New Britain herald., 1915-08-30


 ! Then we turned to quieter subjects and Dr. Jacobs told of suffrage in | Holland. Dr. Jacobs herself. is not the woman you think of when you 1 visualize Dutch women. Small and ! dark. she reminds one very little of { the ladies with faxen coils that the Dutch painters have shown us in pro- 1 fusion. But pr. Jacobs knows her l Holland, and knows her Dutch wo- I men, and above all things knows the Dutch suffrage movement to it's core. 1 For it was she who in 1885 was the first woman in Holland to ask for the privilege of voting.
 Dr. Jacobs, as the first woman doc- tor in her country, had found that as married woman her signature to her own bills was of absolutely no value; that as a property owner she had no rights and that though she and many other women fulfilled the requirements of the constitution for voting, and that though the const1tu- tion did not prohibit it, somehow she and these other women were not Vot- ing. She was told upon her request, however, that the letter of the law allowed women to vote, perhaps, but that the spirit did not. And right then and there a new constitution was launched among other things, with the words "male citizen re- stricting the suffrage and two years later, when the constitution came into force, the women of Holland were fur ther from voting than they had ever been before. ..-
 10000 Members Today.
 Twenty-two years ago Dr. Jacobs started the Society for Woman Suf- frage in Holland. Today there are 10000 members in her particular or ganization, the strongest one in the country, and 5000 members of other suffrage organizations. This makes little Holland one of the strongest of suffrage countries. And they are hav- ing their difficulties, too.
 we are working against an anti prime minister" said Dr. Jacobs, "Cort van der Linden is strongly opposed to woman suffrage. Our cabinet of nine men are not in the majority on our side, though there are few strong ad- vocates Our parliament of 100 men is not enthusiastic. But we can do nothing except through our parlia- ment. We not only want to get wom- an suffrage through common law, which takes a mere majority in parlia- ment, but also through 8 change of the constitution, which takes two- l thirds majority.
 "But we think it is such a shame i that this queen, the first queen in the history of Holland, must sign a con- stitution that does not given equal rights with men to the members of her sex.''
 Queen Interested in Suffrage.
 Have you been able to get any ex- pression from your queen about suf- 1 frage?"
 ''No, we have not asked her. We l send her our literature, and once she l wrote and asked for it, but we try to l be as constitutional as we can, and she l is a very constitutional queen, you know. That means that she does not 1 take sides or express her personal opinion about controversial matters.
 Our cabinet is really a fine group of men, so wise in these fearful war times that we have a great deal of hope. And also the prime minister says he is willing to remove the words from the constitution, and then let the thing take it's natural course, which he thinks would be hard enough to keep us out, I suppose.
 'The working women in Holland have very bad conditions. You see we have labor legislation which divides the workers into two classes, the men and the woman and children. As long as this division remains and the women have these protective laws the employers won't pay them equally with men,. In other words, they do only as much as they have to for wom- en, and not nearly as much as ought to be done."
 Dutch Women Not Suffragettes.
 "How do the Dutch women go about their suffrage propaganda"' "' l asked. Street meetings and such?"
 we are not suffragettes," answered Dr. Jacobs, making the distinction American people used to make and have forgotten; i've are suffragists. We work like you American women. We send out literature and hold meet ings in town halls. But there are no street meetings of any kind in Hol- land, so therefore no suffrage street meetings. The officials of Amsterdam are very kind to suffragists and never refuse permission to hold meetings in the hall We also go in bodies to parliament.
 "Of course if we don't get suffrage this October, we will try again in 1917, when a new administration comes in power. And the general body of Dutch men feel just that way about it, too, I think, that if we don't get it now we will later. And they're right"