XVII

VITAL OBJECTIONS TO WOMAN SUFFRAGE

WOMAN Suffrage cannot achieve what its advo

cates expect. They maintain that it will re. form public morals, close the saloons and other places of evil resort and realize absolute prudence, honesty and economy in management. But it is a dream.

Laws that do not command the votes of the majority of the men of a community cannot permanently be executed. Law-abiding citizens require no force to secure their obedience to the law; but those disposed to break it can be compelled to keep it only by forco. In man there is a natural instinct which leads him to submit to persuasion by woman and to resist if she resorts to force. This instinct cannot be eradicated by philosophy, refinement or religion and in every generation reappears with undiminished vigour. Were women admitted to political life (if analogy can be trusted), after the enthusiasm had declined, a strong tendency would arise in both great parties to pass all kinds of laws to please women; many of which would be dead letters unless they carried the judgment of a majority of male citizens. In the ab

sence of this support, to enforce such laws effectually would involve a change in the character of the gov-. crument in the direction of despotism.

Women do not need the ballot to bring about great changes. Yet we hear constantly that it is necessary to have woman's vote in behalf of the temperauco cause and allied reforms. As an example we are told to "look at the Crusaders, what they accomplished in a short time." They achieved much, but they did ballot. Had the Crusaders at that time acted in the spirit and after the manner of men, Ohio and Pennsylvania would have been covered with bloodshed. It was because they were women, trained and refined as women, that the rumseller fell before them.

it without

In 1874 I was an interested spectator at the meetings of the General Convention of Crusaders,-the local body consisting of women in different towns and cities who by entering saloons and appealing to the sellers of intoxicating liquor, and by other means, had created a wide and deep interest in the temperance cause. They also endeavoured to lead those who gave up drinking to become Christians. The convention sat in Cincinnati. The addresses were impressive and the prayers fervent.

Finally, a woman both intelligent and refined aroso and said: "I, and those who were with me, entered a saloon and began to sing. The keeper asked us to

go out. He said, 'I own the place, and if you don't go out I will put you out.' We continued to sing and were about to pray, when the barkeeper again savagely ordered us to leave. I lost my temper, and said, 'My husband is a lawyer and if you use such language to me as that I will have you arrested.'

"At this, several frequenters of the barroom sprang up and threatened to throw us out. We promptly retired and realized that we had made a mistake.

"That evening we held a meeting and prayed an hour that God would forgive us for our unchristian spirit and conduct.

"The next morning we returned to the saloon with tears in our eyes. I apologized to the man and I and the others pleaded with him. When we had finished, ho said in a broken voice, 'You came here yesterday and badgered me like a man, and I treated you like a man, but if you come back in this way, I will stop this business.' And he did."

The recent extraordinary wave of successful antisaloon efforts was largely the work of women and wherever local option prevails the influence of woman is one of the most effective factors, and in some cases it is the principal agent; and that conspicuously in states where women do not vote.

XVIII

VITAL OBJECTIONS TO WOMAN SUFFRAGE (Continued)

RELIGIOUS feuds would

ELIGIOUS feuds would affect political life much

more than under present circumstances. It is the sentiment of the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States, the leading minds in Protestant communions and the most sagacious statesmen that it is of immense importance to the welfare of this country that the separation of church and state be complete. John Bright in one of his most important speeches on this subject exclaimed : "Of one thing there is no doubt; the influence of priest, parson and minister will be greatly increased if this measure is passed." The kind of influence which he referred to is not the specific work of the "priest, parson or minister," but that which is used to consoli date votes and voters in a compact to use all their political force specifically for the carrying of some measure which will benefit a particular religious body.

The feelings of women upon the subject of religion are so intense that the franchise in a large majority of instances would be exercised under the power of religious prejudice. It is a sign of security that the

most numerous body bearing the Christian name in the United States recognizes the danger to the family and to fidelity to the Church of introducing those who are practically the spiritual teachers of the household into the boiling sea of party politics, and that an immense multitude of Christian women of every denomination are non-sympathetic with a movement 80 hazardous.