New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1920-07-23
Deadly Insults
Those Offered by Senator Wads-
porth 10 Women Voters

10 the Editor of The Tribune.
Sir: In her leading editorial in last
weeks issue of "The Woman Patriot"
the organ of the anti-suffragists, pub
llshed in Washington, Mrs. James w.
Wadsworth jr., wife of the senior Sena-
tor from New York, says that in draft
ing the suffrage plank at San Francisco
the lion. Garter Glass, of Virginia,
offered the women "the most deadly in
suit he could conceive" In the Demo
cratic Endorsement of the Nineteenth
Amendment Mrs. Wadsworth sees a
sinister attempt to "buy the vote of the
women by furnishing the last state"
and she is surprised at Senator Glass.
The anti-suffragists did not look for
much stamina from Mr.. Wilson's ma
chlne," she says, "but they little dreamed
that the platform SO favorable to Alice
Paul would be drafted by man black
listed as leader of the antis."
Senator Glass is one of the manv
statesmen in both parties to whom the
march of events has shown the Justice
OF woman's demand for the vote, and in
wanting his party to have the distinc-
ton of furnishing the thirty-sixth and
flnal necessary ratification he is in ac-
cord with the best political wisdom.
Senator Glass is not inconsistent. but
what shall be said of the consistency of
James w. Wadsworth jr., candidate to
succeed himself in the United States
Senate? Speaking of "deadly insults"
was ever such an insult offered the in
telllgence of women as that implied in
Mr.. Wadsworth's demand that his
women constituents use the vote he tried
to keep from them to reelect him that
ne may continue to misrepresent them
and the great state from which he
comes?
In 1917 the women Of New York, op-
posed to the last ditch by Senator Wads-
worth and his wife, who was then ma
tional president of the anti-suff ragists.
won the franchise by the decision of
majority of their men. At least half
the inhabitants qualified to 90 to the
polls in this state next November are
women. Senator Wadsworth knows that
he could not possibly be elected without
the votes of a good many women. He
and his campaigners are already trying
to line them up. And even while Sena-
tor Wadsworth is asking the women of
his state to further his interest he is
doing everything in his power to keep
the women Of other states unenfran-
chlsed. He voted against the Nine
teenth Amendment each time it came up
IN the Senate. His influence has been
used against ratification in more than
one state, and so has that of his wife.
If Senator Wadsworth came before
the people of New York saying: 81 do
not wish the votes of women. Having
always believed and asserted that it
was best for the commonwealth that
women should not participate in cleo
lions, urge them to remain away from
the polls next November" we could re-
spect him as consistent man. But
Always the ants have declared that
WoHidi suffrage was allied with the
worst of evils. They have bracketed it
with Bolshevism, Socialism, Mormonism,
They have predicted that for women to
vote would be to break up the home
and to open the gates to radicalism and
the worst forms of license. "The Woman
Patriot with which Mrs. Wadsworth
has been so prominently identified has
been full of these awful prognostica-
tions. And now Senator Wadsworth is
willing to seize personal profit, or try
to, out of the thing he and his allies
said would bring the pillars of society
tumbling about our heads.
Senator Glass's plank may have been
a bid for the votes of women, but at
least it offered something in return. It
didn't say, "Well keep the ballot from
you If we can, but if you get it. use
it for u.s."
BIRDSALL OTIS EDEY.
(Mrs. Frederick Edey.)
bellport, N. Y, July 81, 1920.