The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1920-08-28
ON SECOND THOUGHT
BY JAY z. HOUSE
(From Philadelphia Public Ledgsf)
The Lady Vote.

We trust we shall not be accused of
being unfriendly to suffrage if we set
down here certain reflections and con-
illusions inspired while observing
woman in the act of discharging her
obligation to the ballot box We have
heard all OF the arguments advanced
against womans participation in poll
tics. We have heard them many
times. In the abstract, none of them
carries weight AS a mathter of alb
stract justice and fairness. woman
should be permitted to vote. Partici-
patton in politics does not coarsen
women. On the other hand. contact
with women at the polls does not re-
fine men, Nor does it render them
less brutal and vicious. Despite the
softening influence exerted by women
in states in which they exercise the
prerogative of the ballot, men continue
to be a poor lot. Not much can be
said for them. About all they do is
carry on the business of the country
pay its expenses, plan the improve
ments, Keep up the schools and
churches, endow the hospitals and
libraries, sail the ships and run the
trains. But, speaking as one of the
poor fish" to whom we have just
alluded, we regard the extension of
suffrage as a simple act of abstract
justice. We are not enthusiastic about
it. We are unable to COO of woman's
victory in soft, dulcet tones. For we
are convinced that. concretely consid-
cred, it means nothing in particular to
anybody. not even to the women them
selves.
We write of equal suffrage from the
depths of observation of and personal
contact with it extending over a period
of years. In the state with which we
are most familiar suffrage is an old,
old story. Elsewhere we have written
that we had never known the woman
vote to turn an election We would
qualify that broad generalization with
one exception. We think it entirely
possible that the woman vote turned
that normally Republican state to
Woodrow Wilson in 1916. If the
women did shift the state into the
Democratic column in that election,
and that assumption is, of course
nothing more than conjecture backed
by a certain sensibility to political at
mospheres, they did it without refer
ence to the personalities of the candi-
dates or the issues OF the campaign.
The Republican national committee
pulled what is vernacularly known as
"boner." In the heat of the cam
paign it sent a special train of women
orators into the state to make an APP
peal for Mr.. Hughes. They were re-
fined, cultured women, drilled and
skilled in the art of presenting the
case of Mr.. Hughes. More than that,
they were becomingly gowned and
groomed, and they glittered WITH
precious stones. The busy housewives
turned out to hear them. snorted in
contempt at their fine clothes and
their assumption of superiority and
81 he ra1a xxri4l II
the avowed intention of voting for Mr..
Wilson. We don't know how many
votes that special train cost Mr..
Hughes. We have always figured t
beat him out of a presidency.
A man goes to the polls and votes
his prejudices. A woman alone with
her ballot and her God expresses her
dislike of some other woman. In
certain small city of the suffrage belt
with which we are familiar there is a
woman's civic organization to which
we shall here refer as the Better Gov
eminent club. 1t has several hundred
members, mostly educated and refined
women of the better class. 1t keeps
something going on all the time, is
continually in the newspapers and is
very active in all public and political
matters. The avowed support of the
Better Government club is a liability
to an organization or any candidate.
It not only is unable to cast its own
vote solidly, but it inevitably arouses
the bitter enmity and opposition of
the women who do not belong to it.
The instance is isolated. but the situa-
ton is typical. 1t is the flaw in the as
sumption that enfranchised women will
go hand hand to the polls TO vote for
cleaner and more efficient govern
ment. In campaigns in which women
make the issues or become much
wrought up over them the Maggie
Smiths are always against the Gene
We've Montmorencys, and usually out
vote them.
The thing we personally deplore
about suffrage, altho we do not con-
slider it an argument against the ex-
tension of the ballot. is that it keeps
every self-respecting male in a per-