The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1920-08-15

ida have conferred the right of the
ballot upon its women. It is worth
noting that every city in the state
which has made any notable advance
during the past ten years has given its
women municipal suffrage. On the
surface, there may seem no special
connection with commercial progress
and the ballot for women. But il is
fact that Florida is largely made I'D
OF men and women who have come to
this state from sections where the
women have the vote, and it is but
natural for these women to enquire as
10 whether or not the cities where
they are to make their homes give the
right of municipal suffrage to the
women. They are far more likely to
be willing to transfer their allegiance
to city which confers upon them the
right of voice in affairs which are
closely connected with the welfare of
the home and the child. Florida was
the the first southern state to have
the right of ballot for any of it's wom-
en-, Felsmere having. conferred that
right when the town was first incor-
porated. Other cities soon followed.
That the woman's vote has acted
upon politics in this country in a
wholesome and helpful may be ascer-
tanned by anyone who is willing to let
facts take the place of prejudice. A
woman writing from Los Angeles has
recently been able to secure much
publicity in some of the newspapers
of the country. particularly in the
papers of Florida biased in their suf-
frage views, by her assertions of the
failure of suffrage in California I'm
fortunately for the truth, these news
papers have not given the same amount.
of space or equal prominence to the
statement of the governor of California
who declares that woman suffrage has
been most successful in that state and
has raised political standards, and
that were it put to the vote OF the
women alone, it would carry by ma
jority of many thousand, and the votes
of the men and women together would
give a majority of many more.
There is an astonishing ignorance
among some men in regard to the suf-
frage for women. Many men discuss
the ballot for women as if it were
something entirely new. overlooking
the fact that many parts of the west
have had woman suffrage for fifty
years, and that all over the world the
woman influence is felt in politics.
Also, men seem to forget that little
more than one hundred years ago,
men Id not vote on equal ground. In
those days, only man who had his
feet planted solidly on the soil, which
he owned had full political rights.
A little more than ona hundred
years ago men began to asitate for
equal suffrage for men. II those
days industrial interests We're large
ly controlled by landed interests. For
instance, not until 1926 were al, male
in New York of twenty one
years of age and over considered fit
to vote for all the elective offices Of
the state. The men who did bust |
ness one hundred and twenty years
ago were not necessarily qualified
voters. The farmer who drove into !
town for his Saturday trading was
likely to look with contempt upon a |
mere banker on election day, If it SO
happened that the farmer owned land /
worth say $500 and the poor banker
had his thousands tied up in bonds |
instead of lands.
1t is true there was a partial fran
chise. Men who were householders. |
for instance, and paid rent to the
amount of forty shillings a year for I
their homes, could vote for an as
semblyman, but no adult son who |
lived at home or male lodger who /
merely boarded could exercise this
right to vote. This limitation on the
suffrage completely disfranchised I
of the men, and the vast |
of the man had no control /
over the state senate or over the I
chief executive office of the state.
When they received the ballot, how
ever, the rights of others were soon
'orgotten, and it took the men of the
newly developed west. with their great
iced of the women, in this new coun- |
ry, to at last awaken this country
lot only to it's duty to its women, but
o it's need.