Cayton's weekly. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 1916-1921, 1917-11-10
VOTES FOR WOMEN
(The Crisis

month as to whether or not they are will
ing that women should have the vote in that
State. 1t is an unpleasant but well-known
fact that hitherto American Negro voters
have, in the majority Of cases, not been ia
vOrable to woman suffrage. This attitude
has been taken for two main reasons: First,
the Negro still imbued by the ideals of
past generation, does not realize the new
status of women in industrial and social
life Despite the fact that within his own
group women are achieving economic indie
pendence even faster than Whites he thinks
of these as exceptional and abnormal and
looks forward to the time when his wages
will be large enough to support his wife
and daughters in comparative idleness at
home
Secondly, the American Negro is particu-
larly bitter at the attitude of many white
women: at the naive assumption that the
height Of his ambition is to marry them, at
their artifcially- inspired fear Of every dark
face, which leads to frightful accusations
and suspicious. and at their sometimes in
sulting behavior toward him in public
places.
Notwithstanding the undoubted weight
Of these two reasons, the American Negro
must remember, First, that the day when
women can be considered as the mere ap-
pendages of men, dependent upon their
bounty and educated chiefly for their pleas
ure, has gone by; that as an intelligent,
self-respecting human being woman has
just as good a right to a voice in her own
government as has any man; and that the
denial of this right is as unjust as is the
denial Of the right to vote to American Ne
grOes.
Secondly, two wrongs never made a
right. We cannot punish the insolence Of
certain classes of American white women
or correct their ridiculous fears by denying
them their undoubted rights. "."
It goes without saying that the women s
vote. particularly in the South, will be cast
almost unanimously, at first, for every re-
dictionary Negotiating piece Of legislation
that is proposed; that the Bourbons and the
demagogs, who are today sitting in the Ma
tional LEGISLATURE by the reason of stolen
votes will have additional backing for some
years from the votes of white women
But against this consideration it must
be remembered that these same women are
going to learn political justice great deal
more quickly than did their men and that
despite their prejudces their very emerg-
ence into the real, hard facts of life and
out of the silly fairy-land to which their
Southern male masters beguile them is 60
ING to teach them sense in time.
Moreover. it is going to be more difficult
10 ulSIrancnlSe cOlOred women IN the South
than it was to disfranchise colored men,
Even southern gentlemen, as used as
they are to the mistreatment of colored wo-
men, cannot in the blaze of present publ
city physically beat them away from the
polls. Their economic power over them will
be smaller than their power over the men
and while you can still bride some pauper-
lied Negro laborers with a few dollars at
election time, you cannot brige Negro wo-
men,.
1t is, therefore, Of the utmost Importance
that every single black voter in the State
OF New York should this month cast his
ballot in favor of woman suffrage and that
every black voter in the United States
should 90 the same thing whenever and as
often as he has opportunity.
1t IS only in such broad-minded willing
ness to do Justice to ALL even to his own
temporary hurt, that the black man can
prove his right not only to share, but to
hI