Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1921-06-07

w TA0H1NGION, ~. u, JQne Ill Inc
M conservative politician was alarmed
w at the woman suffrage amendment,
| his hair will doubtless STAND upright at the
| latest program planned by the feminists of
America.
| Fighting for one right" at a time is prov
ing too slow for the National Woman's Party.
| So it has decided to concentrate all of it's
strength on one big issue, and make that issue
cover everything The result Is a bill to be
presented to Congress which would remove
| at once all legal and political determinations
| against women.
| Similar bills are to be introduced into the
state legislatures. This will serve to arouse
Interest in the project throughout the coun-
| try. 1t will also give the women of the
states chance to try getting state laws en-
acted without waiting for Congress to act.
The bill is not quite ready for presenta-
| ton, but action has been started in half a
dozen states. Mass meetings are being held
| and the war cry is being sounded. The
women will enter the arena we'll prepared.
| 1t is probable that the national bill will
take the form of an amendment TO the con-
stitution. An ordinary law, the woman's
| party realizes, could easily be modified or re-
pealed altogether at any time by Congress-;
whereas repeal of constitutional amend
ment requires approval OF three-fourths or
the states With the women voting, repeal
| of a women's rights amendment would be
practically Impossible.
The women's bill of rights is being drawn
| up in fool-proof style by experienced lawyers
When the last comma and phrase is satisfac-
| tory it is to be turned over to Senator Cur
| tbs, Of Kansas, and Representative Tess, OF
| Ohio who have agreed to introduce the bomb
shell to their fellow legislators.
| What the women want l. a general de-
cree that no determinations are to be made
against women before the law Limitations
r6i xxnm noted
only in isolated instances. But the National
| Woman's Party points out that every woman
is at disadvantage at some time because OF
the eleventh century ideas Of woman's in
| feriority."
! Woman's Disadvantages
| Thus they show that the woman in business
who attains to an executive position is rare,
| and to reach such position she must show
phenomenal ability. In the factories women
are paid less than men for the same work as
matter of course while the woman who
applies for position in the Government,
aside from an ordinary clerkship, is apt to
find that the line of work in which she is
skilled is not open to women applicants, or
else it may be that the position Is open to
women only when men are not available.
| The woman at home gives her services as
| housekeeper and cook without pay, while her
husband holds the net earnings of the domes-
| tic corporation.
| A woman who marries man from another
state is apt to lose her privileges as a resident
of her native state. More than this, in a
number of states she loses control over her
property as it passes into her husbands
| hands.
If a woman becomes interested in go"ern-
ment and politics she finds that she is per-
mitted to vote for men candidates. picked
mostly by men. The important boards and
commissions that decide how the people S
money is to be spent have no women mem
bers And so it goes, the woman's party
points out, in every phase of life.
| Miss Elsie Hill, chairman of the Nation
| al Womans Party, believes that the coun-
| try is ready for a wholesale change in It's
attitude toward women, and that the pres
ent congress may put the rights bill through.
"Our traditions of what womans Emi-
tations should be- according to Miss Hill,
| "date from the eleventh century when the
common law was recognized in England.
This decided that woman was inferior to
man, and society has been guided by the de-
cision ever since.
| Even after the American colonies broke
| away from England, the states held to the
| tradition of the inferiority of women, and
only where state has modified some par
| ticular point, have we departed from it.
| Laws Not Consistent
Some states have recognized women S
ability in some matters, other states have
made concessions along entirely different
| lines. To take one instance, New York gave
married women property rights in 1846,