Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1920-01-21
THE WOMEN ARE PEOPLE
WITH OR WITHOUT THE VOTE
And They Are Wisely Planning to Exer'
else Their New Political Power In
Conjunction With the Men

'1E meeting OF lne heplDllcan
L Women's Committee, in the head
quarters of the Republican State Commit
tee in South Broad street, forecasts what
is to happen when the equal suffrage
amendment to the constitution is adopted
and the women enjoy all the political
privileges of citizenship.
Mrs. Barclay H. Warburton's statement
of the work before the women in the
interval that must elapse before they are
permitted to vote was conceived in the
right spirit and based upon proper ap-
probation of the function of voters.
Mrs. Mortimer Brown, the president of
the Democratic Women's Club, is likely
to make similar statement to the Demo-
cratic women when those women are suf-
ficiently organized to make a concerted
effort to prepare themselves to partici-
pate in the nomination and, election Of
public officers.
1t is evident that these women are not
toying with the idea of distinct and
separate womans party. They are not
making the mistake of organizing them
selves into class group seeking to ad-
vance class interests.
They pay the men the compliment of
assuming that men are just as much in
terested as women in all kinds of social
legislation
The men are fathers of the children the
exploitation of whom by employers is
objected to by the mothers.
The men are also the husbands or
fathers of the women for whose protec
tion factory laws have been passed.
And the men have passed the laws, not
primarily because the women demanded
them, but because they knew that they
were necessary if the health and stamina
of future generations were to be pro-
tected.
The women will align themselves with
the Republican and the Democratic
parties in this state as soon as the privi
lege of voting is conferred on them. In
spite of the talk about the degeneracy of
the old parties, talk as old as party gov
ernment, the women are not likely to take
the lead in advocating new issues so radi-
cally different from the issues to which
the existing parties can commit them
selves that a new party will have to be
formed to carry them into effect.
The Democratic party of the present
would not be recognized by Jefferson. 1t
has abandoned its historical position in
support of d strict construction of the
constitution and in defense of the rights
of the states, and many of its leaders have
demanded the adoption of policies which
jefferson would have denounced as the
extreme of socialism and unthinkable.
And the Republican party, organized to
combat the evil of slavery, did not die
when slavery was abolished, but found
new issues and new policies which it ad
vocated and applied to the satisfaction of
the nation for many years.
Party names mean nothing as SUCH No
one knows this better than the women. In
their best estate parties are groups of
voters agreed on the same policies and
united in order to carry those policies into
effect Parties are the tools used by the
people in accomplishing their purposes.
They are not an end in themselves, but
means to an end.
1t is necessary to remind ourselves of
this occasionally because of the tendency
of extremists to magnify the party above
the principles for which it stands and to
put loyalty to the party organization
above loyalty to the interests of the
people as a whole. This is natural error
because it arises originally out of the con-
viction that the interests of the people as
whole will be best served by the
triumph of the party.
So it has happened that some idealists
have hoped that the women would not at
tach themselves to the machine of either
of the existing parties, but would unite
to force the parties to abandon their evil
ways and to approach more closely TO the
ideal.
This view ascribes to women qualities
which the best of them know they do not
! possess. 1t is based on the assumption
| that the vote has been given to women in
| order that the political and social life
| might be reformed through the influence
of a group of voters so much better than
| the men that all that was necessary to
! bring about heaven on earth was to give
this group political power
But women, after all, are only people.
/ As voters they have the same foibles and
are subject to the same temptations that
| beset the men.
The vote is being given to them not in
order that society may be reformed by
them, but as a matter of justice.
The politics of the states in which
women have voted for years is no purer
than in the states where men are the only
! qualified electors.
The women have not organized separ-
ate parties in the equal suffrage states.
They have divided themselves among the
existing parties. And in all the years
since first woman began TO vote but one
woman has been sent to Congress.
| Whether more of them will be sent there
after the final ratification of the equal
suffrage amendment remains to be seen.
1t will depend entirely on the interest
which the women take in party manage
ment and in their feeling that the men
cannot be trusted to do the work of gov
eminent unaided by the active advice OF
women in positions of authority.
Women, however. have already h(