Connecticut western news., 1913-11-13
Equal Suffrage.

Our apex of endtavor, so to speak. seemed to be reached after the great pr. Shaw lecture and the help extended to the Ohio flood sufferers. Home loving, quiet women are we ln Canaan, and we fiud continued struggle and endeavor in SO great and tremendous a movement. somewhat overwhelming and fatiguing The excitement and exhilaration dies out in many women, and then it seems so good to let go and rest. Suffrage IS coming" we say, "then why bother about it any more ?" We feel that the big leaders will carry us on to victory, so "let us turn our attention to some thing else." Thus do we reason.
 Now am going to compare the suf- frage 70 big snow ball. We have seen boys start to roll big one and they all push as hard as they can for while and the ball grows mammoth in size but yet It is not big enough though it will be if all the boys keep on helping to roll it. Now if one stops and then another and then another, the biggest boys, who are strongest pushers, find that they cannot roll 1t over alone or without the help of the smaller boys. and so the work of building monster snow ball has to stop. This is the way with the work of suffrage. It is held back in our state, hindered, and even comes almost to a stand still, not because of the opposition of Antis and other antagonisuc interests but because so many good suffragists let go. They stop pushing suffrage along. Now it has got to grow to so big thing in every state that the government can not longer over look it, but how can it grow when the numbers are not strong enough to keep it rolling and ever grow ing bigger? Every woman suffragist, every league, that decides to let suffrage take care of itself is like the boys who stop pushing on the big snow ball. Lesser interests may seem pleasanter, or easier little fads and fancies of the hour, not so strenuous, but leaving out the family and home duties.
 There is absolutely nothing so import ant to women of every nation as the work for their eufranchisement. I have heard few women say the vote was needed by only the poor and the work ing women. Then is it not selfish for the fortunate rich to still let them need it? The truth is. every kind and grade of woman needs the vote, and the finest and best of women as we'll as the wealth jest, are giving heart, mind, strength of body and soul and freely of their wealth to keep the suffrage ball a'rolling. The most that we, as Canaan League, can do this winter, is to start .. civics class, not for ourselves-please let this statement be especially noted--but for all Canaanites, men and women, old and young, who would like to study civics, for it is the truth that many men who vote and most women who do not, know so little about the laws, rules and ways of civil government, that it Is to me, an astonishment and wonder.
 Now I ask in all reason, wty is this 1 Why should we not fall in line with progress and take up the study of things really big and important to us all men, women and children? The word politics seems to scare the sense, reason and life out of us all, although we live, move, breathe, eat, sleep and die, steeped in politics and yet su afraid'are we of this political atmosphere that we think we get rid of it by pretending It does not 1 exist. President c. k. Y. l..