Norwich bulletin., 1914-03-17
ARGUMENTS FOR EQUAL SUFFRAGE
Made Before Audience of 400 Town HaMs Alice Steb bins Wells, Pioneer Police Woman and Miss Rose Wnslow the Speakers-Why Wage Working Women Want Ballot.

Speaking of the uniform. Mrs. Wells i said that the largest and best work of the policewoman would be done in plain clothes. It is quieter, kinder and better than way.
 The place for the woma min uni form Mrs Wells predicted, would be wherever the police department took over the protection of picnicS and big public gatherings where women and children need someone who they can trust to take directions from and make inquiries of.
 The woman in trouble, the deserted wife. the abused wife, are all women whom the policewoman can help, and these women will come to her when they will not go to the captain or the chief. The policewoman is now an institution in 15 cities who adds to the efficiency of the police department. It is not probation work, for that comes after the court; it is in the line of prevention and conservation.
 Mrs. Wells gave some account of the intense interest the women of Califor- mia took in this work and the great contribution they were making along moral lines wherein the true men com mend what they are doing for they see that this is not mans work It is his sphere to look after the office, while women know best what they want for | their homes and are the best ones to | get it.
 | From a home where. father and mother are both interested in these 1 public questions an deach able to cast | the ballot will come a generation of 1 children who will make our country, what we feel it to be, the finest coun- | try on earth.
 Question for Mrs. Wells. Mrs. Wells invited questions when l she had finished her address, and 1 man in the rear of the hall, who it is understood is a relative of one of the | local antis, asked her about a report l he had seen in a newspaper about a l police woman winking at a coal heaver 1 who was on one of the incoming naval vessels at San Pedro, and upon his 1 offering to join her on the pier she sug- | gested a trip to Los Angeles. and when | he agreed she marched him into the 1 police station and had him arrested. l Mrs. Wells inquired whether he had l seen it in Los Angeles paper, and l said she believed it had appeared in a
 San Francisco paper, for no Los An 1 geles paper would publish a story like | that as they knew better, and tmore- i over there had never been any police women at San Pedro.
 1 Miss Rose WinsIow. 1 The next speaker was Miss Rose Winslow of New York, who was intro l duced by Mrs. Norton to speak upon l the subject of Votes for Women from | the Standpoint of the Wage Earning 1 Woman.
 Miss Winslow captivated her audi | ence as she spoke with the enthusiasm l justice of her cause and the joy of | ffhting for it. She gave to he raudi- l ence what many of them doubtless had l never heard before, and they liked it. l It was the straight from the shoulder l style, punctuated with witty touches, I but characterized with an intense earn | estnesS thot carried convistion with it.
 The most hopeful thing about the | struggle, she said, was its democracy. 1 She represented what people were
 pleased to call the menace of the if
 norant vote, for she had been brought
 here from Poland by her parents when | she was eight months old.
 | tn me fl pt fw uu fyatpp l u W yp D
 This is a vital movement, grounded | in the biggest and broadest funda- mental interests, and nothing under | the sun can stop it.
 l She professed a profound amuse- ment in the argument of the man who 1 said the woman should not vote be- I shovel concrete, as he could for nine i hours at a stretch. Just as if all men | shovelled concrete. They were a big lot who pushed pens for a living, a perfectly lady-nle occupation. To the 1 concrete shoveler she would say go | stretch on a high power sewing ma chine and she would venture to say that he would come back to the con crete job with a considerable feeling of relief.
 The girl who works in the factory watching those flying needles has her 1 nervous energy sapped by the time the day is over. She craves a stimulant.
 She is not a normal being at the end
 of her days work and it is no won der that she wants to dance the night
 away as many do.
 All over the civilized world the
 working men are fighting for the fran
 chise and if it is good for working men, why under the sun is it bad for the working women?
 Power in the hands of one class is
 a pernicious thing and it is pernicioUs
 for it to be in the hands of one sex.
 Women are said to be. less emo tional, but where can you equal the emotionalism of the baseball or foot
 ball rooters.
 ] It would do a whole lot of good tc
 inject some emotionalism into ouI | government.
 Until we abolish the blot. child labor, we have no right to stand or our hind legs and root about oul
 country, and we want to think what
 kind of a heritage of health the work , ing girls of New York, forced into the dividend grinding machine, are tC l give to their offspring.
 The department store girls with al 1 average of S5 or S6 per week neet the ballot for the spy system is SC
 perfectly developed that they can not organize into unions. ; Entrance of women into industry 7 has disrupted the home more thar
 suffrage, or feminism, or socialism, ol
 anarchy or any other scarecrow yol , can think of.
 When the antis say the workins woman don't want the vote, they don know what they are talking about It is a fact that the more intelligen
 of the working women have gone or
 record as approving suffrage and they
 prove that they know it is not [ theory but an actual need. Give them the power to say abou the conditions under which they live } and die?
 She answered a nu mber of ques tions which were given her after thu kmeeting.
 Fl Small boys were tnxfheelobby whe1 ' the meeting adjourrred dtstxfAutin; : circulars of the Connecticut associa : ton opposed to Equal Suffrage, The! had previously made some little dis 2 turbance at the rear of the hall b, passing in and out several times.
 The flowers used in the decoration
 were from the estate of Geduldig ant
 extra chairs for the hall were loaned tby c. A. Gager. Jr.
 First Catch of Smeits. J r