A Short History of Women's Rights: From the Days of Augustus to the Present Time. with Special Reference to England and the United States. Second Edition Revised, With Additions.Hecker, Eugene A. (Eugene Arthur)
History
A Short History of Women's Rights: From the Days of Augustus to the Present Time. with Special Reference to England and the United States. Second Edition Revised, With Additions.
Hecker, Eugene A. (Eugene Arthur)
Women's rights -- History
During the Civil War, Anna Dickinson by her remarkable lecture
entitled, "The National Crisis" saved New Hampshire and Connecticut for
the Republicans; Anna Carroll not only gave such a crushing rejoinder to
Breckinridge's secession speech that the government printed and
distributed it, but she also, as is now generally believed, planned the
campaign which led to the fall of Forts Henry and Donelson and opened
the Mississippi to Vicksburg. How many men realise these facts?
The theory that politics degrade women will not find much support in
such States as Colorado and Wyoming. Here, where equal suffrage obtains,
women have been treated with uniform courtesy at the polls; they have
even been elected to legislatures with no diminution of their
womanliness; and the House of Wyoming long ago made a special resolution
of its approval of equal rights and attested the beneficial results that
have followed the extension of the suffrage to women.[416] Judge Lindsey
of Colorado has said that his election, and consequent power to work out
his great reforms in juvenile delinquency, was due to the backing of
women at a time when men, for "business reasons," were averse to extend
their aid. "No one would dare to propose its repeal [i.e., the repeal of
equal suffrage], and if left to the men of the State any proposition to
revoke the rights bestowed on women would be overwhelmingly defeated."
Experience in Colorado and elsewhere has shown that any important moral
issue will bring out the women voters in great force; but after election
they are content to resume their domestic duties; and they have shown no
great desire for political office.[417]
Before I leave the discussion as to whether politics degrade women, it
will not be out of place to consider the question whether certain women
may not, if they have a vote, degrade politics. Of such women there are
two classes--the immoral and the merely ignorant. As to the former, much
fear has been expressed that they would be the very agents for
unscrupulous politicians to use at the polls. Exact data on this matter
are not available. I shall content myself with quoting a statement by
Mrs. Ida Husted Harper[418]:
"That 'immoral' class," said Mrs. Harper, "is a bogey that has never
materialised in States where women have the suffrage. Those women don't
vote. Indeed, Denver's experience has been interesting in that respect.
When equal suffrage was first granted, women of that class were
compelled by the police to register. It was a question of doing as the
police said, of course, or being arrested. The women did not want to
vote. They don't go under their real names; they have no fixed
residence, and so on. Anyway, the last thing they wanted was to be
registered voters.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
A Short History of Women's Rights: From the Days of Augustus to the Present Time. with Special Reference to England and the United States. Second Edition Revised, With Additions. — John Shaqi
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