The Bennington evening banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 19??-1961, 1913-01-14
VOTES FOR WOMEN
Who Should Decide Whether Il
Grant the Suffrage to the GentIer Sc,


Who Should Decide Whether to
Grant the Suffrage to the GentIer Sex
The following letter recently ap-
peared in the Burlington Free Press:
The matter before the Legislature
with regard to womans suffrage is
distinctly a serious consideration
The attitude of most thoughtful men
seems to be that of trusting the decis
ion to the women. This means, OF
course, that they believe women
know better than they do whether
the exercise of the suffrage for wo-
men will be for the greater good or
the greater harm of the nation. 1t is
only another proof of the confidence
which honorable American men place
in honorable American women.
But as long as actual legislation in
the matter rests in the hands of the
men should they not carefully ascer-
tam whether the majority of the wo-
men of Vermont-the majority hon
estly ascertained-want the bal ot +?
Ii would surely be most illogical to
do otherwise.
Is there not great danger that cur
Legislators may be listening only to
two groups of women in this matter
to the young and inexperienced or
to single women whose circumstan-
ces have placed them in a position
where they see and understand the
political evils of our time, but on The
other hand have kept them III total
ignorance of what the demands of
the home must be on the mother and
home-maker of the average well-tO-do
family of Vermont?
The world is not made up of mil
lionaires and slums, though many
newspapers seem to be trying to
make us believe it is. The majority
of men and women who are giving
the United States its future popula-
ton are decent, self-respecting, fairly
and often highly educated people of
small means. In these families the
wife and mother is often in many
cases always without paid help.
We must remember that more than
half our population in the United
States is in small towns and vii
lages-not in the large cities-and
that in almost all the towns and vii
lagos in Vermont it is impossible for
any Except perhaps one or two rich
families who import them at great ex-
pense) to secure any domestic help
whatever, except for school girl
now and then whose services can be
had occasionally for an hour or two
a day The wife and mother finds
herself obliged TO do all the work of
the house herself. TO cook for the
family and often wash, as well, to do
the dressmaking and the mending, to
keep delinquent tradespeople and ar
tisans up to their promises, to bear
the children, to care for them when
they are i'll and for their father when
he is iii or tired.
She will, If she is a woman of high
principles (the only kind-please
can be expected to puri-
fly politics,) guide her children. help
develop their minds and souls as well
as their bodies, watch over and dis
cipline them, when necessary, and
be ready in their youthful troubles
(Which are often great ones) to
soothe and sympathize Modern appli-
ances to make labor less in a house
hold increase the number of things
on which woman has constantly to
keep her hand, IL order and peace are
to be the outcome instead of chaos
The problem: How to keep APP
pointments promptly amid the con
slant Interruptions which surround
the modern conscientious producer of
future generations is one the solving
of which is enough 10 cause great
stain mentally and physically. And
will men be so uneconomic, If not
cruel, as to add TO all this the burden
of the ballot?
| wish to call attention to two -
stances Il could mention others) of
fence OF the ballot:
First.-A women of high principle,
and of great strength of character,
who has voted in Colorado for 20
years. told me that her experience
has resulted in a conviction that
more harm than good comes from wo
men vot ng in Colorado. She says
she is convinced that 1t is impossible
for women to vote intellgently I'M
less they mingle with people in the
same way men do, and that in ordi-
nary circumstances. such course
would rule out the possibility of
family life. Both she and her hus-
band believe that general suffrage
for women would be injurious to the
nation.
Second. Mrs. GODDARD, a prCmi-
nent woman in Colorado, who at first
was one of the strongest supporters
of woman's suffrage, now openly says
she wishes it could be wiped out.
1t may be thought that what has
been said concerns the general suf-
frage for women, while the question
now before the Legislature concerns
suffrage alone. But the
suffragists consider the passage of
this bill an opening wedge leading to
full suffrage in Vermont May they
not be right? And why should not
such a proposition be thought out
carefully and net pronounced upon
hastily or flippantly either by men or
women?
The truth is there are unscrupu-
lous women as we'll as mscrupulous
men, probably more OF them where
the female population is largest. And
there are good honorable and self
sacrificing men as well as women
who have the good OF their children
and their nation az heart That
which makes me most distrust the
wisdom Of the advocates of woman's
Suffrage. among women, is their vim