The Washington herald., 1915-02-07
ANTS EAGER FOR
SUFFRAGE BALLOT
Mrs. Brock Tells What Penn
sylvania Organization
Plans.
DIFFERENCE OF OPINION
Divided as to Whether Gauss"
Should Be Defeated in Leg
islature or at Polls.
BY MRS. HORACE BROCK.

voters. In 1aCt, IN New 1OTh' lhe
"antis' are urging the submission of
the amendment, while the suffragists
are rather afraid TO have the thing go
to the voters, and are trying. there
fore. to get it included and buried with
other amendments proposed by the
constitutional convention, so that the
voter will have to cast his ballot for
suffrage or against a series of needed
amendments. 1t is an open question as
to whether putting woman suffrage
under such a blanket would help suf-
frage or hurt the amendments. Some
believe there is so much indifference to
suffrage that man would not vote
against II II il were with something
else that he wanted; while many others
maintain that putting another amend
ment with the votes for women" is
sue is the surest way to get both de-
feated.
In Pennsylvania. there is a difference
of opinion among "antis" themselves as
to whether they would rather defeat the
suffrage amendment in the Legislature
or at the polls-sO much so that l
would not presume to say that the ma
jority of us would be found on the
one side or the other. We have asked
the legislators not to rush through"
the bill submitting suffrage to popular
vote. but to give it the best of their
consideration, and TO determine, If
uents, whether the suffrage strength
is sufficient to justify the expense OF
the States having a votes for women"
campaign at the polls. The Western
States are finding out that constitu-
tional amending is a great expense to
the State and the taxpayers. In Penn
Sylvania, we have reason to rejoice
that our last constitutional revision
was so wisely done that an amend
ment defeated at the polls cannot be
brought up again for five years. In
Ohio. and other States, defeated
amendment can be brought up every
year-to consume the time and energy
OF those who conduct campaigns for
and against ito increase the uncer-
tainty which reacts on business and
creates general depression and indus
trial unrest-and at net loss OF
about half a million of the taxpayers
money for each campaign. Besides, in
a votes for women" campaign, we
must not only count the cost to the
Commonwealth in money. but in the
womanly enterprises that will be neg
lccted-the funds so urgently needed
in the relief of suffering that will be
applied to a political issue in which
both sides lose something. The suf-
fragists wasted S5O,000 in the States
they lost in November; it cost them
S37.0O to get to lose in Congress-and
the antis spent about $4,000 in 1914 to
defeat woman suffrage. This money
might have sent a ship to the starving
BeIgians-or relieved poverty and un-
employment here-while the only thing
it did for woman suffrage was to
prove it more unpopular. Therefore.
unless it can he shown that votes for
women" sentiment is strong enough to
actually require a popular vote to de-
eide it, it should not be made an issue
at the polls.
What About Platforms:
Haven't the legislators pledged them
selves to pass the suffrage amendment
on to the voters? Are the "antis" ask
ing them to break their promises Most
assuredly not-were asking them to
give this matter deep consideration
to find out whether their constituents
want the question submitted. Then. IL
they discover the sentiment over
wheImingIy against suffrage. as our
workers have. the issue is between a
party platform pledge to open the Con-
stitution to a radical change on the
subject of suffrage, and their oath of
office Besides. many of the Legislators |
were elected either before or without !
personal acceptance of the platform !
pledge.
We maintain that the two recent Sc
we're defeats of woman suffrage have !
illustrated that the public sentiment |
against votes for women" is very
much greater than had been supposed |
The suffrage battle cry. its surely |
coming" has been repeated so often. |
that like other advertising slogans, it |
found acceptance without examination !
of its truth. Many persons yet maintain |
that il is bound to come" but there |
has been noticeable decrease in this !
sort OF thing among the suffragists |
themselves lately. And those who have
given the election returns much study
can see that the "antis" surely had !
great deal the best OF il in 1914. Wom-
an suffrage has always regarded itself |
as an advancing movement" This is
the common faith on which every prop
aganda develops to the time when it
is either universally accepted or ever
Iastingly rejected. The play that starts
out with small country towns may
grow in popularity and patronage from
week to week-untiI il is staged where
it comes under the scrutiny OF metro
politan critics. Then. il may forever
be made a failure il it falls below the
standards demanded in a higher CUl-
ture. Since it was started in the United
States. woman suffrage has been tried
only in the sparsely settled States
Pennsylvania has $4,000 more women
over twenty-one than the whole eleven
full suffrage States that have twenty
times Pennsylvania area) and il has
gotten more criticism than commenda-
tion for its performances or negligen-
cies in these places. But we do not
have to rest our cause on the facts
that show suffrage a failure where II |
has been tried. With a man testifying
before the Federal Industrial Relations
Commission last week that conditions
were so corrupt in Colorado in 1914
that sheep. mules, box cars and dead
men" were voted in elections which
have had the purifying influence" of
votes for women" twenty-one years,
we'll let the model suffrage State" go.
Recommended Only by Its Promoters.
The trouble, briefly, is this: For sixty
five years votes for women has been
urged as a political panacea. The few
Commonwealth patients it could get to
submit to the suffrage treatment had such
small problems and so few people that
the dose did not vitally injure them. Then,
without recommendations from the pa
tients. but with all the boosting and ad-
vertising by its promoters, woman suf-
frage got to where il must be judged by !
the older. larger. and more experienced
States. Until 1913 woman suffrage looked
like an advancing movement, and its af-
hnlty with Progressivism and sisterhood
with Socialism gave Il standing as a po-
litical possibility, which II lacked until II
leaned on these two friends of feminism
But the Progressive party that backed |
Roosevelt in 1912 has faded like the mist |