Part 29

Up to this point results achieved and practicable without the suffrage seem to argue strongly against a continuance of the propaganda to obtain the elective franchise for the redress of aggrieved womankind. Clothed with full rights in property and earnings, held morally accountable for her acts, made joint guardian with her husband over her children, welcomed to an equal competition with men in business, industry, and the professions, after ample opportunities given for acquiring a higher education and special training, to what further extent can the exercise of the voting power by woman improve her status? The grievances set forth in the "Declaration of Sentiments" of 1848 present the "whole case for woman as comprehensively as it ever has been stated since," according to an official statement of the National Woman Suffrage Association; the document's resolutions comprised "practically every demand that ever afterwards was made for women." The civil and legal rights besought therein have been so fully recognized that the anti-suffragists, numbering many public-spirited women who have battled zealously for these rights, now contend that womanhood suffrage is not needed.

Their suffragist opponents will not be gainsaid. While the condition of woman and her children has been mitigated, much remains to do, they say, and the more quickly by the ballot. For example, while eighteen States, comprising nearly one-half the population of the Union--41,231,000, to be exact--enjoy the benefit of joint guardianship laws, and in twenty-seven more States the surviving mother is made sole guardian of her children with the same powers exercised by the father in his lifetime, six States remain--Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Virginia, and Maryland, with a combined population of 9,104,000--in which the father has power to bequeath the guardianship to a stranger and away from the mother. To be sure, in this ninth of the population of the country the custom ignores the common law; husbands uniformly leave the guardianship of children to their wives, and the mother shares authority over them with the father. But here is a field for corrective legal action. The question is whether, if women had the vote, this would be the swiftest and most direct means of bringing about the reform demanded. A suffragist writer has said: "It took the mothers of Massachusetts fifty-five years to get an equal guardianship law, but after the women obtained the ballot in Colorado the very next Legislature enacted one." She forgot that New York's joint guardianship law was passed a year before the Colorado statute. Mrs. George W. Townsend of Buffalo, who as head of the Woman's Educational and Industrial Union was active in urging the passage of the joint guardianship laws in both States, says of the one in New York:

Our Union was especially careful that the Suffrage Association should not know of the Union's effort until after the law was passed. I remember that a prominent suffragist called to see me as soon as she heard of it, and said, "How did you accomplish this great good, and not let us know?" And I answered, "Because we did not let you know." I think I was justified in saying that, because many men in both houses were so opposed to woman suffrage that they would not have voted for our bills. The guardianship bill was passed without a negative vote in either house.

The work was done in a systematic manner. Circulars giving full information in regard to laws in other States, and as to what we desired to accomplish, and reasons therefor, were sent to every legislator. There was no lobbying, and, in fact, it was not necessary for me to go to Albany at all.

It should be noted in this connection that in Wyoming, while it is not among the "benighted" states that permit the father to will the guardianship of his children away from the mother, the women have had an equal voice in the State Government for more than half a century without making fathers and mothers joint guardians of their children. It is not clear, therefore, that joint guardianship laws have been passed the more quickly by reason of woman suffrage.

But other tests should be applied. The new complaints of woman that have arisen since the Declaration of 1848 deal largely with her condition in the industries which men have thrown open to her. Has the suffrage enabled her more quickly to ameliorate this condition? Around this point the strife rages between the "pros" and the "antis." Miss Minnie Bronson, who was employed from 1907 to 1909 by the Federal Bureau of Labor to investigate the conditions of labor of women and children, and who acted as the Special Agent of the Bureau to report on the strike of shirtwaist makers in 1910 has prepared a statement for the Massachusetts Association Opposed to the Further Extension of Suffrage to Women embodying a comparison of the laws for the protection of wage-earning women in the various States of the Union. Miss Bronson's contentions have been deemed of sufficient importance to merit a reply, with an introduction by Jane Addams, written by the two best qualified woman suffragist authorities on women in the industries, Miss Edith Abbott of Hull House, Chicago, and Professor Sophonisba P. Breckinridge of the University of Chicago. The allegations of Miss Bronson and the specific replies of her opponents thereto are marshaled below:

_"Anti" Contentions_ _Suffragist Replies_

A suffragist addressing the women When we say that if women had a shirtwaist strikers in New York vote there would be an end of declared that if the women child labor, and that young girls engaged in this industry had had would work shorter hours, this the ballot such a strike as does not mean that we think the theirs would be unnecessary. The children in the mills and speaker would have been surprised factories and workshops are going to learn that 40 per cent. of the to be allowed to vote. In England strikers were men, 36 per cent. conditions improved for all were women under 21 years, and 6 workingmen when some workmen got per cent. were women workers of the vote; in this country when voting age who had not been in some women get the vote this country long enough to gain conditions for all workingwomen a residence. will improve.

Laws governing the labor of women Any fair-minded person need only are constantly improved, not recall the long series of because women have the ballot or statutes enacted in all the want it, but because women are leading industrial states, entering more and more into the covering nearly three-fourths of industrial life of the country. a century, as a result of In forty-four states the laws for workmen's efforts to get through safeguarding wage-earning women laws a larger measure of justice are better and more comprehensive than they could obtain through than the laws for the their attempts to bargain with safeguarding of wage-earning men. individual employers. This Moreover, a comparison of the legislation, although it may in a labor laws of the various states few cases protect the shows that there are more and workingwoman as well as the better laws for the protection of workingman, represents the women wage-earners in the results of long years of earnest non-suffrage states than in struggle by workingmen with votes states where women have the to improve their condition. Miss ballot. Bronson ignores this, laying stress on the fact that some states have a few special provisions to protect wage-earning women from exploitation likely to injure health and endanger their children's health.

In thirty-four states laws have No suffragist would deny that been passed limiting the hours of protective legislation has been labor in which a woman may be obtained in states where women do employed. Three of the four woman not vote. It is well known that suffrage states where women have most of this legislation was voted long enough to affect obtained through the laborious legislation have no such law, and efforts of suffragists. the 54-hour law in Utah was not enacted until 1911, fifteen years No argument that protective after woman suffrage became legislation does not exist in operative there. some of the states in which women have the ballot is valid which ignores the special needs of these states. Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho and Utah are all mining and agricultural states and have very few wage-earning women who are employed in factories. Massachusetts had 152,713 women in "manufacturing and mechanical pursuits" when the last United States Census of Occupations was taken; Idaho had only 681. A similar contrast might be drawn for any of the other states: thus, Wyoming had 501 women in industrial occupations while New York in the same year had 136,788.

Thirty-nine states compel The one suffrage state, Idaho, employers in stores, factories, that fails to provide seats for shops, etc., to provide seats for saleswomen in all at a time when female employés. Nine states have Massachusetts had 11,985, no such laws, and one of the nine Illinois, 12,149, and New York, states is a suffrage state. 30,858. In most of the thirty-nine states where voteless women have secured these laws, they have never received the means of enforcing them. The protective laws protect no one.

In forty-two states, the No reply. territory of Alaska, and the District of Columbia, the earnings of a married woman are secured to her absolutely, and cannot be required by law, as can the earnings of a married man, for the support of the family, nor are they liable for her husband's debts. Six states do not so provide, and one is a suffrage state.

Sixteen states regulate the Night work for women is not employment of women at night, and prohibited in Idaho, Colorado, specifically state the hours Wyoming, and Utah, for the same between which women may not be reason that the workingmen of employed. These laws were all Nebraska have not passed a law enacted under male suffrage. In protecting seamen. these sixteen states are all those that prohibit night work for girls who are minors, but who are over 16 and therefore not protected by child labor laws.

Twenty-four states, only one a The same legislature of suffrage state, restrict the California that granted equal number of hours of employment for suffrage passed the eight-hour women, both by the day and week, law for women. Massachusetts has thus causing one day of rest in passed a 54-hour a week law for seven. The suffrage states of women as the culmination of forty Washington and California, while years of effort by indirect limiting women's work to influence to improve conditions forty-eight hours a week, passed for women in industry. Utah in both laws while under male 1911 passed a nine-hour law for suffrage. women after less than two years of effort by its advocates. The first legislature of which they asked it gave it to women with votes. Of the non-suffrage states not one has an eight-hour law for women, and only five have nine-hour laws.

Eliminating the manufacturing The Nebraska law provides for a states of the east, which have ten-hour day and a sixty-hour the most and best remedial laws week and does not prohibit Sunday for women, the suffrage states of labor. Nebraska, in company with Idaho and Wyoming do not limit a large number of other states, the hours a woman may be has a law prohibiting Sunday employed, while the neighboring labor, which applies to both men male-suffrage states of Oklahoma, and women. South Dakota, North Dakota, and Nebraska regulate the hours by The fact that Colorado has no law, and Nebraska prohibits the Sunday labor law argues as much employment of women at night in against suffrage for men as for all manufacturing mechanical, or women, since the men in the large mercantile establishments, and in metal-working establishments are hotels, and restaurants, and chiefly affected by absence of limits the number of hours per Sunday laws. Anyway, such laws week, thereby insuring one day of are rarely enforced. rest.

An eight-hour law for women was The eight-hour day of the enacted in Colorado in 1903, a Colorado law, made for the very inadequate law, for it was majority of workingwomen of restricted in its application to Colorado a forty-eight-hour women who must stand at work, and week, in contrast with the exempted the great majority of 60-hour week in the neighboring women employed in that state in states of Oklahoma, South Dakota, the "seated trades" of ready-made North Dakota, and Nebraska. It is clothing, dress-making, millinery little short of ridiculous to and like occupations, and in discuss these laws as if they candy-making, box-making, and were all genuinely protective cigar-making. The law was through proper enforcement. The pronounced unconstitutional in last census of occupations showed 1907 by the Supreme Court of but 65 women and girls in Colorado, although state courts Colorado employed in and the Federal Supreme Court candy-making, 11 in box-making, have upheld similar laws in and 30 in cigar-making, in neighboring male-suffrage states. contrast to 1,184 saleswomen, 762 Not until 1912, nineteen years waitresses, 1,599 in hand and after woman suffrage came into steam laundries,--all in the Colorado, was a law finally standing trades. secured limiting the hours of women at work.

Laws not enacted under woman The Massachusetts law relating to suffrage are those in broken-down machinery was passed Massachusetts prohibiting to correct peculiar abuses in the employers from deducting the textile industries. This law was wages of women when time is lost not needed in suffrage states. In because machinery has broken a few states the courts took the down, and prohibiting the position that since women were employment of women for a fixed not voters they could not become period before and after practicing lawyers; corrective childbirth; the law in Delaware statutes were passed. No such law and Louisiana exempting the wages would be needed in a state where of women from execution, and laws women do participate in the in California, Illinois, and Government. Washington, providing that no person shall on account of sex be disqualified from entering upon or pursuing any lawful business, vocation, or profession.

A suffragist says that in The doctrine of the inflexibility Massachusetts the average pay of and almost sacred character of a female teacher is only supply and demand is outworn. The one-third that of a male teacher, supply of child labor has been and in almost all the states it greatly reduced in many states, is unequal, whereas Wyoming and and is entirely cut off in others Utah give equal pay for equal by means of protective work. Where teachers are doing legislation; in still other the same grade of work no such states the demand for child labor percentage as three to one has greatly decreased as the obtains in Massachusetts. Female result of inconvenient protective teachers do not in the majority child labor laws and the demand of cases receive the same pay as for labor of men and women has men for the work of the same correspondingly increased. To get grade; but here the law of supply equal pay the women teachers in and demand is paramount. The New York City had to put in six women teachers of New York City years of hard and exhausting work receive equal pay with men by "indirect influence" while in teachers, granted by a the suffrage states the same male-suffrage legislature. result has come about almost automatically.

In this conflicting testimony it does not appear that the complaint of Lucretia Mott and her sister suffragists in 1848 that woman had been oppressed on all sides is valid to-day. Both Miss Bronson and her suffragist opponents agree that woman in industry has been protected, not oppressed. It is admitted that this is not a result of the exercise of the ballot by woman. It is unfortunate, of course, that the suffrage states are in the agricultural and mining stages of civilization, and cannot show how formidable the women's vote might be in correcting the oppressive man-made laws. It is a little deplorable, too, that the women in the male-suffrage states should have spent so much of their time proving that protective laws might be gotten by the despised indirect methods. Dr. Abbott and Professor Breckinridge have perceived this tactical error, and they note it in these words:

American women would probably have got the vote long ago if they had followed the present English method of making suffrage a paramount issue, first, last, and all the time. Instead of this, Miss Jane Addams in Illinois, Mrs. Florence Kelley in New York, and a host of other ardent suffragists have labored with the greatest devotion and self-sacrifice to secure protective legislation for women and children. How much effort they have put into it, how much time and energy it has cost, only those who have been closely associated with them know. It should not be forgotten that, as the result of their experience, they say that the ballot is the swiftest and surest way to bring about the reforms which are asked by and for the women workers of the country.

But how can that last sentence be verified? Was it not explicitly admitted that the suffrage states, by reason of their mining and agricultural status, have had little occasion to reform the laws for women workers, and that the reforms have all been worked out in the east? The male workers under male suffrage have done this for themselves, and incidentally for the women workers among them. Of course, there are fewer woman bread-winners, the proportion being five men to one woman. But women share equally in the benefits of labor legislation, besides being specially protected. The unions have even succeeded in leveling up a little the scale of women's wages, thus measurably meeting the complaint of 1848 that in her employments woman "receives but a scanty remuneration." And despite the equal pay laws for teachers in the suffrage states the average pay for women teachers is much below that of men teachers. Dr. Helen M. Sumner, the suffragist writer of the book _Equal Suffrage_ says: "Taking public employment as a whole, women in Colorado receive considerably less remuneration than men;" and "the wages of men and women in all fields of industry are governed by economic conditions." Dr. Sumner's tables show that the pay of women in Colorado has never been quite half as much as the pay of men; while the average weekly wage of women in that state is 97 cents higher than the average in the United States, the average weekly pay of men is $3.62 higher than for the United States as a whole. Dr. Sumner frankly acknowledges that the suffrage has probably nothing to do with the wages of either men or women.

As for hours of work, the contention of the suffragists that the 54-hour a week law in Massachusetts was "the culmination of forty years of effort by indirect influence to improve conditions for women in industry," while Utah granted such a law after less than two years of effort by its suffragist advocates, merits the comment that the forty years, or one-eighth that time, were not consumed in agitating for this specific bit of legislation. The struggle for the law limiting hours of women's work in Massachusetts lasted a little longer than in Utah, chiefly because Utah is an agricultural state where manufacturers have less at stake in the passage of such a restrictive measure. It is not probable that the legislators of Utah blenched and yielded this point through fear of the women's vote, or that any but humanitarian motives dictated the legislation in either state.

Considerations of humanity, indeed, and not politics, seem to animate the legislative programs for the protection of women and children in most states, whether male suffragist or equal suffragist. Pennsylvania, for example, is one of the black states on the suffragist maps, because it has never extended the franchise to woman, even for the election of school committees. If the woman's vote is requisite, we should see the protective laws of Pennsylvania far behind those of Colorado. Colorado has had equal suffrage since 1893, and of all the woman suffragist states, conditions there are most nearly like those in the male suffragist East. For comparison, I draw on two unchallenged documents, one prepared by Mary C. Bradford and published by the Colorado Equal Suffrage Association--with some additions by Elinor Byrns and Helen Ranlett, printed in _The New York Evening Post_ of Nov. 10, 1913--summarizing the protective laws for women and children passed in that state from 1893 to 1912; the other, a statement of similar laws in force in Pennsylvania in 1912, put forth by the Pennsylvania Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage:

_Colorado_ _Pennsylvania_