The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1913-04-07
THE SILENT sUFFRAGIsTs.
Time to Reverse the Policy Toward
Violence.

/ fiOA0hNts
The alarming feature of the growing
lawlessness OF women in England in al
legged promotion Of the cause Of equal
suffrage is not the actual violence there
committed by small fraction of the
party, but the failure OF American suf-
frage organizations to perceive their
duty to follow the mass of English fed.
Grated societies in dsavowal of these
acts. This Is alarming because 1t inn
plies one of two thngs either that at
heart the American party sympathIzes
with the violent method and is willing to
have the cause profit, as they think, by
the advertisement it thus receives
which is exactly the attitude of some
labor leaders toward the Mcnamara
campaign of dynamiters or that they
have false and dangerous idea of the
functions of government and the re-
sponsbility of citizens to maintain them.
The English societies under the wise
leadership of Mrs. Fawcett, have gone on
record creditably against hammer and
vitrol and bomb. Up to the moment
when this is written the American socie-
ties have not only been silent, but in
prominent instances have given aid and
comfort, sympathy and honor to Mrs.
Pankhurst and her hysterieal associates.
II may well be the fact that American
dollars have helped TO sustain the hands
that have destroyed plateglass windows
in Regent street. Ii behooves right
meaning shffragists, who disapprove OF
assaults on property and life to reflect
on the results of allowing themselves TO
be counted with the party of violence
against the party OF reason.
Much as one may speak of the "dif-
ferent conditions" of England and the
United States, one has only to hear the
frank expressions of many cultivated
American women to know that there is
in this country party of violence in
embryo The very terms in which they
extenuate the London crimes and mis-
demeanors reveal their inability to an
Choir their tempesttosse minds to the !
main principle of government the tacit |
compact OF citizens to abide by the law
until it shall have been changed in or
Derby fashion. They do not see that two
NlViiSs uO iloL HMM a. A-hts anu Nhtht /
the heaviest sense of wrong of class
cannot be allowed to submerge principles
Of government.
Again, they do not see that in a tur-
bulent and lawless age they are called
upon not only to refrain from imitation
of the violence of the English militants-
which, to their credit, they have done
but to throw their whole force on the
side of order and reason. Unless they do
ibis, and do it soon, they must not COM
plain if as organizations they are regard
ID not as a conservative force to be add
ID to the body polite to accomplish
iocal reforms, but as an encouragement
o the frebrand type of reformer
AS a man thinketh, so he is" and
under the convenient assumption
# the anarchist that "this is war; can
Tot lend liberation and encouragement to
disorder, even in theory, without under
mining in their own thoughts the basis
4 civilization. which is obedience 10 law, :
With peaeeable agitation for its inn
i
1t is futile to say that because there is
% such violence here American women :,
re not called upon to disaVow it. The {
oXious seeds have blown across the At 7
intic and only await favorable condi- !
ions to bear fruit. If women are to be
repaired for new responsibilities as citi- :
ems the women's suffrage organizations
ught by positive and downright public !;
ecaration and teaching to place the I
Movements in line with the party of y
sason in England, and thus steady the !
alterations of many of their !.
lembers, who are sadly in need of di- !
sction.