Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1914-05-02

| men who conducted public affairs i'd
| that day would have though hey
| were wasting the money of the tax
payers to use II to pay teachers to
teach girls.
The earliest city to establish a sys-
TEN of free graded schools was Bos-
ton. And for years after those schools
were established the only hour of the
day when the girls could go was be-
tween II and 1 at noon when the
boys were home at their dinners and
the girls could go IN and get little
reading and writing. It took long
and bitter agitation to get those grade
schools opened to the girls, and a
longer and more bitter one to get the
high schools opened to them. And
the echoes have scarcely died out of
the controversy that ragged over the
question whether American girls
ought to be permitted to go to col
lege or not. One of the objects Of
the Virginia Equal Suffrage Associa-
ton in this year of grace, 1914. is
to open the University of Virginia,
for the support of which women are
| taxed. to women themselves.
Archives of colonial Massachusetts,
/ show that in the seventeenth GEN.
| fury wives of the most prominent
men of the colony, governors, college
could not write their own names.
! Their marks are under their sigma
lures on old legal papers.
Hose Turned Them.
| The first speakers for woman suf-
frage had the hose turned on them
moro than once. They were stoned
in public, in this land Of the free;
they had mud and rotten eggs thrown
at them. When Abby Kelley Fos-
ter was appointed upon a committee
of the Anti-Slavery Society the So
ciety split into two organizations over
the affair. When Antoinette Brown
was appointed a delegate to a worlds
! temperance convention in New York,
the other delegates, mostly ministers,
yelled almost continuously for two
days to prevent her speaking. 1t
made great stories in the New YORK
papers of that date.
In the light of these stirring events
how mild and joyous seem the suf-
frage campaigns of today. No Won
der Jersey suffragiStS can smile at
the naive and ingenious opposition OF
the Hon. John A. Matthews who has
appointed himself the guardian of the
American home. No wonder that the
logic of those good ladies who leave
their homes to proclaim from the pub
the home draws oA-5 q reminiscent
chuckle from the suffragists. We
have opened the schools, we have
opened the colleges, we have opened
the professions, we have secured the
modification and modernlzat1on OF
many of those old, barbarouS proV1s-
ions of the common law relating to
women, we have won the full vote in
nine States and one Territory and the
Presidential and municipal vote In
another, and nothing can discourage
us. We know that we are going to
win all the other States in time be-
cause we know history. After history
has been going all in one direction Tor
sixty years it does not suddenly turn
around and go the other way. we
shall undoubtedly lose many cam
paigns before the last State is won,
but we know we shall win them an
in time. Our grandmothers opened
the schools. Our mothers opened the
colleges and professions.
In each generation certain women
secured new rights and privileges to
pass on to the women who came
after. 1t is for us to secure poltlcal
equality That is the task for our
day and generation. 1t Is thus that
the torch of liberty is passed on from
hand to hand down the generations.
OF the nine American States IN
which women have the full FRANCHISE
wyoming, Colorado, Utah, ldaho,
washington, Oregon, California, Ari-
IONA and Kansas-all but Wyoming
have come in since 1893. Five have
come in since 1910. Three came in
on election day, 1912. Since the Con-
gress granted the vote to the women
OF Alaska and the Legislature OF
Illinois granted the women or that
state Presidential and municipal SUI
frage.
Rapid Spread.
1t is evident that our movement is
growing by leaps and bounds. On
election day next November the men
of five States-Montana, Nebraska,
Nevada, North Dakota and South
We fully expect several of these
States to carry. 1t is unthinkable
that Illinois women, possessing the
vote for President and city officials,
should long lack the vote in State
elections With every fresh State the
number of electoral votes, the number
of Senators and Congressman, affect
ed by the votes of women is increased.
Within year the status of our
movement will undoubtedly be
greatly changed for the better. Then
the question will go to the vote in
New York, New Jersey. Pennsylvania,
Massachusetts and Iowa.
1t is because of this prospective
submission of an equal suffrage
amendment to the New Jersey Con-
stitution In 1915 that the movement
has increased so marvelously in this
State since the passage of our bill
in the winter of 1918. It Is a striking
Il 3 ax.tx
lie dormant and unknown, when 1t
isn't possible to get anything. When
the hour for action comes, when sue
cess for the first time becomes pos
sible, friends whose existence was
unsupported spring up on every side
Equal suffrage has passed out of the
realm of academic thought in New
Jersey to place among the ques-
tons of the day.
We have no doubt as to the leg's-
lative end of our work 1t is not be-
lievable that a bin which has passed
two sessions of the New Jersey 7 eg-
islature, 46 to 5 in the House. and
II to in the Senate in 1913 bv an
G. en- larger majority in both houses
in 1914, and which stands endorsed IL
the platform of every political arty
in this State, should fail next winter
What the voters will do with our
bill in 1915 we do not know We
hope that New Jersey, the battle
ground of the Revolution, will he the
first State to "break the solid Fact"
We hope that this State. the only
one TO grant it's property holding
women the right to vote in Revoln-
tionary times, will he the first Eastern
state to show that it's men posses the
same confidence in their women as
the men of the West have shown. In
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