The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1913-05-12
MRS. BODICE GIVES
OUT A STATEMENT
Says Question of Sex Is Back
of Woman Suffrage
Movement.
(NationaI News Assooiation)

realize Lhat back or the woman sur
frage disturbance is the question of
sex-or rather, a distortion of the sex
question
In this way Mrs. Arthur M. Dodge,
of New York, president of the Ma
tional Association Opposed to Woman
Suffrage, opens a striking statement
on the suffrage question given out
headquarters of her organization.
THE only. sure manner of estimat-
ing the real meaning of strength of
the so-called suffrage movement"
continued Mrs. Dodge, sis to see
clearly the motives and underlying
reasons back of it. The suffrage dis
tufbance is, in plain words, sex
disturbance. Many women who are
suffragists do not realize this, but it
is d fact nevertheless, just as the i'm
pulse of some other women to take
up foolish fancies and unnecessary
movements is the result of that I'M
easiness and straining after artificial
happiness and unnatural enjoyment
which indicates an unsettled and an
unsatisfactory state of mind.
I'VE who oppose woman suffrage
are convinced that women suffragists
support their cause because they view
the whole situation from an unnatu-
raj angle. One morning in New York
/ heard a young woman discoursing
with great eloquence on how she and
her sisters could improve the morals
and manners of men IL they were
given the ballot. That evening, this
same girl was at a fashionable dance.
She was gowned in an extremely de-
collette fashion, and the way she
danced and bore herself was sug-
gestive, to say the least | do not
believe the girl ever realized that,
while her vote be powerless in an
election, the cut of her gown, the
manner of her dancing, and the words
of her conversation could be made a
tremendous influence for good among
her friends, men and women, and thus
throughout the whole community.
she was misled, as many other
women are, by the mirage that good
morals and good manners can be leg
islated into men and women. Morals
and manners are the fruits of women's
minds, not of the voting booth. And,
just so long as women clamor for po-
litical rights" and yet dress in gar
ments that are the definition of bad
taste, all the votes in the world will
not change the trend of sentiment in
sociey and throughout the whole pop
ulation of the country.
when | say that the suffragists
rely after all on their sex and on the
appeal of their sex to men, | am re-
peating only what men on the side
walks and in the club windows of
New York said when the suffrage pa
rade passed up Fifth avenue in New
York last Saturday. Here was the
spectacle of a woman demanding the
ballot so as to put down social evil
and vice of all kinds and, in order
to make her platform more emphatic,
she appeared CARRIED in a manner
which would have aroused resentment
among any set of ladies and gentle
men. Gould anything have been more
ridiculous? | am certain that moth
ing could have proved more conclu-
sively the fact that sex confusion is
the source from which has sprung the
cry for woman suffrage.
1T was Olive Schreiner, in Woman
and Labor who said that the feeding
bottle for the baby was labor saving
device. That declaration comes from
suffragist who maintains that the
vote is the panacea for all evils; and
yet all medical authorities state that
the bottle-fed baby has a poor chance
to live. Let me make this illustration
clear. The suffragists wish to vote
and to campaign, sacrificing for that
right their duties as mothers and pre-
servers of home. If baby is to be
sacrificed to the bottle so that the
home may be crucified by the bal
lot. what is to become of the progress
and reform which these advocates of
votes for women predict?
I'VE are in the midst of remark
able period in our history. There is
more immodesty in dress, more loose
ness in conversation, and more impro-
priety in dancing. than has ever been
known to the American people, either
IN so-called high society or among
those who are in other conditions
Back of these revelations of the low
ering of women's ideals and conduct
there is the same reason as that
which actuates the suffrage disturb
ance
There was time not so long
ago when young girls demanded more
freedom and liberty, an escape from
the close scrutiny of the home and
watchful eye of the chaperone. They
obtained this liberty. And suddenly
we are now confronted with the real
ization of how terribly easy it may
be for this liberty to be turned into
license. BY the same line of arguing
woman has sought a freedom I'M
paralleled in the history of the world
Having secured freedom and equality
in the arts, in the industries, and in
commerce, she seeks what she calls
political liberty which would be
perilously close to license
Nobody who studies this question
can get away from the old, essential
fact that woman is a woman. and a
man is man. 1t is the height of folly
to say that the woman, who has had il
taught TO her by the uncounted ages
that her strongest hold on man is be
cause of her sex. can throw off OF
disregard the knowledge that the sen
appeal is the strongest weapon she
has. AS a matter OF fact, she neither