Part 4

It is charged that 46,000 men have deserted from the regular army during the last ten years. Should women who are willing to fight but can’t be disfranchised on that account, while men who can fight but won’t are freely granted the vote?

* * * * *

One of the Western railroads has placed a woman in charge of its dining car and the customary howl at women’s usurping the work of men is now in order. To be sure having charge of a dining-room has always been considered a woman’s business but that was only when there was no salary attached.

* * * * *

“We must abolish everything that bears even the semblance of privilege,” is the Wilson slogan. Thanks, Mr. President. Will you kindly get yourself into a state of mind where you can see that the possession of the suffrage by only one-half the people is about the most iniquitous privilege that could exist?

* * * * *

Mrs. Dodge, president of the Anti-Suffrage Association, wants to go into the fight against suffrage in the next presidential campaign with 500,000 women at her back. All right; she will need every one of them. But what is to become of the half-million families while the wives and mothers are marching on to victory behind Mrs. Dodge?

* * * * *

“Bustles” for women are to be the fashion this spring. Thanks for the prospect of even that much relief to the helpless onlookers.

* * * * *

Mr. Croker’s Indian bride says she cannot be a “squaw” until she is a mother. Oh, yes; first a squall then a squaw.

* * * * *

“The pay here,” said Mayor Curley, of Boston, in dismissing all the women in his office, “is quite sufficient to maintain a man.” Then how on earth did women ever happen to get the jobs?

* * * * *

“Behind the skirts of suffragism,” says an official statement of the “antis,” “Mormonism goes to the polls, socialism marches red and rampant on the streets, and feminism stalks and swaggers in our homes.” The old-fashioned thing—to wear skirts so wide as all that!

* * * * *

The Alimony Club of divorced husbands in New York are howling loud and long because the court has ruled that they must continue the payment of alimony even though they are kept in prison and can’t earn a dollar. Another crowd who are out of jail are rending the air because they have to pay alimony just the same after their former spouses have wedded again. The fair divorcees answer that since only men are considered competent to make the laws or even to elect the lawmakers, they have no right to kick against the results. Its awful the little respect women show nowadays for the superior wisdom of men!

* * * * *

It is rather late in the day to warn women against being “jostled at the polls.” That is about the only place where they would not get jostled.

* * * * *

Paris is tired of the tango. Public opinion caused it to be danced too respectably. It may hold on awhile in the United States, we can stand a considerable amount of respectability, but not too much when it becomes unfashionable.

* * * * *

No, Ethelyn, Lu Lu Temple is not the name of a woman suffrage headquarters. It is the rendezvous of an ancient and honorable body of men in Philadelphia, where they think women are too frivolous to vote.

* * * * *

Arkansas has now been added to the list of “dry” States by action of its Legislature and Wisconsin requires a health certificate from would-be bridegrooms. No woman suffrage in either State. Really the men are getting so good nowadays there will be nobody for women to reform when they obtain the ballot.

* * * * *

The superintendent of public schools in Cincinnati will start “a six months’ course of study for prospective brides,” and besides all the usual housekeeping stunts they will be taught to calk a water pipe, put up shelves, mend door knobs, etc. If he isn’t careful he will create a prospect that will scare all the girls away from matrimony. Women can be so many things nowadays besides carpenters and plumbers.

* * * * *

The New York _Tribune_ says, “Another ten years and the clinging vine will be only a moist and tender memory.” What a fortunate thing for the oak!

* * * * *

The sphygmograph is the invention of a woman doctor and the person who wears it cannot tell a lie, even to his wife. Something of this sort was bound to happen when women were permitted to enter the medical profession.

* * * * *

“Feminism is the process of putting father out of business,” is a specimen anti-suffrage epigram. If feminism means that able-bodied young women shall earn their own living, perhaps father will have a chance to get something ahead for his old age.

* * * * *

The Reno _Gazette_ in its fight against the suffrage amendment said that when a straw vote of the women was taken in 1895 in Massachusetts, they declared against enfranchisement 38 to 1. Suppose they did—what has that to do with the women of Nevada in 1914? The fact is, however, that the women voted in favor of it 25 to 1. Next!

* * * * *

And so the anti-suffrage ladies are going into the thick of the congressional fray to help elect the men who will promise not to give them a vote! It is now in order for them to get up a street parade and then the suffragists won’t have a thing on them—they will have done everything they were afraid they might have to do if enfranchised and they haven’t got the ballot as a compensation for doing it. The joke is on them.

* * * * *

The ancient question, “Could women voters work out their road tax?” has been answered by two in Iowa. They did worse, for they won two out of three prizes offered by the county for work on highways. It was all right for them to do the work but very wrong for them to win the prizes.

* * * * *

“Women never could serve on the police force,” an anti-suffragist rushes into print to declare. “Could frail woman withstand, year in and year out, the severe climatic changes constantly occurring?” Well, several million of her do, as they start out each morning to earn their daily bread.

* * * * *

The “antis” are dreadfully vexed at the suffragists because of their reported attempts to convert the women public-school teachers, the women in the government departments, the women wage-earners and women in divers other capacities. Putting it mildly they are like the schoolboy who wrote, “To sum up Daniel Webster’s character—it is one which I do not approve!”

* * * * *

Some awful things are promised in the season’s styles for man. They are to be more expensive, which will require him to owe his tailor more than ever. Evening trousers are to be very loose so that he can perpetrate the tango and turkey trot without accident. For the rest of the day the clothes are to be very tight so as to show the natural form, and this is where the public will start a suffragette movement.

* * * * *

Do not criticise Mr. Bryan because he said nothing new in regard to woman suffrage. Everything that could be said was said long ago but until recently the political ears were very deaf and very long.

* * * * *

In Chicago, before the women took a hand, the disposal of the garbage cost the city $4,000 a month; now it nets a profit of $2,000 a month, and yet people wonder why the grafters are so dead set against votes for women.

* * * * *

The various parties seem to be having a hard time with the “political uplift.” Some day it will occur to them that until women lend a hand they will be trying to lift themselves by their bootstraps.

* * * * *

They opened a big hotel in Los Angeles a few months ago for men only, and already they announce that henceforth women also will be welcomed as patrons. Funny, isn’t it, when hotels for women only are flourishing all over the country, that the men couldn’t flock alone in a single one?

* * * * *

Before the last committee hearing on woman suffrage in Washington, Mrs. Dodge, national president of the “antis,” announced that the members of Congress had been sufficiently bored, so to speak, and her forces would not appear. The love of the limelight was too strong, however, and there they were in the center of the stage, singing the old, sweet song, “Woman’s place is at home in the bosom of her family.”

* * * * *

The turkey trot and bunny hug have been replaced by the goose waddle, which is really much more indicative of those who dance it.

* * * * *

“Love is a disease,” says a Chicago doctor, “called anaphylaxis—lack of resistance.” This is merely a trick of the profession to increase the number of their patients, but the Chicago girls dare them to try to cure it.

* * * * *

A booth was built in New York City in a district where only three men voted, yet members of the Legislature object to giving suffrage to women because it would require more voting booths. Who helps to pay for those the men use?

* * * * *

The anti-suffragists have been so busy during the campaign running political headquarters and making speeches for the candidates they haven’t had a minute to tell the suffragists that a woman’s place is at home and that women are wholly unfitted for politics. It will be somewhat embarrassing for them to resume business at the old stand and hear the suffragists jeer.

* * * * *

When United States Senator Burton, of Ohio, landed from a trip to Europe not long ago and was asked the inevitable question about woman suffrage, he said, “I do not care even to express an opinion on such a subordinate issue.” Now he says that of course he is going to vote for it in his State. It is taking a mean advantage for reporters to corral a great statesman on the dock before he finds out what has happened in his absence.

* * * * *

The Rothchilds are said to have given $15,000 to the British Anti-Suffrage Association. The vote in the hands of women would prove a strong factor in preventing the wars of the future.

* * * * *

Colonel Henry Watterson declares that he has “written more times and at greater length against woman suffrage than any other editor.” Maybe he has and maybe that is the reason it is making such rapid progress in his own State.

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California University girls eat ten tons of candy a year, according to reports; but the boys of that institution can’t prove that they are the sweetest things on earth until candy statistics from the other colleges come in.

* * * * *

Women’s place is at home. Wives must make the home so attractive that husbands will never want to go out evenings. Children must be kept off the street. All very good; but how is the whole family to stay at home at the same time in a city flat of the average size?

* * * * *

The moving-picture shows are making a specialty of films depicting the newly enfranchised women of the Western States in the act of going to the polls and voting, but strange to say there is not a single illustration of the awful things that were going to happen when this catastrophe took place. It seems odd that after the terrible predictions of fifty years the scene should look much like a procession going to church—except that there are more men in it.

* * * * *

“How To Be ‘Smart’ Though Middle-aged” is the title of an article that is going the rounds. The smartest thing the middle-aged can do is to recognize that they are middle-aged and act accordingly, and this applies to men as well as women.

* * * * *

No woman nowadays makes the promise to obey in the marriage service with the slightest intention of keeping it, so why compel her to prevaricate to the minister? Let her reserve that privilege to use with her husband.

* * * * *

The courts of Missouri have decided that a husband cannot be arrested for burning up his wife’s clothes, as they are his, not hers; but after his wife learned of this decision the man soon found himself in jail for disturbing the peace.

* * * * *

“Man is the natural protector of woman,” shouted several thousand of the species as they attacked the suffrage parade in Washington. “Man is the natural protector of woman,” echoed the policemen as they turned their backs.

* * * * *

The “antis” ask why the suffragists are not afraid to trust men with the musket in time of war, but are afraid to trust them with the ballot? Bless you, nobody wants to take the ballot away from them; but the suffragists can’t see how a man can represent more than one person with one ballot, and, besides, some of them haven’t got any man, and they think it isn’t fair to be deprived of both the man and the vote.

* * * * *

Recently, at an anti-suffrage meeting in one of those wonderfully progressive towns for which Connecticut is noted, forty ladies signed a remonstrance against giving other women something which this immortal forty did not want for themselves. Where was Ali Baba with his oil can?

* * * * *

When the women watched that crowd of men in Madison Square Garden cheer and howl and whoop and yell an hour and a half for one candidate, and the next night a similar crowd go through the same performance the same length of time for another candidate, they fully realized that women are too emotional for political life.

* * * * *

A great editor criticises the Washington suffragists severely because they reserved so many rooms for the out-of-town paraders that the inaugural committee couldn’t find enough for its marchers. “They lost a great opportunity to win the new administration by unselfishness and sacrifice,” he said, and the women haven’t quit laughing yet.

* * * * *

The president of the Woman’s Club at Boise, Idaho, where they have had equal suffrage for nearly twenty years, says that “nothing puts the fear of God into the hearts of men like the ballot in the hands of women.” Yes, a certain class of men feel much more comfortable to know that women are using the beautiful, indirect influence of prayers and tears.

* * * * *

Sir Almoth Wright says the advocates of equal pay for women do not know the commercial value of having the employe work shoulder to shoulder with the employer. Yes? No? What about the good-looking stenographer?

* * * * *

The President of France is considering the proposal to decorate with the Cross of the Legion of Honor the mother of twenty-two children. Something that could be exchanged for twenty-two pairs of shoes would be more appropriate.

* * * * *

Seven girl students of Leland Stanford University have just been elected to Phi Beta Kappa and not one of the boys, although they outnumber the girls two to one. Comment would be impolite, not to say unfeeling.

* * * * *

New York women have announced that the day for women’s “auxiliaries” is past, and Chicago women have given notice to the men of that city that they will not serve on any more “sub” committees. Really, that Declaration of Independence of 1776 begins to seem like rather a weak document.

* * * * *

Perish the thought that a minister of the Gospel—and especially a woman—should contest with a horse race! But when the Rev. Anna Shaw, president of the National Suffrage Association, began speaking from an automobile behind the grand-stand at the Wisconsin State Fair, the whole crowd climbed down to hear her and forgot all about the races.

* * * * *

First fruits of woman suffrage! A San Francisco wife has just been granted a divorce because her husband talked too much!

* * * * *

Dr. Mary Walker advises girls to put on trousers. They might not be so pretty but they would certainly be more modest than those things women are now wearing.

* * * * *

The scientific world is highly excited over the report of the birth of an atom. Its chief interest to women is the effect it will have on their getting the suffrage, as the public insists on connecting this in some way with the birth rate.

* * * * *

The Buffalo _Express_, commenting on the public schools teaching boys to sew, says: “Quite necessary! For how will the women of the future get their gowns, if men do not learn to sew?” They can get them just as they do now—from the male dressmakers who got onto the woman’s job as soon as there was any money in it.

* * * * *

Women have a good deal to learn about politics. There was the woman candidate for mayor of San Diego, who announced that her first act if elected would be to put through an ordinance taxing bachelors. Naturally the bachelors all voted against her; the benedicts did the same because they didn’t want the bachelors to feel that there was such an easy escape from marriage, and the women turned her down because they thought she was quite capable of levying a tax on spinsters.

* * * * *

The public has borne with some fortitude the close-fitting garb of women—it has had its compensations; but now that the National Association of Clothing Designers has decreed that men’s clothes also must be tight fitting—well, if the police fail to do their duty the common people must rise up.

* * * * *

The Supreme Court of Illinois has decided that the women of that State may vote for President but not for county commissioners. If they had a choice, they would much prefer to vote for the commissioners, whose work comes a great deal nearer home to them; but the party “bosses” would rather trust them to vote for President as there is no local graft in that office.

* * * * *

The national anti-suffrage president says, “The extent to which suffrage agitation detracts from charitable enterprises is appalling.” How can this be when that lady herself assures us that the suffragists represent less than ten per cent. of the women? Ninety per cent. surely ought to be sufficient to do the charitable work, if they can spare the time from chasing after the suffragists.

* * * * *

Some men are organizing a pneumatic-tube system through which from a central kitchen hot meals can be shot to any part of the city day or night. Women sometimes wonder whether men intend to leave them any domestic duties. About the only thing untouched is the nursery, but a man has invented an electric cradle that rocks itself, so woman will have to find some other way to move the world.

* * * * *

A Kansas City judge has ruled that under certain circumstances wives may lie to their husbands. The latter never waited for any judicial decision.

* * * * *

From the fuss made about Dr. Anna Shaw’s shaking her fist during a suffrage speech one would think it was the size of a sledgehammer, while really it is about as big as a little red apple.

* * * * *

A record has been unearthed in London, showing that women used to be plumbers in 1500. Very likely; but that was before the business became so profitable that only men were competent to engage in it.

* * * * *

The manager of the largest vaudeville circuit in the country has issued orders that there must be no more jokes at the expense of the woman-suffrage movement. Lovers of humor need not be discouraged, however, for the literary bureau of the Anti-Suffrage Association will still continue to issue its bulletins.

* * * * *

Dr. Geisel, president of Shorter College, Georgia, says that institutions of higher education interfere with women’s natural destiny. Chancellor Day, of Syracuse University, says if college women don’t marry it is because their marriage standard is higher and they are not finding men fitted for fatherhood. As all the colleges can’t be abolished in order to lower women’s ideal of marriage, it looks as if something will have to be done to bring men up to the new standard.

* * * * *

Husband applied for a divorce because his wife was “absolutely independent.” Judge granted it and he started off to find a dear little dependent who would give him a sort of manly feeling.

* * * * *

King Alfonso is said to have become an advocate of woman’s rights under the influence of his British Queen. Can’t she be spared long enough to go home and try her hand on Cousin George?

* * * * *

Young and impecunious members of the nobility may now be rented out for afternoon tea in London. This is not a bad use to make of them, but they could command a higher price in New York and Washington.

* * * * *

Is one reason why so many men oppose woman suffrage because they are afraid their wives would obey St. Paul’s injunction to ask of their husbands at home when they wanted information and questions on political issues might prove embarrassing?

* * * * *

At the suffrage hearing before the Massachusetts Legislature the “antis” evidently got their Irish up, as Molly Maguire called equal suffrage “the most deadly menace that ever faced the State,” and Joseph Murphy said, “I am one of a family of fourteen children and my mother didn’t need any vote to do it.” Perhaps it wouldn’t have been safe, as she was such a “repeater;” but Pa Murphy’s chest must have swelled with pride when he went to the polls on election morning and represented sixteen people with one ballot.

* * * * *

“The Silent Woman,” an ancient play, has been resurrected, perhaps as a reminder of something gone forever. The anti-suffragists used to claim that title, but if they are not making as much noise as the suffragists nowadays it is only because there are not nearly so many of them.

* * * * *

At the recent election in Louisiana the men voted down a constitutional amendment to allow women to serve on school and charity boards, and the election officers in New Orleans were so afraid it might slip through that seventeen were indicted for “padding” the returns against it. Doubtless they intended this simply as an act of chivalry.

* * * * *

Governor Marshall, of Indiana, said recently to the Council of Women in Indianapolis, “There is not a working woman in this city doing an honest work who is not more important to this State than the Governor.” Funny he should talk like that when the women there can’t vote; but he only confirmed the suspicions they had had for some time.

* * * * *

The Anti-Suffrage Association sends out a press bulletin saying, “We object to being called away from uplifting the world through the old channels of education and religion to assist in uplifting it by the doubtful channels of the ballot box.” They need not leave their job for it is such a big one that if derricks are erected in both channels it will still be necessary to call for outside help.

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