Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1920-11-01
THE WOMEN'S PART

VIE -O,OUO,UUO women VINO were en-
L franchised just in time for a national
election-that half of the adult population
which, because Of peculiar training, age old
tradition and inherited instinct, is disposed
to think in fundamental terms and to depend
ip crisis on unerrng intuition rather than
on any carefully reasoned out formula
represent n factor in the present campaign
about which leaders continue to guess and
worry. No prophet in either party has been
able to say how the feminine vote will go.
In Philadelphia there are approximately
400, 900 women with a right to register and
vote. About 250, 900 of these were assessed.
About 1901 actually registered and thus
qualified to vote tomorrow. If this ratio
holds throughout the country women will
hold balance of power in many states.
Reports indicate, however. that abouO10,-
100000 women voters will actually 20 to
the polls in all parts of the United States.
If there is any considerable upset in the
plans of one group OF leaders or another;
If, when the vote is counted, it becomes
apparent that old rules have caused to run
if early returns reveal unexpected trends in
this area or that, it will be because of the
women voters.
None of the prophecies made by the old
school politicos who fought suffrage have
/ been justified by the recent experiences of
party leaders. 1t used to be said that
women would have little interest in cleo
tions and that if they took the trouble to
mark ballot sheet they would vote in
variably as their husbands or brothers voted.
That assumption is not justified by current
discussions and dinner table debates in
American homes. Women take the voting
privilege seriously and even gravely. It Is
their habit to remember, as men do not al
Al A.
for Mr.. Harding or Mr.. Cox, for the Demo-
Gratis or the Republicans, but for codes and
agencies that can profoundly affect their
own and their children's lives, the integrity
of the institutions to which they look for
safety and peace and the whole intimate
routine of existence in their own homes and
their own communities. Leaders in both
parties, accustomed to conventional methods
OF campaigning, have been unable to mo-
bilize the women's vote in any great num-
bers because they have been unable to reach
the feminine consciousness with any of the
appeals that usually count heavily with men.
Women have disturbing habit of looking
through cloud of words for the essential
fact, an ancient dislike of the forms and
details that ordinarily obscure the simple
truths that are to them the most mportant
things in life. They do not want war. They
have an old dislike for political corruption
of the sort that used to be allied with the
saloon interests. They and they alone know
what poverty and unhappiness had to be
endured to make the whisky business as
| profitable as 1t used to be. And the part
ings and the loneliness of war years. the
sacrifices and the tearing apart of all familiar
ties that must be endured as a preliminary
to war are not things that women can think
OF without sense of wrong and outrage and
triumphant unreason. Memory of their re-
cent experiences, of loss, perhaps, of the
children about them, of ugly and unjust con
| ditions that seem to be destructive to normal
and progressive life, rather than a sense of
loyalty to any man or any party will in all
| probability animate the vast majority of
women who vote tomorrow. And their
| Judgment will be judgment by intuition.
| 1t will be opposed to evils sensed rather
| than to evils clearly understood.
In many of the states women already
| have developed enlightened and imaginative
leadership. A concern for the aims and
ideals enunciated in the constitution of the
United States remains with them because
1t has not been obliterated by generations Of
contact with practical politicians and prac-
tical politics. They bring faith and honesty
and deadly earnestness into national affairs
| and they bring vision and proud belief Tbev
may make mistakes, but they are more likely
to vote wisely and right 1t is their fresh.
ness OF view, their infinite sincerity that
Will inevitably have tonic effect on political
| thinking in this country.
1