The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1917-08-09
WORLD War urges SUFFRAGE
Letter Points Out That America Is
Procrastinating While Women Are Be-
ing Promised the Vote in All Lead
ing Countries of Europe.

Xenosha woman suffrage leaders and
enthusiasts are interested in an open
letter from Carrie Chapman Gait, presi-
dent Of the National American Won
an Is Suffrage Association, in which the
tactics of the "White House Pickets'
are severely condemned as an error in
Judgment of all those who have the ul-
innate prosperity of the suffrage cause
that other nations, prominently France,
England and Russia, our leading allies
in this great war, have already opened
the way by which women will be al
lowed to vote while America stands
procrastinating. Women of the state
and nation are urged to use all their
influence to keep this government from.
longer refusing to allow the franchise
to one-half of its population and thus
become the rear guard in real democ-
racy, now at stake in the present war.
The letter in full, which will interest
all the women of Kenosha, is as fol-
lows:
An Open Letter to the Public:
The National American Woman Suf-
frage Association, composed of at least
ninety-eight per cent of the organized
suffragists Of the United States, is Of
cially on record as disappearing abso-
,lutely the picketing tactics of the
woman IS party. 1t regards those tao
tics as IN error of Judgment and has
said so clearly and emphatically both
in its capacity as a national or
ganzation and through its various
state affiliations.
It now urges press and public to dis
rega,a the tactics Imported from Eng
land OF small minority and to give
thoughtful, serious consideration to a
cause whose timeliness, despite a
world s war, has been admitted by the
great nations of earth.
The question is pending in the
British Parliament having passed the
House of Commons by an enormous ma
iority and has the sacred pledge of the
British government behind it. Five
out of eight provinces of Canada have
granted woman suffrage within year
and the Premier has predicted that al!
Canadian women will have the svote
before the next Dominion election.
Women have already voted in Russia
and their permanent right to vote is
conceded. France has pledged the vote
to her women. Political leaders in
Italy, Roumania and even Prussia have
within few weeks demanded action on
this question from their pariaments.
The National American Woman Suf-
frage Association points out that with
its membership of two millions of
women representative of all the states,
it is the essential agent to be reckoned
with; that its work has always been
constructive, lawabiding and non
partisan; that every grant of suffrage
to the women Of this country has been
the result of it's labor; that it's efforts
to secure federal suffrage amendment
have never tagged.
1t further points out its patriotic
pride bids it appeal to the country at
large, to insist upon the enfranchise-
ment of American women now. If the
United States is to keep its leader
ship of worlds democracy there is
no moment to lose.
Woman suffrage is coming. No person
who reads will deny that fact. 1t is I'M
thinkable that the women of the east
and south win remain ballotless while
the women of the west possess the
power to elect the president of the
United States. Nor is it thinkable that
the largest republic on earth will con-
tinpe to deny its women what has
already been granted by many nations
of the world
Then why waite Why this racking
delay9 America is shamed of the ma
tions by her procrastination in securing
this great electoral reform. Tt is
therefore to the sixty-fifth congress that
the public must look for action on the
question. Even though that congress
is now absorbed with war measures,
so are the parliaments of Great Britain,
Canada, France and Russia, and they
have found time to act.
Let no fatuous excuses then lead our
land into the political blunder of re-
fusing self government to half ,onr peo-
pie upon the eve of participation in a
world Is war; where, let it not be for
gotten, we 80 to establish the right of
those who submit to authority to have a
voice in their own government. /"
Carrie Chapman Gait,
Pres N. A. W. S. A.
Theodore W. Youman,
Pres. w. w. S. A.