xt70rx937t9n_515 https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt70rx937t9n/data/mets.xml https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt70rx937t9n/data/46m4.dao.xml unknown 13.63 Cubic Feet 34 boxes, 2 folders, 3 items In safe - drawer 3 archival material 46m4 English University of Kentucky The physical rights to the materials in this collection are held by the University of Kentucky Special Collections Research Center.  Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Laura Clay papers Temperance. Women -- Political activity -- Kentucky. Women's rights -- Kentucky. Women's rights -- United States -- History. Women -- Suffrage -- Kentucky. Women -- Suffrage -- United States. Suffrage pamphlets and leaflets text Suffrage pamphlets and leaflets 2020 https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt70rx937t9n/data/46m4/Box_30/Folder_6/Multipage24404.pdf 1914, undated 1914 1914, undated section false xt70rx937t9n_515 xt70rx937t9n __ Under the Direction of the I u . .
ILLINOIS EQUAL SUFFRAGE ASSOCIATION MRS. ELLA SEASS STEWART

ear the Suffrage Speakers 5‘

IF FAVORABLE

to Equal Suffrage, come

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

to this meeting
6: 8

IF OPPOSED, come alSo

and hear tl1e message of
the Sugragists

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MRS. CATHARINE VVAUGH NICCULLOCH
Justice of the Peace flmmu 2r MISS S. GRACE NICHOLES

Vice-President National Suffrage Association \‘4‘ I Secretary Illinois Equal Suffrage Association

Time

 

Place

 

 

 (PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE VOTING.)

MUNICIPAL SUFFRAGE FOR WOMEN TAXPAYERS.

 

 

A hearing was given at the Massachu—
setts State House on Jan. 27, by the Com-
mittee on Election Laws, to Mrs. Julia
Ward Howe and other petitioners that
municipal suffrage may be granted to
women who pay taxes ip the city or town
where they reside. No. 240, the large
room generally assigned to suffrage hear-
ings, was occupied that day by a hearing
on the burning local question of the in-
quiry into the alleged coal combine. No.
431, where the suffrage hearing was held,
was altogether too small to hold the
crowd, and a compact mass of standing
humanity filled the back of the room
throughout the two hours and a half of
the hearing. When so many women are
willing to stand up for so long a time, it
certainly shows that they take an interest
in the subject.

Miss Alice Stone Blackwell conducted
the case for the petitioners. Mr. Aaron
H. Latham appeared as attorney for the
remonstrants.

Mrs. Julia Ward Howe was the first
speaker for the petitioners. She was in-
troduced as not a taxpayer only, but a
woman who had contributed to the com-
monwealth much that was of more value
than money. When Mrs. Howe rose to
speak, the chairman of the committee,
Senator Nye of the Cape, courteously told
her that she might remain seated if she
preferred. “Thank you, I can stanc,”
answered Mrs. Howe, with a sparkle of
indomitable youth in her eyes that called
out quick applause.

MRS. HOWE’S ADDRESS.

We are here today to present to this
respected body the claims of the tax-pay—
ing women of Massachusetts to take part
in municipal elections. This is not the

first time that we have come here on this

errand. Thirty years ago we stood in
this ‘place with some who will stand here
no more, to ask for the same boon. We
then had leave to withdraw, and, though
we have been here every year between
that and this one, to ask for equal suffrage
for the men and women of the commu-
nity, we have not, until within the last
few years, resumed our petition for a suf-
frage limited by participation in the pay-
ment of taxes. '

In Boston, 18,500 women pay taxes
every year on over one hundred and fif-
ty million dollars’ worth of property.
They therefore hear an important part of
the public expenses. They possess every
characteristic which is deemed, in theory
at least, essential in the male voter.
They have reasonable education, reputable
standing, adequate intelligence, and taxa-
ble property; What hidden incompetence
is it which unfits them for a share in the
elections which decide the uses to which
the public funds shall be applied? Wom-
en graduate with honor from our colleges.
They adorn the professions, law, medi-
cine, divinity. They occupy positions of
trust and responsibility in the public ser-
vice. Why should they be “like dumb,
driven cattle,” without a voice, assenting
or dissenting, in matters which concern
them as nearly and deeply as they concern
the men of the community? This ques-
tion has often been asked within these
walls. It has never been answered.

With what new plea can I to-day enforce
our demand? To what point in our com-
mon nature can I make appeal, in order
that the time passed here, yours as well
as ours, gentlemen, may not be allowed
to elapse without result? I appeal, first
of all, to that desire for progress which
so marks the distinction between man and
the lower animals.

Although principles of right and wrong
are old enough to antedate all human ex-
perience, the application of these princi-
ples to the business of life is bound to
grow with the growth of society. Ordi-
nances which make evident the ignorance

of earlier times are not appropriate to our
age of general enlightenment. Man’s
ethical consciousness develops itself like
the sunlight; from dawn to noon. In the
full glory of the meridian, human rela-
tions take on new aspects. Society to-day
chronicles a wonderful advance in arts
and crafts, in industries and commerce.
In this great onward sweep of civilization,
shall our ideas of obligation remain sue-h
as they were in barbarous times? Shall

the man who exults in his freedom be

content to claim descent from a being
whose will and intelligence can have no
efiicient representation in the action of
the body politic? I appeal, then, to the
human instinct of progress, enlightened
by decades of liberal education, to see to
it that our statute books are not disgraced
by laws suitable only to the very dawn of
civilization.

I appeal in the second place to that love

of justice which is deeply rooted in man’s
nature, and which the progress of civiliza-
tion does much to extend and develop.
Here, too, we must recognize the principle
of growth. The world has now had nearly
two thousand years of Christian culture.
It is everywhere growing more polite,
more considerate of the mutual claims and
rights upon which the polity of nations
founds itself. In its general economy,
order evolves itself from chaos, harmony
from discord. The great wrongs of soci-
ety present themselves forcibly in the
new light which is thrown upon human
actions, and their amendment is seen to
be imperative. This is surely a crying
injustice, that those who bear the finan—
cial burthens of the community should
have no voice in the administration of its
interests.
‘ ,Those, who are to speak after me will
more fully develop the facts to which I
have only alluded. I ask your serious at-
tention to the statements which they will
present. And I ask that you will con-
sider these statements in the light of this
new century.

It becomes us of America, us of Massa-
chusetts, to be zealous for justice, earnest
to set right what times less enlightened
than our own have set wrong, or, finding
wrong, have left uncorrected. I find this
zeal in the Greeks of three thousand years
ago, when Socrates took issue with archaic
ideas of sex, asserting that a woman might
have the soul of a physician, and a man
the soul of a cook or confectioner. “If,”
he says, “we find a man or woman of this
sort, were it not a shame that the woman
should be held to serve as the confectioner,
while the man should assume the duties
of a physician?”

We who stand here have been persuaded
for more than thirty years that our de-
mand is a just one. We hope that you,
gentlemen, will be of our mind. If the
thing we ask for is just, without regard
as to who wants it or who does not, give
itto us in the name of justice, Christian
justice, in which the great apostle tells
us there is “neither bond nor free, neither
male nor female,” but one even-handed
ideal rule, patterned on the eternal decrees
of God.

0. F. DOLE’S ADDRESS.

Rev. Charles F. Dole of Jamaica Plain,
president of the 20th Century Club, said:

When I consider the character of these
petitioners, I feel a little shame that it
should be necessary for us to re-enforce
their request. These women represent
intelligence, education, often large civic
interests, -— all the humanities. They
would add to the electorate something of
real value. Many years ago, before the
question of woman suffrage had been gen-
erally raised, I heard the remark made in
a country town, in a household of noble
women who paid taxes and'had no male
representative, that it hardly seemed fair
that they should not be allowed to. vote

on the expenditure of their taxes, when
every young stripling of a boy could vote
as soon as he reached 2]..

' People sometimes feel hesitation about
introducing to suffrage a “great horde”
of women, many of them ignorant and ill
prepared; but this measure would. intro-
duce only a rather small body of those
women who are already prepared for it.
I can understand the objection made by
Some women to general suffrage on the
ground that if all women were to come in,
they might feel themselves forced to vote
to offset the votes of unfit women; but
that objection does not apply here. This
bill admits only those who are reasonably
qualified, and who would add something
to the electorate.

An objection may be raised—it used to
appeal to me—that we do not now recog-
nize taxation as a basis of representation;
but I remembered that this was the way
men began as voters, and that they got
the suffrage by degrees. We Anglo-
Saxons have never cared much about
the logic of books, but more for what is
fair—the logic of life.

I can understand the opposition to gen-
eral woman suffrage, but I am rather sur-
prised that there should be any remon
sirants against this particular measure.
The petition asks only that those women
taxpayers who wish it may have an ex-
pression. Imagine some of the girls in a
coeducational college asking that the use
of the university playground should be
given to those girls who wanted to prac—
tise athletics. It is likely that some of
the young women might not wish to
practise athletics, but it is hardly conceiv-
able that any of them should object to
opening the grounds to those who did.

misapprehension.

It is sometimes urged that women
should not have any form of suffrage
because they do not fight—as if the prin-
cipal business of any civilized community
was fighting. In all sorts of legislative
bodies, from the town meeting up, the
work done is not of the fighting kind, but
of the thoughtful kind; and there the
counsel of women may be valuable, as
that of the old men who can no longer
fight is worth quite as much as that of
the boy of 21, eager for a fight. This right
is now given to women in Great Britain
and many Anglo-Saxon colonies. I should
think it would give the Committee pleas-
ure to recommend a measure so self-evi-
dently just.

MRS. FIFIELD’S ADDRESS.

Mrs. Emily A. Fifield, who has served
for more than twenty years on the Boston
School Board, said:

I represent a somewhat peculiar section
of the city. There are ten widows who
live within a few steps of my home. On
my own short street there are eight
houses owned by widows, and four or five
by single women. Of the widows, some
have lost their sons, some have only
daughters, others have only small chil-
dren. We have no male representatives,
and we do not feel that we are justly rep-
resented by the man who cares for our
furnace. When it is proposed to put a
big factory at one end of Our street and
a garbage-plant at the other, we have
found that the only potent means of pro-
test is a vote. I ask it as a matter of justice
to the tax-paying widows of Dorchester.

MR. BLACKWELL’S ADDRESS.
Mr. Henry B. Blackwell said:

This bill is not an ordinary woman suf-
frage measure. The Massachusetts Wo—
man Suffrage Association is not behind it.
It is a petition of women taxpayers in
their own behalf. They ask a vote in
municipal elections for themselves and
other taxpayers. They want to vote on
the expenditure of the taxes they pay, and

, ‘ women.
.‘Such an objection would be somewhat un-w.

gracious, and would indicate at least a,
on one hundred and fifty million dollars,

to help select the men who are to spend
them. IS not that right and reasonable?
These women taxpayers want a reform in
our municipal governments, which are
tainted with fraud and incompetency.
To day it costs the city of Boston on an
average about twice as much to buy a lot,
to build a sewer, to put up a building, as
it would cost you or me to do it. That
means that half the taxes are wasted or
misapplied. We are loaded down with
useless officials, with an enormous debt
which has been incurred largely to keep
unprincipled politicians in office, and to
give jobs and contracts at fancy prices.
These women ask for votes in order to
help effect muniCipal reform.

In making this demand they do not ask
you to establish a new principle. To-day
no man votes in Massachusetts who is not
legally a taxpayer. Ever since the Prev-
ince charter was granted, no man has ever
voted in Massachusetts except as a tax-
payer. True, some years ago the Consti—
tution was so changed that the actual
payment of a tax is no longer a prerequis-
ite for voting. That change was made to
relieve political committees and candi-
dates for office from the burden of paying
the poll-taxes of their delinquent constitu-
ents in order to get their votes. But the
tax itself has not been abolished. Every
man of 20 is made a taxpayer, and a year
later a voter. Every man is actually taxed
every year. The only taxpayers who are
not allowed to vote are the women tax-
payers. All these women ask is that they
may be placed on an equality with other
taxpayers. They ask it on our old Revo-

- lutionary principle that “taxation without

represention is tyranny.” They ask it
also in the interest of good government.

It is the Republican theory that every
citizen and every property interest should
be represented. So far as men go, the
theory is applied. But women and the
property belonging to women are not rep—
resented. One-sixth of the taxable prop-
erty of the commonwealth is owned by
These property-owners number
about one-sixth of the voting population“
In Boston alone 18,500 women pay taxes

as shown by a list drawn from the asses-
sors’ books. This property is almost
wholly real estate, which cannot escape
taxation. These 18,500 women are re-
sponsible, intelligent, and honest. If
voters, they would be a power for good
government. They are numerous enough
to turn the scale, allied with the male
taxpayers, in electing aldermen and a city
council who will cooperate with our pres-
ent honest Mayor in checking ruinous ex-
travagance and corruption.

Gentlemen, we come before your com-
mittee this year with hope of a favorable
report, because you are trying to reform
the primaries. We bid you God speed!
But there can be no thorough reform in
municipal government without a reform
in the voting constituencies. To-day, in
the city of Boston, 65 per cent. of the
voters pay no tax whatever. Not only so,
but they refuse to pay the poll-taxes for
which they are legally liable. We are
governed literally by tax defaulters. Two
years ago, when the Legislature raised
the tax limit of Boston, it was stated
without contradiction by Boston dailies
that several of the Boston representatives
in the Legislature, who voted to raise the
tax limit, were themselves poll-tax de-“
faulters. Not only so. Every year hun-
dreds of men in Boston apply to become
voters. They are assessed a poll-tax
(which they do not pay) and give their
places of abode, and are certified by two
voters. Next year the assessors cannot
trace them. Nobody knows them at the
places where they said they lived. There
is here a strong presumption of fraud. Is
it any wonder that a city government
elected by so irresponsible a constituency
is, as I was told within a week by an ex-
alderman, “as rotten as Tammany”?
Here is what William A. Lincoln, the
president of the Boston Chamber of Com—
merce, said of it last week in his annual
address:

I cannot refrain from alluding to a subject
of paramount importance to our well-being
and prosperity, and this is the government
of our city. . . . The neglect of duty on the
part of many of our citizens enables the self-
seeking and the unworthy to obtain control.
Men who would not be appointed to any re-
sponsible office in any financial or business
organization, are elected by our citizens to
positions of influence and responsibility
where they can vote away millions of the
money of our people. Recent events have

 

 M U N I C I PA L S U ‘19 F RAG E If

OR WO M l‘ZN TAX l’ AYE RS.

 

 

revealed to us the character and disposition
of our present city government. Politicians
bankrupt in morals as well as in pocket
obtain control. and by dishonorable and
corrupt methods are enabled to carry out;
their schemes for their personal benefit at
.the expense of the taxpayers. The warnings
and protests of our \vortliy mayor are entire-
ly disregarded, and the first. meeting of our
common council this year surprised every
one by loan orders amounting to $070,000. . .
Fraudulent purchases ot land, padded pay-
rolls. bills for carriage hire and entertain-
ments, reckless appropriations, and the en-
ormous loan hills are matters that deserve
the earnest consideration of every patriotic
citizen . In some more efficient and pro-
tected way than now exists, the financial in-
terests of the city should be safeguarded,
and. above all, we should seek to create high-
er standards of public duty and integrity, a
deeper feeling of civic pride and devotion.

These are not the words of a platform
orator, but the deliberate, well-considered
statement of a conservative business man
addressed to the merchants of B Aston and
approved by their great representative
body.

We represent petitions of women tax-
payers from all parts of our city—the
flack llay, South Boston, East Boston,
Dorchester, Roxbury, Allston, West R x-
bury and Charlestown, also from Brook-
line, Newton, Walth .m, Sharon, Wellesley
Hills, Attleboro’, Natick, Northbridge,
Nortliampton,etc. and all collected with-
in a week. We could multiply them by a
hundred. As a result: of a partial canvass
made by Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, she has
received written replies from 2,000 women
taxpayers of Boston, taken without
knowledge of their views. Eighteen hun-
dred are in favor of this bill: only 200 0p-
posed to it.

When this government was formed, we
were a nation of freeholders. Almost
every family owned its own home and
called no landlord master. To day immi-
gration and industrial evolution have
changed all that. The entire growth of
our State population is in our cities and
manufacturing towns, where a majority
of our population are living almost from
hand to mouth, in hired houses, depend-
ent on their daily labor. Politics has be-
come a trade. Public spirit is smothered
by party prejudice. There is a growing
popular discontent—«Tennyson’s couplet
describes our condition this winter with
coal at $12 a ton:

. ‘ ‘ .. . 1 ..,. __., .‘i. _ _ n.
" Stavrry comm: a. LILIHELJ rook/to, an m liuu,

creeping nigher,

Glares at one who nods and winks beside a,

Slowly dying fire ”

It is in. your power, gentlemen, by
enacting this bill, to initiate a genuine
political reform. Restore to property—
owners their rightful voice in municipal
government, and you will thereby check
municipal mismanagement and corrup
tion.

This is not a movement of rich against
poor. Property and labor are not one—
mies. Women have a common interest,
rich and poor alike, in the safety and
comfort of their homes and in the well-
being of their State. As wives, mothers,
and Widows, they all have common inter-
ests that need to be represented.

In extending municipal suffrage to
women taxpayers, you only do what is
already done in Great Britain and Ireland
and in all the English self-governing col-
onies. In Great Britain every woman
taxpayer now votes for all elected offi-
cers except members of Parliament on
precisely the same terms as male rate-
payers. It is a widely extended suffrage.
Hundreds of thousands of women vote
annually in their municipal elections, and,
as Mr. Gladstone testified in Parliament,
“they vote without detriment, and to
great advantage.” In our own country
women vote on questions of taxation in
New York, in Iowa, in Montana, and in
Louisiana, with satisfactory results. Pres-
ident Roosevelt, when Governor of New
York, recommended extending woman
suffrage from his observation of its bene-
fits in Oyster Bay, where he resides. In
New Orleans for many years efforts had
been unsuccessfuily made to secure im-
proved drainage and a pure water supply.
Three years ago, under such a law as we
ask, a'campaign organized by women
property owners carried this. measure,
and the New Orleans daily papers ascribe
its success to the women voters.

Gentlemen, this reform is imperatively
needed. There is no other hope but in a
judicious extension of the suffrage, such
as will place more power in honest, re-
sponsible hands. Voting KPis not simply
putting a piece of paper in a box. The
essence of suffrage is rational choice. Ig-
norant voting is not that. It is only
brute force in a refined form, marshalled
by demagogues. Our only salvation iS an
honest, intelligent majority, and this
measure will help us to attain it.

 

MISS Aaron’s ADDRESS.
Miss Amy Acton of Waltham, who was
introduced as a taxpayer and a lawyer,
said:

O

I represent a city typical of many others
—~a manufacturing city of abwut 25,000
inhabitants. The Waltham Watch Fac-
tory alone employs more than 3,000 wom-
en. Most of them are saving women, who
earn good wages and put them in the sav-
ings-bank. VVOmcn are largely repre—
sented in business and industry. VVal-
tham has four women doctors; the chief
caterer is a woman; so is the chief under-
taker. Many of the stores are managed
and financed by women. Waltham has
thus a large proportion of tax-paying
women, besides the usual number of
women real estate owners, widows, etc.

I have taken much interest in asking
these women how they stood on the suf-
frage question. Those who were opposed
used to answer plumply “No,” Without
giving their reasons. But now, and espe-
cially during the last year, if the answer
is not “Yes,” it is, “I do not know enough
about it to be sure; if I did, perhaps I
should agree with you.” It is a great
thing to get these admissions from so
many women formerly opposed. Many
women who are indifferent to full suffrage
are actively in favor of this measure. A
woman is apt to be an idealist, but women
are becoming practical as well. The fe-
male pocket-book is becoming as sensitive
a spot as the male pocket-book. When
you ask one of these tax—paying women
suddenly if she thinks women taxpayers
ought to be excluded from a vote as to
how their money shall be spent, she gasps,
and says, “Of course not.”

The enrolment cards 'of the Suffrage
Association have been circulated througlp
out the Waltham Watch Factory. Of the
hundreds asked, not one woman refused
to sign; and the men wanted to sign too.
There is a growing sentiment in favor.
Gentlemen of the Committee, I hope you
will see both the ideal and the practical
side of this question.

MRS. JONES’S ADDRESS.
Mrs. Lavinia S. Jones of South Boston,
a mother and taxpayer, said in part:

Is there any earthly reason why, if I
pay tax money into the city treasury, I
Should not have something to say infer.

gard to the use of that money? Let mi?

give an example. I live in a town, we}
will say; I own a large property, I pay a’
large tax; I have no husband, or, if I have; '
he is a man much engrossed in his busi-»,
ness. I have leisure, and am deeply in;
terested in the development of the townf
I have looked closely into the needs oili‘
the schools, made a study of the lighting,
of the town, the water and sewerage ques’;
tions. Gentlemen, can you tell me whyl
I cannot vote to put into office those met! -
or women who will best use this public
money? Why I have not a voice in tlnl
advancement and development of these,
public needs? Until you grant us what we.
ask, we must continue to come here, ant

to beg for this priviiege of the ballot, so

long as our convictions are so strong that.
we ought to have it. 2

MRS. GUSTIN’S ADDRESS, i

l
Rev. Ellen G. Gustin of Attleboro’ sait,
in part: i '
I speak as a wife and mother of 1110])
than fifty years’ standing, and as a taxff
payer on property which I have personallj‘
earned—not one dollar of it was inheritedi
When a woman brings up sons to mani-
hood, and they refuse their mother thhx-v
right to vote, it is a most pitiable and
humiliating position for a woman to 00’-
cupy. I know a multitude of women,
more than half of whom have earned their
own living—not merely by keeping house,
rocking the cradle, and going down into
the valley of the shadow of death to give
these voters to the world, but by actual
wage-earning labor. I ask the young~
men on this committee to investigate caret-
fully and earnestly, and, if you pray,
prayerfully, this great subject of democ-
racy, and see if it is not much like tb-
gospel, in which there is “neither male nor
female.”
MRS. FALL’S ADDRESS.

Mrs. Anna. Christy Fall of Malden wa
introduced as a taxpayer, a lawyer, and 4'
mother. She said in part:

I have been interested in equal suffrag
ever since I was a girl of 18, when a cop
of the WOMAN’S JOURNAL came into 11':
hands. I believe that the ballot ought t
be given to all women who possess th
qualifications required of men, but wlie
lam hungry I am willing to take half
loaf if I can not at once got a whole om .

About twenty years ago a happy con

'PDCDO‘Q‘CU:

.—
I

 

pany of students were assembled in Bos-
ton University. Theyincluded Mr. Bates,
who is now Governor, Mr. Newton and
Mr. Jones, who are now in the Legisla-
ture; Miss Blackwell, myself, a young lady
who is now dean of women at the Ohio
Wesleyan University, and another who
taught for years in the Malden high
school, and of whom it was said, when
she resigned to marry a prominent man,
that no teacher in Malden had ever had so
much influence for good over the young
men and women in the schools. It liu-
miliates me when I think that these wom-
en, who have done so much to form the
minds of voters, in coeducational high
schools and elsewhere, are not considered
worthy to be voted for, or even to cast a
vote. '

In England and her colonies, women
have for years voted on municipal ques-
tions. When I was in New Hampshire
lately, an Englishwo man reminded me of
the fact. I felt cheap to think that the
country against which years ago we flung
the challenge “Taxation without repre-
sentation is tyranny” should now be
ahead of us in recognizing the application
of the principle to women, and that a wo—
man of that country should be able to
twit me with the fact, even in a pleasant
way.

A letter from Edwin D. Mead was read:

20 BuAcox Sr, BOSTON, hIASS. JAN. 27.

My Dear Mr. Blurkwcll:—I wish to ex-
press my hearty sympathy with the peti-
tion presented to the Legislature by Mrs.
Howe and her friends. When I think of
the women with whom I constantly work
in Boston, who are serving with such
broad intelligence and rare devotion every
public interest, when I think of: my own
wife, and consider that such women are
denied the suffrage given to the man just
intelligent enough to run their furnace
and clean tlu-ir sidewalks,—when I think
of absurdities like this, I do not need to
be told, and the Legislature of Massachu-
setts ought not to need, that, whatever
conditions may rightfully be imposed up-
on thc suffrage, a condition which draws
lines like this clearly is not one of them.

The taxing of cue‘s property for pub-
lic purposes without giving the taxed
person any voice is in opposition to funda-
mental English principles. England her-
self already clearly sees this, and women
fherehavo 27".": the municipal right: 5.”?-
w1iich you ask. Surely New Englan
ought not to be behind Old England in
this matter. Yours truly

EDWIN D. MEAD.

Objections were made by Mr. Aaron H.
Latham, Miss Dyer, Mrs. George, and
Mrs. Martha Moore Avery.

MRS. Hown’s REJOINDER.
Mrs. Julia Ward Howe said:

.When a petition for the abolition of
slavery in the District of Columbia was
presented in Congress, no one was insin-
cere enough to arraign the petitioners on
the ground that they wanted to keep all
the rest of the negroes in slavery; yet
that is the line which most of the speakers
in opposition took today. How absurd
to assume that we ask the ballot for tax-
paying women in order to distinguish our-
selves from non-taxpayers, when for al-

most fifty years we have been on our .

knees before the Legislature asking for
the ballot for all women! Whatever may
be said of. meanness, our record is clear,
our record is known. You who are always
talking about the ignorant women, and
the dangers from their vote, with what
“consistency can you object to this meas-
ure as class legislation, and protest in the
name of democracy?

MISS BLACKWELL’S ADDRESS.
Miss Blackwell said in part:

Every speaker on the other Side has
argued against this bill for two directly
contradictory reasons—first, that it is ob-
jectionable “class legislation” to give the
ballot only to a part of the women; and
second, that it will be an entering wedge
and lead to giving it to all the women.
Whether it will prove an entering wedge
will depend entirely on whether it works
well. If the women taxpayers show them-
selves conspicuously morc stupid and
more unprincipled in their exercise of
the ballot than the average male voter,
then, far from helping to bring about full
suffrage, it will effectually block our get-
ting anything more. We are willing to
risk it. Our opponents seemingly are
not.

It has been said that on the so-called
referendum only 22,000 women voted for
suffrage. But loss than 800 voted against it.
At that time, 22,204 women were found in
one day who cared enough about suffrage
to go to the polls and cast a ballot for it.

In eight years the “Antis” have succeeded
in finding less than half that number who
care enough abbnt opposing it to Sign
their names to a return postal card.

It has been said that the number of.
women opposed is growing. It is lessen—
ing, and the number in favor is growing.
The first suffrage petition in England, in
1867, was Signed by only 1,499 women.
That of 1873 was signed by 11,000 women,
and the petition presented to-the members
of the recent Parliament was signed by
257,000 women. The growth of opinion
has been equally rapid here.

It is said that this is class legislation.
At present all women are the objects of
class legislation, being classed politically
with infants, idiots and insane persons.
To take part of them out of that category
is to break down class legislation to that
extent.

Miss Dyer says that the ballot lessens
women‘s influence, and that they have a
better chance to get what they want with—
out it; yet complains that by this bill non-
taxpaying women would be “debarred
from influence,” and .placed at a disad-
vantage as compared with taxpayers. In
consistency, she ought to say that the
women taxpayers would be placed at a
disadvantage as compared with the non-
taxpayers, who would still remain unham-
pered by the ballot, and therefore would
be better able to get what they want.

It has been said that the political unit
is the family. The childless widower, the
bachelor of 90, and the unmarried boy of
21, all have votes; the widow with minor
children has none. Under our laws the
political unit is not the family, but the
male individual.

It is said that we ought not to shift
representation from “the solid basis of
the forefathers.” But their basis would
to-day be regarded as intolerable. They
limited suffrage not only to taxpayers,
but to members of the Orthodox Congre—
gational Church.

Miss Dyer says equal suffrage is contra—
ry to “the basal convictions of the best
men.” What better men has America
had than Abraham Lincoln, Theodore
Roosevelt——

Mrs. Howe: Phillips Brooks—-

Voices in the audience: Senator Hoar
——Governor Bates—

Miss Blackwell: Hon. John D. Long,
Sumner, Whittier, Longfellow, Emerson,
an 227-122;?"1131‘8? _. . .

It has been claimed that this bill would
increase the power of monopoly. But it
would enfranchise twenty women of mod-
erate or small property where it would
enfranchise one of great wealth.

I have as much faith in the justice of
men as the remonstrants, and more, for I
have faith that they will ultimately give
us the