The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1920-03-24

state has been giving its women the ballot they
still speak of suffrage symbol OF the blue stock
ing-they are probably fashioned enough to use
that old fashioned metaphor
/, Suffrage is here That Is the fact have to
face. Only short time intervenes. and women al
! over the United States will be enfranchised The
suffrage has through the state legislatures
easily. 1t has come grudgingly And it has not
| come because the think that the women want
| the vote 1t has come because some men and
women have had vision enough to that this
country needs the womans vote.
| AS it is now, politics is being played unfairly.
The western states many of the middle west and
some Of the eastern states have had the franchise
for years. and the last presidential campaign proved
most concusively that the voting in one
section of the country and not in another imposed
handicap.
| Let US take Florida. The in Florida have
suddenly awakened to the fact that there is some
danger of this state going republican. at the COM
ing presidential election. II the Of the
state had the power of the ballot that danger would
he practically nil. provided the press of the state
gave their columns to urging upon the women and
men of the state the great necessity that the
women should vote
/ Both the Times-Unon and the Tampa Tribune
have expressed their conviction that the franchise
should come have come to the women through the
4 state legislatures, and yet neither one of these
newspapers wrote line to bring this about but on
the contrary have written that argued against
| the vote for women
/ When the state legislature was In session. the
representatives of the people of Florida refused to
pass the bill which would give the people of the
sldee the right to vote on amendment to the
state constitution, enfranchisng the women. This
tDih was not designed to force suffrage the peo-
pie OF Florida 1t simply designed that the men
OF might their views for or against
tn tha eto4o
empower the women to VOTE this amendment to tbe
voted upon subsequently, But the legislature not
not only showed itself opposed to suffrage but
Went beyond all bounds by refusing to allow the
men whom the legislature represented to say vheth-
ler or not they wanted the suffrage amendment SUBJ
mitted to the people.
Ihls does not go to prove the truth of the Times
assertion that where there has been doubt the
men have given the women the benefit of it."
some men are absolutely hopeless on the suf-
frage question They speak of suffrage as though
1T might be within or a fad
But suffrage is here and it is here to stav The
wise man is the man who urges his woman kind
to VOTE who seeks to ncucate in his wife or his
sweetheart reverence for the ballot who urges
upon her to vote a sacred duty to her state and
her nation.
Unless the men of this state take suffrage serious
ly, unless they urge upon the good women of this
Ibe to Florida, in the years that are before it.
i At great suffrage convention in Washington
at the time that Mrs. Carrie Chapman Gait succeeded
DR.. Anna Howard Shaw president of the Ameri-
lean Woman's Suffrage Association Mrs Cats re-
minded the women present that the great need was
to educate the women to Importance of suffrage
Mrs Cats realized that when suffrage at last came
a great part of the world would be unprepared for
lit And she urged that we help to teach women the
use of her vote If the of this country will
heed that advice, may wrest the south from the
mis-rule which is with us.
\ If they throw their influence against the women
of the state voting. then will suffrage may indeed
: prove two edged sword.
What we want to do is to face facts. The vote is
here. Suffrage is knocking at the door of every
woman for admittance May God forgive anv
woman who refuses to cast her ballot right and
justice when the hour strikes, and her nation
, lcalls.-Celia Myrover Robinson