Читать книгу The Modern Woman's Rights Movement: A Historical Survey - Käthe Schirmacher - Страница 6

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The woman’s rights movement is more strongly organized and has penetrated society more thoroughly in all the Germanic countries than in the Romance countries. There are many causes for this: woman’s greater freedom of activity in the Germanic countries; the predominance of the Protestant religion, which does not oppose the demands of the woman’s rights movement with the same united organization as does the Catholic Church; the more vigorous training in self-reliance and responsibility which is customarily given to women in Germanic-Protestant countries; the more significant superiority in numbers of women in Germanic countries, which has forced women to adopt business or professional callings other than domestic.[4] The woman’s rights movement in the Germanic-Protestant countries has been promoted by moral and economic factors.

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Total population:	91,972,267.
Women: about	45,000,000.
Men: about	47,000,000.

The General Federation of Women’s Clubs. The National American Woman’s Suffrage Association.

North America is the cradle of the woman’s rights movement. It was the War of Independence of the colonies against England (1774-1783) that matured the woman’s rights movement. In the name of “freedom” our cause entered the history of the world.

In these troubled times the American women had by energetic activities and unyielding suffering entirely fulfilled their duty as citizens, and at the Convention in Philadelphia, in 1787, they demanded as citizens the right to vote. The Constitution of the United States was being drawn up at that time, and by 1789 had been ratified by the thirteen states then existing. In nine of these states (Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Maryland, New Jersey, North and South Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island) the right to vote in municipal and state affairs had hitherto been exercised by all “free-born citizens” or all “taxpayers” and “heads of families,” the state constitutions being based on the principle: no taxation without representation.

Among these “free-born citizens,” “taxpayers,” and “heads of families” there were naturally many women who were consequently both voters and active citizens. So woman’s right to vote in the above-named states was practically established before 1783. Only the states of Virginia and New York had restricted the suffrage to males in 1699 and 1777, Massachusetts and New Hampshire following their example in 1780 and 1784.

In view of this retrograde movement American women attempted at the Convention in Philadelphia to secure a recognition of their civil rights through the Constitution of the whole federation of states. But the Convention refused this request; just as before, it left the conditions of suffrage to be determined by the individual states. To be sure, in the draft of the Constitution the Convention in no way opposed woman’s suffrage. But the nine states which formerly, as colonies, had practically given women the right to vote, had in the meantime abrogated this right through the insertion of the word “man” in their election laws, and the first attempt of the American women to secure an expressed constitutional recognition of their rights as citizens failed.

These proceedings gave to the woman’s rights movement of the United States a political character from the very beginning. Since then the American women have labored untiringly for their political emancipation. The anti-slavery movement gave them an excellent opportunity to participate in public affairs.

Since the women had had experience of oppression and slavery, and since they, like negroes, were struggling for the recognition of their “human rights,” they were amongst the most zealous opponents of “slavery,” and belonged to the most enthusiastic defenders of “freedom” and “justice.”

Among the Quakers, who played a very prominent part in the anti-slavery movement, man and woman had the same rights in all respects in the home and church. When the first anti-slavery society was formed in Boston in 1832, twelve women immediately became members.

The principle of the equality of the sexes, which the Quakers held, was opposed by the majority of the population, who held to the Puritanic principle of woman’s subordination to man. In consequence of this principle it was at that time considered “monstrous” that a woman should speak from a public platform. Against Abby Kelly, who at that time was one of the best anti-slavery speakers, a sermon was preached from the pulpit from the text: “This Jezebel has come into the midst of us.” She was called a “hyena”; it was related that she had been intoxicated in a saloon, etc. When her political associate, Angelina Grimke, held an anti-slavery meeting in Pennsylvania Hall (Philadelphia) in 1837, the hall was set on fire, and in 1838 in the chamber of the House of Representatives in Massachusetts a mob threatened to take her life. “The mob howled, the press hissed, and the pulpit thundered,” thus the proceedings were described by Lucy Stone, the woman’s rights advocate.

Even the educated classes shared the prejudice against woman. To them she was a “human being of the second order.” The following is an illustration of this:

In 1840 Abby Kelly was elected to a committee. She was urged, however, to decline the election. “If you regard me as incompetent, then I shall leave.” “Oh, no, not exactly that,” was the answer. “Well, what is it then?” “But you are a woman....” “That is no reason; therefore I remain.”

In the same year an anti-slavery congress was held in England. A number of American champions of the cause went to London,—among them three women, Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Elizabeth Pease. They were accompanied by their husbands and came as delegates of the “National Anti-slavery Society.” Since the Congress was dominated by the English clergy, who persisted in their belief in the “inferiority” of woman, the three American women, being creatures without political rights, were not permitted to perform their duties as delegates, but were directed to leave the convention hall and to occupy places in the spectators’ gallery. But the noble William Lloyd Garrison silently registered a protest by sitting with the women in the gallery.

This procedure clearly indicated to the American women what their next duty should be, and once when Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton came from the gallery to the hotel Mrs. Stanton said, “The first thing which we must do upon our return is to call a convention to discuss the slavery of woman.”

This plan, however, was not executed till eight years later. At that time Elizabeth Cady Stanton, on the occasion of a visit from Lucretia Mott, summoned a number of acquaintances to her home in Seneca Falls, New York. In giving an account of the meeting at Washington, in 1888, at the Conference of Pioneers of the International Council of Women (see Report, pp. 323, 324), she states that she and Lucretia Mott had drawn up the grievances of woman under eighteen headings with the American Declaration of Independence as a model, and that it was her wish to submit a suffrage resolution to the meeting, but that Lucretia Mott herself refused to have it presented.

Nevertheless, in the meeting Elizabeth Cady Stanton herself, burning with enthusiasm, introduced her resolution concerning woman’s right to vote, and, as she reports, the resolution was adopted unanimously. A few days later the newspaper reports appeared. “There was,” relates Elizabeth Cady Stanton, “not a single paper from Maine to Louisiana which did not contain our Declaration of Independence and present the matter as ludicrous. My good father came from New York on the night train to see whether I had lost my mind. I was overwhelmed with ridicule. A great number of women who signed the Declaration withdrew their signatures. I felt very much humiliated, so much the more, since I knew that I was right.... For all that I should probably have allowed myself to be subdued if I had not soon afterward met Susan B. Anthony, whom we call the Napoleon of our woman’s suffrage movement.”

Susan B. Anthony, the brave old lady, who in spite of her eighty-three years did not dread the long journey from the United States to Berlin, and in June, 1904, attended the meetings of the International Council of Women and the International Woman’s Suffrage Alliance, was in early life a teacher in Rochester, New York, and participated in the temperance movement. She had assisted in securing twenty-eight thousand signatures to a petition, providing for the regulation of the sale of alcohol, which was presented to the New York State Legislature. Susan B. Anthony was in the gallery during the discussion of the petition, and as she saw how one speaker scornfully threw the petition to the floor and exclaimed, “Who is it that demands such laws? They are only women and children...,” she vowed to herself that she would not rest content until a woman’s signature to a petition should have the same weight as that of a man. And she faithfully kept her word. After a life of unceasing and unselfish work, Susan B. Anthony died March 13, 1906, loved and esteemed by all who knew her. At the commemoration services in 1907, twenty-four thousand dollars were subscribed for the Susan B. Anthony Memorial Fund (to be used for woman’s suffrage propaganda). Susan B. Anthony was honorary president of the International Woman’s Suffrage Alliance.

It is to be noted that a number of European women (such as Ernestine Rose of Westphalia), imbued with the ideas of the February Revolution of 1848, were compelled to seek new homes in America. These newcomers gave an impetus to the woman’s suffrage movement among American women. They were greatly surprised to find that in republics also political freedom was withheld from women.

This was strikingly impressed upon the women of the United States in 1870. At that time the negroes, who had been emancipated in 1863, were given political rights throughout the Union by the addition of the Fifteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution.[5] In this way all power of the individual states to abridge the political rights of the negro was taken away.

The American women felt very keenly that in the eyes of their legislators a member of an inferior race, if only a man, should be ranked superior to any woman, be she ever so highly educated; and they expressed their indignation in a picture portraying the American woman and her political associates. This represented the Indian, the idiot, the lunatic, the criminal,—and woman. In the United States they are all without political rights.

Since 1848 an energetic suffrage movement has been carried on by the American women. To-day there is a “Woman’s Suffrage Society” in every state, and all these organizations belong to a national woman’s suffrage league. In recent years there has arisen a vigorous woman’s suffrage movement within the numerous and influential woman’s clubs (with almost a million members) and among college women the College Equal Suffrage League, the movement extending even into the secondary schools. The National Trades Union League, the American Federation of Labor, and nineteen state Federations of Labor have declared themselves in favor of woman’s suffrage. The leaders of the movement have now established the fact that “the Constitution of the United States does not contain a word or a line, which, if interpreted in the spirit of the ‘Declaration of Independence,’ denies woman the right to vote in state and national elections.”

The preamble to the Constitution of the United States reads as follows: “We, the people of the United States ... do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” Women are doubtlessly people. All the articles of the Constitution repeat this expression. The objects of the Constitution are:

1. The establishment of a more perfect union of the states among themselves,

2. The establishment of justice,

3. The insurance of domestic tranquillity,

4. The provision of common defense,

5. The promotion of the general welfare,

6. The securing of the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.

All of these six points concern and interest women as much as men. Supplementary to this is the “Declaration of Independence.” Here are stated as self-evident truths:

1. “That all men are created equal,”

2. “That they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,”

3. “That to secure [not to grant] these rights, Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

On this last passage the Americans comment with especial emphasis: they say the right to vote is their right as human beings,—they possess it as a natural right; the government cannot justly take it from them, cannot even grant it to them justly. So long as the government does not ask the women for their consent, it is acting illegally according to the Declaration of Independence. For it is nowhere stated that the consent of one half, the male half, will suffice to make a government legal.

On the basis of this declaration of principles the American women have made it a point to oppose every individual argument against woman’s suffrage. For this purpose they frequently use small four-page pamphlets, which are issued as the “Political Equality Series” by the American Woman’s Suffrage Association. They say “It is generally held that:

1. “Every woman is married, loved, and provided for.

2. “Every man stays at home every evening.

3. “Every woman has small children.

4. “All women, when they have once secured political rights, will plunge into politics and neglect their households.”

“What is the exact state of affairs in these matters?

1. “A great many women are not married; many are widows who must educate their children and seek a means of livelihood. Thousands have no other home than the one they create for themselves, and they must often support relatives in addition to themselves. Many of the married women are neither loved, provided for, nor protected.

2. “Many men are at home so seldom in the evening that their wives could quietly concern themselves with political matters without being missed at all. And such men, seconded by bachelors, clamor most about the ‘dissolution of the family’ through politics.

3. “The children do not remain small indefinitely; they grow up and hence leave the mother. It may be true that the mother, instead of participating in political affairs, prefers to sew flannel shirts for the heathen, or prefers to read novels, but one ought at least to permit her the freedom of making the choice.

4. “The right to vote will not change the nature of woman. If she wished to leave the home as her sphere of activity, she would have found other opportunities long ago.”

Further fears are the following: 1. The majority of women do not wish the right to vote at all. To this we must answer that we cannot yet come to a conclusion concerning the wish of the majority in this respect. The petitions for woman’s suffrage always have a greater number of signatures than any other petitions to Congress. 2. Women will use the right to vote only to a limited extent. The statistics in Wyoming and Colorado prove the contrary. 3. Only women “of ill repute” will vote. Thus far this has been nowhere the case. The men guard against attracting these elements. Moreover, the right to vote is not restricted to the men “of good repute” either, etc., etc.

The American women can obtain the political franchise by two methods: 1. At the hands of every individual legislature (which would occasion 52 separate legislative acts,—48 states and 4 territories). 2. Through the adoption of a sixteenth amendment to the national Constitution by Congress.[6] Let us consider the first method. The franchise qualifications in the United States are generally the following: male sex, twenty-one years of age, American citizenship (through birth, or by naturalization after five years’ residence).

Amendments to the state constitution must be accepted by the state legislature (consisting of the lower house and the senate),[7] and then be accepted in a referendum vote by the (male) electorate. To secure the adoption of such an amendment in a state legislature is no easy task. In the first place the presentation of a woman’s suffrage bill is not received favorably; the Republicans and Democrats struggle for control of the legislature, the majority one way or the other never being large. Therefore the party leaders usually consider woman’s suffrage not on the basis of party politics. Matters are decided on the basis of opportuneness. Especially is this the case in those states where the bill must be passed by two successive legislatures. In this case, between the time of the first passing of a bill and the referendum, there is a new election, and the opponents of woman’s suffrage can defeat the adherents of the measure at the polls before the women themselves can exercise the right of suffrage.

Changing the national Constitution through the adoption of a sixteenth amendment has difficulties equally great; the amendment must pass the House of Representatives and the Senate by a two-thirds vote and then be ratified by three-fourths of the state legislatures or specially called conventions.

To the present time only two of the Presidents of the Union have publicly expressed themselves in favor of woman’s suffrage,—Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt. In 1836 Lincoln addressed an open letter to the voters in New Salem, Illinois, in which he said: “I go for all sharing the privileges of the government who assist in bearing its burdens”; and he was in favor of “admitting all whites to the right of suffrage who pay taxes or bear arms (by no means excluding females).” Garfield, Hayes, and Cleveland gave their attention to the question of woman’s suffrage; the last two supporting motions in favor of the movement. Theodore Roosevelt, in 1899, as Assemblyman in the New York State Legislature, spoke in favor of woman’s suffrage: “I call the attention of the Assembly to the advantages which a general extension of woman’s right to vote must bring about.”

In order to attain their end,—political emancipation,—the American women use the following means of agitation: petitions, the submission of legislative bills, meetings, demonstrations, the distribution of pamphlets, deputations to the legislatures of the individual states and to the Congressional House of Representatives, the organization of workingwomen, requests to teachers and preachers to comment on patriotic memorial days on woman’s worth, and to preach at least once during the year in favor of woman’s suffrage.

To the present time four states of the Union have granted full municipal and political suffrage to women (active suffrage, the right to vote; passive suffrage, eligibility to office). The states in question are Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, and Idaho. Wyoming and Utah inaugurated woman’s suffrage in 1869 and 1870, respectively, when they were still territories; and in 1890 and 1895, when they were given statehood, they retained woman’s suffrage. Colorado granted it in 1893 and Idaho in 1896. The political emancipation of woman in the State of Washington is close at hand,[8] in South Dakota,[9] Oregon,[9] and Nebraska it seems assured. In Kansas, since 1887, women have possessed active and passive suffrage in municipal elections. In the State of Illinois they are about to secure it.[10] All of these are western states with a new civilization and a numerical superiority of men.

Practical experience with woman’s suffrage shows the following: everywhere the elections have become quieter and more respectable. The wages and salaries of women have been generally raised, partly through the enactment of laws, such as laws regulating the salaries of women teachers, etc., partly through the better professional and industrial organization of workingwomen, who are now trained in political affairs. A comparison of the salaries of women teachers having woman’s suffrage with salaries in states not having woman’s suffrage shows the value of the ballot. The public finances have been more economically administered, intemperance and immorality have been more energetically combated, candidates with immoral records have been removed from the political arena. Inasmuch as women have full political rights in the four states named (six, including Washington and California), they also vote for presidential electors, and thus exercise an influence in the national presidential elections. It is the woman with good average abilities that is most frequently the successful candidate in political campaigns.

But as yet the number of women who devote themselves to a political life is not large. The women in Colorado seem to have a special ability for this. Without any consideration for party affiliations they secured the reëlection of Judge Lindsey of the Juvenile Court. Generally speaking, they have devoted their efforts everywhere to the protection of youth. At the present time the establishment of a special bureau for the protection of youth is being advocated, and a national conference to discuss the welfare of children is to be held in Washington, D.C.[11]

Because the English anti-woman’s suffrage advocate, Mrs. Humphry Ward, expressed the familiar fear that “the immoral vote would drown the moral vote,” the Reverend Anna Shaw declared at the Woman’s Suffrage Congress at London (May, 1909), that she openly challenges Mrs. Humphry Ward to produce one convincing proof for her assertion. She herself had carefully investigated the recent elections in Denver, Colorado, to ascertain how many, if any, of the “immoral” women voted, and received as answer that these women, who naturally are in a minority, generally do not vote at all; first, because they pursue their trade under false names, secondly, because most of them are not permanently domiciled and for both reasons are not entered on the voting lists; these women vote only when an influence is exerted on them from above or by persons around them.

In the State of Utah, where woman’s suffrage has existed since 1870, “the women have quietly begun and continued without a break the exercise of that power, which from the remotest time had been their right. They have concerned themselves with political and economic questions, and if they have committed any errors, these have not yet come to light. They have been delegates to county and state conventions, they have represented the richest and most populous electoral districts in the state legislature, and they serve as heads of various state departments” (state treasurer, supervisor of the poor, superintendent of education, etc.). In Colorado (with woman’s suffrage since 1893) the women have organized clubs in all cities, even in the lonely mining towns (Colorado is in the Rocky Mountains), and have informed themselves in political affairs to the best of their ability. In the capital city, Denver, a club has been formed in which busy women can meet weekly to inform themselves on political affairs. In Colorado parental authority over children prevails now (in place of the exclusively paternal). In Idaho (with woman’s suffrage since 1896) the women voters exerted a strong influence against gambling. The enfranchised women, who had a right to vote in the little town of Caldwell, had supported a mayor who was determined to take measures against gambling. The barkeepers, topers, gamblers, and ne’er-do-wells were against him. The women presented the magistrate with a petition, which was read together with the signatures. “During the reading of the names of the unobtrusive housewives who were rarely seen beyond their own thresholds, the countenances of the men became serious. For the first time they seemed to grasp what it really meant for a city to have woman’s suffrage.” The barkeepers and the gamblers got the worst of it and disappeared from the town hall. An old municipal judge said, “When have our mothers ever demanded anything before?”[12] In the same way the women of Kansas have employed their municipal suffrage since 1887.

Concerning an election in which women voted, the “Women’s Rights Movement” reports the following: “Almost all the women (about one third of the population) in Wyoming, voted” (7000 votes out of 23,000). “In Boise, Idaho, it was one of the quietest election days in the annals of the city. Everywhere the women came to the polls in the early part of the day.” “In Salt Lake City, Utah, there was no interruption of traffic, no disturbance of any kind ... the women came alone without having their husbands accompany them to the ballot-box during the noon-hour.”

Because of the unsatisfactory experiences which America has had with universal suffrage[13] as such, the woman’s rights movement had suffered also and has been retarded; but owing to the proceedings of the English suffragettes during the past three years it has been given a new impetus. In the state legislatures throughout the various parts of the country, legislative bills have, during this time, been introduced; on these occasions the women presented their demands in the so-called “hearings” (which take place before the legislature). This took place in 1908 in Rhode Island, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, New York, Illinois, South Dakota, Kansas, Oklahoma[14], Maine, Massachusetts, California, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, and Washington. In the latter state the House has just passed a woman’s suffrage amendment; if the Senate passes it, the amendment will be submitted to popular vote.[15] A very active woman’s suffrage campaign in the State of Oregon (1906) failed, owing to the opposition of the friends of the liquor interests and the brothels.[16] It is both significant and gratifying that the woman’s suffrage movement is spreading to the Eastern States; an example of this is the great demonstration of February 22, 1909, in Boston.

The woman’s suffrage societies of the various states are formed into a national league: the National Woman’s Suffrage Association, with about 100,000 members. The President is the Reverend Anna Shaw. This Association has recently drawn up an enormous petition to Congress in order to secure woman’s suffrage through federal law, and has established headquarters in Washington, the federal capital. During eleven weeks 6000 letters and 1000 postal cards were written, and 100,000 petition-blanks were distributed.

To the present time only a small number of women have sought state legislative offices; women members of city councils are rather numerous. At the present time there is a woman representative in the legislature of Colorado. The former governor, Mr. Alva Adams, alluded to her as “a bright, efficient woman,” who has introduced many bills and secured their passage. For, says the governor, “it must be a pretty miserable law which a tactful woman cannot have enacted, since the male legislators are usually courteous and kindly disposed, and disregard party interests in order to accept the measure of their female colleague.” From which we conclude that the women legislators strive especially for measures which are for the general good.[17]

In the United States there is also an “Association Opposed to Woman’s Suffrage.” Its chief supporters are found among the saloon-keepers, the habitual drunkards, and the women of the upper classes. But the American women believe “that if every prayer, every tear can be supported by the power of the ballot, mothers will no longer shed powerless tears over the misfortunes of their children.”[18]

The American women had to struggle not only for their rights as citizens, but they encountered great difficulty in securing an education. At the beginning of the nineteenth century the education of girls in the United States was entirely neglected; the secondary as well as the higher institutions of learning were as good as closed to them. Woman’s “physical and intellectual inferiority” was referred to, just as with us [in Germany]; woman’s “loss of her feminine nature” was feared, and it was declared “that within a short time the country would be full of the wrecks of women who had overtaxed themselves with studies.” To all these fears the American women gave this answer: Women, you say, are foolish? God created them so they would harmonize with man. As for the rest they awaited developments. As early as 1821 the first institution for the higher education of women, Troy Seminary, was founded with hopes for state aid. In 1833, Oberlin College, the first coeducational college, was opened with the express purpose “of giving all the privileges of higher education to the unjustly condemned and neglected sex.” Among the first women students was the youthful woman’s rights advocate, Lucy Stone. She wished to learn Greek and Hebrew, for she was convinced that the Biblical passage, “and he shall rule over thee,” had not been correctly translated by the men. In 1865 with the founding of Vassar College, the first woman’s college was established. To-day both sexes have the same educational opportunities in the United States. The four oldest universities (Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and Johns Hopkins), established on the English model, still exclude women, and do not grant them academic degrees. However, the latter point is of comparatively minor importance in its relation to the educational opportunities of women. Most of the western universities are coeducational; in the East there are special woman’s colleges. In the colleges and universities the number of women students is a little over one-third of the number of men students, but in the high schools the girl students outnumber the boys. The removal of all restrictions to woman’s instruction in the secondary and higher institutions of learning is furthering the activity of the American women in the professions. As teachers, they are employed chiefly in the public schools, in which they constitute 70 per cent of the total staff. So the majority of the “freest citizens” in the world are educated by women. The number of women teachers in the public schools is 327,151. In the higher institutions of learning there is nothing to prevent their appointment. Among university teachers (professors and those of lower rank) there are about 1000 women. Their salaries are equal to those of the men, which is not always the case in the elementary schools, since the tendency is to restrict women to the subordinate positions.[19]

The women who teach in the woman’s colleges must, in every case, possess a superior individuality. Thus a woman president of a college must possess academic training in order to control her teaching force; she must possess a deep insight into human nature in order that her educational relations with the public may be successful; she must have a knowledge of business in order to administer the property of her institution satisfactorily and command the respect of the financiers of her governing board.

Fifteen thousand American women are students in woman’s colleges, and twenty thousand in coeducational colleges and universities. In the latter, the women have distinguished themselves through application and ability so that frequently they have taken all the academic honors and prizes to the exclusion of the men. Since they can no longer be excluded on the ground of their inferiority, their superiority is now the pretext for their exclusion. But a suspension of coeducation in the United States is not to be considered. The state universities, supported with public funds, are all coeducational. The existence of non-coeducational colleges and universities in addition to state institutions is regarded as a guarantee of personal freedom in matters pertaining to higher education.

Since the public school system in the United States is in great part coeducational, the exclusion of women from conferences pertaining to school affairs and their administration would indicate that an especially great injustice were being committed. This was indeed recognized, and women were given the right to vote on school affairs not only in the five woman’s suffrage states [Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, Idaho, and Kansas], but also in twenty-three other states, in which women are without political rights in other respects. The famous deaf-blind woman, Helen Keller, was appointed to serve on the state committee on the education of the blind. In Boston trained nurses are employed to make visits to the homes of the school children. An agitation is on foot to have women inspectors of schools.

In all woman’s suffrage states special attention is devoted to educational matters. Thus the State of Idaho appropriated $2500 for the establishment of a lectureship in domestic science. From 1872 to 1900 the number of women students has increased 148.7 per cent (while the number of men students increased 60.6 per cent). Among women there are also fewer illiterates, drunkards, and criminals; in other words, women are the more moral and better educated part of the American population; and it is these who are excluded from active participation in political affairs.

The number of women lawyers is estimated at one thousand; in twenty-three states they may plead in the Supreme Court. Women lawyers have their own professional organizations.

In Ohio, women are employed in the police service; in Pennsylvania they are appointed as tax-collectors; in the city of Portland a woman was appointed as inspector of markets with police power. Women justices of the peace are as numerous as women mayors. In Oregon a woman is secretary to the governor, for whom she acts with full authority.

In all woman’s suffrage states women act as jurors. Besides these states only Illinois permits women to serve as jurors—and then only in a juvenile court.

There are said to be about 2000 women journalists. Their writings are often sensational, but in the United States sensationalism is characteristic of the profession.

Of women preachers there are 3,500, belonging to 158 different denominations. Among these women preachers there are also negresses. The women study in theological seminaries, are ordained and devote themselves either to the real calling of the ministry, social rescue work, or to the woman’s rights propaganda, as does the excellent speaker, the Reverend Anna Shaw. The women preachers who devote themselves to social rescue work usually study medicine also, so that they can first secure confidence as persons skilled in the cure of the body, and then later the cure of the soul is less difficult.

There are 7000 women in the medical profession,—more than in any other profession. The first women who studied medicine were American, Elizabeth Blackwell having done so as early as 1846. Only the University of Geneva (New York) would admit her; in 1848 she graduated there. Then she continued her studies in Paris and London, returning in 1851 to New York, in order to practice. Her first patients were Quakers. Elizabeth Blackwell and her sister Emily (Blackwell) then founded in New York the “Hospital for Indigent Women,” to which the medical schools in Boston and Philadelphia sent their graduates to obtain practical work.[20] A large number of women lawyers, preachers, and doctors are married. In 1900 the total number of women in the professions (exclusive of teaching) was 16,000. In 1900, 14.3 per cent of the female population were engaged in industries; since 1880 the number of women engaged in the professions and industries increased 128 per cent (while that of the men increased 76 per cent).[21]

Most of the technical schools admit women. There are fifty-three women architects. The Woman’s Building of the World’s Exposition in Chicago (1893) was designed by Sophia Haydn and erected under her supervision. It is not unusual for women who are owners of business enterprises to take technical courses. Thus Miss Jones, as her father’s heir, became, after a careful education, manageress of her large steel works in Chicago. The Cincinnati pottery [Rookwood], founded by women, is also managed by them. There are five women captains of ships, four women pilots, and twenty-four women engineers.

During twenty-five years, women have had 4000 inventions patented. The women of the South produced fewest inventions. But in these fields women still meet with prejudice and difficulties. In increasing numbers women are becoming bankers, merchants, contractors, owners or managers of factories, shareholders, stock-brokers, and commercial travelers. About 1000 women are now engaged in these occupations. As office clerks women have stood the test well in the United States. They are esteemed for their discretion and willingness to work. They are paid $12 to $20 a week. According to the most recent statistics on the trades and professions (1900) there were 1271 women bank clerks, 27,712 women bookkeepers, and 86,118 women stenographers.

In the civil service we find fewer women (they are not voters): in 1890 there were 14,692, of whom 8474 were postal, telephone, and telegraph clerks, and 300 were police officials. In 1900, the total number of women engaged in commerce was 503,574.

The prejudice against the women of the lower classes is still evident. Here at the very outset there is a great difference between the wages of men and women, the wages of the latter being from one third to one half lower. This is caused partly by the fact that women are given the disagreeable, tiresome, and unimportant work, which they must accept, not being given an opportunity to do the better class of work,—frequently because they have not learned their trade thoroughly. A further cause for the lower wages of women is that they are working for “pocket-money” and “incidentals,” and thus spoil the market for those who must pay their whole living expenses with what they earn. Among the women workers of the United States there are two classes,—the industrial class and the amateurs. The latter make the existence of the former almost impossible. Such a competition is unknown to men in industrial work. Mrs. v. Vorst[22] proposes a solution—to make the industrial amateurs become special artisans by means of a longer apprenticeship, thus relieving the industrial slaves from injurious competition.

Office work and work in the factories enables the American women of the middle and lower classes to satisfy their desire for independence; those who are not obliged to provide for themselves wish at least to have money at their disposal. That is a thoroughly sound aspiration. These girls become factory employees and not domestic servants, (1) because work in their own home is not paid for (the general disregard of housework drives the women striving for independence away from the house); (2) because of the absence of regularity in housework; (3) because the domestic servants are not free on Sundays; (4) because they must live with the employers. These facts are established by answer to inquiries made by Miss Jackson, factory inspector of Wisconsin.

The women employed in the stores and factories are in general paid about the same wages, $4 to $6 a week. A saleswoman, upon whom greater demands are made as to dress and personal appearance, finds it more difficult to live on these wages than would the woman employed in the factory. As pocket-money, however, this sum is a very good remuneration, and this explains why the girls of these classes, in imitation of the bad example set them by the members of the upper ranks of society, manifest such an extraordinary taste for costly clothes and expensive pleasures. In 1888, an official inquiry showed that 95 per cent of the women laborers lived at home; in 1891 another official inquiry showed that one third of the women laborers earned $5 a week; two thirds from $5 to $7, and only 1.8 per cent earned more than $12, while the men laborers earned on the average $12 to $15 a week. Women laborers are organized as yet only to a small extent (1 per cent, while 10 per cent of the men are organized). There are separate social-democratic organizations of women, formed through the Federation of Labor.

The workingwomen especially will be helped by the right to vote. In the “Political Equality Series” appears a pamphlet entitled Why does the Working-woman need the Right to Vote? In the first place she needs the right to vote in order to secure higher wages. Just suppose that the members of the typographical union were to-morrow deprived of their right to vote. Only their full political emancipation could again restore them to their former position of prestige among the working classes. This is exactly the case with the women, and they have not even reached the highly-developed organization of the typographers. A politically unfree laboring class is also unable to maintain its vocation against a laboring class possessing political rights; if the vocation is remunerative the unfree class will be deprived of it or be kept from it altogether. The oppression of the workingwomen has its effect also on men through its tendency to lower wages. Therefore at the present time the trades-unions have recognized that to organize women is in the interests of all workingmen, and while the women were refused organization forty years ago, the Federation of Labor is to-day paying trades-union organizers to induce women to become members of trades-unions. The introduction of a low rate of wages in one branch of a trade (pursued by both men and women) is always a menace to the branches that survive the reduction. The number of women engaged in the industries in 1900 was 1,315,890. The number of married women engaged in industrial pursuits is small; in 1895, an official investigation showed that in 1067 factories 7,000 workingwomen out of 71,000 were married. The chief industries in which women are employed are the textile industry (cotton), laundering, the manufacture of ready-made clothing, corsets, carpets, millinery, and fancy-goods. Women work alongside the men in wool-spinning, in bookbinding, and in the manufacture of shoes, mittens, tobacco, and confectionery.

The inability of workingwomen to exercise political rights makes minors of them when compared with workingmen, and this decreases their importance as human beings. Women cannot protect themselves against injustice, and these things put them at a great disadvantage.

The American women became involved in a lively conflict with President Roosevelt (otherwise favoring woman’s rights) concerning his gift to a father and mother for bringing twenty children into the world. The women declared in the Woman’s Journal that it is wrong to encourage an immoderate procreation of children among a population 70 per cent of which possesses no property.[23] Above all, this encouragement is not only a menace to the overworked and oppressed workingwomen, but it is inhuman, and really lowers woman to the position of a machine for bearing children.

The institution of factory inspection does not as yet exist in the whole Union. According to the report of Mrs. v. Vorst[24] the factories and the homes of laborers in the Southern States are extremely unsatisfactory. Child labor is exploited there, a matter which is now being dealt with by the National Child Labor Committee. According to this same work (the inquiry of Mrs. v. Vorst) the living conditions in the North and Central States are better, and the moral menaces to the young girl are inconsiderable. The women of the property-holding classes are attempting to do their duty toward the women of the factories and stores by founding clubs, vacation colonies, and homes for them. Within recent years the great department stores have appointed “social secretaries,” who look after the weal and woe of the employees. It would be well to have such secretaries in the factories and mills also. Since 1874 the working week of sixty hours for women in industry and commerce has spread from Massachusetts to almost the entire Union. Since 1890, night labor has been prohibited by law. The working girls have been provided with seats while at work, partly as a result of legislation and partly by the voluntary act of the employers.