Connecticut western news., 1912-01-18
Continued on age four)
When First Became a Suffragist


 I think, unoonscIously, of course, became a suffragist at the age of ten, when, during the noon hour at school, broke q big ioicle over the head of boy who brutally struck very timid little girl in the face because her aim with a snow ball had been astonishingly and, to her, unexpectedly true. and she had hit him under the ear with 1t. We boys and girls were having friendly bout at snowballing each other, and the girls, even the timid little one, had taken the snowy biffs from the boys with true sportsmanlike grit and good nature; but when the little girl, crying bitterly, ran back from her complaint to the teacher who told her that girls who play with boys must take boys play. and the boy began to jeer at her, broke big icicle from ofr the low woodshed caves and promptly smashed it oyer his head, rais- ing bump and a howl that soon brought the teacher to the door, who beheld & royal scrimmage-boysa and girls break ing heads-a sort of Donny Brook fair, with icicles for shillalahs, and we girls were by no means getting the worst of 1t, for each one had become little fe. male Berserker of rage against the ty- rant, Boy or course, we were called into the schoolhouse and was sharply reproved for starting such an unladylil1e ,f' racket and for raising such Q lump on the boys head, and when remarked that "boys who play with girls must take girls play" had to stay after school for my impndence, and afterward l got no sympathy at home. From that little schoolday's incident dates my first knowledge of sex discrimination. In the after years of early womanhood my blood used to boil with indignation over the injustice and unfair treatment of my sex, and l used to wish I might break something over the heads of all man. kind which reminds me of & remark of Judge Ben Lindsey, to the effect that "the participation of woman in the po- litical affairs and questions of the nation will develop some unlovely traits in indi- vidual women, just as has been the case with men-but that is no reason to deny to women the right to vote" 1 have thought much, and read great deal, on the subject of woman suffrage, and it seems as if the worlds attitude was yet much too much like the teachers. This is a mans world. we hear said too often. Woman, who has as equal a right to live in this God. made world as man, must live her life under man.made con- ditions, as wife, mother, daughter. the working woman, the unprotected girl. the business woman, the teacher, preach CT, the doctor or lawyer, each and all, if she does not stay just where man thinks she ought, must take mans play in mans way, in her bout with life.
 When Elizabeth Cady Stanton was little girl-no doubt you all have read this-she used to pore over her fathers law books, and she found the laws con- cerning women terribly unjust, so she promptly tore out the leaves containing these laws, thinking that by so doing she had made them of none effect That was the beginning of her work for suf- frage-tearing the leaves out of a mans
 
 law book-not quite so militant as break. ing boys heads with icicles, She be- came great woman. Most of us can only get into fine rages or suffer heart felt aches and pitys over the wrongs of women, which, we find, are slowly but surely being righted.
 have found that the world is fall of good men who are willing to give women fair play men have discovered that woman is the other half of the human race and not a mere sex creature, and they are beginning to understand that women are not trying to become men nor to take mems work or play away from them but any honest work or play in this world is just as much woman's work as a mans, if she can do it, and the way to find out if she can is to let her try it. B. A. HITCHcoCK.