submit.
Woman's demand for equal suffrage is based largely on the contention that woman must have the equal right in all
affairs of society. No one could, possibly, refute that, if suffrage were a right. Alas, for the ignorance of the
human mind, which can see a right in an imposition. Or is it not the most brutal imposition for one set of people to
make laws that another set is coerced by force to obey? Yet woman clamors for that "golden opportunity" that has
wrought so much misery in the world, and robbed man of his integrity and self-reliance; an imposition which has
thoroughly corrupted the people, and made them absolute prey in the hands of unscrupulous politicians.
The poor, stupid, free American citizen! Free to starve, free to tramp the highways of this great country, he enjoys
universal suffrage, and, by that right, he has forged chains about his limbs. The reward that he receives is stringent
labor laws prohibiting the right of boycott, of picketing, in fact, of everything, except the right to be robbed of the
fruits of his labor. Yet all these disastrous results of the twentieth century fetich have taught woman nothing. But,
then, woman will purify politics, we are assured.
Needless to say, I am not opposed to woman suffrage on the conventional ground that she is not equal to it. I see
neither physical, psychological, nor mental reasons why woman should not have the equal right to vote with man.
But that can not possibly blind me to the absurd notion that woman will accomplish that wherein man has failed. If
she would not make things worse, she certainly could not make them better. To assume, therefore, that she would
succeed in purifying something which is not susceptible of purification, is to credit her with supernatural powers.
Since woman's greatest misfortune has been that she was looked upon as either angel or devil, her true salvation
lies in being placed on earth; namely, in being considered human, and therefore subject to all human follies and
mistakes. Are we, then, to believe that two errors will make a right? Are we to assume that the poison already
inherent in politics will be decreased, if women were to enter the political arena? The most ardent suffragists
would hardly maintain such a folly.
As a matter of fact, the most advanced students of universal suffrage have come to realize that all existing systems
of political power are absurd, and are completely inadequate to meet the pressing issues of life. This view is also
borne out by a statement of one who is herself an ardent believer in woman suffrage, Dr. Helen L. Sumner. In her
able work on EQUAL SUFFRAGE, she says: "In Colorado, we find that equal suffrage serves to show in the
most striking way the essential rottenness and degrading character of the existing system." Of course, Dr. Sumner
has in mind a particular system of voting, but the same applies with equal force to the entire machinery of the
representative system. With such a basis, it is difficult to understand how woman, as a political factor, would
benefit either herself or the rest of mankind.
But, say our suffrage devotees, look at the countries and States where female suffrage exists. See what woman has
accomplished—in Australia, New Zealand, Finland, the Scandinavian countries, and in our own four States,
Idaho, Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah. Distance lends enchantment—or, to quote a Polish formula—"it is well
where we are not." Thus one would assume that those countries and States are unlike other countries or States,
that they have greater freedom, greater social and economic equality, a finer appreciation of human life, deeper
understanding of the great social struggle, with all the vital questions it involves for the human race.
The women of Australia and New Zealand can vote, and help make the laws. Are the labor conditions better there
than they are in England, where the suffragettes are making such a heroic struggle? Does there exist a greater
motherhood, happier and freer children than in England? Is woman there no longer considered a mere sex
commodity? Has she emancipated herself from the Puritanical double standard of morality for men and women?
Certainly none but the ordinary female stump politician will dare answer these questions in the affirmative. If that
be so, it seems ridiculous to point to Australia and New Zealand as the Mecca of equal suffrage accomplishments.
On the other hand, it is a fact to those who know the real political conditions in Australia, that politics have gagged
labor by enacting the most stringent labor laws, making strikes without the sanction of an arbitration committee a
crime equal to treason.
Not for a moment do I mean to imply that woman suffrage is responsible for this state of affairs. I do mean,
however, that there is no reason to point to Australia as a wonder-worker of woman's accomplishment, since her
influence has been unable to free labor from the thralldom of political bossism.
Finland has given woman equal suffrage; nay, even the right to sit in Parliament. Has that helped to develop a
greater heroism, an intenser zeal than that of the women of Russia? Finland, like Russia, smarts under the terrible
whip of the bloody Tsar. Where are the Finnish Perovskaias, Spiridonovas, Figners, Breshkovskaias? Where are
the countless numbers of Finnish young girls who cheerfully go to Siberia for their cause? Finland is sadly in
need of heroic liberators. Why has the ballot not created them? The only Finnish avenger of his people was a man,
not a woman, and he used a more effective weapon than the ballot.
As to our own States where women vote, and which are constantly being pointed out as examples of marvels,
what has been accomplished there through the ballot that women do not to a large extent enjoy in other States; or
that they could not achieve through energetic efforts without the ballot?
True, in the suffrage States women are guaranteed equal rights to property; but of what avail is that right to the
mass of women without property, the thousands of wage workers, who live from hand to mouth? That equal
suffrage did not, and cannot, affect their condition is admitted even by Dr. Sumner, who certainly is in a position
to know. As an ardent suffragist, and having been sent to Colorado by the Collegiate Equal Suffrage League of
New York State to collect material in favor of suffrage, she would be the last to say anything derogatory; yet we
are informed that "equal suffrage has but slightly affected the economic conditions of women. That women do not
receive equal pay for equal work, and that, though woman in Colorado has enjoyed school suffrage since 1876,
women teachers are paid less than in California." On the other hand, Miss Sumner fails to account for the fact that
although women have had school suffrage for thirty-four years, and equal suffrage since 1894, the census in
Denver alone a few months ago disclosed the fact of fifteen thousand defective school children. And that, too,
with mostly women in the educational department, and also notwithstanding that women in Colorado have passed
the "most stringent laws for child and animal protection." The women of Colorado "have taken great interest in the
State institutions for the care of dependent, defective, and delinquent children." What a horrible indictment against
woman's care and interest, if one city has fifteen thousand defective children. What about the glory of woman
suffrage, since it has failed utterly in the most important social issue, the child? And where is the superior sense of
justice that woman was to bring into the political field? Where was it in 1903, when the mine owners waged a
guerilla war against the Western Miners' Union; when General Bell established a reign of terror, pulling men out
of beds at night, kidnapping them across the border line, throwing them into bull pens, declaring "to hell with the
Constitution, the club is the Constitution"? Where were the women politicians then, and why did they not exercise
the power of their vote? But they did. They helped to defeat the most fair-minded and liberal man, Governor
Waite. The latter had to make way for the tool of the mine kings, Governor Peabody, the enemy of labor, the Tsar
of Colorado. "Certainly male suffrage could have done nothing worse." Granted. Wherein, then, are the
advantages to woman and society from woman suffrage? The oft-repeated assertion that woman will purify
politics is also but a myth. It is not borne out by the people who know the political conditions of Idaho, Colorado,
Wyoming, and Utah.
Woman, essentially a purist, is naturally bigotted and relentless in her effort to make others as good as she thinks
they ought to be. Thus, in Idaho, she has disfranchised her sister of the street, and declared all women of "lewd
character" unfit to vote. "Lewd" not being interpreted, of course, as prostitution IN marriage. It goes without
saying that illegal prostitution and gambling have been prohibited. In this regard the law must needs be of feminine
nature: it always prohibits. Therein all laws are wonderful. They go no further, but their very tendencies open all
the floodgates of hell. Prostitution and gambling have never done a more flourishing business than since the law
has been set against them.
In Colorado, the Puritanism of woman has expressed itself in a more drastic form. "Men of notoriously unclean
lives, and men connected with saloons, have been dropped from politics since women have the vote."[1] Could
brother Comstock do more? Could all the Puritan fathers have done more? I wonder how many women realize the
gravity of this would-be feat. I wonder if they understand that it is the very thing which, instead of elevating
woman, has made her a political spy, a contemptible pry into the private affairs of people, not so much for the
good of the cause, but because, as a Colorado woman said, "they like to get into houses they have never been in,
and find out all they can, politically and otherwise."[2] Yes, and into the human soul and its minutest nooks and
corners. For nothing satisfies the craving of most women so much as scandal. And when did she ever enjoy such
opportunities as are hers, the politician's?
"Notoriously unclean lives, and men connected with the saloons." Certainly, the lady vote gatherers can not be
accused of much sense of proportion. Granting even that these busybodies can decide whose lives are clean
enough for that eminently clean atmosphere, politics, must it follow that saloon-keepers belong to the same
category? Unless it be American hypocrisy and bigotry, so manifest in the principle of Prohibition, which
sanctions the spread of drunkenness among men and women of the rich class, yet keeps vigilant watch on the only
place left to the poor man. If no other reason, woman's narrow and purist attitude toward life makes her a greater
danger to liberty wherever she has political power. Man has long overcome the superstitions that still engulf
woman. In the economic competitive field, man has been compelled to exercise efficiency, judgment, ability,
competency. He therefore had neither time nor inclination to measure everyone's morality with a Puritanic
yardstick. In his political activities, too, he has not gone about blindfolded. He knows that quantity and not quality
is the material for the political grinding mill, and, unless he is a sentimental reformer or an old fossil, he knows
that politics can never be anything but a swamp.
Women who are at all conversant with the process of politics, know the nature of the beast, but in their self-
sufficiency and egotism they make themselves believe that they have but to pet the beast, and he will become as
gentle as a lamb, sweet and pure. As if women have not sold their votes, as if women politicians can not be
bought! If her body can be bought in return for material consideration, why not her vote? That it is being done in
Colorado and in other States, is not denied even by those in favor of woman suffrage.
As I have said before, woman's narrow view of human affairs is not the only argument against her as a politician
superior to man. There are others. Her life-long economic parasitism has utterly blurred her conception of the
meaning of equality. She clamors for equal rights with men, yet we learn that "few women care to canvas in
undesirable districts."[3] How little equality means to them compared with the Russian women, who face hell
itself for their ideal!
Woman demands the same rights as man, yet she is indignant that her presence does not strike him dead: he
smokes, keeps his hat on, and does not jump from his seat like a flunkey. These may be trivial things, but they are
nevertheless the key to the nature of American suffragists. To be sure, their English sisters have outgrown these
silly notions. They have shown themselves equal to the greatest demands on their character and power of
endurance. All honor to the heroism and sturdiness of the English suffragettes. Thanks to their energetic,
aggressive methods, they have proved an inspiration to some of our own lifeless and spineless ladies. But after all,
the suffragettes, too, are still lacking in appreciation of real equality. Else how is one to account for the
tremendous, truly gigantic effort set in motion by those valiant fighters for a wretched little bill which will benefit a
handful of propertied ladies, with absolutely no provision for the vast mass of workingwomen? True, as
politicians they must be opportunists, must take half measures if they can not get all. But as intelligent and liberal
women they ought to realize that if the ballot is a weapon, the disinherited need it more than the economically
superior class, and that the latter already enjoy too much power by virtue of their economic superiority.
The brilliant leader of the English suffragettes, Mrs. Emmeline Pankhurst, herself admitted, when on her American
lecture tour, that there can be no equality between political superiors and inferiors. If so, how will the
workingwoman of England, already inferior economically to the ladies who are benefited by the Shackleton bill,
[4] be able to work with their political superiors, should the bill pass? Is it not probable that the class of Annie
Keeney, so full of zeal, devotion, and martyrdom, will be compelled to carry on their backs their female political
bosses, even as they are carrying their economic masters. They would still have to do it, were universal suffrage
for men and women established in England. No matter what the workers do, they are made to pay, always. Still,
those who believe in the power of the vote show little sense of justice when they concern themselves not at all
with those whom, as they claim, it might serve most.
The American suffrage movement has been, until very recently, altogether a parlor affair, absolutely detached from
the economic needs of the people. Thus Susan B. Anthony, no doubt an exceptional type of woman, was not only
indifferent but antagonistic to labor; nor did she hesitate to manifest her antagonism when, in 1869, she advised
women to take the places of striking printers in New York.[5] I do not know whether her attitude had changed
before her death.
There are, of course, some suffragists who are affiliated with workingwomen—the Women's Trade Union
League, for instance; but they are a small minority, and their activities are essentially economic. The rest look upon
toil as a just provision of Providence. What would become of the rich, if not for the poor? What would become of
these idle, parasitic ladies, who squander more in a week than their victims earn in a year, if not for the eighty
million wage workers? Equality, who ever heard of such a thing?
Few countries have produced such arrogance and snobbishness as America. Particularly this is true of the
American woman of the middle class. She not only considers herself the equal of man, but his superior, especially
in her purity, goodness, and morality. Small wonder that the American suffragist claims for her vote the most
miraculous powers. In her exalted conceit she does not see how truly enslaved she is, not so much by man, as by
her own silly notions and traditions. Suffrage can not ameliorate that sad fact; it can only accentuate it, as indeed it
does.
One of the great American women leaders claims that woman is entitled not only to equal pay, but that she ought
to be legally entitled even to the pay of her husband. Failing to support her, he should be put in convict stripes, and
his earnings in prison be collected by his equal wife. Does not another brilliant exponent of the cause claim for
woman that her vote will abolish the social evil, which has been fought in vain by the collective efforts of the most
illustrious minds the world over? It is indeed to be regretted that the alleged creator of the universe has already
presented us with his wonderful scheme of things, else woman suffrage would surely enable woman to outdo him
completely.
Nothing is so dangerous as the dissection of a fetich. If we have outlived the time when such heresy was
punishable at the stake, we have not outlived the narrow spirit of condemnation of those who dare differ with
accepted notions. Therefore I shall probably be put down as an opponent of woman. But that can not deter me
from looking the question squarely in the face. I repeat what I have said in the beginning: I do not believe that
woman will make politics worse; nor can I believe that she could make it better. If, then, she cannot improve on
man's mistakes, why perpetuate the latter?
History may be a compilation of lies; nevertheless, it contains a few truths, and they are the only guide we have for
the future. The history of the political activities of men proves that they have given him absolutely nothing that he
could not have achieved in a more direct, less costly, and more lasting manner. As a matter of fact, every inch of
ground he has gained has been through a constant fight, a ceaseless struggle for self-assertion, and not through
suffrage. There is no reason whatever to assume that woman, in her climb to emancipation, has been, or will be,
helped by the ballot.
In the darkest of all countries, Russia, with her absolute despotism, woman has become man's equal, not through
the ballot, but by her will to be and to do. Not only has she conquered for herself every avenue of learning and
vocation, but she has won man's esteem, his respect, his comradeship; aye, even more than that: she has gained the
admiration, the respect of the whole world. That, too, not through suffrage, but by her wonderful heroism, her
fortitude, her ability, will power, and her endurance in the struggle for liberty. Where are the women in any
suffrage country or State that can lay claim to such a victory? When we consider the accomplishments of woman
in America, we find also that something deeper and more powerful than suffrage has helped her in the march to
emancipation.
It is just sixty-two years ago since a handful of women at the Seneca Falls Convention set forth a few demands for
their right to equal education with men, and access to the various professions, trades, etc. What wonderful
accomplishment, what wonderful triumphs! Who but the most ignorant dare speak of woman as a mere domestic
drudge? Who dare suggest that this or that profession should not be open to her? For over sixty years she has
molded a new atmosphere and a new life for herself. She has become a world power in every domain of human
thought and activity. And all that without suffrage, without the right to make laws, without the "privilege" of
becoming a judge, a jailer, or an executioner.
Yes, I may be considered an enemy of woman; but if I can help her see the light, I shall not complain.
The misfortune of woman is not that she is unable to do the work of man, but that she is wasting her life force to
outdo him, with a tradition of centuries which has left her physically incapable of keeping pace with him. Oh, I
know some have succeeded, but at what cost, at what terrific cost! The import is not the kind of work woman
does, but rather the quality of the work she furnishes. She can give suffrage or the ballot no new quality, nor can
she receive anything from it that will enhance her own quality. Her development, her freedom, her independence,
must come from and through herself. First, by asserting herself as a personality, and not as a sex commodity.
Second, by refusing the right to anyone over her body; by refusing to bear children, unless she wants them; by
refusing to be a servant to God, the State, society, the husband, the family, etc.; by making her life simpler, but
deeper and richer. That is, by trying to learn the meaning and substance of life in all its complexities, by freeing
herself from the fear of public opinion and public condemnation. Only that, and not the ballot, will set woman free,
will make her a force hitherto unknown in the world, a force for real love, for peace, for harmony; a force of
divine fire, of life giving; a creator of free men and women.
[1] EQUAL SUFFRAGE. Dr. Helen Sumner.
[2] EQUAL SUFFRAGE.
[3] Dr. Helen A. Sumner.
[4] Mr. Shackleton was a labor leader. It is therefore self-evident that he should introduce a bill excluding his own constituents. The
English Parliament is full of such Judases.
[5] EQUAL SUFFRAGE. Dr. Helen A. Sumner.
THE TRAGEDY OF WOMAN'S EMANCIPATION
I begin with an admission: Regardless of all political and economic theories, treating of the fundamental
differences between various groups within the human race, regardless of class and race distinctions, regardless of
all artificial boundary lines between woman's rights and man's rights, I hold that there is a point where these
differentiations may meet and grow into one perfect whole.
With this I do not mean to propose a peace treaty. The general social antagonism which has taken hold of our
entire public life today, brought about through the force of opposing and contradictory interests, will crumble to
pieces when the reorganization of our social life, based upon the principles of economic justice, shall have become
a reality.
Peace or harmony between the sexes and individuals does not necessarily depend on a superficial equalization of
human beings; nor does it call for the elimination of individual traits and peculiarities. The problem that confronts
us today, and which the nearest future is to solve, is how to be one's self and yet in oneness with others, to feel
deeply with all human beings and still retain one's own characteristic qualities. This seems to me to be the basis
upon which the mass and the individual, the true democrat and the true individuality, man and woman, can meet
without antagonism and opposition. The motto should not be: Forgive one another; rather, Understand one
another. The oft-quoted sentence of Madame de Stael: "To understand everything means to forgive everything,"
has never particularly appealed to me; it has the odor of the confessional; to forgive one's fellow-being conveys the
idea of pharisaical superiority. To understand one's fellow-being suffices. The admission partly represents the
fundamental aspect of my views on the emancipation of woman and its effect upon the entire sex.
Emancipation should make it possible for woman to be human in the truest sense. Everything within her that
craves assertion and activity should reach its fullest expression; all artificial barriers should be broken, and the
road towards greater freedom cleared of every trace of centuries of submission and slavery.
This was the original aim of the movement for woman's emancipation. But the results so far achieved have isolated
woman and have robbed her of the fountain springs of that happiness which is so essential to her. Merely external
emancipation has made of the modern woman an artificial being, who reminds one of the products of French
arboriculture with its arabesque trees and shrubs, pyramids, wheels, and wreaths; anything, except the forms
which would be reached by the expression of her own inner qualities. Such artificially grown plants of the female
sex are to be found in large numbers, especially in the so-called intellectual sphere of our life.
Liberty and equality for woman! What hopes and aspirations these words awakened when they were first uttered
by some of the noblest and bravest souls of those days. The sun in all his light and glory was to rise upon a new
world; in this world woman was to be free to direct her own destiny—an aim certainly worthy of the great
enthusiasm, courage, perseverance, and ceaseless effort of the tremendous host of pioneer men and women, who
staked everything against a world of prejudice and ignorance.
My hopes also move towards that goal, but I hold that the emancipation of woman, as interpreted and practically
applied today, has failed to reach that great end. Now, woman is confronted with the necessity of emancipating
herself from emancipation, if she really desires to be free. This may sound paradoxical, but is, nevertheless, only
too true.
What has she achieved through her emancipation? Equal suffrage in a few States. Has that purified our political
life, as many well-meaning advocates predicted? Certainly not. Incidentally, it is really time that persons with plain,
sound judgment should cease to talk about corruption in politics in a boarding-school tone. Corruption of politics
has nothing to do with the morals, or the laxity of morals, of various political personalities. Its ca