Women -- Suffrage -- History; Women -- Suffrage -- United States -- History; Women's rights -- History; Women's rights -- United States -- History
A feature of the evening was the scholarly address of the Hon. William
Dudley Foulke (Ind.), president of the U. S. Civil Service Commission.
He objected to being classed as a "new man," since long ago he was for
several years president of the American Suffrage Association. "Men
would not be satisfied with indirect influence," he declared and
continued: "It is often said that woman suffrage is just but that
there is no need of it, because women have no interests separate from
those of men. That argument was used to me only lately by an eminent
political economist. I said: 'Suppose a railroad runs through a town
and a woman owns a large property in that town and yet cannot vote on
the question of raising a subsidy; are her interests necessarily the
same as those of every man in the town?' My friends, that case is
universal. Suppose a widow is trying to bring up her son in the
principles of morality and a saloon is opened on the corner opposite
her home. I do not speak as an advocate of prohibition but I do say
that the interest of the mother is different from that of the man who
sells liquor. Or suppose she is bringing up a daughter; she has a
sacred right to protect that daughter from a libertine. Her interest
is certainly different from that of the tempter.... We do not realize
what an immense waste there is in denying woman entrance to political
life. She ought to have free access to anything she is qualified to do
and where she is not qualified she will drop out."
John S. Crosby, a prominent Democratic leader of New York, made a
thorough analysis of the functions of the State and the Government,
showed the utter fallacy of constituting men the governing and women
the governed class and closed as follows: "Attempt to prove that
woman's claim to the right of suffrage is as valid as any that man can
make would be like trying to demonstrate the truth of a self-evident
proposition.... We ask the ballot for woman not merely because she has
a right to it but quite as much because it is her duty to exercise
that right. The irresistible power of that all-embracing organization,
the State, holds you and me and all that are dear to us as its
helpless and often hopeless subjects. The combined wisdom of all of us
would be none too great for its intelligent administration and we
demand for our own sake and for the sake of those that shall come
after us that the wisdom of woman shall be included; not only that her
delicate, intuitional sense of justice shall leaven the lump of public
opinion but that her deft hand shall help to knead it into the bread
of righteous law. We ask as one of the rights that government is bound
to secure that in the administration of its power it shall make use of
the fullest wisdom of the whole people; that the entire popular brain
and social conscience shall take cognizance of and be responsible for
all acts of government. Not until then shall we see true democracy;
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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