Richmond times-dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1914-current, 1919-06-03
Battle for Suffrage Not Yet Won

Z ATE OF the Susan B. Anthony amendment
is likely to be decided today. The House
having passed 1t with a swftness that was
amusing. although the avidity with which
many Representatives, for reasons we'll
known. placed policy above conscience should
have brought tears instead of cynical smiles,
Il now rests with the Senate to determine
whether or not the Constitution shall be fur
Their violated. and one of the few remaining
rishts reserved to the several States Of the
Union arbitrarily taken from them.
Only few days ago the stanchest pro-
ponents OF the Constitution, in the spirit as
we'll as the letter, admitted that the suffrage
cause seemed to have won, and that the votes
for-women advocates would be able to mus
ter the two-thrds majority in the upper
branch of Congress necessary to force this
alleged reform franchise issue before the
States for ratification or rejection. Even
then the margin was dangerously narrow, and
the agists were counting every possible
vote 10 make up the required number. Since
then Texas has spoken unmsta Ia bly,, and its
voice is strident against further usurpation
of its power to regulate its own domestic at
fairs. Votes Of its two Senators had been
counted on TO help pass the Anthony amend
ment If they heed the mandate of their
state, and they cannot do otherwise and keep
faith, they must vote against it. With these
Two votes lost 10 the cause" the constitu-
tional amendment may go down to a we'll
deserved defeat.
The recent poll OF the Senate, as does the
vote in the House affords some interesting
facts regarding sentiment for and against the
amendment. For decade the South stood
hrm on the foundation principles OF the
democratic party, and it has been held re-
sponsble for the opposition that made con-
sututonal suffrage impossible. Then, under
political pressure eSerted in divers ways, it
began to waver and drift, from It's ancient
moorings,, so that today the South, to its
political discredit be it said is no more a unit
on this question than is the North. Political
expediency has become the shibboleth, and
almost as many Southern Representatives de-
serted their party standards and supported
the Anthony amendment as voted against it,
while in the Senate there are at least ten
ooutherners who have allowed themselves to
he publicly committed for it and only thir-
teen who are standing fast. In this whole
sale deserton of Jefersonian democracy
Virginia has just pride in the fact that its
Two Senators and its nine Democratic Repre-
sentatives are answering in their determine
ZION and their votes against Federal regula-
tion or the States franchise powers
Should suffrage win in the Senate and the
measure then pass TO the forty-eight States
Tor ratlfcat ton, its fate would be problemati-
cal. thirteen States could defeat it, and OF
DGleVe r.
ginia would not be one. The New England
section is fairly solid against it, and if the
South can be swung back to strcter ad-
herence to party tenets, it will be able to
avert the enactment OF this un-American
legislation. But the suffrage organization is
prepared to carry its fight before the several
legislatures and, as in its battle before Con-
gress, to stop at nothing to achieve Its end.
Its inside workings have been revealed. and
IL stands forth as perhaps the most powerful,
unrelenting and insidious political machine
'hls country has known. Many OF its tactics
are questionable, many downright discredi-
table, but it has succeeded in instillng fear
IN the heart of many Congressman and in
obtaining his vote over his desires and his
reason 1t is possible that 1t may in the end
win an unrighteous victory but If it does, it
VIII speak i'll for the future OF American
women IN politics. The time to stop It is now
-------
An Unspoiied Hero
NJ o man, returned from field of battle IN