The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-01-13
What a Suffra9ette Thinks OF
q SO-cdlled Menace to its Grozuth
Matters Interest Society Workers Phlanthropc
Affars-Afternoon Tea Given in Compliment to Bride
Announcements of Future Events-First Opening
of New Southern Club Cafe-Annua Meet
ings to Occur Today
BY MYRTLE MILES

The opponents of equal rights for women
have claimed Of 1ate that one menace
is socialism. It is interesting, therefore,
TO hear the answer made by Alice Stone
Blackwell. one of the foremost workers
IN the cause of woman suffrage to the
so-called war-cry, that Suffrage means
socialism She says this week in the
Woman's Journal that there are as many
different kinds of socialism as there are
OF Heinze's pickles, and the antis always
pick out the most extreme variety, and
usually caricature even that. All social
lists are suffrasists," they are constantly
telling us; and they predict that granting
votes to women will mean the speedy
bringing in of the socialist state.
Now, the socialists themselves do not
think so. All socialists have woman snf-
frage as a plank in their theoretical plat
form. but many of them confess that they
do not want it to come until socialism
comes, just because they believe that it
would delay the coming of socialism.
The socialist party admits women 20
membership on the same terms as men,
but not nearly as many women as men
have Joined it. The proportion is said to
be about one to 10. In every state in the
union the socialist vote cast at the pres
Dental election of 1872 showed an increase
over that cast at the presidential cleo
tion of 1908. It's average increase in the
country at large was 112 per cent. But
in every state where women have had
the ballot long enough to compare presi-
Dental election with presidential election,
the growth of the socialist vote was below
the average. The general public does not
know these things, but the socialists
know them. They are aware that in the
United States not nearly as many women
as men believe in socialism. Hence there
is a sharp division of opinion among the
socialists, the more consistent members
of the party standing up for woman suf-
frage, while the opportunist socialists
want to keep it from coming until after
they have won nationwide socialist
victory.
In the 1912 elections, not one of the
old suffrage states elected a socialist to
the legislature. The states where women
had just got the ballot Washington and
California, elected one socialist apiece,
as did Massachusetts and a number of
other nonsuffrage states. On the other
hand, Illinois. by the vote of men alone,
elected four socialist legislators; and Wis
consin elected seven, and Oh the same day
defeated woman suffrage by an enormous
majority. The strongly socialist wards OF
Milwaukee, which gave a majority of
three and four TO one for .he socialist ma
tority against woman suffrage.
When the International Woman Suf-
frage congress met in Budapest last sum-
uer. 1t was welcomed by every newspaper
in the city except one. That was the
socialist paper, which for months in ad-
vance had been denouncing 1t, and warn
ing people to keep away from it.
When the antis say that "all socialists
are suffragists," it may be true inso-
far as they are all in favor of it in some
ideal future; but many are practical anti
suffragists, so far as the actual present
is concerned. Some suffragists who had
become socialists are SO indignant about
it that they have left the party. The