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Maryland State Archives Maryland Suffrage News Collection MSA SC 3286 msa_sc3286_scm7805-0084 Enlarge and print image (1M) |
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Maryland State Archives Maryland Suffrage News Collection MSA SC 3286 msa_sc3286_scm7805-0084 Enlarge and print image (1M) |
| MARYLAND SUFFRAGE SEWS 101 that she was a widow or spinster. Women, however, through the working out of the limitations of military service, performed by proxy, and of matrimony, were always in the minority. No action of Parliament can be found which took away these imme- morial rights of women. A notation in the diary of a sheriff of Suffolk is rather illuminating, lie states that he forbade some spinster freehold- ers from voting because he disliked the notion, adding, "although in law they might have been allowed." The inference is, therefore, that women being in the minority, the "lords of creation" gradually came to dislike the notion of women voting. The reform bill of 183J was the first political instrument in the history of the British Islands to insert the word "male" before persons. In 1834 women were deprived of their immemorial right of dower mentioned in the fourth chapter of Magna Charta; yet in 1837 there was placed upon the throne of Kngland a woman who well illustrated her ability in political affairs. If we go still farther back to the Roman Empire we find that a Senate of women sat in the Collis (Juirinatis, and Plutarch mentions that women sat in councils and deliberated on questions of war and peace. By what authority, then, can our Supreme Court say that women had no voting rights which the Constitution protected? It is a commentary on the so-called chivalry suffragists hear so much about to find that every reformation or reform bill, while enlarging men's rights, narrowed those of women. Instead of sustaining woman because of her weaker physical endowment, man has taken advantage of that weakness to usurp her rights, lulling his conscience by pretending it was for her protection through enabling her to shirk responsibilities. Because of their greater physical weakness women need direct representation more than men. Lacking the moral support of the people, laws cannot long be enforced, which proves that government rests on moral rather than on physical force. Women, while physically weak, are mighty in soul. Voting is the act of a human being and is neither essentially manly nor yet womanly. Suffrage is simply the inherent right to express one's pnliiical opinions. The idea that any one man is born to a certain position, whatever his attributes, is repugnant to the senses of citizens of a republic. Is it any less unnatural and prc|iosterous to assume that the accident of sex must forever bar one from jtolitical rights ? The love of freedom lives in the heart cl woman no less than in man. This country has attained its great- ness by enlarging the bounds of freedom; it has yet to protect its women in their political rights. Women possess every qualification save the specified sex; they have property and education; take out passports, naturalization papers, register ships, pre-empt lands, pay taxes, and are res|>onsible for the violation of laws in the making of which they have no voice. A government which docs not protect its people has no right to expect allegiance. WHY WOMEN SHOULD VOTE By Katharine IIoiohton Hei'Dlrn. N 0\V, what is the vote and why arc women working so hard to get In fact, life was not organized on the social basis that it is today. it in every State in this Union and in every country in the civilized Today, if women are to do the work which women have done through all world? The vote is the most efficient means of registering public opinion so that opinion >hall be hindiue; on the government. Our opponents tell you that if you give women votes it will simply double the vote and not change the result. Of course it will double the vole, but it will change the result. It will bring a new element. Women are the mothers of the race. We arc not just like men. Our work in the world is not just like men's. The final aims of men and women are identical, but our immediate business, our immediate interests, are different. How do most men spend their time? Working to make money to sup|K>rt their families. How do most women spend their time? Making that money go just as far as possible toward the creation of healthy, efficient and attract- ive homes in which the children may be brought up, and in which both men and women may realize some of their common human ideals and ambitions. The most fundamental reason why women are working for the vote today is because government now touches our work both as home-makers and as workers in the outside world as it never did in the history of the world before. In the old days, when each family was a relatively isolated unit, government did not touch women's work as it does today. In those days the individual family owned its own cow and spinning- wheel. There were no factories, no mills, no bakeshops, no steam laundries, no department stores.no hospitals.no public playgrounds, few- public schools and few public amusements. the ages, they must Ik- voters. We arc totd tliat if laws are to be passed affecting women's work, men will attend to them. I low should men like to have the same reason applied to their work? How should they like to he told that when laws were to he passed affecting their business, women would attend to them? We should have every reason to be just and fair because the income from men's business supports our homes. Nevertheless, men would say with justice that if laws were to be passed con- cerning their business they would prefer to attend to them. That is just what we say. Men with the best intentions in the world cannot understand women's work as women can because we are doing it, and if laws are to be passed affecting our work we want to be consulted. Men have their part to play in the world. Women have theirs. And, just as in the home, you want both the man's and the woman's point of view, so in the government you want both the man's and the woman's point of view represented. Don't hesitate because women will have to use the vote if their point of view is to be represented in the government. The vote is a very quiet and efficient means of registering one's opinion, that is all. We are advised by our opponents to use publicity methods and to educate pub- lic opinion. I have tried using public meth- ods myself, and I can assure you that it is not nearly so polite or so agreeable or so pri- vate as voting. Mention the Maryland Suffrage Ntwi Whan Patronizing Our AdVartitera. Mrs. Thomas N". Mei'iurx, President of the Connecticut Woman Stiff rage Association and Mother of Four Attractive Children. |