The Woman's Journal, vol. 43, no. 7, February 17, 1912, p. 53

Boxes

— sct ale he icts shing ced

MRS. GEORGE VS. FACTS

Have Suffragists or Antis Promoted Equal Guardianship and Married Women's Property Rights?

Mrs. James Lees Laidlaw of New York writes: “Miss Freeman and I spoke the other night to 600 working girls at St. Bartholomew's Club. iIt was a debate, and Mrs. A. J. George of Brookline, Mass., was my antagonist. The sirls became very much interested. We not only enrolled 50 of them, but this morning I have additional letters trom them asking for literature, etc.

“Mrs. George asserted positively that the weman's property rights bill, the equal guardianship bill and all such measures had been furthered not by the suffragists but by the Antis. Something came out some months ago in The Woman's Journal showing the contrary. I am pledged to furnish Mrs. George with one of these Journals, as she challenged my statement along this line, and also I am to send cne to each of the 50 girls."

ong had o01 ble ses rm. nce of the den

The Woman's Journal has often had occasion to give the facts which disprove this claim of the anti-suffragists, and is glad to give them whenever needed. As Mrs. George is a Massachusetts woman, and made her statement in New York, let us take the property and equal guardianship laws of those two States, as typical.

ten mes libthe

In Massachusetts, Lucy Stone in 1847 began to lecture in behalf of equal guardianship and the right of married women to control their own property. Anti-suffrage women mocked her efforts, and asked with scorn, “Do you think I would sive myself where I would not give my property?" The suffragists continued to work for equal suardianship until 1902, when the bill (introduced at the request of the Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association by a suffrage member of the Legislature, George H. Fall, finally became law. The prospects for its passage looked so dark, even at the end of the 55 years' agitation, that Mr. Fall, after introducing the bill, came to The Woman's Journa Omce and asked the present editor (who had been in college with him) if it would not be better to withdraw the measure for that year, and await a more propitious time. She urged him to make a fight for it, at any rate. He did so, and it went through by a large majority. Judse Fall will readily confirm this statement if it should be disputed.

men rty, eap ure as his tter

ster for ting rey, tant hird abie to and

but how man like that a G. men be

The passage of the bill was helped by a distressing case that had happened the year before. A good, hardworking and sweet-tempered young woman was married to a drunken and brutal husband. They had six younsg children. He determined to place out the eldest five among strangers and to send the mother and her baby to the poor-house. Distracted by grief at the impending separation and fear of what the children might suffer in unknown hands, the young mother killed all six of them with an axe.

W. udsthe ffraattiman men heir of hite bad gest mti-

During those 55 years, the antisuffragists constantly threw cold water upon the efforts for equal guardianship; and for six years the Massachusetts Association Opposed to the Further Extension of Suffrage to Women, of which Mrs. George is a prominent member, circulated under its offcial imprint a leafiet in opposition to equal guardianship.

of the was exand rth. with orts owe don s, I ing We are offof of 3. mend

The property rights of married women in Massachusetts, as in most other States, were gained piecemeal, by a series of changes extending over many years. The late Samuel E. Sewall had more to do with securing them than any other one man. For thirty years it was he who drew the property rights bills for the Suffrage Association, and helped Lucy Stone and the other women argue them before the legislative committees. m The Woman's Jeurnal of Oct. 27, 1877, Judge Sewall save an cutline of the improvements made in the married women's property laws up to that time. He continued:

“How has this work been accomplished? By the steady srowth of public opinion, prometed and aided in a very sreat degree, if not entirely created, by the labors of suffrasists. may add that when the suffragists first began to move, the prejudice against altering the status of wives, and giving women the public offices

and ors? ttle our der ate irdaus

THE WOMAN'S JOURNAL. FEBRUARY 17, 1912 ———— into which they have simce boen FORM OF BEQUEST troduced, was stronger than that which now resists sranting them the| I hereby sive and bequeath to me ARE YouU $ ballot." National American Woman Suffragse

The centenary of Henry Wilson, former Vice-President of the United States, is calling attention anew to his merits and services. Mr. Wilson was a suffragist, and was the author of an early Massachusetts statute to give a married woman the right to her own earnings. He told a former editor of The Woman's Journal that he was led to introduce it by seeing how often idle and shiftless husbands came and collected the wages of industrious wives employed in his own factory.

During all this time the anti-suffragists kept on saying that women had all the rights they wanted," that the laws were already “more than just to women," etc., etc. When the referendum of men and women lately referred to by Theodore Roosevelt was taken in Massachusetts in 1895, a “Man Suffrage Association" of influential men was organized to fight equal rights for women. It published a list of reasons why men should vote against woman suffrage. One was, “Because women now suffer no injustice in Massachusetts.' At that time no married mother in Massachusetts had any legal rights over her own child so long as she lived with her husband, and the laws of inheritance between husband and wife were still grossly unequal.

New York's Experience

In New York the case is just as clear, and in one respect stronger. The Woman's Rights Convention held in Seneca Falls in 1848 demanded equal guardianship and equal property rights, and the suffragists kept on persistently working for them. There, as in Massachusetts and everywhere else, the anti-suffragists prophesied most dreadful consequences. In 1854 Mrs. Stanton and Miss Anthony asked the New York Legislature to give married women a right to their own earninss, and presented a petition with 5,931 signatures.

Assemblyman Burnett of Onondaga said:

“They do not appear to be satisfied with having unsexed themselves, but they desire to unsex every female in the land, and to set the whole community ablaze with unhallowed fire. .The object of these unsexed women is te overthrow the most sacred of our institutions, to set at deflance the divine law which declares man and wife to be one, and to estabifsh on its ruins what will be in fact and in principle but a species of legalized adultery. Are we, sir, to give the least countenance to claims so preposterous, disgraceful and eriminal?" Through the efforts of Mrs. Stanton and Miss Anthony, a joint guardianship bill was passed in 1860. But two years later it was repealed, and the old statute was restored in all its pristine barbarity, giving the husband not only the sole control of the children during his life, but the right to will them away from their mother after his death.

A Celebrated Case A Chinaman in New York married a respectable Irishwoman. When their first baby was three days old, the husband gave it to his brother, to be taken away to China and brought up there. The mother, through the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, appealed to the courts. The judge promptly decided that the husband was acting within his rights. He was the sole legal owner of the baby; he had the sole right to say what should be done with it. A Wait of 31 Years

This continued to be the law for 31 years longer, during which time the suffragists worked diligently to educate the public mind in favor of a change, and the anti-suffragists steadily threw cold water upon their efforts. In 1893 Mrs. Harriet Townsend, another suffragist, stirred up the Women's Educational and Industrial Union of Buffalo to action. They drew up and mailed to every member of the Legislature a circular which proved so effective that an equalguardianship bill was passed asgain. The most telling part of the circular was a list of actual cases of hardship that had occurred under the old law. Every one of these examples was quoted from The Woman's Journal and credited to it.

FORM OF BEQUEST

I hereby sive and bequeath to the National American Woman Suffrage Association, being incorporated under the laws of the District of Columbia, the sum of $.............principal and interest to be applied by such association for the support and promotion of the cause of woman suffrage.

An Object Lesson The vicissitudes of the equal suardianship law in New York are a striking proof of the insecure tenure by which women hold any sains that they may obtain by indirect influence. Hvery good law secured by long and arduous effort is subject to repeal at the caprice of a Legislature whose composition is constantly changins, and whose members have no women among their constituents.

A few small and sporadic improvements in the laws for married women were made before the organized movement for equal rights began, but not before it had been strongly advocated in books and pamphlets. And in the sixty or seventy years since the organized movement began, more has been accomplished than in all the preceding centuries.

Mrs. George Famous for Inaccuracy Mrs. George is known by the sufrragists of her own State to be remarkably reckless and inaccurate in her assertions. In February, 1910, she attended the National Suffrage Convention in Washington, D. C., and spoke against woman suffrage before a Congressional Committee. At the legislative hearing on suffrage in Massachusetts on March 8, 1900, Mrs. George referred to her visit to Washington, and said: “One of the Wyoming Senators told me that in Wyoming woman suffrage had been a negative factor, but in Colorado it had been an unqualified disaster."' In answer to a letter of inquiry, the two United States Senators from Wyoming both denied emphatically that they had ever said anything of the kind. Senator Francis E. Warren wrote: “I never spoke against woman suffrage in any way, at any time, or anywhere, and of course could not have sald. Woman suffrage in Wyoming is a megative factor, but in Colorado an unqualified disaster.” Senator Clarence D. Clark wrote: “I have never said that 'woman suffrage in Wyoming is a negative factor, or that in Colorado it is an ‘unqualified disaster. I have no knowledge that would cause me to say anything but that in Wyoming it is an unqualified success. As to the situation in Colorado; I know little, if anything, about its operation."

Public attention was repeatedly called to this matter, but no explanation, so far as I am aware, was ever offered by Mrs. George. As this lady is now doing a great deal of lecturing against equal suffrage, people should know that her statements of fact are often altogether inexact. A. S. B.

IN THE MAGAZINES

Abbott, Lyman.” Woman's rishts. Outlook. New York. Feb. 10. Reply to Roosevelt's article of last week. Lowe, Caroline A. Women in the Socialist Party. St. Louis Labor. St. Louis. Jan. 27. Mistress and maid. Chambers Journal. London, February. Parson's, Elsie Clews. The supernatural policing of women. Independent. New York. Feb. 8. “Scared into being sgood like children," by Socieny.

Elizabeth J. Sherwood.

JURY SERVICE AND CHIVALR?

Mrs. E. P. Spinning of Puyallup, Wash., writes: “I am glad to say our women take kindly to jury duties. I have a dear young married friend in Spokane, Mrs. Olga V. Ruedy. When called to serve on the jury, she was about to leave for Colorado. But she writes me, Do you suppose I would miss that privilege of learning something and hearing those lawyers talk? No, indeed!" She was made fereman (or foreweman). The first case was a condemnation suit brought by the city to fix damages on certain proper-

ARE YOU SUBSCRIBING T0 A MAGAIINE? If so, order it through our agency. The commission is used for suffrage. We take subscriptions to any and all magazines. Club Rates Furnished. A WAY T0 HELP SUFFRAGE WITHOUT PAYING AN EXTRA CENT ELIZABETH o Bureau National Fifth Avenue

HYGIENIC CORSETS handicap to both social and business life. I is a woman's duty to look her best. An unusual value at $5.50 and $7.50 HYGIENIC CORSET MFG. C0. 2 REPRESENTATIVES WANTED—Exciusive territory if taken now

THE ellow Ribbon Speaker Compiled by Anna H. Shaw, Alice Stone Blackwell and Lucy E. Anthony. A book of woman suffrage readings and recitations. Price, 50 cents.

Price, 50 cents. Order from The Woman's Journal

ties, which required some thought and study. She noticed that in most cases her opinions were treated with due respect, and the men all behaved with courtesy." The male jurors were taken out on a bob-sled to see the properties in dispute, but this rough conveyance—a wagon-bed on runners, with a thin layer of straw—was not thought good enough for Mrs. Ruedy. The bailiff took her in an automobile. Who was it said that suffrage would be the death of chivalry?

“REGISTRATION TEAS"

At Sacramento, Modesto, and other places in California, equal suffrage has led to a new kind of social parties, called “registration teas A public-spirited hostess, desirous to get her neighbors registered, invites them to afternoon tea, and has a deputy clerk on hand to register their names.

PRESIDENTIAL SUFFRAGE

The Simple Legislative Procedure by Which Women May Be Given the Right to Vote for President of the United States The very decided advantages that presidential suffrage offers, both as a means of agitation and as a practical attainment, is quite overicoked in these days of strenuous, and happily sometimes successful, endeavors for full suffrage.

The experiences of suffrage campaigns have proved too often that they were premature, and the sreat outlay of time and treasure which they nave involved has resulted in defeats that have greatly impeded further progress of the movement. Moreover, many States are at present making great exertion to obtain the submission of an amendment for full enfranchisement, when it is manifest that they have not “a ghost of a chance" to obtain a favorable vote, or resources for a successful campaign were the measure submitted to the people.

Is it not good political tactics to proceed along the lines of least resistance and try for the possible rather than the impossible in our appeals to Legislatures? May it not safely be presumed that, in some instances where attempts to obtain full suffrage have failed, the same amount of effort might have procured presidential suffrage if directed to that end? That other forms of fractional suffrage have sometimes failed in practical operation to advance the cause of full suffrage is due to the fact that political parties are not sufficiently interested in women's vote on school and municipal affairs fo use the legitimate and necessary methods to bring out their vote. But the large interests involved in federal legislation call out the largest vote of men, and cal parties would spare no pains to

HALLS T0 LET 200 Huntington Avenue Opposite Norway Street Three beautiful halls with rooms connected. Especially suited for lodge rooms, concerts, dances, school purposes, meetings, recitals, ete. Three studios. Also a banquet hall, Apply on premises or to M. H. GULESIAN St. James Theatre, 239 Huntington Avenue, Boston

ADVERTISING When writing to the advertisers be sure to say, “I saw it in the Woman's Journal."

bring out the vote of women on the same issues. The fact that women in six States will help to choose 29 presidential electors has caused the politicians to “sit up and take notice" of women's enfranchisement as no amount of power for local legislation, valuable as that is, has done. By Section 1 of Art. Il of the U. S. Constitution, power to determine presidential electors is given to State Legislatures. By a majority of one, at a single session, this great and sisnificant measure of political power may be obtained. Is it not worth

Sigrid A. Johnson —: GOWNS :1— Evening Gowns a specialty Style, fit and satisfaction guaranteed 673 Boylston St., Gill Bldg. Tel. B. B. 1471-M

scoftish Terriers Offered as companions. Not given to fighting or roaming. Best for children's pets.

NEWCASTLE KENNELS Brookline, Mass. The Poetry and Philosophy of Tennyson Six Lectures by EDWARD HOWARD GRIGGS

To be given on successive WEDNESDAY EVENINGS February 21, 28, March 6, 13, 20. 27, 1912 at eight-fifteen o'clock in JORDAN HALL, BOSTON Price of tickets for the course $2, $3, $4, according to location Single admissions, 50 cents, 75 cents, $1.00 All seats reserved