WOMAN'S PART IN GOVERNMENT
Chittenden, General H. M.
Woman's Part in Government Why I Favor Equal Suffrage; Some Objections Answered By GENERAL H. M. CHITTENDEN "An almost universal rule has been to exclude women, children, lunatics, idiots,...
...Intellectual prowess has superseded it...
...Some Objections Answered By GENERAL H. M. CHITTENDEN "An almost universal rule has been to exclude women, children, lunatics, idiots, convicted criminals and aliens from the exercise of the suffrage...
...A certain element in the easier walks of life, both men and women, shirk responsibility of a public nature...
...The entourage of the dwelling we call home has often a deeper influence upon home life than the interior of the dwelling it-self...
...The very restrictions of the suffrage, particularly the rigid requirements of registration, precluded a large proportion of the bad element which is always met with in other public places...
...International Encyclopedia...
...But if the setting be humble, the function itself is full of dignity and meaning and no gathering place for men and women is freer from objectionable surroundings...
...The reactionary may plant himself on his chosen ground as firmly as he please, but if the facts of experience are against him he must capitulate, flee or be crushed...
...She is handed a ballot and assigned a place where she can prepare it unmolested...
...3) Farm products used by the household should not be credited to the farm in the cash account along with the products sold, but should be taken care of separately...
...The classification here given is the great anachronism of the age...
...NOT A FLATTERING TRIBUTE to womanhood, truly, nor one in which chivalric manhood can take much pride...
...Such relation as there is is fictitious and artificial...
...LOGIC can return only one answer, namely, that there is no real or natural relation between the two...
...Experience in the suffrage states, in one extending over a generation, utterly refutes any such idea...
...1) Consider as one unit all that may be termed real estate, as land, farm buildings, fences, ditches, etc., whether the farm is rented or owned by the operator...
...The problem of the farmer is to meet conditions on his own farm in a way which will give him the greatest net returns for his labor and the use of his capital...
...Care for her household, her children, her husband is still her first duty...
...Their influence upon election results is insignificant...
...Her partial physical incapacity for what were then the all important activities of the social state placed her in an attitude of inferiority and this purely practical consideration is primarily the origin of her condition of subjection...
...The social function upon which the modern theory of government rests is the suffrage...
...Her daily life is the same...
...What does it cost to produce farm products...
...General Chittenden will discuss other objections most frequently raised by the opponents of equal suffrage and answer them out of a philosophy mellowed by long experience with important public undertakings...
...singular that we should fear exactly the opposite effect upon womanhood...
...This article will be concluded next week...
...Into this sacred vestal hall the words "ballot," "vote" and "polls" come with a rude and jarring discord and she contemplates their entry with a sense of sacrifice which she finds it impossible wholly to throw off...
...Moreover, the presence of women has the effect of raising the tone of the surroundings and gentlemen exhibit the same courteous treatment of women there that they do in the theatre or any other public meeting place...
...Two important points must be considered in an attempt at farm bookkeeping...
...They are the most uncompromising opponents of suffrage before it is granted and the last to accept it afterward...
...Editor's Note...
...A priori one might ask how it could have that effect and one would find it hard to tell...
...The exaction of social functions, the round of pleasure, frivolous or substantial but always imperious, and fondness for an exclusive status, are all incompatible with the assumption of serious external responsibility...
...But no man can admit, except at the cost of discrediting his own capacity, that his wife or mother or grown-up sister is less richly endowed intellectually than he...
...Not least in the beauty of this picture is her seclusion from the rough work of the world that she may foster in a purer atmosphere the influence which is peculiarly her own...
...It is an intellectual function purely and as such its exercise can be subject to only one rational restriction—mental (including moral) incompetency...
...Stripped of all disguises, what, as a matter of fact, has the question to do with sex...
...The term "weaker sex" has become a solecism, for the truth which it perverts in attempting to express is not that either sex is stronger or weaker than the other but that each is better adapted than the other for the performance of certain necessary functions...
...By selling at market prices, what profit is made on them...
...but it is an explanation which itself proves that the continued existence of the condition is no longer necessary or justifiable...
...As a fact, polling places are freer of this contamination—if we consent to the use of the term—than any of the places just mentioned...
...RELATED to the arguments so far considered is the alleged degrading influence upon woman of contact with the vulgar, uncouth or immoral at the polls...
...The immaturity of children, the abnormality of non compotes mentis, the moral obliquity of criminals, the lack of local knowledge in aliens, are all forms of incapacity which disqualify for the exercise of this function...
...Self-respecting women, one often hears it urged, should keep away from such places...
...All honor to this sentiment wherever it is genuine...
...Moreover, he must admit that good government is as vital to her welfare as to his...
...They are not, it is true, palatial in appointment...
...Their reasons are definite and practical and no less cogent because selfish...
...In the early stages of society physical prowess played a far more important role than at present...
...That there are over six million farms in the country which utilize land, labor, and capital as means of income making" gives the author the opportunity to discuss the subject of the value of the farmer keeping an accurate and systematic account of his farm management the same as the business man or the railroad magnate...
...Undoubtedly it is the strongest bulwark of the anti-suffrage cause...
...THERE IS a form of opposition to woman suffrage masquerading under this argument about the home which is based upon genuine reason, even if not a good one...
...They simply do not want the ballot and they demand that men protect them from it...
...For "home" is more than "house...
...As a rule all electioneering is forbidden within a specified distance of the polls...
...On the ballot she indicates by a simple pencil mark her assent or disapproval of measures and men...
...This bulletin is not an attempt to outline a system of book-keeping for the farmer...
...The completed ballot she hands to the election official who in her presence deposits it in the proper receptacle and she withdraws...
...FOR TO-DAY physical prowess is not the real test of competency...
...The home, we are told with endless iteration, is woman's "sphere...
...These suggestions are offered...
...Within it she wields a power greater than that of presidents or kings...
...It is dignified throughout and there is absolutely nothing in it which should crucify the legitimate pride of any high-minded oman...
...This is not theory alone—though as such it should be conclusive;—it is experience...
...That politics (or at least the suffrage) makes strange bed fellows finds fresh proof in the unexpected fact that the strongest ally of this class in its opposition to the suffrage movement is found in the very lowest sub-stratum of society...
...Strange, is it not, that the same argument is not applied to the public market, the department store, the theatre, the park, the street...
...Only by courtesy can their attitude be considered as resting upon solicitude for the home...
...WE BELIEVE that the suffrage broadens and enobles manhood...
...So it appears with one exception in the list at the head of this paper...
...Experience here comes to our aid again and discloses the fact that, whereas bad men generally do vote because their vote is venal and they are ever ready to prostitute it to venal ends, bad women—the immoral sub-stratum—instinctively shrink from the publicity of registration voting...
...That condition has assumed all forms, from abject slavery to the vanishing shadow of inequality which is all that is left of it in the more enlightened countries of the world to-day...
...The ballot has made this inner influence more effective externally and has supplanted in the most efficient manner possible the teachings of the fireside...
...Unjust as this condition has been and still remains its explanation is obvious enough...
...MOST POTENT of all is that drawn from the alleged influence of woman suffrage upon the home...
...It is an anachronism because the state of feminine incompetency assumed is based upon social conditions which no longer obtain...
...A woman going there is as free from unpleasant association as in her own church...
...By this supreme test, then, let us examine briefly the arguments which are still effective in withholding from woman a voice in the government under which she lives...
...But after all it rests upon a profound error—the assumption that the right to vote detracts in the smallest degree from the sanctity or the ennobling influence of home...
...A posteriori one finds by long experience that, if anything, it has the opposite effect...
...There, she creates patriotism though she go not to war, and develops statesmanship though she holds no office of trust or power...
...But prejudice, wherever it exists, is as potent as reason itself, and it becomes necessary to expose its nothingness before it is possible to disabuse men's minds of its power...
...In this way the accounts will not be confused with items not strictly cash...
...Whatever change there is, strengthens, if anything, the social bond and the dignity of the home...
...It is a battle against prejudice all along the line...
...In cities particularly is this true, and all the influence from within is often of little avail against that from without...
...If there is a surplus at the end of the year, it is their compensation...
...They are bare, unornamented, temporary quarters rented for the occasion...
...It is rather a discussion of the principles which are applicable to accounts on the farm...
...The red light district has no use for woman suffrage...
...Here again experience sefutes prejudice altogether...
...The extreme simplicity of the function is in striking contrast to its vast importance as the foundation of modern government...
...The alarm cry that bad women will vote is a phantom fear...
...2) Do not consider that the farmer or his family receive anything for their labor unless they are paid in cash the same as hired labor...
...that laws are for her as well as for him...
...It is believed that any farmer who studies this bulletin sufficiently to grasp these principles will be able to devise a system suited to his particular needs...
...The attitude of society in denying this privilege to one sex rests not upon reason but upon prejudice, inherited theory, and mental inertia...
...Prejudice has ever been a mighty barrier to human progress, and in this matter of high human right it is almost the only one...
...There is reason to believe that the majority of farmers are really living on the interest of their investments rather than on the profits of their farms...
...There, quietly and unobtrusively, she builds the character of the nation...
...War and the chase were vital and universal pursuits and from these the handicap of maternity excluded women in greater or less degree...
...Christianity, in spite of its leveling principles, accepted it, and even chivalry, with all its ennobling virtues, saw in woman only a symbol of weakness...
...The cause is now making greater progress than before because the most convincing of all arguments, experience, is coming increasingly to its assistance...
...He should receive interest on his capital as well as wages for his labor, but owing to the lack of proper records few farmers know what wages they actually receive...
...Having the same interest in government and the same capacity to understand and act, upon what logical ground can the right to exercise this purely intellectual function of government be denied her...
...Farm Book-keeping FARMERS' BULLETIN 511 of the Department of Agriculture contains some interesting facts and recommendations in connection with bookkeeping on the farm...
...Men of the same class would feel the same way in their place...
...It is precisely this work which is the burden of the suffragist movement throughout the world to-day...
...Women of this class do not want to be compelled even to think of these things...
...The annoyance and publicity of registration and voting, the commonness of mere political methods shock their vanity and arouse their repugnance...
...The right itself runs to the human being, be he man or woman, and the arbitrary prevention of its exercise by either through the agency of the other is a usurpation of power...
...That a wife or mother should discuss public questions with her family, should seek information from the papers or even from public addresses, necessitates no neglect of home—far less so than do bridge parties, the theatre and the sundry social obligations which are accepted as a matter of course...
...Woman is no less woman now than before...
...Their migratory habit and incognito character disqualifies the greater proportion and their fear of challenge keeps most of the rest away...
Vol. 4 • October 1912 • No. 42
