The Hartford republican. (Hartford, Ky.) 18??-1926, 1915-02-19
The Woman Suffrage Crisis.


has seen ft to place the question OF
woman suffrage squarely before tbs
present electorate. Every man of vot-
ing age must meet the issue courage
ously, intelligently, with clear vision
The answer of New York State 10
this long pending query should I've
forcible and definite. The proposed
amendment 30 the State Consitu-
ton should be voted down by such
a majority of the voters as TO deprive
the advocates of an Objectionable and
unreasonable arrangement of the po-
.litical and social structure of any
further hope of success in this State.
The question involved is not new,
all the arguments of the suffragists
are old and long ago refuted and sent
TO limbo. Their ceaseless and noisy
agitation has not developed single
new idea. Woman suffrage would
result either in a needless political
nuddle or in a social and political
turmoil which would tend to weak
en- the State, to stir up discord in So
ciety and in the home, and would put
obstacles in the way of progress
which the wisest craftsmanship might
fail TO overcome.
The grant of suffrage to women is
repugent to instincts that strike
their roots deep in the order of nat
ure. 1t runs counter to human rea-
SOD, it fiouts the teachings of en-
perience and the admonitions OF COM
mon sense. Although women have
other capacities without number,
held in equal distinction and some
in higher honor, they have never pos
sessed or developed the political fac
ulty. Without the counsel and guild
ance of men no woman ever ruled a
State wisely and well. The defect is
innate and one for which a cure is
both impossible and not to be desir-
ed. That they lack the genius for
politics is no more to their dis
credit than mans unhandiness in
housewifery and in the care of in
fants and his small endowment of
those finer qualities of charm and
tenderness that steal away half of
life's sharpness are reproach to
him. Their are two human estates,
the mans and the woman's. Their
are traced by no imagi-
nary or effaceable lines. Nature has
marked them by metes and bounds
that no human being ever yet over
looked save with the conscious in
tept 10 transgress her laws.
= For the intelligent use of the bal
lot men in their daily callings un-
dergo a ceaseless training. The
hand Of the law has within its reach
every man and every woman, but
IN their business affairs men are
In such immediate touch with con-
trolling authority that they find
themselves all the time forced to
take thought about the laws that
help or hinder them, whether they
be good or bad, and in what way
they may be bettered. The mer-
chant and the manufacturer, men
engaged in the business of bank
ang, insurance, real estate, foreign
trade, the lawyer, the doctor, the
blacksmith. the farmer, men in all
the thousand branches Of male affairs
habitually and necessarily from rea-
Boned opinions of the efficiency of
government, the virtue of laws, the
policies and the promises of parties,
the character and the pledges of
candidates, and they go to the polls
prepared to cast ballot that will,
30 far as il may, give effect to
their convictions and their desires.
Some men, many men, reason fool
ishly, vote foolishly, but their mo-
tives and their decisions have at
least some discoverable relation TO
the public aspects of the questions
nj issue. When that relation is not /
discoverable men have TO admit that !
they vote in a feminine way, for
woman's reasons, not mems. The |
voter must help TO decide the gravest |
public questions relating to labor, in
disputes, measures of ma
tional defense, race problems. public
morality, monetary plans, tariffs, and
taxation. On such questions men .
vote according to judgments founded |
on observation and knowledge &C
auired in the pursuit of their daily
business. Women would invariably
attempt 10 decide such matters en-
pirically or emotionally.
But, say the suffragists. women as
we'll as men may equip themselves
for the intelligent use OF the ballot. |
women may and do, the
mass of woman will not and can not.
save by spending their lives in the
hard school where men learn how to