The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1915-02-06
CONNECTICUT
 SUFFRAGE NEWS
GA. G Porritt)

q
 While Mrs. Prestonia. Mann Martin, the one time Socialist who has now thrown herself into anti-suffrage work, is trying to persuade women that the ballot is an unmitigated burden, a task and duty from which women ought to be exempt grangeS and trade unions in Conn ecticut are continuing to endorse the movement for votes for women. The men well know that the vote is not burden but a power, a means of making their. opinion felt, and a defence against injustice It is true that the working men of the Uni ted States have not obtained all that they desire through their possession of the ballot, but every man knows that if he were without suffrage rights he would be much more at the mercy fof interests antagonistic to his own than he is when he has it in his pow Ter to change the complexion of an ad- minfstration and to elect or defeat a candidate for office. While no-one man can wield such a power, men or ganized in unions and parties can make themselves, felt. But women no pe1tion and try to sway public opinion to such a degree as to bring the men to vote according to the wishes of the women.
 If as Mrs. Prestoia Mann Martin has recently stated, the ballot is only 1 stantly see paragraphs in the news papers about the effort of some man of other for a restitution of political rights Why should men who have forfeited the right to vote care about resuming this burden? The kind or man who applies for restitution of po- litical right, is not usually the kind of man who takes his duties too seri- ously. He applies not for a burden and a duty but for a, rgiht and a pri- tvtlege which adds to his consequence and dignity, and the deprivation of which seems to him a disgrace and a 1 stigma. Mrs. Martin will not impose this new idea on men. They know the value of the ballot too well. She will not impose it on the women of the equal suffrage states, who prize their new privilege and who will not hear of an initiative petition to repeal equal l suffrage The people she hopes to i'm pose it upon must be the ignorant and the inexperienced, the working women who need the ballot but when the An | tti-Suffragists try to scare into dis kclaining all desire for it, by telling them falsely that if they obtain the right to vote they will have to sacrifice all protective legislation which has I been passed in their behalf. These women do not realize that instead of enjoy, if they had the vote they could go with power in their hands to the legislatures and demand such further l protective laws as seemed necessary for their health and welfare
 The mems trades unions realize this need of working women for, the ballot and in their union meetings they are passing relolutions endorsing the de-
 pand of the suffragists. The resolu- tions are often on much the model o1 one that was passed a few days age by the Carpenters Union in Hartford
 This resolution read:
 l Whereas, the American Federation of Labor, the National Women's Trade Union League of America and the Con nectfcut Federation of Labor have en- tdorsed woman suffrage, therefore be ii
 Resolved, That we approve the ac- tion of these bodies and be it further
 Resolved, That we call upon the representatives in this Connections Legislature to vote in favor of sub-
 mitting the question of women suf- frage to the voters of the state.'
 It is somewhat difficult to discover who is really writing the articles thai are put out in Connecticut by the Anti Sufragists. It quite frequently hap pens that exactly the same matter is printed in one paper under the sigma ture of Mrs. w. B. Williams, the press chairman, and in another paper under the signature of Miss Lucy Price ol some other we'll known anti-sunragist A few days later the article will bof up in another newspaper-perhaps 2
 New Haven paper, after appearing 1T Hartford or Waterbury, or vice versa as a. letter to the editor, signed by g third signature: and in the end 1t oa1