Page images
PDF
EPUB

with a cross (x) to indicate whether or not they were in favor of equal suffrage, fold them so that their vote could not be seen, and deposit them in the ballot bag carried by the collector.

The modest young canvasser said there were other ballots to be sent by mail to women of different nationalities living in the country districts. These ballots were worded in very much the same way, but printed in different colors one color for each nationality. She thought her employer was curious to know if nationality made any difference in suffrage sentiment.

I asked her if she were a suffragist. She said she could not tell me. Neither could she discuss suffrage nor tell how the vote was going. She had been instructed to be very careful, in talking with women, not to give any advice or information that might influence a vote. Most of the ballots were folded before being handed back to her, and she seldom looked to see how they were marked. She was expected to visit every house in the districts assigned to her. Practically every woman she saw voted, almost always without hesitation. She understood that both men and women were employed as canvassers and that half of them had been selected because they favored equal suffrage and half because they were opposed to it. None of them were allowed to inform any one how they stood. She thought there were many canvassers. Most of them were employed calling from house to house in different cities and villages, while others were taking polls in factories, stores, offices, libraries, and schools. Her employer had said he intended to secure as many votes as possible before his canvass became advertised, so that he might get a fair, impartial vote before any one interested attempted to influence the

voters.

I did not think that she looked either

part, but the young canvasser thought that many people judged her to be either a 'suffragette,' or employed by the 'liquor interests.' A large number of women had told her they were interested in suffrage only because of the liquor question. Many wanted the ballot for just one reason to close up saloons. It made no difference to her how women voted or why they voted one way or another. The man soliciting in the ward with her was an experienced canvasser. He had told her that he always put his foot in a front door as soon as it was opened, to prevent its being slammed in his face before he could explain his business. She would like to visit longer, but her employer expected her to work. Perhaps she had stayed too long. Some boys outside had followed her, calling her 'suffering cat.' She had been hoping they would go.

That same day the newspapers began to take notice of our legislator's canvass. News articles appeared, telling about 'mysterious strangers seen canvassing different parts of the city and many other places.' Because officers of the 'Equal Suffrage League' knew nothing about it, prominent suffragists were inclined to believe that 'interests inimical to the cause of suffrage, probably the liquor people,' were back of the poll.

Next day our law-maker was interviewed. He attempted to explain the mystery, but no explanation was satisfactory or acceptable. There must be something crooked' about the canvass, because leading suffragists had not been consulted. It was inconceivable that a fair poll could be taken by any one outside of equal-suffrage organizations. One suffragist said that she had stayed at home for three days (something she had never been known to do before) for fear the canvassers would miss her, but she had not been called upon. Another had 'called up fourteen prominent ad

vocates of suffrage and not one of them had been asked to vote by the mysterious canvassers.' Others had told the canvassers at just what houses they should call to get suffragist votes, but many of these calls had not been made. Surely the liquor people were back of it. 'Mysterious strangers should not adopt dark, mysterious methods!'

III

I had not seen my friend the legislator for so long a time that I began to think he must be in hiding, when one day I met him coming out of a large office building. He seemed pleased to see me, and said he was 'glad to meet a friend.' He had been home for days counting ballots. There were thousands of them, and he had counted them all himself. His telephone had rung so incessantly that he was glad to leave home occasionally. His mail had grown enormously. The offices he had just visited had been canvassed twice, as sixty-one young women employed there had managed to vote eighty-two times in the first poll. He knew of no other instances, however, where the ballot-box had been 'stuffed.' He thought probably some one had been trying to play a 'practical' joke. At that particular place, a telephone exchange, he had been obliged to leave the ballots to be called for later on, after they had been marked. In every other case, his canvassers had passed the ballots around and then taken them up immediately. He was very much pleased with the success he had had in taking a fair poll. He felt sure no fairer test could be made of the sentiment of the women of his district on the suffrage question. Many thousand ballots had been cast. With very few exceptions, probably less than two per cent, every woman solicited had responded to the invitation to vote. The few wo

men called upon who had seemed in doubt and undecided which way to vote had not been encouraged to vote at all; but there had been very few who were not ready to vote promptly.

His ballots had been distributed in his own ward first. Most of the women living in his ward were the wives of workingmen. They had voted against equal suffrage four to one.

Another workingmen's ward had voted the same way. Two others had opposed suffrage three to one.

He had next canvassed a ward where he thought the residents were more representative of all classes. In this ward homes ranged in value from two hundred dollars to as high as twenty thousand dollars and more. Two thirds of the vote in this ward had been 'no.' A majority of the men living in the seventh ward had voted in favor of suffrage two years before. A careful canvass indicated that their women were now opposed to suffrage by a small majority.

In the thirteenth ward, the largest in the city, almost eight hundred workingmen's wives had marked ballots. Seven out of eight had not wanted women to vote.

He had polled in all six and one half of the thirteen wards in his city. Only one fourth of the three thousand women called upon in these wards had voted 'yes.'

At first he had thought that perhaps the result would be different when he polled the women whom his canvassers had not found at home-the working women in factories, stores, schools, and other places.

Most teachers, older scholars, librarians, nurses, and dressmakers had voted 'yes.' A large majority of bookkeepers, stenographers, clerks, factory girls, and hotel employees had voted 'no.'

In the other two cities in his district, the vote had been practically the same.

About seven women out of ten did not want the ballot.

There were two villages that had shown strong equal-suffrage sentiment two years before. The suffragists in these villages had almost won in his poll, but in each case a very small majority of women had been opposed.

Not a single ward, city, or village in his district had returned a majority for suffrage.

He had found the rural districts almost as strongly opposed to women voting as the cities had been. Thirteen out of sixteen country towns had voted 'no.'

In these country towns he had mailed different colored ballots to different nationalities. Three fourths of the German women answering had voted 'no.' The Irish had voted 'no.' A close majority of the Scandinavians and English and most of the Welsh had voted 'yes.'

In all he had polled almost eight thousand votes. The results indicated that fully two thirds of all the women in his district were opposed to suffrage. The referendum on suffrage two years before had shown almost exactly the same proportion of men opposed to giving women the ballot. Evidently there were no indications of a gain in suffrage sentiment in his district.

The other members of the legislature who had promised to poll their districts did not do so. He thought that they had refrained, either because they did not want to incur the expense, or did not want to agree to abide by the results. In the absence of any other test, he must assume the suffrage sentiment in his district to be a fair indication of suffrage strength throughout his state.

Just before the equal-suffrage measures introduced in the state legislature came up for consideration, our representative called upon me. He was in trouble. His mother had written him

.

[blocks in formation]

What an opportunity you now have as a state senator to make our state a cleaner and better home for its citizens.

Your first privilege will be to help women to secure the ballot. I am so sure of your absolute integrity and high sense of honor that I feel certain you will not deny women justice.

My western visit has made me a real 'votes for women' enthusiast. The ballot has already done wonders for women in the west, and these recently enfranchised western women are accomplishing so much in return.

Every western man I have met tells me he is glad to have women vote. Even those who were most opposed to equal suffrage have become converted. Men out here seem to believe in women, and the women are showing themselves to be worthy of this trust.

After fifty years of saloon politics under man rule in Oregon and Washington, the women of these states have stepped in with their new untried weapons, women's votes, and banished 'demon rum' from the country. Men in politics in the east are afraid to vote against saloons, but in these western suffrage states men no longer fear the liquor vote. They know that women's votes count more than saloon votes.

In civilization there is no room for the saloon. Women realize this more than men, perhaps, because women suffer more from the effects of liquor than do men, while their judgment is not prejudiced by a taste for it. Women know that absolute prohibition is the only permanent solution of the liquor problem.

I wish we could rid our state of saloons, but I am sure this can never be done until women are given the ballot. My faith in you is so great that I am sure you will vote for woman suffrage, for you must choose between the two, equal suffrage and saloons. I know my boy could not align himself with the saloon.

Your loving

MOTHER.

I was interested to know how our state senator would answer his mother. He finally wrote her in part:

You will not agree with me, mother, but I believe no one should support equal suffrage because of the liquor problem.

In our state, as well as in others, the equal-suffrage movement is linked with the prohibition movement. Most suffragists are opposed to saloons. Many are suffragists only because of saloons. They want women to have the ballot only to bring about prohibition.

In my opinion the liquor problem is of minor importance in comparison with the suffrage question. Whether or not women vote, it is generally admitted that the liquor problem will be permanently solved in the course of time by laws that will have public sentiment

back of them to make them enforceable. On the other hand, equal suffrage is for all time. When suffrage for women is once granted, it is an irrevocable step. How unfortunate it would be to take an irrevocable step for a reason that will no longer exist after a comparatively short time.

Friends of good government should consider the advisability of equal suffrage entirely aside from any effect women's votes might have on the liquor business. If equal suffrage ought not to be granted for other reasons than because of its effect on the saloon business, then it ought not to be granted at all, for the saloon question will be taken care of without women's votes. Linking the two questions together only tends to prevent a fair, impartial judgment of each.

And, mother, if a majority of the men in our state really want saloons (as they seem to), bad as the saloon is, would we be better off to have it abolished by women? Would it be well to have most women voting against most men? Would equal suffrage bring about such a situation?

My conscientious friend opposed all equal-suffrage bills introduced in the state senate. One of these measures failed to pass by only one vote.

THE ECONOMIC CRIME

OF THE PROTESTANT CHURCH

BY JOSEPH H. ODELL

I

ONE of Dante's finest passages celebrates the nuptials of St. Francis of Assisi and the Lady Poverty, 'the widow of Christ.' In the thought of the spiritual troubadours of the Middle Ages she had been left as the ward of the Church, but through many centuries none had paid her court or championed her cause. Francis became her knight and persuaded his followers to wear her favor as they went out to win Umbria and, later, all Italy. Among the most dramatic scenes in history is that of Francis and his early disciples at the little sanctuary of Santa Maria degli Angeli, when he and Egidio, Ginepro, Bernardo, Pietro, and other men of wealth and high birth, took the formal vow of poverty, electing to live on the commonest fare, in the scantiest measure, earned by menial labor or received as charity. Such a saint and poet as Francis might throw a passing glamour over the grim features of poverty, and the age in which he lived invited the vow as a parable; perhaps within the church at that time and in the Catholic church of to-day there may be justification for a clerical order bearing such marks of dedication; but the expedient or institution is entirely alien to the Protestant conception of the ministry.

Protestantism has always emphasized the pastoral function of the clerical office, not because the church has no genius for conceiving or attempting

the exceptional in spiritual strategy, but by reason of its firm belief that the main outlines of human society as they now exist are divinely sanctioned and ordained. Faith in the family unit underlies the Protestant conception of the place and function of the ministry. An order of clerics distinguished by celibacy and voluntary poverty, living in a monastic establishment or moving about from place to place without stake or right in any given community, would be a denial of Protestant principles. The more nearly a clergyman can conform to the social customs of his age, and the more completely he can build himself into the body politic, the more perfectly he realizes the Protestant ideal. To exercise the franchise of citizenship, to have a definite financial part in the fortunes of the state, to be the head of a family with its obligations and privileges, to be a participating factor in the social evolution that is forever remaking humanity, to be the neighbor and friend and guide of all kinds and conditions of men by virtue of kindred experience, to minimize the artificial distinctions between the sacred and the secular- these are the concepts which give form to the Protestant ministry. What they mean can be readily seen: influence by impregnation rather than by impact; inspiration and stimulation for spiritual achievement by coöperation within the social organism, rather than by exterior governance; a concrete and vital model of

« PreviousContinue »