The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1917-04-06
REGARDING WOMAN SUFFRAGE
To the Editor Ocala Banner:


Saturdays issue concerning the pres
ident's note to the Tennessee senate
on the subject of female suffrage in
which M" referred to Andrew Jack
son, you say:
Comforting the right of suffrage
to women is embodied in the national
democratic platform, and is as much
of national issue as notification
was in South Carolina, in which that
democrat buried at the Hermitage,
took part"
Permit me TO suggest that you
wrote without first thinking, other
wise you would have called to mind
that the qualification of voters is a
matter solely left to the respective
states, since the constitution of the
United States does not prescribe
what it shall be. This fact was fully
affirmed by the adoption of the 18th
amendment. prohibiting state
abridging a citizens right to vote on
account of race, etc. Therefore, when
the Tennessee senate were consider
ing the subject of the qualification of
voters in that state it was passing on
a strictly local or state matter, and
no tone involving the entire nation,
hence the improperly of the chief
magistrate of another government
seeking to control its action.
But very different case called for
General Jackson's action in the South
Carolina matter. Under the federal
constitution the congress had the
power to lay and collect taxes, du-
ties, etc. See Sec. s.
The executive power of the nation,
by that same instrument is vested in
the president. He, consequently,
must see that the laws of the nation
are executed South Carolina, through
its legislature, ordained and its gov
ernor publicly declared that certain
revenue laws passed by the congress
should not be enforced in that state,
and was preparing to make armed re-
sistance 10 their enforcement. Jack
son, of course, would not permit the
national laws to be annulled in any
such fashion. Messages, etc, of the
Presidents, Vol. 2, page 610. No sim
ilarity exists between the cases. Jack
son was maintaining the dignity of a
national law; Mr.. Wilson uses his in
fuence as president to have a certain
law enacted by state.
So far as the platfor mis- concern
ed, if l mistake not, the editor of the
Banner aided in making the 1912
democratic platform, which was eyi-
IDENTIFY torn to tatters as a scrap of
paper as soon as the party got in
power-Canal tolls and one term in
the presidency, to say nothing of an
economical" expenditure of public
moneys. In fact, Mr.. Wilson repudi-
ated the one-term idea before he was
inaugurated, but after the election.
In the 1913 platform declaration in
favor of woman's suffrage is inserted,
but the matter to be left to be de-
termined by each state for itself. The
question was not discussed in the par
ty before the convention, and as ev-
eryone knows it was a "vote-catcr er"
only. NJ.
If woman suffrage was a state is
sue, pure and simple, it would have
no place in national platform. But
it forms one of the planks of the ma
tiOnal democratic platform on which
Woodrow Wilson was nominated and
to which he swOre allegiance So it
does not seem to us that it was I'M
seemly for him to use his efforts and
influence to have it become a law in
all the states that have it up for con
sideration. If it were solely a local
issue, something like draining the
Everglades, then and in that event ii
might very justly be regarded as an
invasion of state rights to have the