ballot that in
Colorado the position carries the salary
regardless of sex"
Erie Railroad Makes Record.
The freight agents of the Erie rail-
road have received from headquarters