Evening star., 1912-11-03
WOMAN AND VOTES
Progress of the Campaign for
Her EnfranChiSement.
NO LONGER A CHATTEL
A Glance Backward to the Time
When a Wife Had No Other
Right Than to Obey.

Anna Garlin Spencer, in the Forum.
What is the state? "The state? 1 am
the state" declares the political despot
A few women have been despots and
successfully proved that sex is not an
absolute disqualification for an absolute
monarchy. THE state? We are the
state" declared the reigning families of
feudalism; and women We're heads of
these great families in the absence of
the lord of the manor and when widow
ed, as spinsters. solely represented the
family power Hence. sex has been
proved in many civilization and in many
eras of our own civilization no practical
disqualification for arstocratic leader
ship in the state.
1.-The state? We are the state" said
for ages, the owners of landed property;
and the freehold vote. the property
vote, has often included women. Hence
has been proved no positive disqual-
itication in a political order based upon
lands and dollars The state has passed
or is rapidly passing from despotism. from
aristocracy resting on militarism, from
the control of landed proprietors ard the
owners of large estates. to what we call
democracy based on manhood suffrage
In this process women have lost for
a while their footing in the political
arena. w Ipu tHe 6ISule0Hlu century
made its plea for the rights of man.
women We're generally forgotten. If the
rule of the state goes by blood of one
reigning family, then it has proved easy
to escape a Salic law and, for the sake
of holding a dynasty secure, make a
woman queen in default of male heir
If the rule of the state goes by blood
Of several reigning families who hold
the sighting strength of the people at
their disposal then it is easy to ordain
= hot thn. h01 he
sented i'll the councils of the mobiles and
have their soldiers on the fields of battle
which determine the history of the state
even if a womans hand sends the troops
and wields the political power. IL the rule
OF the state goes by rent-rolls, broad acres
and chests of gold. then it is easy to
that the dollar should VOTE no
matter whether man or woman holds it.
and that the land should speak, even if
a spinster or a widow is it's sole hssr
Now that the rule of the state goes by
human quality it is not yet easy for all
10 see that women should rule with
men in democracy.
Franchise for Men.
Helie defines the state as 1.-The people
organized into political body" He de-
clares it becomes a free people, organ
lied into democratic state when all the
citizens can participate in the direction
and examination of public affairs AS
regards men. our civilization has moved
rapidly in the last 200 years toward such
d state of .one man, one vote" At first
white men only We're full citizens, now
men of all colors may be, racial distinc-
ton tending rapidly to disappear as
qualification or disqualification for the
electccate. As Renan, speaking of race
mixtures in government, says wisely.
-Ethnograp ply is science of rare interest
but to be free it should be without politi-
cal application The subject of still
greater interest the subject of SEX is not
yet freed from political application even
in the minds of most leaders of thought.
When Bluntschli says, the state as
Inanlike composite person, produced by
the union of men, is not merely civil
person but a moral civil person. he
means only a moral civil person COM
posed of the masculine sex alone. And
when Maurice Block declares that the
Principle of nationalities is legitimate
when ii tends to unite in a compact
whole the scattered groups of the popula-
ton. and illegitimate when it tends to
divide them, he seems not to consider
women a group of human beings who
should become conscious parts of that
compact whole. Indeed, Paul Janet dis
tinsuishes the family from the state"
in that .the state is composed of men
free and equal, but the family rests
upon inequality; from which ii seems
that in his view even adult woman can
never emerge TO free and equal posi-
ton. If Janet's theory were tyue, that
would. of course, mean a perpetual
guardianship and control of all women
by all men, and especially of all wives by
all husbands, and yet no political expert
now clearly breaches that logical out
come of the theory.
Aristotle who defended slavery az the
proper control of inferior races, found
some trouble in defending the perpetual
legal minority of women; and, to quote
Janet again, it was indeed delicate
achievement of Aristotle when he dis
tinguished conjugal from paternal power,
calling the first republican and the
second d royal power" If, however
the family is the social unit in the
literal meaning of those words and the
phrase universal suffrage as the basis
OF democratic state. includes only men,
then the head of the family, the man.
does and must exercise royal power
not only over his children but over his
wife, for he speaks for the whole family
when he votes. This might pass with
out much question while democratic
states were demonstrating merely a new
mechanism of political order; but when
the democratic state becomes consciously
moved by social sentiment the submer-
Sence of one-half of the race in the
family order, in sense that leaves If
without political entity. becomes a source
of uneasiness, both moral and intellec-
tual.