On one hand the public good demands that no class of citizens be arbitrarily prevented from serving the commonweal; and on the other hand thinking and patriotic women are crying against the injustice which forbids them to prove their fitness for self-government. What shall be the result of this double demand?
Woman Suffrage and the Home was the topic of Henry B. Blackwell (Mass.).
One of the objections to extending suffrage to women is a fear that its exercise will divert their attention from domestic pursuits, and diminish their devotion to husband, children and home. We believe, on the contrary, that it will increase domestic happiness by giving women greater self-respect and greater respect and consideration from men.
People who make this objection seem to regard the conjugal and maternal instincts as artificial, as the result of education and circumstances, losing sight of the fact that these qualities are innate in the feminine soul. Mental cultivation and larger views of life do not tend to make women less womanly any more than they tend to make men less manly. No one imagines that business or politics diminishes or destroys the conjugal and paternal instinct in men. We do not look for dull or idle or indolent men as husbands for our daughters. Ignorant, narrow-minded men do not make the best husbands and fathers. Ignorant, narrow-minded women do not make the best wives and mothers. Mental discipline and intelligent responsibility add strength to the conjugal and parental sentiment alike in men and women....
But fortunately this is no longer a question of theory. We appeal to the experience of the four States which have extended equal suffrage to women. Wyoming has had complete woman suffrage since 1869. For twenty-nine years, as a Territory and a State, women have voted there in larger ratio than men. Supreme Judge J. W. Kingman many years ago testified that the actual proportion of men voting had increased to 80 per cent., but that 90 per cent. of the women went to the polls. And now, after a generation of continuous voting, the percentage of divorces in Wyoming is smaller than in the surrounding States where women do not vote, and while the percentage in the latter is rapidly increasing, in Wyoming it is steadily diminishing. Where women have once voted the right has never been taken away by the people. In Utah women voted for seventeen years while it was a Territory, until Congress abolished it for political reasons. But when Utah was about to be admitted to statehood the men in framing their constitution restored the suffrage to women. Would they have done so if it had proved injurious to their homes? Impossible! You have eight Senators and seven Representatives in Congress from the four States where women have the full franchise. Ask them if it has demoralized their homes or the homes of their fellow-citizens, and your fears, if you have any, will be forever set at rest....
Believe me, gentlemen, it is not patriotism, it is not a passion for justice, it is not loyalty to sister women, it is not a desire to better her country, which will make a woman neglect her husband. Society women, superficial, selfish, silly women, the butterflies of the ballroom, the seekers for every new sensation, the worldly-minded aspirants for social position, these are the women who neglect their homes; and not the brave, earnest, serious-minded, generous, unselfish women who ask for the ballot in order by its use to make the world better. In the twentieth century, already dawning, we shall have a republican family in a republican nation, a true democracy, a government of the people, by the people and for the people, men and women co-operating harmoniously on terms of absolute equality in the home and in the State.
The Senate Hearing closed with the paper of Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton on the Significance and History of the Ballot, which was in part as follows:
The recent bills on Immigration, by Senators Lodge of Massachusetts and Kyle of South Dakota, indirectly affect the interests of woman. Their proposition to demand a reading and writing qualification on landing strikes me as arbitrary and equally detrimental to our mutual interests. The danger is not in their landing and living in this country, but in their speedy appearance at the ballot-box and there becoming an impoverished and ignorant balance of power in the hands of wily politicians. While we should not allow our country to be a dumping ground for the refuse population of the Old World, still we should welcome all hardy, common-sense laborers here, as we have plenty of room and work for them. Here they can improve their own condition and our surroundings, developing our immense resources and the commerce of the country. The one demand I would make in regard to this class is that they should not become a part of our ruling power until they can read and write the English language intelligently and understand the principles of republican government. This is the only restrictive legislation we need to protect ourselves against foreign domination. To this end the Congress should enact a law for "educated suffrage" for our native-born as well as foreign rulers.
With free schools and compulsory education, no one has an excuse for not understanding the language of the country. As women are governed by a "male aristocracy," they are doubly interested in having their rulers able at least to read and write. See with what care in the Old World the prospective heirs to the throne are educated. There was a time when the members of the British Parliament could neither read nor write, but these accomplishments are now required of the Lords and Commons, and even of the King and Queen, while we have rulers, native and foreign, who do not understand the letters of the alphabet; and this in a republic supposed to be based on intelligence of the people!
Much as we need this measure for the stability of our Government, we need it still more for the best interests of women. This ignorant vote is solid against woman's emancipation. In States where amendments to their constitutions are proposed for the enfranchisement of women, this vote has been in every case against them. We should ask for national protection against this hostile force playing football with the most sacred rights of one-half of the people.... In all national conflicts it is ever deemed the most grievous accident of war for the conquered people to find themselves under a foreign yoke, yet this is the position of the women of this republic to-day. Foreigners are our judges and jurors, our legislators and municipal officials, and decide all questions of interest to us, even to the discipline in our schools, charitable institutions and prisons. Woman has no voice as to the education of her children or the environments of the unhappy wards of the State. The love and sympathy of the mother-soul have but an evanescent influence in all departments of human interest until coined into law by the hand that holds the ballot. Then only do they become a direct and effective power in the Government....
The popular objection to woman suffrage is that it would "double the ignorant vote." The patent answer to this is, "Abolish the ignorant vote." Our legislators have this power in their own hands. There have been serious restrictions in the past for men. We are willing to abide by the same for women, provided the insurmountable qualification of sex be forever removed. Some of the opponents talk as if educated suffrage would be invidious to the best interests of the laboring masses, whereas it would be most beneficial in its ultimate influence.... Surely when we compel all classes to learn to read and write and thus open to themselves the door to knowledge, not by force, but by the promise of a privilege which all intelligent citizens enjoy, we are benefactors and not tyrants. To stimulate them to climb the first rounds of the ladder that they may reach the divine heights where they shall be as gods, knowing good and evil, by withholding the citizen's right to vote for a few years is a blessing to them as well as to the State.
We must inspire our people with a new sense of their sacred duties as citizens of a republic, and place new guards around our ballot-box. Walking in Paris one day I was greatly impressed with an emblematic statue in the square Chateau d'Eau, placed there in 1883 in honor of the republic. On one side is a magnificent bronze lion with his fore paw on the electoral urn, which answers to our ballot-box, as if to guard it from all unholy uses.... As I turned away I thought of the American republic and our ballot-box with no guardian or sacred reverence for its contents. Ignorance, poverty and vice have full access; thousands from every incoming steamer go practically from the steerage to the polls, while educated women, representing the virtue and intelligence of the nation, are driven away. I would like to see a monument to "educated suffrage" in front of our national Capitol, guarded by the goddess Minerva, her right hand resting on the ballot-box, her left hand on the spelling book, the Declaration of Rights and the Federal Constitution. It would be well for