xt70rx937t9n_542 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. Oregon equal suffrage constitutional amendment text Oregon equal suffrage constitutional amendment 2020 https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt70rx937t9n/data/46m4/Box_20/Folder_12/Multipage27237.pdf 1906 1906 1906 section false xt70rx937t9n_542 xt70rx937t9n AN A MENDM ENT

TO THE

CONSTITUTION OF THE STATE OF OREGON

To be submitted to the Legal Electors of the State of Oregon
for their approval or rejection

REGULAR GENERAL ELECTION

To be held on the fourth day of June, 1906,

T0 AMEND
SECTION 2 OF ARTICLE II

I)‘_I/ [III/[(llil'l' l’z'lilionfilml in lhr Quim’ of the Secretary ofSlulc December 13, 1905,
in, (l('(‘()l‘([(lll(‘L’ will: (he prams-[mm of (m Acl “making qucclive the Initiative and Ref-
erendum. Provisions of Sol-lion 1 of Arliclc 11' of the Constilulion of the State of

Urey/0n,” approval February ~34, 1110.7.

Printed in pursuance of Section S of the foregoing act.
-—SECRETARY OF STATE.

’I‘IIE FOIIIAHVING IS 'I'II.I-2 NI'MIHCI! AND FORM IN \\'I[I('I[ THE QUESTION “'ILL

BIC I’RIN'I‘I'II) ON THE OFFICIAL BALLOT:

 

PROPOSED BY INITIATIVE PETITION

FOR EQUAL SUFFRAGE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT Vote Yes or No

 

302 Yes.

303 N o.

 

  

 

  

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EQ UAL SU FFRAGE AMENDMENT.

Section 2 of article II of the Constitution of the State of
Oregon shall be and hereby is amended to read as follows:
Section 2. In all elections not otherwise provided for by
this Constitution, every citizen of the United States, of the

)e of twenty-one years and upwards, who shall have resided

3S
in the State during the six months immediately preceding
such election, and every person of foreign birth of the age of
twenty-one years and upwards, who shall have resided in this
State during the six months immediately preceding such elec-
tion, and shall have declared his intention to become a citizen
of the United States one year preceding such election, con-
formably t0 the laws of the United States on the subject of
naturalization, shall be entitled to vote at all elections author-
ized by law ; it is expressly provided hereby that no one shall
be denied the right to vote on account of sex. Additional
qualifications of registration and precinct residence may be

required by law.

 

  

 

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ARGUMENT

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E ' in favor Of

a EQUAL SUFFRAGE CC)NS'J‘I’I‘LT’I‘IONAL AMENDMENT.
OFFICIAL BALLOT NUMBERS

For ...... 302

i Against .. 303

Issued by

; OREGON EQUAL SL‘P‘FRAGE ASSOCIATION.

 

 

  

 

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VV'HAT EQUAL SUFFRAGE MEANS.

A government of men and women by men and women, instead of
a government of men and women by men alone—that is what equal
suffrage means. ~ Could anything be more fair, more reasonable, more
just? “Equal rights to all and special privileges to none” is the prin—
ciple which must be at the foundation of a just system of government.
W'hether suffrage be a right or a privilege, therefore, it belongs to
women equally with men, in a true republic.

In the establishment of the first permanent colonies on the hostile
shore of an alien land, which marked the beginning of this nation; in
the conquering, two centuries later, of the great \Vest and in its trans—
formation from an unbroken wilderness into great and powerful states,
women have shared equally with men in the labor, equally endured the
hardships, equally faced the dangers. The principles of justice and
fair play demand that they share equally with men in controlling the
destinies of the nation which they have helped to create. Long ago
Abraham Lincoln said, “I go for all sharing the privileges of the
government who assist in bearing its burdens, by no means excluding
women.”

THE HOME AND THE GOVERNMENT.

The questions which are settled at the ballot box are questions
which concern every home, and they are not merely questions of bank-
ing and currency and tariff. Pure food, pure water, pure milk, clean
streets, proper protection‘against disease, proper protection of the rights
of children, good schools, good influences and surroundings in which
to bring up children—all these are questions of government, all
these specially concern women, and all these. are settled through
the ballot box. While banking and currency and tariff and
other commercial questions specially touch man’s side of life
and need his brain and his interest and his vote for their solution.
these other questions specially touch woman’s side of life and need
her brain and her interest and her vote for their best solution. The
state is but the home on a larger scale. It is a one—sided, imperfect
home which has no woman in it, and it of necessity must be a one—
sided, imperfect state which shuts women out from participation in its
affairs. The interests which men specially care for in the'individual
home are well cared for in the state; the interests which women
specially care for in the individual home are neglected in the state.

 

 

  

We lead the world in manufacturing, but 15 per cent. of the food we
eat is adulterated: we have a great navy and are r éady to appropriate
untold millions for a canal to aid commerce, but the census of 1900
showed that 10.7 per cent. of our population could not r ‘ad or write,
and in our great cities thousands of children are every year turned
away from the schools because there are neither seats nor teachers for
them. If all the interests of life are to be well cared for, women must
stand side by side with men in the larger home of the state as now
they stand side by side with men in the smaller home of the household.

THE \N’AGE—EARNER’S NEED OF THE BALLOT.

The revolution in industry which has been brought about by the
use of machinery has compelled large numbers of women to go out
from their homes to work in factories—not to take men’s work but to
do work which from the beginning has been done by women, work
formerly done by hand at home, but which now must be done in the
factory by the aid of machinery. Formerly, all spinning, weaving,
knitting, making of soap and cheese, and innumerable other things
were done at home by women. Now they are done in factories, and
women, forced to earn a living, have followed their work from home
to factory, to find much of their work taken by men, yet much still left
for themselves, so that, according to the 1900 census, there were
5,319,912 women wage—earners in the United States, over 4,000,000 of
them engaged in occupations other than domestic service. These
women work side by side with men, at the same kind of work, in the
same factories, for the same employers. The men with whom they
work are not their fathers or brothers, ready to protect them, but are
their rivals and competitors, each seeking advantage for himself. If
women are to be protected, they must protect themselves. Because they
do not possess the power of the ballot which men possess, they are
forced to accept conditions which men cannot be forced to accept, and
everywhere they are paid but one—third or one—half or some other frac-
tion of the wages paid to men for similar work. Being competitors of
men, they help to drag down wages and conditions for men too. Never
until the fundamental law of our states and of our nation ceases to
place women politically with the idiot and the criminal, the other dis-
franchised citizens, never until women are lifted .up to the political
level of sane, law—abiding men, will they be recognized as equals in
industrial life. Never until women have, through the ballot, the power
to affect economic conditions, will they be properly protected, and never
will men be free from the evils which inevitably grow out of the com—
petition of political inferior-s, a fact recognized by the American Fed-
eration of Labor, which has over and over again declared for equal
suffrage as a “measure of justice to women” and “as a necessary step
toward insuring and raising the scale of wages for all.”

 

 

 C71

RESULTS OF EQUAL SUFFRAGE.

Equal suffrage is no longer merely a theory. It is a fact. \Vomen
vote on municipal questions in England, Scotland, Ireland, Canada.
Norway and Sweden; they have equal political rights with men in
New Zealand, the Isle of Man and throughout the Federation of Aus—
tralia, a nation equal to the United States in territory. Women have
some form of suffrage in 22 states of the United States and have ever}-
political right possessed by men in the four states of Wyoming, Colo—
rado, Utah and Idaho. In these states, statistics show that women
vote as generally as do men, and the overwhelming testimony is that
equal suffrage has been a benefit to the state. Those who claim other—
wise, almost without exception, refuse to give their names or else are
not residents of any of these states, and hence not familiar with the
conditions. The National Woman Suffrage Association has had a
challenge out for years, asking for any two respectable citizens of
Wyoming or any ten respectable citizens of Colorado who will say
over their own signatures, thus making themselves publicly responsible
for their statements, that equal suffrage has been a detriment; and that
challenge has never been answered.

There has been no radical revolution in these states. Women haw:
not banded together against men to oppose measures desired by men,
but there has been a quickening of interest and a marked improvement
along those lines which are especially the lines of life in which women
are most interested and which they are most fitted to direct; and women
themselves have become broader, finer women from their participation
in a broader life. A cleaner personal life is demanded of candidates
for office and the party ignoring this demand courts defeat. Primaries
are held in respectable places, and the polls are clean and attractive.
Public libraries have multiplied and educational interests of every kind
have been greatly furthered. The school system of Wyoming has no
superior, and Colorado leads every state in the amount of money per
capita appropriated for its schools, in the high requirements of its
compulsory educational law, and in the strict enforcement of that law.
Above all, the children, the future citizens on whom the welfare of
the nation will depend, are made the objects of special care and con-
sideration. The Colorado Juvenile Court Law, enacted through
women’s votes, serves as a model for all the world. The wages of
women have taken a trend upward, and the child labor law is enforced
as it is not enforced in any state where the mothers have no voice in
the making and enforcement of laws.

Moral, social and educational interests have been advanced, and
material interests have not been neglected. Equal suffrage is a live
issue throughout the civilized world, and people in Europe who have
never heard the names of many of our states know about Wyoming,
Colorado, Utah and Idaho, because women vote there. People in

 

  

eastern states have their attention called to these states in the same
way, and they become familiar with their resources and with the oppor~
tunities which they afford. Parents look for good schools for their
children and they find them in these states. Thus population and
capital are attracted into the states. The United States census for
1900 shows that, for the preceding decade, there was, in all of. these
states, a remarkable increase in population, in the amount of capital
invested in manufacturing and in the value of farm property. Tl e
great resources of these states are primarily responsible for their prog—
ress along material lines, but equal suffrage has had some hand in it
by attracting attention to these resources. Political fraud has not been
abolished, but women have almost entirely refrained from taking part
in fraud. The President of the Honest Elections League of Denver
said in April, 1904, in a published letter: “As a result of my own
experience in the work of the League, I find that women have prac—
tically nothing to do with the fraudulent voting."

\Vyoming, after 21 years’ experience of equal suffrage, as a terri—
tory, adopted it as a fundamental part of its constitution when it
applied’for statehood in 1890, and when it looked as though either
statehood or equal suffrage must be sacrificed, a mass convention of
men of the state sent this message to Congress: “We value state—
hood, but we will stay out of the Union a hundred years rather than
come in without our women.” Before such testimony as this, from
an entire community, the criticisms of non—residents or the alleged
criticisms of citizens afraid to give their names weigh as nothing.

THE UPLIFT TO CIVILIZATION FROM EQUAL SUFFRAGE.

In granting suffrage to women and thus establishing a government
resting on the “consent of the governed,” these states are but putting
into practice the fundamental principles of our government, the prin—
ciples enunciated in our immortal Declaration of Independence. Ad-
herence to lofty principles inevitably gives loftiness to individual char—
acter and injects into the life of a community a moral force which, in
time, makes itself felt in practical life. In these states, the first step
toward a higher plane of civic life has been taken. There are frauds
in Colorado, as there are in every other state, but Colorado alone, so
far, of all the states, has produced a public officer with honor so keen
that he voluntarily resigned his seat in Congress when convinced that
fraud had entered into his election. In one of our states, a few years
ago, when one candidate was seated as governor. on the face of the
returns, and the friends of the other candidate prepared to go behind
the returns to seat him, bloodshed, murder and feuds followed. In
Colorado, in 1904, in a similar situation, the candidate against whom
the decision of the legislature went, bowed quietly to the majesty of
the law. These instances are indicative of the future of Colorado,
when public officers will no longer believe or say. as a former United

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 States Senator once said, that “the Golden Rule has no place in
politics.”

To some men there has already come, and it will come to all in
time, the uplift which is given b_' adherence to principle, the uplift due
to the consciousness that they deny to others no rights which they
claim for themselves. To women has been given the self—respect which
comes from the knowledge that they are no longer classed with idiots
and criminals, the uplift which is found in the thought that they are
independent, self—governing, sovereign citizens. There is no force so
potent for individual development as is individual liberty. As are the
individuals, so the nation is. 'l‘herel‘ore, where liberty is greatest, there
civilization is highest: and those states which give to women full
political liberty will reap in full measure the glorious fruits of liberty,
the liberty which knows no sex, the liberty which means not merely
free men, not merely free women, but a free humanity.

GAIL LAUaniN.

 

 

  

 

 

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An Appeal to Voters

AND

Arguments Against Equal Suffrage

Constitutional Amendment

ISSUED BY

Oregon State Association Opposed to the

Extension of Suffrage to Women

 

 

PROPOSED BY INITIATIVE PETITION
FOR EQUAL SUFFRAGE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT Vote Yes or No

_302 Yes
303 No

 

  

 

 

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WHY SHOULD WE?
Shall I vote to give the ballot to every woman in Oregon?

This is the question brought to every Oregon voter in this referen—
dum for unrestricted woman’s suffrage, and every man’s vote counts
since a bare majority is all that is required.’ In the last election in
which woman’s suffrage was before the Voters of Oregon, one-third
of them did not vote upon the question at all, showing their indifference
to the matter. Twenty-eight thousand four hundred and two voters
decided the day against it; 26,265 voted for it, but 27,283 did not
trouble themselves to vote either way. Obviously, the question of
whether Oregon shall or shall not have unrestricted woman’s suffrage
lies with these silent voters. They must stand up and be counted for
and against, and this referendum is the time to do it.

\Ve Oregon women who send you this pamphlet therefore earnestly
ask the most careful consideration and thought that you, as a voter of
Oregon, are willing to give to the matter of-woman’s suffrage.

To push this measure of unrestricted woman’s suffrage a well—organ-
ized and clamorous national organization of women which has failed
most signally, by the way, in those Eastern states where it has the
largest membership, is concentrating its entire efforts in Oregon this
year; it boasts of $10,000 in its treasury to spend on the Oregon cam-
paign. It has brought speakers from other States to hold meetings in
every town of every county. It has a press bureau of its own; its
national president, Reverend Anna Shaw, is to be in Oregon from
February until June directing this campaign, and the only printed» ar—
gument they offer for your consideration is written, not by a woman of
your own community, not by a resident of Oregon, but by a woman
lawyer imported by. the aid of the National Suffrage Association.

To meet this great effort the home women of Oregon who send you
this pamphlet have but one small and untrained organization; no
speakers; no campaign fund; and noway of reaching you except by
this appeal; and yet in most of the States from which these women
speakers come to urge woman’s suffrage upon you, the influence of
home women has defeated their efforts over and over again. \We would
call your attention to these suggestive facts:

In Massachusetts, where the movement for woman’s suffrage began
a half century ago and where the women outnumber the men, the
suffragists are defeated worse and worse every year.

In Iowa, another State of homes, after three active suffrage cam—

paigns, the suffragists are increasingly unable to win their point.

In New York, which, next to Massachusetts, has been the seat of
woman suffrage activity for over forty years, the suffragists have

 

  

4

ceased because of hopeless failure to introduce measures for unres—
tricted woman suffrage.

In New Hampshire, where an extremely energetic campaign was
made by the national suffragists three years ago, the woman suffrage
amendment was the worst defeated of any of ten constitutional amend~
ments submitted to the people.

In all of these States the defeat is due to the opposition of the great
majority of women to Woman suffrage.

“Why should Oregon, the oldest and most conservative of the Pacific
States, range itself with the four woman suffrage States of Idaho,
Wyoming, Colorado and the Morman Utah (against whose represen-
tative, sent by woman suffrage to the United States Senate, two million
of the home women of America are now protesting), rather than with
the old Commonwealths of Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connec-
ticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware,
Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, Florida,
Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, ‘Ten-
nessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, Michigan,
W isconsin, the Dakotas, Nebraska, Nevada, Kansas, Montana, W ash—
ington, and California? In twelve of these States the suffragists suf—
fered their usual defeat last year on measures of limited or of unres-
tricted suffrage. If, this year, the National Suffrage Association wins
through your vote in this campaign or through your carelessness in
not casting a vote at all, and if in consequence Oregon is set as the
fifth star upon the suff‘agists’ flag it will indeed be the first great and
solid triumph which the suffragists have won through the electorate.
N o wonder that they so desire it, but why should the Oregon voter give
it to them?

The woman suffragists’ orator, pleadingly appealing to your “chiv—
alry,” asks you “Why not vote for woman suffrage 5’” Your reply
may appropriately be a Yankee one with another question: “Why
should we P”

In only one State (Massachusetts) have women ever been given a
chance to say for themselves by the ballot whether they wanted the
ballot. This was in a referendum to which women were admitted in
Massachusetts in 1895. It had been clamored for most vigorously by the
suffragists, but it went so severely against them that they have never
since asked any referendum in which their own sex should vote. Out of
575,000 Massachusetts women who could have voted if the suffrage was
desired by them, only 22,204 went to the polls and voted for it. There
were 57 towns in which not a single woman voted for this suffrage prop—
osition, and yet the suffragists had been appealing for woman suffrage
in the name of the disenfranchised women of Massachusetts for forty
years. Man is disposed to give woman what she wants here in America,
but he does not always know what she wants as well as she does.

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If you will vote on this question according to the wishes of the ma-
jority Of women whom you know and respect, we have no fear but that
your vote will be a representative one, and a representative vote is what
we want to get on record. \Ve do not ask you to try to change the
opinions of Oregon women, but to represent what they think. If the
result is for woman suffrage, then the OregOn woman is different
from any other conservative woman in the forty states which do not
have woman suffrage. I

It is not the unprogressive women who have banded to oppose suff—
rage for their sex. They form a representative body of workers in
education and philanthropy, although they may be called conservative.
as Opposed to radical. The first anti-suffrage appeal to Congress was
presented by Emma Willard, Almira Lincoln Phelps, Mrs. Dahlgren.
Catherine Beecher, Catherine Sedgwick, and Mary Lyon. Strong peti—
tions against woman suffrage were taken by Dorothea Dix, Gail Ham-
ilton, Lydia Sigourney and Josepha Hale. we are content to follow
where they led and to hold with Dr. Henry van Dyke that “woman’s
sphere is an atmosphere,”—the atmosphere of home, of wide and in—
telligent sympathy, of tender charity and ministry to others, of in—
fluence’ beyond all computation. W' e believe that woman suffrage is of
doubtful benefit to woman or to the State, and we hope that your vote
will show that you and your family agree with us.

OREGON STATE ASSOCIATION OPPOSED TO THE
EXTENSION OF THE SUFFRAGE TO \VOMEN.

MRS. R. W'. W ILBUR, President.

MRS. \VILLIAM S. LADD, Vice-President.
MRS. J. B. MONTGOMERY, Vice-President.
MRS. \VALLACE MCCAMANT, Treasurer.
MISS ELEANOR E. GILE, Secretary.

MRS. HENRY \V. CORBETT,
MRS. HELEN LADD CORDETT,
MRS. F. M. \YARREN,

MRS. A. E. ROCKEY,

MRS. C. H. LEWIS,

MRS. DAVID LORING,

Miss FAILING,

Executive Committee.

 

  

6

WOMAN’S PROTEST AGAINST WOMAN SUFFRAGE.

\Ve acknowledge no inferiority to men. V'Ve claim to have no less
ability to perform the duties which God has imposed upon us than they
have to perform those imposed upon them.

\Ve believe that God has wisely and well adapted each sex to the
proper performance of the duties of each.

We believe our trusts ‘to be as important and sacred as any that
exist on earth. .

\Ve believe woman suffrage would relatively lessen the influence of
the intelligent and true, and increase the influence of the ignorant and
vicious.

We feel that our present duties fill up the whole measure of our time
and ability, and are such as none but ourselves can perform. Our ap—
preciation of their importance requires .us to protest against all efforts
to infringe upon our rights by imposing upon us those obligations which
cannot be separated from suffrage, but which, as we think, cannot be
performed by us'without the sacrifice of the highest interests of our
families and of society.

It is our fathers, brothers, husbands and sons who represent us at
the ballot-box. Our fathers and our brothers love us; our husbands
are our choice and one with us; our sons are what we make them. we
are content that they represent us in the corn—field, on the battle—field,
and at the ballot—box, and we them in the school—room, at the fireside,
and at the cradle, believing our representation even at the ballot—box to
be thus more full and impartial than it would be were the views of the
few who wish suffrage adopted, contrary to the judgment of the many.

We do therefore respectfully protest against any legislation to estab—
lish “woman suffrage” in our state—Issued by the Oregon State Asso-
ciation Opposed to the Extension of the Suffrage to l/V’omen.

STATEMENT IN REGARD TO THE SUFFRAGE.
By the Hon. Abram S. Hewitt.

1.——From time immemorial the responsibility for civil government
has been confided to and been exercised by man. The reason is
founded in nature. 'The ultimate reliance of government is upon
force. Man is by nature combative, woman is non—combative. The
responsibility for the maintenance of civil government rests, therefore,
upon man because some one must be prepared to fight for it whenever
the necessity arises.

2.—The function of maternity is the peculiar attribute of woman.
Her natural sphere is in the family, and love and not force is the
source of. her power.

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3.——In consequence of these functional differences between woman
and man, she enjoys certain privileges and immunities which are denied
to men. Among these may be enumerated the following: First, the
duty of holding public office. Second, the obligation of jury service and
the discharge of judicial and police functions. Third, military service.
None of these. duties could be performed by women without violating
the proprieties and safeguards of female purity and delicacy.

sl.—The suffrage is a duty which can be exercised by women as
well as by men, and it will doubtless be cheerfully conceded to woman
wherever it can be shown that it will be for her benefit or- will promote
the welfare of society; but the burden of proof rests upon those who
advocate this extension of the suffrage. The suffrage is not a ques-
tion of right or of justice, but of policy and expediency. Heretofore
it has been conceded only to those who can perform the duties which
are inherent in the nature of civil government: shall it be extended
to those who cannot perform these duties?

:3.——It is alleged that women are subject to certain legal disabilities,
and deprived of certain privileges, the injustice of which, the possession
of the suffrage would rectify. The Legislature of the State of New
York has already redressed all grievances brought to public attention.
and if any remain to be redressed, the suffrage is not necessary to
secure beneficial action. Man, in this age, is not Willing to bear the

_odium of injustice to woman.

(5,—It is claimed that the vice of intemperance and the traffic in
strong drink, admitted to be the crowning. disgrace of our day and gen-
eration, would be cured if women could vote. If this expectation were
well founded it would go far to overcome the obvious objections to the
exercise of female suffrage, but nothing is more certain than that the
suffrage, whether exercised by man or woman, or both, is powerless
to restrain the animal appetites. There is abundant experience of pro—
hibition enacted by man alone, and of its failure to produce the reforma—
tion so much desired by all good men and women. This reformation
must be the result of elevating the moral tone of individuals, and.
herein lies the greatest power of woman, whichwill be \impaired, if
not destroyed, by contact with men in political movements, assem-
blies and elections. Experience would seem to show, therefore, that
there would be a loss, and not a gain in the encouraging progress now
discernible in favor of temperance throughout the world if women were
deprived of that influence which is now so potent in the family and
upon those who are dear to them.

7.——It is asserted that the denial of suffrage to women is a violation
of the principles of “no taxation without representation.” This asser—
tion rests upon an entire misconception of the origin and nature of

that political canon. It originated in opposition to the attempt of
Great Britain to tax her North American colonies without their con-,

 

  

8

sent. It had no connection whatever with the basis of representation,
or the limitations upon suffrage and these questions were never the
subject of discussion. Universal male suffrage did not exist anywhere
at that time, but if it had been of any consequence, the abolition of
the property qualification in the State of New York and elsewhere has
entirely dissevered the connection of taxation with representation. If
such a relation should be re—established, justice would require that
representation should be proportioned to taxation, a proposition which
will hardly be recognized in our political system.

8.——It is assumed that the possession of the right of suffrage would
be an elevating and refining influence for women. Has it been so with
men? Certainly at no period in the history of the country have there
been so many complaints as to the indifference of the educated classes
and of the venality of ignorant citizens as at this time. Judging by
the effect, therefore, of universal suffrage upon man, and considering
the more emotional nature of woman, it is a fair inference that the
conferring of the suffrage upon them would be a degrading rather than
an elevating and refining influence.

9.——So far as the family is concerned, a new element of discord and
of injustice will be introduced. Among the enlightened, doubtless,
political issues would be fairly discussed'and differencesof opinion
would be tolerated, but in the great majority of cases women will
either blindly follow dictation or submit to coercion, by which the .
influence of the baser elements of society will be enlarged and that
of the conservative elements be impaired.

10.—Taking a dispassionate survey, therefore, of the whole situation,
it would appear that women have no grievances that cannot be re-
dressed through existing agencies; and that the possession of the suf—
frage would not tend to enhance either the interests of woman or of
society; but that, on the contrary, it would tend to degrade, by imposing
a privilege which she could not exercise without confessing her inabil—
ity to perform the corresponding duties which adhere to the respon—
sibility of civil government; that the courtesies and amenities of life
which are now felt to be due from man to woman would soon cease to
exist, resulting in the practical unsexing of men and women by de-
stroying the sanctity and privacy of the family circle and home life,
upon which depend the virtue and the welfare of humanity.

11,—Finally, the proposed innovation involves too much risk to the
present and permanent welfare of woman, and offers too little prospect
of advantage, to warrant the voluntary assumption of new and untried
political responsibilities, the outcome of which may, and probably will.
be, deplorable. It is fortunate that woman is now independent of the
suffrage. Let her not become subject to its servitudes.—Issued by the
' Oregon State Association Opposed to the Extension of the Suffrage
to Women. .

 

 

 

 9
PROTEST AGAINST WOMAN SUFFRAGE.

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