The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1912-12-31
WHY A SUFFRAGIST?
Miss Sanford Gives Reasons Why
Woman Needs the Ballot

Miss Maria Sanford, whose long
years of teaching and lecturing have
made her a recognized authority
among the women of the state, spoke
recently on "Why am Suffragist."
Miss Sanford might be called recent
convert to the suffragist movement
and her lecture was summing up of
her reasons for espousing cause
which today is enlisting thousands of
workers throughout the country. She
spoke earnestly of her convictions,
convictions growing out of the COM
mercial and social conditions of the
day, and of the call to women for
public service in solving the social
and industrial problems. She had
come to realize, she said, that to rend
er efficient service woman needs the
ballot. While not convinced until a
year ago of that need, she had never,
she said, doubted the fact that women
are more competent to exercise the
right of franchise than many men.
She had never regarded suffrage for
women as privilege or right, but
as service, and she had not been in
favor of women voting until she real
lied that woman, too, was called to
public service in the interest of man
kind.
Miss Sanford first explained that
she was not a suffragette but suffra-
gist. She made quite distinction be-
tween the two. The suffragist, she
said, is one who is DESTROYS of obtain
ing vote for women; the other being
one who believes that woman is suff-
ering a great wrong in not being al
lowed to vote and who resorts to ex-
IRENE methods to secure the right of
suffrage. She has no sympathy with
the latter class, now so prominent in
England and, in her opinion, they are
retarding the movement.
81 have come to the belief that the
presents a century of social prog
ress," said Miss Sanford. "The last
was one of invention, of material
progress, but those advances have
brought us face to face with the fact
that there are great industrial and
social wrongs in our land which should
be corrected. We have come to real
ize that imbecility, insanity, drunken
ness and poverty are largely the re-
suit of conditions which might be i'm
proved. Thousands are the victims of
circumstances, dragged down before
they are old enough to have definite
will. Thousands are going down to
death from evils existing today and
the women of this country are becom-
ing alive to their responsibilities and
are seeking way to help their fellow
man."
Miss Sanford made three divisions
of the work to which the women of
America are called. First is the pro-
lection of childhood against severe
labor conditions; the second, to secure
relief for the industrially oppressed,
and the third, the suppression of the
social evil. 1t has come to be the
opinion of those interested in these
lines of endeavor, said Miss Sanford,
that if women had the ballot they
could render more efficient service in
effecting reforms. 1t is only within
the last ten or fifteen years, she said,
that the public has become aware of
the great need for legislation protect
ing children. In the industrial world
labor must be made honorable and in
sure greater comfort and self respect.
A comparison of conditions here and
in the other countries shows the adj
vantages the American working man
enjoys, and yet the tendencies here
are downward and the movement
should be checked. These conditions
affect women, in that they prevent
successful motherhood and rob the
child of the care and protection Of a
home. The social evil she regards
as great menace to American life,
causing the death of thousands and
bringing suffering and disease to vast
numbers, many of whom are more
sinned against than SHINING. She adj
vocated high standard Of life for the
young and the most severe punish
ment for those who promote this evil
As a woman, she wishes the right to
vote, SO as to make it dangerous for
anyone to drag his fellow creatures
into vice.