The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1912-08-02

Miss Katherine Glover, a former Allan
tan, well known in Birmingham and other
cities in the south, but of recent years
editor OF Today's Magazine, has written
a treatise on woman suffrage that would
be read with appreciation by any one who
is looking into the question. 1t was pre-
scented In vein that she called chat
ting together costly about the matter,
and she has. without going into 1t deeply,
answered many objections in a feminine
and thoroughly dignified fashion that is
decidedly attractive. Describing her own
unbelef and her gradual convictions, her
ideas as to the limitation of feminine en-
REIMBURSEMENT she has given sane,
STRAIGHTFORWARD viewpoint and one
worthy of investigation. A few excerpts
from her paper embody the following
thoughts
1T is such big subject that / admire
the courage of any one that can walk
straight up to it and range herself for
or against without a moments quavering
OF doubt. ] have heard a great many OF
the leading suffrage speakers and have
been to many suffrage meetings in my
effort to get at the truth, and l have
come away from those meetings with con-
nicting emotions. Some of their argu-
ments obscured the cause for me. L do
not believe that granting suffrage to
women is going to purify politics as sud-
denly as oil smoothes troubled water, nor
| do | believe that II will mean any great
change in the wage conditions of women
workers for a long time. Then, too, l
feel that the greatest test of anything
relating to women is whether or not 1t
will make them better mothers, for
motherhood, until the end of time, will
be the greatest work that women can do;
and | could not for a long time see the
application of suffrage to better mother
hood
Little by little / began to see that one
of the chief causes why there have been
so many failures in the great business
OF motherhood, why so many children
outgrow their spiritual relationship to
their mothers as soon as they have out
grown their physical dependence is that
so few mothers have a large conception
of their duties as citizens, of their rela-
tionship to the state, their concern being
so often purely personal, and their out
look limited to the horizon of the home.
Since every generation of men must pass
through the hands of the mothers OF the
country and must bear the imprint OF
their mothers mental influence, therefore
the attitude of women toward the state
is of the utmost Importance, II We are
to have good citizens. And how can they
maintain an attitude of vital interest
when they have no real part In the gov
eminent? The great argument for SUI
fraee which makes all others sink into
insignficance, has come to be, with me,
not the influence that women will have
on the government, but the influence that
having part In the government Will
have on women.
THAT granting the ballot to women
will make them indifferent to home-mak-
| iny l do not for q moment believe. II
will arouse in them sense of the inn
rortance of the home in the great scheme
of things, such as they have never had
before. | cannot see that having the
tight TO vote will mean anything to wom-
en-. but a sense of new Importance and
| the chance to work side by side with their
| husbands for Legislation that will bring
| about a better world for their children
| TO live in | have good deal of faith
| in old Dame Nature and believe that she
will not let woman, whom she needs for
the greatest of all purposes. stray very
| far from her sphere" And the wise
old dame can but welcome anything that
will make woman bring to that sphere
broader intelligence. deeper under
standing and higher IDEAL