The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1917-02-15

WASHINGTON, D. C., Feb. 13-
The woman suffrage movement has
been making its way for the last few
months without any srecular mani
festations, unless the picketing of the
White House by the mild militants,
Drawing the cold and dripping in the
rain in their yellow fshermen's oil
skins, can be classed as spectacular.
Notwithstanding the general absence
of any developments of the first mag
nitude, several new issues of consider
able Importance have arisen to engage
the attention of these interested pro
or con in votes for women.
One of the most interesting angles of
the situation comes up in consequence
of the purchase of the Danish West
Indies. These little islands. whose land
and commercial value is so small, and
whose strategic value was rated at
twenty-five million dollars, are seeming
ly going to bring a political problem
along with them. For the women of
the Danish West Indies have full and
equal suffrage. Will they be permit
ed to retain it under American rule,
ask the suffragists, and if so, fhall the
women of an obscure insular possession
Be granted greater rights by Congress
than the women of the continental
United States.
The most probable answer of Con-
gress, or at least that part of it which
is opposed to federal action on suffrage,
is that Congress has complete jurisdic-
ton over the Danish West Indies, or
the Dewey Islands, as they will probab-
iy be called under American rule, while
it has no constitutional authority to de-
termine who shall be the voters in the
states of the union.
It is probable that the women of the
islands will be permitted to retain their
rights to the suffrage. 1t has always
been the principle of the United States
in dealing with newly acquainted pos
sessions to avoid any step which would
interfere with any rights or privileges
that the people held in the past.
It is this same principle that is COM
plicating the passage of the Porto
Rlcan bill, whichswould impose an ed
ucational qualification on the voters.
which most of them would be unable to
meet, Those senators and representa-
tives who believe in the soundness of
the educational qualification are con-
fronted by the question of whether they
should insist upon!it and thus take away
the vote from some of those who have
had it in the past. In the Danish West
Indies the problem is simpler, since it
is merely matter of whether women
shall be governed only by the same re-
strictions as men, whatever those re-
strictions may be. The women of Den
mark and all the Danish possessions
were only granted the rights of full suf-
frage but little over a year ago, so
that to curtail the exercise of the suf-
frage now would be to contrast Ameri-
can with the Danish procedure rather
strongly.
While it is likely that the women of
the islands will be permitted to con-
tinue to vote on the same conditions as
the men, and thus furnish new
argument to the suffrage workers in
the United States, it is clear that this
state of affairs cannot be logically used
to attack the position of those voters
and legislators who hold that woman
suffrage is question for each state to
decide for itself. That this is the crux
of the question today is evident from
the planks in both the Democratic and
Republican platforms, which favored
suffrage, but left the question up to
the states. This angle of the matter
has been approached in a resolution
offered in the Senate by Senator
Poindexter.
The Poindexter Amendment pro-
poses to amend the Fourteenth Amend
ment to the Constitution of the United
States by striking out single word.
That word is ''male."
The Fourteenth Amendment was
aimed at any state that fixed restric-
tons on any of its voters. 1t left the
state the right to cut down the number
of its male citizens over 81 years of
age who were permitted to vote, by
fixing certain qualifications; but it
proves that if numbers of men over
q are denied the privilege of voting in
any state the representation of that
state in Congress shall be cut down in
proportion to the number of men who
cannot vote, Thus a state might con-
slider third of its voters undesirable