The Morgan City daily review. (Morgan City, La.) 1916-1920, 1917-05-14
POLITICAL DIST
MENT CRlPPLES EFFICIENCY
OF WOMEN IN WARTIME.

Columbus, Ohio, May 13.-The
efficiency of women in wartime is
crippled by their political disfranch-
isement, declared Mrs. Carrie Chap
man Gait, President of the Natiora:
American Woman Suffrage Associa-
ton. in an address delivered here to
day before the Mississippi Valley
Victory Conference, under the aus
pices of the National Association.
eve stand today" said Mrs. Gait.
"upon the verge of what may prov"
the greatest test of endurance yet
put forth upon our republic. Wo
men, the greatest force our nation
possesses for the creation of pubic
sentiment, are asked to mobilize
their forces in aid of government
which has wronged them.
"Our nation is engaged in the de-
fence of democracy, for the right OF
those who submit to authority to
have a vote in their own govern
ment. The hearts of women would
beat more happily could they feel
that our own government had been
true to the standard it now proposes
to unfurl upon an international
field"
Recording the victories already
achieved by the suffrage cause, MRS.
Gait said there are in the United
States eleven states, besides the ter
ritory of Alaska, where suffrage IS
universal. In eight other states, wo-
men have the right to vote for
President, and in six they have
municipal suffrage. In thirteen
other states they have only school
suffrage and in four have the right
% vote on taxation Or bonding pro-
positions.
After reviewing the progress OF
suffrage in foreign nations, Mrs.
Gait said that women are about to
receive the parliamentary franchise
in England, that women suffrage Is
favorably regarded by the Commits
sion on Universal Suffrage IN
France and that the Italian Minister
of Justice has presented to the
Chamber of Deputies bill to abro-
gate every law by which woman's
judicial capacity is curtailed. Rus
sian women are to receive suffrage,
she said.
"The grievance which every
thinking, self-respecting American
woman feels, declared Mrs. Gait,
"is the discrimination which invited
to our land the men of all the ma
ton on earth, naturalizes them at
ter five years. residence, automa-
tically enfranchises them under ali
state constitutions, and then COM
mands American women to seek the
ballot at their hands. With the no.
tions of woman's sphere in mind,
which were formed in countries
where the status Of men is low and
that of women lower, they are given
the task of deciding WHITTIER Ameri-
can college Presidents, teachers in
the public schools and the Christian
mistresses of our homes are worthy
TO be trusted with the vote.
eve have been patient, infinite
" patient; but we grow rebelllous
because of the wrong done to the
people of the United tSates is rem
dered more conspicuously by con-
trast with other lands. In no other
country thus far has referendum
to a general electorate been de-
manded: in no other country could
it happen that native women would
be forced to plead with men OF
other races and nationalties for
their vote.
"Why have the men of our nation
been so unmoved by the plea that
if the principle of self-government
is right, it must be consistently ap-
piled? No women understands. we
are told upon the one hand that the
hour of autocracy has struck, thai
democracy, the rule of the people
is coming to its own; on the Other
we are warned that this is no time
to speak of democracy for that halt
of our own people who do not
possess its advantage.
"In the light Of these facts, the
'mumbo jumbo of sectionalism
states right, political party balance
and other forms of mental anesthe'
STA, used to quiet the conscious Of
otherwise progressive men, become
mere junk to be cast out Of our ma
tional thought. They represent moi
principles, but excuses. Posterity
,,,;l1 MT rocroct Thorn ma sritQh1e