XIX

VITAL OBJECTIONS TO WOMAN SUFFRAGE

To

(Continued)

invest her with the responsibility of voting will diminish the real power of woman in speech.

An unreserved utterance of woman's intuitions, imaginations, moral perceptions, predilectious and presentiments is a contribution to the capital of thought possessed by the human race, the value of which cannot be overestimated.

At present hers is actual "free speech"; she may say what she will; men hear and, without subjecting her words to too close a scrutiny, are influenced by her spirit. Require her to vote, to identify herself with a party, in some instances she will become timid; and when at the other extreme she refuses to restrain herself, she may become an impediment to party success and be ignored. When women shall oppose women their party conflicts will deprive them of that power by which they now frequently leaven and control public sentiment.

Rufus Choate delivered an oration in Salem, Mass., in 1848, in which he pronounced a noble eulogium upon the collective womanhood of people like ours:

"I do not suppose I enter on any delicate or debatable region of social philosophy, sure I am that I concede away nothing which I ought to assert for our sex, when I say that the collective womanhood of a people like our own scizes with matchless facility and certainty on the moral and personal peculiarities, and character of marked and conspicuous men, and that we may very wisely address ourselves to her to learn if a competitor for the highest honours has revealed that truly noble nature that entitles him to a place in the hearts of a nation. We talk and think of measures; of creeds in politics; of availability; of strength to carry the vote of Pennsylvania, or the vote of Mississippi. Through all this, her eye seeks the moral, prudential, social, and mental character of the man himself-and she finds it!"

This indeed women can do when the balance of their swift moving mental and emotional scales swings true. Those women were not enfranchised. They had developed those high qualities the great orator eulogizes under the old régime. But should the collective womanhood be constrained to divide its force between political parties, "to think and talk of measures; of creeds in politics; of availability; of strength to carry the vote;" or of how important members of the party could be kept from seceding; or of how to induce some brilliaut orator to renounce his present political affiliations, or to persuade wealthy

members of the party to subscribe liberally to the party treasury, there is reason to believe that the vision of the "collective womanhood" of the coun try would be dimmed or distorted by the partisan medium through which "the eye of the collective womanhood" surveyed the scene.

In an argument in favour of giving the suffrage to woman, Senator Hoar brought forward, as an example of intellectual and moral fitness for the franchise, Mrs. Clara Leonard, whom he justly characterized as "the highest living authority on private and public charities." Mrs. Leonard about the same time thus expressed hor estimato of the ballot to

woman:

"It is the opinion of many of us that woman's power is greater without the ballot, or possibility of office-holding for gain, when, standing outside of politics, she discusses great questions on their merits.

"Much has been achieved by women for the antislavery cause, temperance, the improvement of public and private charities, the reformation of criminals, and by intelligent discussion and influence upon men. "Our legislators have been ready to listen to women and carry out their plans when well formed."

XX

VITAL OBJECTIONS TO WOMAN SUFFRAGE

(Continued)

CHIVALRY with its refining influence upon men,

and the protection which it guarantees to women

must diminish greatly or pass away when women become politicians.

It is not a favourable portent that of late it has be come customary for the advocates of Woman Suffrage to disparage that chivalrous feeling which causes normal men, wherever modern civilization exists, to treat women with deference and to be ready to extend them needful aid. At present one of the chief refining elements of society is the respect felt for woman. hood by men.

Even those who voluntarily form evil associations still esteem the ideal woman. The passing or decline of this sentiment is equally unfavourable to both; for it will accustom men to resist the influence of women.

This chivalrous spirit will surely be diminished when the women of the country are involved in personal, public and political conflicts.

All special courtesy shown to woman as such flows from a quality and amount of influence peculiar to

1

woman and her spirit uttered or unexpressed of a certain dependence on man. To imagine that chivalry will not be lessened when men and women contend in the political arena, is to treat with contempt the teachings of history. Reports and interviews in the papers, as well as personal conversations, show how quickly woman loses her delicacy and man his self-control and courtesy when engaged in a public controversy, or in court proceedings when women are engaged in a peculiarly aggravating contest of any kind. The scenes at recent sessions of the legislature of New York, enacted by educated women arguing for an increase of the salaries of women in the public schools of the metropolis, their exclusion from the floor of the house, the bitter articles and interviews later, and the stormy hearings before the mayor con. firm the conviction that such situations are to be dreaded. And it is significant that whenever women lose self-control and modesty in public, the men interested almost invariably become angry, with the usual result of treating women as they would treat

men.

Though women occasionally in conversations and on the platform claim both masculine rights and feminine privileges for themselves, the combination cannot long continue; the "rights" once gained may be retained, but the "privileges" will prove evanescent.