Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-08-08
SUFFRAGE AND THE SENATE
A Few Stern.Minded Gentlemen Who Have
Clashed With the Forces Of Evolution

ton in Washington has decided that ne
will not vote for the national suffrage
amendment.
Senator Davy is an old-school politi-
clan. Viewed from one angle he is efh-
cient, temperate, passionless, a finished
handshaker. a womans- -place-is-in-the-
home sort of man. Scrutinized from the
angle of the suffragists and the ultra
moderns in politics he belongs to the
school of craftsmanship which is not yet
quite reconciled to steam.
1t is interesting to observe the IN
creasing vitality of the suffrage issue.
The Cause is to be credited with the
first decisive victories of the war.
The President has written an appeal to
the anti-sufTrage Senators which would
have been one of the most remarkable
papers of the whole Administration had
it not been overshadowed by the more
dramatic concerns of warfare.
The Russians in all of the various
forms of government tried or proposed
since the first revolution have provided
for universal suffrage. The service that
women have given in the war has in
spired revolutionary change from the
old traditions and prejudces which made
the progress of the women's movement
so difficult in England.
President Wilson favors suffrage. So
does the House. In the Senate opinion
is almost equally divided on the question
of the national amendment. Senator
Baird S one of the small group which
will decide the matter for the United
States. constitutional amendment may
not be the wsest method for the occa-
sion. Yet it is doubtful whether the SEN
ators will be long able to withstand the
tide of sentiment that has swept aside
so many obstacles in other democratic
countries and overwhelmed prejudices
alike among the Bolshevki and in the
House of Lords. Senator Baird, in the
long run, will not make up his own
mind. The world will make it up for
him. Universal suffrage seems to be a
certainty of the near future in the
United States.
Even though the militants have chosen
this momentous hour to appear again in
Washington ad get arrested for picket
ing. and even though they seem always
to have done their best to convince every
body they at least are not qualified for
the vote, we refuse to let them decide the
matter They are a small and restless
ho ,i1itoptc
They are the folk that clever man had
in mind when he said that there would
be a lot of empty lives in this country
if ever the franchise was granted to
women.
The view, familiar among the majority
of suffragists, that the vote is the moral
right of intelligent women, never has
justified serious opposition. The politi
clans like to say that women would not
know what to do with the vote if they
had it. And most of the politicians obtain
power and office because the majority of
men do not know what to do with their
votes.
In almost every anti-suffrage speech
the statement occurs that women aren't
interested in politics. That is true.
Women are not interested in politics.
Why should they be interested in a
process from which they have been kept
consistently aloof? 1t has always been
the hope and the belief of the wiser
suffragists and of those who still hope
for good government that women will be
interested in politics just as soon as they
ale permitted to become familiar with
the meaning of the franchise, its opera
tions and its possibilities. This will take
time. 1t may be years before the influ-
ence of women voters is actually felt
either in the country at large or in the
communities where woman suffrage is
now operative. But this knowledge has
no bearing whatever on the rights or
wrongs of the issue.
1t is the exceptional man who votes
thoughtfuly and wisely. There are many
exceptional women who are ready to use
the franchise for high purposes. And we
venture a guess that women, on the
whole, are more conservative, more likely
to be devoted to abstract and ethical
causes than men are.
Equal suffrage is, after all, reform
that seems destined like the Declaration
of independence or the Magma Charta
The conscience of civilization is demand
ing it. Senator Baird and those of his
colleagues who are still unreconciled
might better go along with the crowd
1t is rather big crowd And it is al.
ways better to go along comfortably thar
to be pushed. Meanwhile it us rather ode
to think that any good Bolshevik woulc
consider Senator Baird and his grouE
uncivilized.