Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1920-08-19

tire complacency whole world Of little
children whose unprotected lives mean
nothing to them. 1t is to the aid OF
these same children in sweated indus
tries that women voters everywhere are
turning with a passion that is almost
maternal.
Politics was n mans business. That
was the accepted maxim. And in re-
cent years we have been able to under
stand how wisely men have been work :
ing in their divinely appointed field.
The decline of intellectual integrity
in the Senate of the United States has
been so swift as to be almost spectac.
ular. The House, like the Legisla
| lures of good many of the states, is at
times paralyzed by ineptitude or fear.
The election system Of the country, with
the assistance Of men who were loudest
in opposition to the suffrage movement,
has been perverted by ignorance and
money. Professionals in the political
galsehave not hesitated to destroy faith
in the institutions of democracy. They
are. not averse, apparently, to destroy
ing the institutions themselves.
Women objectors who composed the
organized anti suffrage movement were
sincere enough. Theirs is an ancient
ideal and beautiful one. 1t is founded
in appreciation of quietude and grace
and dignity of an old fashioned sort.
But it is an ideal that can be attained
only in the perfect social state that
usually is the peculiar advantage of the
antis themselves.
You will find few anti -suifragists
among the poor, whose interests are
very likely to be the interests Of women
voters everywhere.
Suffrage leaders in this state. viewed
in comparison with the accepted leaders
of the influential factions, seem to have
by far the better right to call themselves
statesmen. They have been asking in
cisive questions. They have introduced
a refreshing note of highly informed
criticism into current political discus
sions and debates. They smilingly re.
fuse to be befuddled by the platitudes
which sound like gospel to the rank and
file Of men voters. They want to know.
The League Of Women Voters has
attempted and is accomplishing a novel
task. 1t wants to put truth and honor
above factional concerns.
Mrs. Millcr's organization will not
have an easy time. Women voters win
be misguided and misled just as other
voters have been misguided and misled.
In time they, will find their way about.
But every woman is at heart an indi-
vidualist, and for that reason the new
voters should be themselves first and
partisans afterward.
1t is by the free play of their native
instinct for order and decency that
women may go far to humanize political
thinking in the United States and else
where. They bring to politics an un-
erring instinct for right which they have
carried, down against all tides. through
all defeat and disillusionment, from
years that were darker even than By
zantium. So it should surprise no one
If in every great election from now on
there is evidence Of new purposes and
clearer thinking.
About 2S,000,000 women will have
the right to vote ut the coming prcsi-
Dental election. They are the ones
whose patience and bright valor enabled
them to hold life together and Keep it
sane and steady through all generations
in the obscure ways and byways of the
land. Even the feminine instinct of
compassion expressed somehow in public
affairs might temper the life of the
times in more ways than one.
So. though no one knows just what
women voters will do, the nervous as.
Semblymen in Tennessee may be con-
soIed. They didn't make mistake
when they ratified, the Anthony amend
ment and acknowledged that women are
people.