The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1922-10-28
Women and the Ballot
National League of Women Voters EspOuses Amendment
to Constitution Forbddng Child Labor.

votes, the next important thing is to
educate them to vote intelligently and
thus confound the former male "anti's"
who held, openly or not, that women
do not know enough to vote.
Being Educated
In Politics.
In being educated" in politics, l.
may be said that hundreds of thous,
ands of American women are having
a splendid time It has always been
assumed for them that they knew by
instinct how to cook and bring up
children but lacked the instinct for
politics that is mans birthright. The
women themselves are perfectly will
ing to accept all these assumptions.
In their own hearts they know that
they had to learn cooking and the care
of the children; and so it is restfui
not to be expected to know politics
by instinct, but to be the object of
male concern that they be properly
educated. The process of civic educa-
ton they are finding pleasant. 1t
gives them club life and undomestiG
interests and activities, and they are
basking in the enjoyment of it.
Equal suffrage has now been in eff
feet long enough to make valid GER
tain generalizations. No millennium
has resulted; none was expected by
the intelligent leaders of the equal
suffrage movement. The country III
its politics wags along about the same
as ever. In proportions, the ignorant
vote Is as large as ever, the intelligent
as small. Ony the numbers of ballots
have increased.
But one rather unexpected discovery
i has been made, one attribute of wo-
/ men as voters brought to light which
with plenty of exceptions to prove the
rule, distinguishes them from men. the
attribute is this: women are distrust
/ full of political orators and oratory.
! The good fast talker in politics who
I once had the voters flocking after him
is now wearing a dazed and puzzled
expression; the spellbinder seems
/ to have mislaid his formula.
The plain fact Is, as shown by two
years of experience, gentle woman as
/ a voter is Just plain hard-boiled Men
/ voters are always seeking a Moses in
4 politics: the women demand to see
what he has written on his tablets OF
4 stone. This attitude is plainly an in
4 heritance of their domestic life. It goes
j right back TO the dress-goods counte.
in the department store. The gentle
manly clerk there gives his customer
an argument that would convince nine
men out of every 10. But nine women
of every 10 listen with a thoughtful
frown, meanwhile pinching and exami
ming the goods, and then as a matte.
of course visit all the other dress
goods departments in town before
purchasing
In politics they act the same way
They have not been dazzled by dema
gogues or misled by magnetic pres
ences, as some statesmen feared they
would be. On the contrary, they have
deliberately "shopped" for tickets ant
. candidates. This they have done By
means OF formal printed questions sub
mitted TO all candidates for various
+ jobs and in mass meetings of womer
: which the candates were invited to at
: tend
One other innovation of the womer
| voters has been welcomed by con
! scientious office-holders. The wome,
voters are adopting practice of hold
| ing mass meetings about six month
after new office-holders get their lob