Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1914-04-15
FOR SUFFRAGE
Interesting Meeting Tuesday
Afternoon al Library Hall
Miss Helen Bates and Mrs. Rob-
e7iTreai N|hiiehouse Speakers
Principles Of the Movement Are Set
Fourth in Able Manner

A very large and interested audience
gathered in Library hail Tuesday az
ternoon to hear presentation or the
question of equal suffrage. The speak
ers were Miss Helen Bates of Port
land, president of the Maine Woman
Suffrage Association, and Mrs. Rob
ert Treat Whitehouse. Mrs. Fred Ten
ney. president of the Current Events
Club, gracefully presided.
Miss Bates gave comprehensive
and calculating resume of the suffrage
situation in different parts of the
world. citing Scandinavia, where
women have full suffrage; in Finland,
in Norway and celand and partial suf-
frage in Denmark; New Zealand and
Australia, where they have full suf7
frage; and the United States, where
women vote in nine states and one
territory on equal terms with men,
and have partial suffrage in 20 more;
and where five states are campaign
states in which the Legislatures have
passed upon the bill for the amend
ment and it is submitted to the vote
of the people in 1914; and five others,
having passed one Legislature, refers
the bill to another in 1914; showing
that suffrage is sweeping over the
country and will soon paint the map
Of the United States white from Can
ada to the canal and from California
to Maine. She closed with a plea to
the women of Maine to come forward
and help the cause, insofar as they
could, as those who are not registered
in favor are counted against Suffrage.
Mrs. Whitehouse is a delightful
speaker and held the closest attention
abf her audience as she marshalled her
facts and made her appeals for the
cause in which she is so deeply inter-
ested and which she has studied so
carefully. Mrs. Whitehouse began by
calling attention to the fact that our
country is called democracy. but
she showed the fallacy of the claim
SO long as man usurps the powers or
government and shuts women out from
participation in it.
She spoke of the part women have
played in building up the country ana
she said as women in the early days
asked "Where do we come in?'' so wo-
men have been asking the same ques-
ton ever since. The franchise is wo-
mems right because it is the next step
in the evolution-the next step in de-
mocracy.
We are asked to prove that womans
vote will improve conditions. The tes-
timony from the states and countries
where women have the ballot shows
results have been good. But" Mrs.
Whitehouse declared, men have never
the ballot when it was to be extended
to them"
Replying to the objection that wo-
men do not want the vote, she referred
to the rapidity with which they are
gaining political rights in the western
states. Man told etaoin etaoin etaoln
We are told ''woman's place is in
the home" Are the 100000 work
ing women who have left their homes
and gone into the world to earn live
lihood doing less of their work than
If they stayed in the home and starv-
ed or allowed some man to support
them in idleness and frivol1ty? Wo-
mems industries have gone out of the
home and women have gone with them.
Mrs. Whitehouse called attention to
crying reforms that needed women's
vote. She described conditions in
states that were a national scandal
where little children were exploited for
gain. I'VE are told" she said, If the
child laborers of the United States
should pass in line one minute 1t
would take them five years to pass
given point One hundred thousand
children under 16 are working In the
mills more than eight hours day.
Florence Kelley tells us the position
of children is zero minus. But 1t is not
only children that suffer by inadequate
laws. There are thousands of women
who are trying to live on starvation
wages and swelling the ranks OF the
underworld because they find 1t impos-
sible. These women are voteless ana
are unable to protect themselves.
Mrs. WhitehouGe showed the weak