The Fargo forum and daily republican. [volume] (Fargo, N.D.) 1894-1957, 1917-09-10
Roosevelt Tells Suffragists
They Are Entitled To
Ballot As a Right
DUTIES AND PRIVIL-
EGGS IN DEMOCRACY
Pays His Respects To The
white Rabbit Special"
Of Pacifists
INV ASSOCIATED Press.l

Oyster, Bay, ~. Y, Sept. l0.-Wo-
men are entitled to the ballot as a
right and not as a favor, Colonel
Theodore Roosevelt told a gathering
of about 500 suffragists and their
friends who motored to his home al
Sycamore hill Saturday afternoon
He declared himself most emphatic
ally in favor of woman suffrage and
was heartily applauded when he
said:
"On the whole the citizen to whom
will pay the greatest Difference as
doing the most indispensable of all
duties is the mother. will put her
ahead of every other human being.
Deny the mother the vote seems to
me something so preposterous that
our descendants will fail to under
stand how we could call ourselves
self governing and democratic and
yet deny it."
This is the only meeting dealing
with any matter not directly con-
nected with the war at which have
consented to speak at ALL" said the
Colonel in opening his address. Il
consented in this case because
wished to see this war put through
to a successful conclusion at no
maximum cost. wish to see every
man and every woman in this coun-
try devote every ounce Of his or her
strength to the end and when wish
that demand to be made upon every
one l wish corresponding justice to
be done everyone.
During the last three years we
have been in the habit of thinking
about what democracy means and |
believe that as we grow wiser we
will steadily come to the belief that
on the one hand we must in a
democracy suffer no injustice and on
the other hand we must do no in
justice. In other words democracy
must be a type of political organism
in which every right enjoyed Is
conditioned upon a duty performed
and every duty performed means the
corresponding enjoyment of a right.
Duty and Privilege.
Il wish to state with all the en-
phasis in my power that IL either
man or woman refuses to do his or
her duty / hold that they have no
right to the privilege of the suffrage.
/ do not put il on the ground OF sex.
put it on the ground Of duty. l do
not ask the ballot for woman as a
favor, / say that it should be given
to her as a right. People say that IL
women are given the ballot they will
fail to perform their other duties.
notice that the average man who
is most apt to say that Is the in
dividual who is not particularly Of
the performing type himself.
People have said to me that we
must not have women vote because
they would all be pacifists. The Lord
knows / despise a pacifist and ! have
made no special effort to dissemble
my feelings about that. But / have
failed to notice that among them the
Sinking sisterhood of pacifists out
numbers the bleating brotherhood OF
pacifists.
This white rabbit special that has
been going around the country has
not found a place for the soles of its
feet to rest. / believe that when the
right appeal is made, the mothers,
wives and daughters of America will
stand Just a trifle ahead of their
sons, husbands and fathers in sacri-
ficing everything even those whose
loss means infinitely more to them
than their own lives. They will sac
rifice everything to a great and lofty
ideal.
ION general grounds / have abso-
Iutely no question that suffrage must
come as a matter of right; IL We are
to continue our democratic expert
ment of government 1t must come"