The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-04-10

cent OF the whole NUMBER or students
In seven out of thirteen Western uni
versities this year, women outnumber
men. while Nebraska, Minnesota and
California have nearly twice as many
women as men students. In word,
American schools and colleges are
educating women at the expense or
men.
Who pays for the schooling of wom-
en-? Men. But the tuition which
fathers pay for their daughters is the
least part of what the education OF
American women costs men. Young
men are crowded out of schools by
girls; young men needing the stimu-
lating lash of greater severity, fall
behind the girls in classes tenderly
disciplined out of regard for the SEN
sitive nature of girls. That is to say,
diminished efficiency of men, the
worlds workers, results from feminine
independence operating in American
schools. Nor is that all that the
propaganda costs men. Those girls
whose brains have been stuffed with
book knowledge until, to quote Paul
Heyse, they remind one of Strauss
burg geese whose livers have been
fattened-very fine livers and very
sick geese'-those same girls get tir-
ed of being independent and, If they
have the chance, instead of working
for living they marry for a living.
By the same token, cost of living
mounts, and the man continues to pay
all the bills.
Increase of cost of living in the Uni
ted States is largely due to the fact
that the doctrine OF woman's rights
has diminished to the vanishing point
the Americans woman's utility in the
home. High prices do not of necessity
entail proportionate increase in the
cost of living. Much depends upon
the purchasing power Of a dollar and
that, SO far as living expenses go, is
largely determined by the domestic
economy practiced by the women Of
a nation. American women study
domestic economy to practice 1t as a
profession; until they get mar
ried After that they board. Some
times they board in hotels. flats,
boarding houses. sometimes they board
in their own homes with the evanes-
cent. incompetent, always frightfully
expensive hired girl Meanwhile the
campaign of votes for women FORCES
merrily ahead. Those wives want to
go to Congress to help reduce the cost
Of living!
In word and in deed. in theory and
practice, suffragists ignore that cost
Of living in the United States in
creases and will Of necessity continue
to increase because American women,
msled by false theory of independ-
ence neglect their plain duty in their
cause instead of having a mans mo-
ney, they spend it until they have be-
come as Paul Bourget apt1y has
termed them, "de-utilizers Of the ma
TONS wealth." Meanwhile, men still
continue to pay the bills and the suf-
fragists chant to these women, ''Come
out in industry and earn money,
Maude What else can you do poor
dear? The onward march Of the
times has left nothing for you to do
at homer
The 100000 American women wage
earners who, one way and another
have responded to that lure, earn on
One might almost believe that those
women do need the vote /. to
sell! II the honest American farmer
in large numbers, as has lately been
shown. succumbs to the temptation to
sell his vote for $3.50. the price of a
believe that women would do any bet
ter with their votes when they can
earn only a dollar per day? So much
for the chance of votes for women
purifying politics. Besides While that
false doctrine of feminine independ-
ence operates to increase the cost Of
living in the United States, it tends
also to diminish wages below what
it costs to live A fatal conjunction
that hoding i'll for purified politics.
American women wage earners
working always in the hope of mar
riage. and on the profits of marriage
can afford to work for less than it
costs to live. Therefore. is their labor
cheap labor, therefore competing
with men in industry they operate to
reduce mems wages below the living
point; therefore. too, they weaken the
Influence of the labor union.
Everybody who knows anything
about organized labor knows that it
is almost impossible to organize wo-
men wage earners. Why? Because
they have not a real wage earner's in
terest in the cause Of labor. They are
working until they can get married.
Then they are wives and stop wage
women increase the force Of non-un-
ion workers and that is accomplished
after feminine independence has help
ed to weaken the backbone Of the
strike by increasing the cost of liv-
ing.
American working man. weakening
his integrity as an individual by maxi
ing him the slave of the State, that
twin sister of Socialisnl-woman suf-
frage-aims fatal blow at the work
ing mans stomach. 1t diminishes his
chance to earn his bread and butter
and at the same time so wastes bread
and butter that it costs more than
the most the man can earn. Decided
w. then American men-above all the
working men, labor union men. can
not afford votes for women. There is
left only to decide. Should the men be
sacrificed in view of the good it will
do the nation?
Suppose the fact accomplished,
suppose votes for women not only es-
tablished but a law passed making
it a State prison offense for man
ever to do anything that his wife does
not want him to do; to make the law
effective which proposes forcing men
to do what the women Ctheir wives)
want, necessitates invoking the power
of the State to aid the wife to fight
and conquer her husband. It means
civil war between the sexes--it means
the home converted into battle
ground and whatever way victory
goes after State aid has been invoked
for the man Or for the women, it
means wrecked fireside. a shattered
family-it means the sacrifice Of the
child. Will you. sir, a Representative
of the people of the State of Connec-
ticut stand for that? You must il
you vote for any measure which pro-
poses woman suffrage.
I have been moved to write to you,
lest in your indifference to the mat
ter you fail to note to what the suf-
frage movement really tends; also be-
cause I have feared that you might
form the impression that the volume
of noises made by the suffragists is
an indication of the numbers of wom-
on barking their, demand IF is not