Part 1

SUFFRAGE SNAPSHOTS

_By_ IDA HUSTED HARPER

_Have a smile with me_

WASHINGTON, D. C. 1915

These random paragraphs are a few of many which have appeared in _Judge_ to express the lighter side of the so-called “woman question.” This centers in the suffrage movement but woman’s quest of the vote is not a joke. It means a great deal of hard work, many anxious hours, some keen disappointments, yet those who are not in the thick of the fray will never know the good times they have missed. Flashes of fun have been scattered all along the way like flecks of sunshine on a shaded path. It will seem very dull for a little while after the vote is won and women get their rights, but they will soon be able to make things lively again and contribute as always to the gayety of the nation.

Copyright, 1915 BY IDA HUSTED HARPER

Original matter copyrighted by _The Leslie-Judge Publishing Co._ and used in its present form by their courtesy.

Miss Jane Addams in her suffrage speeches insists that men have nothing to fear, for the women will vote right. That very fact gives some of them everything to fear.

* * * * *

Edison says, “the movement for woman suffrage is just plain morals.” Maybe that’s the trouble—they’re too plain. Dress them up fashionably and see if the lady “antis” won’t accept them.

* * * * *

A new Chicago policewoman has qualified as one of the best shots on the force, 92 out of 100. Does she vote because she is such a good shot or can she shoot so well because she is a voter? What is the connection between shooting and voting anyway?

* * * * *

Annie Riley Hale, a prominent “anti,” says that women want the suffrage in order to establish polygamy throughout the United States. If she can prove it will have that effect the women can take a rest and the men will carry on their campaign for them.

* * * * *

It looks as if one recall, one defeat and then another election had started wings on Mayor Hi Gill, of Seattle. After the tragic close of his first term his chief of police and alleged partner in sinful practices was sent to prison. The women gave Hi another chance and now he has appointed as chief of police the ministers’ candidate for mayor and is trying to live up to his chief’s standard. Meanwhile the women are standing by with their spectacles on and a recall petition handy.

* * * * *

If Mr. Bryan writes the next Democratic platform it is safe to wager there will be one plank in it which he flatly refused to put in the last one.

* * * * *

Why don’t the “antis” get a sewing society somewhere to pass a resolution against woman suffrage? It is growing terribly monotonous to have all the women’s organizations in the country declaring in favor.

* * * * *

It is said the Ohio Board of Administration is appalled at the number of imbeciles in the State. We thought there must be quite a lot of them when 528,295 votes were cast against the woman-suffrage amendment recently.

* * * * *

Women have voted for over twenty years in Colorado and twenty-one judges of districts courts have sent letters to United States Senator Shafroth, testifying that they never have known a case of divorce because of political differences between husband and wife. Another anti-suffrage bomb failed to explode!

* * * * *

Dear, dear, how times have changed! Once a woman was not considered a person by law and a wife and husband were one and he was it. Now the highest court in New York has decided that a wife is not only a person and an individual in her own right but she is a family! “A childless widow or a deserted wife without children is included in the term family”—those are the very words. From nobody to a whole family—what an evolution!

* * * * *

A Chicago girl swam two miles to shore from an overturned boat, dragging her escort who couldn’t swim. Now the delicate question arises, Which shall do the proposing?

* * * * *

The High Court of Great Britain has decided that a woman cannot practice law because she is not a “person;” but she can be a Queen because a Queen does not have to be a person—at least that is all anybody can make out of the decision.

* * * * *

Mr. Hugh Fox, secretary of the United States Brewers’ Association, assures the women that it will make no organized opposition to the pending suffrage amendments. Maybe not—but there is something mightily suggestive in that name.

* * * * *

“Tariff reform, fiscal policies, large international relations are foreign to the consciousness of the average woman,” says Mrs. Dodge, president of the anti-suffragists. Maybe so, but it seems as if she might have sense enough to put a mark on a ballot opposite an eagle, a star or a moose’s head.

* * * * *

A man was excused from serving as juror in a murder trial in New York lately because his wife wouldn’t allow him to convict any one of murder. Out in Oregon a juror was challenged the other day because his wife had already been accepted and it would be impossible for him to give an unbiased opinion. What makes people think that under equal suffrage wives would all vote as their husbands do?

* * * * *

The women voters of Arizona have started in on so many reforms that the men can almost feel their wings sprouting.

* * * * *

The president of the New York State “antis” says, “Suffrage is going, not coming.” Well, it sure does seem to be going some these days.

* * * * *

It seems as if, when not only State courts but the United States government itself forbids the use of aigrettes, women would give up trying to wear them; but the Injun in ‘em dies hard.

* * * * *

A French naturalist has discovered that the female oyster is far more palatable than the male. This is the case with all animals that are used for food. It is a common remark about a woman that she looks good enough to eat, but did anybody ever say that about a man?

* * * * *

It seems as if the suffragists have come not to bring peace but a sword into the world. When Mrs. Chapman Catt, the international president, was sailing across the Pacific homeward from her little trip to organize the world for woman suffrage, all was calm and serene until she was called on for a speech. “Before this,” said one of the men voyagers, “we were all at peace with one another; but after that woman spoke, everybody was fighting over the suffrage question.” This is a hint to hostesses: When your guests seem bored to extinction, just get somebody to say woman suffrage, and then watch the sparks fly!

* * * * *

It is said that in England whiskers are again to be the style. One thing is certain—if they become the fashion in this country, our women will set their faces against them!

* * * * *

The dress skirt this fall is to be narrower than ever, and a noted tailor says the only question is, “Can a lady wear it?” Perhaps a lady can, but a modest woman won’t.

* * * * *

And now they say President Wilson is about to reverse his position on amending the Sherman anti-trust law. When he gets ready to back track on the woman-suffrage question he will have no difficulty in establishing a precedent.

* * * * *

In the debate in the North Carolina senate on a bill to permit women to act as notaries public it was objected to because women write a “vertical hand” and wear slit skirts. That shouldn’t disqualify them as notaries, but it is as strong an argument against giving them the suffrage as one often hears.

* * * * *

The New York City board of education dismissed a woman fireman from one of the public schools, on the ground that it was not suitable work for a woman. It’s all right for her to get up at home winter mornings and make the fire but whenever there is a salary attached the work becomes unwomanly. Strange that women cannot see these things without having to be shown so often. There ought to be little sign-boards set up along their path, saying, “Public salaries are only for voters.”

* * * * *

“Yeast,” a new suffrage play, is just being tried out. It is sure to cause a rise among the “antis.”

* * * * *

A bill is before Congress to annex the North Pole as United States territory. Bet it comes in with a Votes for Women flag on the end of it.

* * * * *

If the suffragists and the “antis” don’t quit writing letters to members of Congress the latter will raise the rate of postage instead of lowering it.

* * * * *

Recent census reports show that 86.7 of all persons over twenty-five marry. That is quite enough—the other 13.3 are needed to show the married what they escaped.

* * * * *

The woman-suffrage question in this country has been settled. The Colonel did it in his whirlwind tour of New York’s East Side. “How about votes for women?” called out the unscareable Maud Malone. “Madam,” said Mr. Roosevelt, “I have asked that you women be allowed to vote to determine whether or not you shall vote.” Just that; he never told whom he had asked, but the mere fact that he had asked was enough. All the women have to do now is to keep still and wait till somebody “allows” them to vote whether they want to vote. If one over one-half of the twenty-four millions says “yes,” then they can all go right out and vote. But if one over one-half says “no,” then the 11,999,999 that want to can’t. Beautiful plan—so simple, so statesmanlike! But it seems to lack provision for a recall and a new deal.

* * * * *

Two women card sharps on a big ocean liner are said to have relieved a number of the male voyagers of all their ready cash. Another flagrant instance of woman’s usurping an occupation that rightfully belongs to man!

* * * * *

Vice-President Marshall can’t do anything for woman suffrage because his wife doesn’t believe in it. That might be a sufficient excuse for Mr. Marshall as an individual but it is rather thin for the Vice-President of the United States.

* * * * *

“Bachelors are much more likely to become insane than married men,” is the decision of the Massachusetts Mental Hygiene Conference. Yes, the mere fact that they choose to remain bachelors shows a mental twist.

* * * * *

A New York paper sagely remarks, “Under any system we shall not get a government of cherubs until we become cherubs ourselves.” That’s too long ahead. Men have always told women they were angels, so why not begin with woman suffrage as the first step?

* * * * *

“All the blessed creatures have to do,” said Representative Adamson, of Georgia, in his speech, “is to intimate in a gentle way, in their charming tones and pleasing manner to the lords of creation that they wish to have the privilege of voting.” How much that reminds one of Heflin, of Alabama—it’s so different!

* * * * *

“Women of New Jersey,” said ex-Assemblyman Matthews at the legislative hearing, “if you want to improve the conditions of public life, I beg you to keep on being women.” As they felt that conditions very much needed improving, and for various other reasons, they adopted a resolution to keep on being women.

* * * * *

For the fourth year in succession a woman has won the prize of $1,250 offered by an English publishing house for the best first novel. It is bad enough that there are a million more women than men over there, without having them add to the offense by such performances as this. They’ll never get the vote.

* * * * *

The president of the Pennsylvania Anti-Suffrage Society asks its members to “write to all the United States Senators, except those from the suffrage States, and tell them that the great, silent majority of women do not want the vote.” She was very kind to omit those gentlemen—they might laugh themselves to death.

* * * * *

The Anti-Suffrage Association claims the credit for defeating the appointment of a Woman Suffrage Committee in the lower house of Congress. The only question voted on in the Democratic caucus was that “woman suffrage is a State and not a Federal question,” but this will not disturb the complacence of the “antis.” They will simply claim that they originated the doctrine of State’s rights.

* * * * *

The Texas preacher who asked all the women of his congregation on Easter Sunday to take off their hats had St. Paul beaten to a frazzle.

* * * * *

The “antis” are failing to scare the suffragists by warning them that they will get the worst of it when they “rouse the brute force in men.” As long as they are gradually getting everything they ask for they will never believe that men are brutes.

* * * * *

Englishmen are howling because, under the new income-tax law, the wife can find out how much property the husband has. But didn’t she know already, as he promised at the altar, “With all my worldly goods I thee endow”?

* * * * *

There seems to be some anxiety lest the new women internes at Bellevue Hospital may not be able to jump on a speeding ambulance. Some encouragement is given by the news from Vassar that one girl has just thrown a basketball seventy-five feet and another has “smashed the broad-jump record” with a jump of over nine feet. Give the new internes a chance.

* * * * *

A man in the audience of State Senator Helen Robinson, of Colorado, called out that as there was only one woman and thirty-four men in the Senate, this showed it was a place for men. She answered that as there were eighty-seven women and eight hundred men in the State penitentiary, this evidently showed the same thing. Doesn’t she know that men won’t love her if she talks like that?

* * * * *

Why are there so many more widows than widowers? Because a man finds marriage such a nice institution that he gets right back into it, while a woman—well, she doesn’t.

* * * * *

Ex-Speaker Cannon says that as women can now vote in Illinois it is a good time for handsome men to run for office, and that is why he ran. But Illinois women can’t vote for Congressmen and that is why he was elected.

* * * * *

The women of Alaska, at the first election since they were enfranchised, elected an entire non-partisan ticket. It is no wonder the old party machines put on speed and try to run over a woman-suffrage amendment.

* * * * *

According to the latest medical discovery, love causes an intoxication of the nerve centers which may lead to insanity. That is probably why people who are in love are said to be crazy about each other—their nerve centers are on a spree. Cynics might call marriage a jag cure.

* * * * *

The anti-suffragists say that the suffrage movement is driving women away from marriage and “the feminist movement is turning marriage into a trade for alimony,” and yet that the two movements are one and the same. But how can a woman make an alimony bargain if she has not been married? It really seems as if those “antis” had set out to prove the charge that the feminine mind is incapable of logic.

* * * * *

If the anti-suffragists would observe their Golden Rule, that “a woman’s place is at home,” it would not be half so easy for those other women to get the ballot.

* * * * *

Outside of the South only two States voted solidly against the woman suffrage amendment in the lower house of Congress—Vermont and Delaware. Please excuse them, they’re such little ones.

* * * * *

Virginia suffragists have discovered that in 1829 her women petitioned a constitutional convention for the franchise. That was only eighty-six years ago, and petitions from women are seldom acted upon in so short a time as that.

* * * * *

At the legislative hearing in Massachusetts, the other day, one of the opponents said she did not believe women ought to vote but thought one-half the Legislature should be composed of women. Just as her sister “antis” always have done, she keeps one eye on the offices.

* * * * *

During the recent registration in San Francisco, automobiles were provided for the women, while the men were left to walk, and they rent the air with their protests. In Washington a jury composed of men and women had to go to the country to inspect some property. The women were sent in automobiles and the men in wagons, and their anger could be heard for miles. As the young woman wrote to her sweetheart, “The trubble with you is you are jellus.”

* * * * *

Possibly women as well as men may be at their best when fifty, but they will never give anybody a chance to prove it on them.

* * * * *

Representative J. Hampton Moore, of Philadelphia, is quoted as saying it will be 20 years before Congress hears any more about prohibition or woman suffrage. That 0 must be a printer’s mistake, and even the 2 is fifty per cent. too much.

* * * * *

Indiana women have formed a council to work with the Legislature “for the uplift of women and children.” Wouldn’t it be of greater benefit to the State if they would work for the uplift of the legislators?

* * * * *

Anti-suffragists are censuring Senator Helen Ring Robinson, of Colorado, because she is in the East lecturing instead of at home legislating. But she can’t unless the Governor calls a special session, as the Legislature does not meet this year. Those anti-suffrage objections are such funny little boomerangs!

* * * * *

New Zealand has just been celebrating the twenty-first year of its equal-suffrage law. To be sure that country is some distance off, but it seems as if we should have heard of the wrecked homes, ruined families, declining birth rate, feminized men and general reign of socialism, polygamy and other things which the “antis” declare will follow woman suffrage. If they will then they have done it, so let us have a bill of particulars from New Zealand.

* * * * *

A Chicago lawyer secured a big alimony for his client on the argument that a man who marries a handsome woman must dress her in a style befitting her beauty. This ought to put the plain woman several laps ahead in the matrimonial race—but it won’t.

* * * * *

If the colonel feels a little disheartened at the lapses in the Progressive party while he was away revising the map of South America, he can cheer up at the boom in votes for women. There will be more than twice as many of them in 1916 as when he set out to round them up two years ago.

* * * * *

The Supreme Court of the District of Columbia has decided that after a wife has left her husband’s bed and board she may establish her own domicile wherever she pleases. That is an improvement on the old law, which did not allow her any place to sleep and eat legally without her husband’s permission.

* * * * *

Mrs. John Martin, a leader of the “antis,” said recently, in a public address in New York, “If they dare attempt to force the ballot on us here in the East, they will find that we are the daughters of the heroes who fought and bled at Concord and Lexington, who starved at Valley Forge!” Seems as if we had heard somewhere that those heroes did all that for the specific purpose of obtaining the ballot. “Descendants” is a very suitable word to apply to their daughters.

* * * * *

It was a woman who solved the “Million Dollar Mystery” and received the $10,000 prize; but that isn’t the worst of it—she hasn’t any husband to take care of the money for her.

* * * * *

The Anti-Suffrage Society forbids its members to say, “Woman suffrage is coming!” That’s right—it shows a lack of originality to use the same slogan as the suffragists and how can they expect to raise money for a campaign against a sure thing?

* * * * *

A rich New Yorker, who has just died, left his fortune for his daughters in the hands of masculine executors because he doubted women’s wisdom in business. How did he happen to have so much confidence in men’s honesty in business?

* * * * *

Speaker Clark is no “neutral” when it comes to woman suffrage. During the House debate the other day the officers of the Suffrage Association were invited to occupy his bench in the gallery and have luncheon in his rooms at the Capitol. Give him the Iron Cross.

* * * * *

A man in Chicago has written a booklet against woman suffrage, in which he relates that when he was a small boy he and his sister were attacked by wolves, which his mother drove off with a gun. “If she had been a suffragette,” he says, “she would probably have been away from home that night attending a political meeting and Sister Lucy and I would have been eaten alive.” Sister Lucy might have been a loss to the world.

* * * * *

A wife has recently laughed herself to death at one of her husband’s jokes. At least there is the consolation that she never will have to listen to any more of them.

* * * * *

The anti-suffragists say that “feminism and the family are inherently and irrevocably incompatible.” When we find out what that means we are going to get mad about it.

* * * * *

Professor Hugo Münsterberg, of Harvard University, after years of careful research has decided that women form their opinions and judgments just as rapidly and accurately as men. Thanks for that small concession, kind sir! It is so unexpected!

* * * * *

The women anti-suffragists have just held their first convention, while the suffragists have had them by the hundreds. Now let the antis get up one parade and match it against the more than a thousand suffrage parades on May 2d, to prove that “the vast majority of women do not want to vote.”

* * * * *

A speaker at the annual convention of the National Municipal Leagues takes President Wilson to task because his “History of the American People” scarcely mentions women. Why single out the President’s for what is common to all histories? The women ought to get even by writing histories themselves and leaving out the men. That is almost though not quite the case in the history of woman suffrage, but the men are mentioned whenever they vote it down.

* * * * *