Women -- Suffrage -- History; Women -- Suffrage -- United States -- History; Women's rights -- History; Women's rights -- United States -- History
In England the last final argument, that women do not themselves
want the franchise, has in the light of recent events become
ridiculous. On June 13, 15,000 suffragists paraded through the
streets of London and it is said that the woman suffrage meeting
of June 21 was the largest public meeting ever held for any
cause. Fifty thousand women have just stormed Parliament.... No
one now doubts that the women of England want and intend to have
votes. It is said that history repeats itself but this particular
phenomenon--the world-wide claim of women to political equality
with men--has never appeared before; it has no historic
precedent....
Does disfranchised influence, unsteadied by the responsibility of
the ballot and the broadening experience of public service, make
for the greatest good to the greatest number, which is the aim of
true democracy? Can women, and do the average, every-day women in
their present condition as subjects take a very lively interest
in the real welfare of the State? Hardly, and are not men and
children affected by this indifference? It could scarcely be
otherwise. It may be said that average men, notwithstanding their
possession of the ballot, are indifferent to the public weal, but
are they not rendered doubly so by continually associating with a
class that feels no allegiance to the State?... In the political
subjection and consequent political ignorance and indifference of
women, men are unconsciously forging their own fetters. They can
not retain their rights unless they share them with women. This
is the true significance of the woman suffrage movement
throughout the world. It is a vast attempt at the establishing of
real government by the people of republics which, being real,
shall endure; and as such it is as much a movement for men's
rights as for women's.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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