St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1915-05-12
WOMEN NEED FREEDOM
Mrs. Wyman Addressed College Club
On the Call For Equal



At an open meeting of the College
Club at the Fairbanks Museum last
! Friday evening, members and
friends of the club were treated to
an enthusiastic and convincing talk
on the question of equal suffrage by
Mrs. Frances R. Wyman of Manches-
ter Center, president of the Vermont
Equal Suffrage Association Mrs
| Wyman spoke briefly Of her past
ideas and movements have tended
toward the present day struggle by
women for the vote, which, when
| considered as IAN expression of Opin-
! ion where it will be counted" should
be used by them as we'll as by men
to bring about the ideal condition of
home and community and country
at large. In the first place women
crave the means of self-expression
as we'll as men, and ask for this
right to control their own lives just
as men use the vote to control
their own. What women need to be
wholly useful is freedom, freedom
physically, economically and polite
ally. Their freedom physically
means the end of a double moral
standard for the two sexes, which
cannot fail to have a vast effect on
the public and legal immortality of
the times; and also make the train
ing of children for strong and clean
citizens more convincing and effec-
tive than when done by mothers in
the home, only to show the con-
trasts in world outside.
Economically, women have made
great advance in the last years un-
til today 100000 women are in
the business world. This, however,
has not yet given to women doing
the same work as men the same sal
airy. The economic freedom that be-
longs to women should enable her
to support herself if she chooses,
so she need not be forced to marry
in order to be supported.
The economic status of married
women is very little better. In gen
eral the married woman has no
money. In exchange for assuming
the role of home-maker, for rearing
children, etc., she receives her board,
and clothes and at the end, what?
One-third of the joint earning of the
husband and wife. This lack of
economic freedom is largely respon-
sfble for the divorce evil that is SO
loudly lamented.
The opponents of suffrage seem to
lie mostly among the interests that
thrive on the exploitation of the peo-
pie, principally the liquor and vice
/ interests, and among the ''antis,"
who include the ignorant, the indo-
lent, those who are incapable of un-
usual thinking, and lastly those good
men and women who, as yet are I'M
awakened to the needs of women and
the times.
Today II states have equal suf-
| froc toll 20 at &c
that they are mostly neighboring
states, showing that getting a first
hand glimpse of the states under
| the law has tended most of all to
spread the influence. If the East
allows the West to exceed it in the
growth of equal suffrage, it will be
only a short time before the cleo
toral votes of the West will domi-
nate the East.
The addition of women voters
would increase our nativeborn
! against the ever-increasing foreign
tide, and also increase the number
of educated and Christian voters as
today more girls attend college than
boys, and more women belong to the
/ churches than men.
The sentiment of our last YER
mont legislature showed how near
1 ly ripe the time of accomplishment
must be. The question of the right
and wrong of the measure was not
mentioned, but the great impede
ment seemed to be the matter of
poll tax, which if the bill became
statute, threatened to effect a hard
ship in families where a single
breadwinner would have to assume
the poll tax burden of his wife and
several adult daughters. Yet, as
Mrs. Wyman said, women have not
asked to be relieved from the poll
tax or have it lightened, feeling
doubtless that the privilege will be
worth the price.
Suffragism in its larger aspects is
| mot q criticism 0f mans work huf