The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-08-28
NEWS Of THE DAY
IN SOCIETY WORLD
The Question of American
Militancy Discussed
THE DAYS EVENTS
Prominent Women Expectd at Expo
sition in Knoxville-Comment on
Interesting Engagement.
Social Topics
THE DAYS EVENTS
BY MYRTLE MILES

The proposition of American mili-
fancy is frequently advanced by anti
suffragists and those who are but half
convinced as to the equal suffrage prin-
ciples, the two classes constantly treat
ing the suffragists of this country to
solemn warnings not to become mill
tant. In the Woman's Journal of cur
rent issue the point is brought out by
Alice Stone Blackwell that it is not suf-
fragists but the antis who need these
,exhortations, since it is a curious fact
that in this county all the acts of law
lessness and violence committed in con-
nection with the suffrage movement
have been perpetrated by the opponents
of equal rights.
The most conspicuous, since the most
recent example of this was the mobing
of the suffrage parade last March IN
New York. The whole country was in
dignant and disgusted to read of the
behavior of the horde of ruffianly anti
suffragists. But this was only an ex-
hibition on a large scale of what has
gone on from the very first of the
struggle for equal franchise. Miss
Blackwell recalls in her editorial that
the pioneers We're assailed with eggs
and other offensive missiles; that ef-
forts were made to break up the early
meetings by burning red pepper and on
one occasion a hymn book was flung at
the speaker and struck her with such
force as almost to stun her On an
other. a pane of glass was taken from
the window behind her, a hose was
thrust through and she was suddenly
deluged with cold water At the early
conventions it was a common device
voices with cat calls and yells.
But it is not necessary to go back
to these early years.. says Miss Black
well, for example of anti suffrage mill
itancy. Only a year or two ago when
Mrs. Blatch and other speakers were
peaceably addressing an open air meet
ting in Wall street, lemons, wet sponges,
rolls of ticker tape. paper bags full of
water and other convincing arguments
of the same kind were showered upon
their heads AT a meeting held in the
same place little later, a votes for
women banner was violently wrenched
out of DR.. Shawss hand. Not long after
In Harlem, suffrage speaker was
knocked down by the antis and brutal
" kicked. II members of the Mems
League for Woman's Suffrage had done
this to one of the anti-suffrage women
We should never have heard the last
or IT. and deserVedly. Our American
ants We're scIndalize when young
suffragist in England rang bell and
disturbed tie open air meetings ad-
dressed by an anti-suffrage member of
parllamepsc But they had no word of
reouke when here at home an anti
suffraefst followed Rose Schneidermann
roun d to each place where she tried to
adt,ress an open air meeting and
p4Owned her voice by beating a drum.
Only the other day Mrs. Margaret
Wentworth Suffren was telling a street
meeting that if New York women had
voted, thousands of school children in
New York city would not have to be on
half time" when an anti-suffra gist
thew bag of water on the platform
and followed it up with a bag full of
broken glass. Mrs. Suffren wirtily and
charitably remarked that it was prob
ably the act of one of those half-edu-
Gated pupils. If it had hapepned at an
anti-suffrage meeting, the antis would
have cried out to heaven in their in
dfgnation and the newspapers in chorus
would have called upon the suffragists
to pass resolutions solemnly repudia-
ting such tactics. But such things are
happening all the time on the part of
the antis and no anti suffrage society
has ever yet passed a resolution re-
pudiating the behavior of it's disreputa-
BILE allies"
1t cannot be said that anti-suffrage
violence is merely called out by suf-
frage violence. In England the oppo-
nents had been indulgfng in violence
for years before a section of the suf-
fragists became militant. In this coun-
try the enemies of equal rights have
been militant off and on for more than
so years, although the suffragists have
always been peaceful. At which side,
then, ought the sermons to be preached?
And Is 1t American suffragists or Amer
lean antis who ought to pass resolu-
tions against militancy?
WOMEN AT CONVENTION.
HELD IN KNOXVILLE
During the corning exnositinn In Jynox-