The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1922-08-22
''WOMEN'S BLOC" IDEA
? IS HIT BY PRIMARIES
ELECTION RESULTS INDICATE
WOMEN VOTERS RESENT
POLITICAL SEX LINE.
GET AN UNEXPECTED SHOCK
Neither Women Nor Men Voters Are
Following the Lead of Organized
Feminine Politicians, Who Have
Lost Every Fight.

WASHINGTON, d. C.-More or
less militant" women leaders in poll
tics-the kind who fought over-herce-
ly for the suffrage amendment and the
kind who have tried to organize their
sex into special parties and blocs-
are finding out with chagrin something
that a great many mere men already
knew or strongly suspected.
There is no such thing as the Wo-
man vote as contradistinguished from
the man vote.
1t is the primary elections that are
administering the shock to those who
fancied that the time was ripe for
sort of Amazon movement in Ameri-
can politics, and that candidates for
Office, whether men or women, could
be put at the mercy OF women's clubs
and declarations"
Not Following Militant Sisters.
What is going on at the primaries
would seem to indicate very clearly
that the great mass of women voters,
which does not belong to clubs or
declarations and did not care particular
ly about having the vote, anyhow, is
inclined to do just the opposite OF what
the more or less militant sister adj
vises.
No candidate of established political
strength i'll state or district appears
to be going down to defeat tor re-
nomination because OF not having been
an original woman suffragist," or be-
cause of not having voted in congress
for some $3.50 measures to which an
organized effort was made to attach
special feminine interest,
Political developments appear to
bear out the belief that there is no
special sex appeal in the question OF
education, as either national or state
matter. If education is good for
girl it is good for a boy; and whether
or not the Towner- Sterling bill is an
advantageous piece of legislation is a
problem whose decision should be
reached according to the same pro-
cess Of thought by men and women.
There is no question that the ma
iority of the organized women tried
to defeat Senator Swanson, of Vir
ginia, and the support Of that element
was sedulous1y courted by his oppo
nent. The crushing victory OF the SEN
ator proves that most of the women
voters who participated i'll the pri-
mary cast their ballots for him. The
fact that he was not among the orig
inal suffragists" did not disturb them
in the least. Neither were they
Women Voted for Reed
Senator Reed was the object OF a
particularly determined attack from
the "organized women" He had OPP
posed the Sheppard Towner materni-
ty act and pretty much everything
else that they had urged him to sup
port. 1t is a fair guess that they made
more women's votes for him than they
made against him. They may have
clinched his denomination.
Miss Alice Robertson, the congress
woman from Oklahoma, who votes as
she thinks and who would be a pow
err in any great parliamentary body,
was even more the object of the mil
tants' wrath than was Reed. Miss
Alice" had been an original opponent
of woman suffrage and had never apol-
ogized for that course. She had OPP
posed the Sheppard Towner bill, and
the Towner-Ster1ing bill, and any 9TH
err measure she didn't like, whether
it happened to be a pet OF women's
clubs or not. She had also opposed the
bonus bill. The militants thought they
could fix her. But she was triumphant
ly renominated.
OF course, the majority of the wo-
men voters did not believe that Miss
Alice Robertson was less disposed to
be considerable OF motherhood, or OF
education, or OF the soldier who act
ually suffered from the organized
women" who attacked her. No more
did they think Reed foe OF mothers
or of education, or Swanson an enemy
of the female sex.