The Marietta journal and courier., 1916-02-04
What Suffrage Is
This Column

League
The question Of Equal Suffrage is
not at all a new thing, as witness what
Plato says: In the administration of
State neither a woman nor a man
mas any special functions, but the gifts
are equally diffused in both sexes"
woman Suffrage is the final step to
real democracy, a genuine republic.
the natural result of the gradual ad
vance Oh women in education, law,
business, social and public life. A
sex winch has worked itself despite
those who are high in power and des-
pIte conventions and public opinion
INTO all professions and into the realm
oI business, can no longer be kept in
tutelage. Men make the shallow and
SHY Objection that it will take woman
ava! from her domestic duties Christ
only once chided woman-to Martha,
ana 1t was about domestic service;
she mad no time for the one thing that
was needful Any woman can get too
much domestic duty-statistics show
the nigh rate of lunacy among women
on faTms-a class of women who have
the heaviest and most uninterrupted
domestic duties. A little off time
such as half hour or half day, to
go to the polls to vote for a man.
might be mighty good thing for lots
OF women and for their communities.
we are educating our girls. We
cannot spend years in teaching a girl
literature, painting, philosophy, his
tory etc, and then ask her to use
these things solely as a toy or an
adornment, or in domestic duties, but
II teaches her to wish to use what she
has learned and to go on and on in
a special line of endeavor and 10 prove
her ability to reach the highest. She.
as well as man, has valuable gifts
10 offer to mankind England was
pretty sick Of the Woman Suffrage
workers until the war began, but look
at her women now, particularly the
militant ragiStS-emplOyed in not
the merely domestic lines of work.
but in the munition factories. as cab
drivers, in public positions of all
kinds, and as nurses, going up almost
to the firing line In England, also.
suffragists have been able to do what
many men and many bodies Of men
have not been able to do, and that
is to sink the cause dear to their
hearts into the cause which is now
for the greater good of all, England,
their country.
What Equal Suffrage Has Done.
There are eleven full suffrage
states: Washington, Oregon, Califor-
MIA, Nevada, Idaho, Montana, Wyo-
ming, Utah, Arizona, Colorado and
Kansas. Illinois has almost full suf-
frage
Of eleven Equal Suffrage states
seven have an eight-hOur day for
minors; of thirty-seven male suffrage
states, only 13 have this law. The
Equa Suffrage states have been pro-
gressive in this matter.
In eleven Equal Suffrage states II
per cent of boys under Is years are
at work
In 81 male suffrage states nearly 20
per cent of the boys under Is are at
work
= There is compulsory education in
all Suffrage States.
Welfare commissions, juvenile
courts, the honor and trust system for
prisoners are all movements owing
their inception to the Equal Suffrage
states.
In every Equal Suffrage state there
IS widowed mothers pension law
while more than one-half of the male
suffrage states have no such provi.
sion for the preservation of the
family.
Some people say that votes fo1
women will break up homes and di
vorce will follow This is not so. In
New Zealand. where women have
long voted, there is the lowest divorce
rate of any country in the worIC
where divorce is possible, and also
the lowest infant death rate in the
world. Is it not desirable for hus
bands and wives, mothers and sons 8
fathers and daughters, to have the
same interests, to work and think to
gether.
Why Not Be Logical?
Please be logical over Woman.
Suffrage, Because men have the vote
does it make them want to run fO1
office or neglect their business or thei-
homes? Does it take much time ava,
from their business to vote? In tn,
business of legislating for women anC
children, wouldn't it be good business.
to get the help and vote of wome1
who are experts in these needs? Any
how, don't you think that womel
would take more interest in the cleo
ton of good men to rule their cities
states and country than does the grea
automobile manufacturer, Henry Ford
who tells himself that he has OnI,
voted six times in thirty years ant