The Washington herald., 1914-07-19
Sufragists Are Afflicted with
the Thought that the Bal
lot Is Symbol of Reform.
What 23,901,754 Ants
Believe.

preservation Of government. and besides
she is free from those burdens that would
interfere both with her pleasure and her
mission as mother Of the race
II is because the vast majority OF
women realize this that out Of Ass. I5+
women OF voting age in the United
States only about $4,000" according &C
recent suffrage statements land not all
guaranteed to he over twenty-one at
tha). have Joined the National Woman
Suffrage Association. and about 400
the Congressional Union, the organiza-
ton at present occupied with collecting
the interest on all the capital 1t fanCies
II has made out Of its disrespect for the
President at every opportunity.
The Other 23.OO1,754.
What about the other 23,sol.754 women
OF voting age in our country? II the
ballot was so desirable, would not more
than 81 per cent OF the mature women
of America have registered their demand
for 1t after the sixty-five years during
which woman suffrage has been con-
stantly agitated? How long does II take
the majority OF women 10 find out IL they
want a new style, or to popularize any
social measure among them that gains
their APPROVAL? Why don't the majority
Of women want to vote?
That's it," said one Of the recent in
ter-coIlegiate debaters on the losing suf-
frage side, the women ought to want
It." But does IL not seem unusual, not
TO say absurd, that a reform" purport-
ing to rescue women from their abject
slavery" to horrible male relatives they
persist in loving. should be so unpopular
with the slaves themselves, after all
these years, that they are organized in
every contested State to fight woman
suffrage?
The anti-suffragists claim that good
women exert more power without the
ballot. and that under male suffrage bad
women are powerless. And the suffra-
gists themselves. by their very organi-
zation. prove this contention true. They
do not, for instance, select their leaders
like Jane Adams Ella Flag Young.
Catherine B. Davis. etc. from among
women OF ballot using might who have
been free in Colorado and Wyoming
for twenty-one or forty-four years. On
the contrary they ask some woman who
acquired her power and influence under
the despised male suffrage system; who
was appointed by some man to a posi-
ton to which she never would have been
elected by the Votes of women" to tell
the rest OF us that we need the ballot
For every one OF the ''reformers" who
says the ballot Is necessary. another of
equal experience will call it a menace
and our own experience in getting things
done in our communities confirms the
latter opinion.
Some Want Trousers, Too.
When a woman with more real power
in her city or State than any male poll
tician who owns a precinct or ward
tells US that she is not free" because the
Commonwealth does not require her to
discharge duties that almost any two
legged male creature over twenty-one can
well perform, We are inclined to Judge
her as desiring the ballot merely as the
final trophy in the acquisition of every
thing she ever wanted-and got without
the ballot. Some women want ballots,
as some women want trousers, because
a.