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39 - Woman Suffrage and Politics by Carrie Chapman Catt, Nettie Rogers Shuler · Woman Suffrage and Politics

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  Speaker 1: Chapter thirty two of Women Suffrage and Politics, The Inner
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  Speaker 1: Story of the Suffrage Movement, by Carrie Chapman Kat and
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  Speaker 1: Nettie Rogers Schuller. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox
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  Speaker 1: recordings are in the public domain. For more information or
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  Speaker 1: to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Conclusion, we have
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  Speaker 1: brought together the evidence that the answer to our question
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  Speaker 1: in the foreward to this book is politics, the evidence
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  Speaker 1: that it was politics that made America the Cradle of
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  Speaker 1: Democracy twenty seventh, instead of first on the list of
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  Speaker 1: countries democratic enough to extend the right of self government
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  Speaker 1: to both halves of their respective populations. That evidence tends
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  Speaker 1: to make clear too, how slowly men as a whole
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  Speaker 1: retreated from the divine right of men to rule over
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  Speaker 1: women idea, and how slowly women rose to assume their
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  Speaker 1: equal right with men to rule over both. Long after
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  Speaker 1: men's reason convinced them that woman's suffrage was right and inevitable,
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  Speaker 1: the impulse to male supremacy persuaded them that the step
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  Speaker 1: would be inexpedient. The lower types of men have always
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  Speaker 1: frankly resented any threatened infringement of the rights of the male,
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  Speaker 1: and although the higher classes of male intelligence defined the
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  Speaker 1: feeling toward woman's suffrage in other terms, at source, the
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  Speaker 1: highest and lowest were actuated by the same traditional instinct.
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  Speaker 1: Men believed what they wanted to believe, in believing that
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  Speaker 1: women did not desire the vote. In nineteen sixteen, thirty
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  Speaker 1: eight thousand women of Maine signed petitions to the electors
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  Speaker 1: asking for the vote, but when the question was put
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  Speaker 1: to the men voters at the election, only twenty thousand
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  Speaker 1: responded with IY. In nineteen seventeen, one million, thirty thousand
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  Speaker 1: women in New York said over their signatures that they
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  Speaker 1: wanted to vote, but only seven hundred three thousand men
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  Speaker 1: voted affirmatively on the question at election time. These examples
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  Speaker 1: were there no others, bring into high relief the fact
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  Speaker 1: that in the suffrage struggle there were more women who
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  Speaker 1: wanted to vote than there were men who were willing
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  Speaker 1: to grant them the privilege. Superimposed upon this biological foundation
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  Speaker 1: of male resistance to female aggrandizement was the failure of
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  Speaker 1: political leaders to recognize the inescapable logic of woman suffrage
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  Speaker 1: in a land professing universal suffrage. On top of this,
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  Speaker 1: and as a consequence of it lay the party in action,
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  Speaker 1: which gave opportunity to men who were far from inactive
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  Speaker 1: on the suffrage question, because they feared that their personal
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  Speaker 1: interests would suffer should the evolution of democracy take its
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  Speaker 1: normal course. Had not the Republican Party enfranchised the negro
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  Speaker 1: by whip and bayonet, it would have been easier for
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  Speaker 1: women to gain their enfranchisement without party endorsement, But suffragists,
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  Speaker 1: left to make their own appeal to majorities, accustst to
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  Speaker 1: be told how to vote, found that the lack of
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  Speaker 1: political endorsement was as effective as a mandate to vote
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  Speaker 1: against Lack's election laws and methods often opened doors for corruption,
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  Speaker 1: and by and with the assistance of party officials, suffrage
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  Speaker 1: elections were stolen. The damage thus brought to the woman's
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  Speaker 1: suffrage cause, and the nation's record, was far more insidious
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  Speaker 1: than the loss of any election would imply. The alleged
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  Speaker 1: rejection of suffrage became to the unknowing public an indication
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  Speaker 1: of an adverse public sentiment, and tended to create, rather
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  Speaker 1: than correct, indifference for the average man and woman moved
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  Speaker 1: with the current of popular opinion. The inaction of the
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  Speaker 1: public gave a mandate for further political evasion of the
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  Speaker 1: question to party leaders, some of whom were certainly cognizant of,
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  Speaker 1: and others working factors in the criminal schemes which produced
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  Speaker 1: the misleading result. Around and around the vicious circle went
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  Speaker 1: the suffrage question. Get another state, said President Roosevelt, excusing
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  Speaker 1: national inaction. Congress has given no indication that it wants
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  Speaker 1: women suffrage, said Governor Pierce of Dakota, as he vetoed
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  Speaker 1: the territorial Bill which would grant suffrage to women. The
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  Speaker 1: Congress looked at the states for its cue. The states
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  Speaker 1: to Congress, both to the parties and the parties to
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  Speaker 1: the various financial interests, which in turn were responsible for
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  Speaker 1: the election of a picked list of members of Congress
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  Speaker 1: of Legislatures and of the party leadership. Had more statesmen
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  Speaker 1: and fewer politicians directed the policies of parties, women would
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  Speaker 1: have been enfranchised in the years between eighteen sixty five
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  Speaker 1: and eighteen eighty, and American history, along many lines, would
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  Speaker 1: have changed its course. Party suffrage endorsement was one in
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  Speaker 1: the United States after forty eight years of unceasing effort,
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  Speaker 1: but when the final victory came, women were alternately indignant
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  Speaker 1: that it had been so long in coming, and amazed
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  Speaker 1: that it had come at all. Many men expressed disappointment
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  Speaker 1: that women did not at once enter the party campaigns
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  Speaker 1: with the same zeal And consecration they had shown in
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  Speaker 1: the struggle for the vote. These men forgot that the
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  Speaker 1: dominant political parties blocked the normal progress of woman suffrage
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  Speaker 1: for half a century. The women remembered the Republicans found
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  Speaker 1: that the negro fresh from slavery knew too little to
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  Speaker 1: play the game of politics. All parties may find, in
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  Speaker 1: the years to come, a still more formidable problem in
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  Speaker 1: the women vote, but for a different reason. If women
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  Speaker 1: do not make docile partisans, it will be because, through
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  Speaker 1: the long, weary struggle, they have learned to know too much.
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  Speaker 1: Wars are not paid for in wartime. The bills come afterwards,
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  Speaker 1: said Franklin, And so it may be said of the
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  Speaker 1: cost of political blunders. American women, who know the history
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  Speaker 1: of their country will always resent the fact that American
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  Speaker 1: men chose to enfranchise negroes fresh from slavery before enfranchising
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  Speaker 1: American wives and mothers, and allowed hordes of European immigrants
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  Speaker 1: totally unfamiliar with the traditions and ideals of American government,
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  Speaker 1: to be enfranchised in all states after naturalization, and in
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  Speaker 1: fifteen states without it, and be thus qualified to pass
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  Speaker 1: upon the question of the enfranchisement of American women. The
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  Speaker 1: knowledge that elections can be controlled and manipulated, that a
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  Speaker 1: purchasable vote, and men with money and motives to buy
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  Speaker 1: can appear upon occasion, that an election may be turned
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  Speaker 1: with unerring accuracy by a block of the least understanding voters.
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  Speaker 1: That conditions produced many politicians, but few statesmen began long
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  Speaker 1: ago to modify for Americans the fine pride in political liberty. Still,
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  Speaker 1: the boast upon the fourth of July that this knowledge
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  Speaker 1: should have made conservative types of men and women hesitant
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  Speaker 1: to extend the suffrage is not strange, Nor is it
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  Speaker 1: to be held against conscientious men that they had to
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  Speaker 1: struggle with real doubts as to the wisdom of adding
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  Speaker 1: women to the electorate. On the other hand, in spite
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  Speaker 1: of all weaknesses of the American government, no conscientious man
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  Speaker 1: or woman should ever have lost sight of four counterfacts. One,
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  Speaker 1: the United States will never go back to government by kings, nobilities,
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  Speaker 1: or favored classes. Two, it must go forward to a
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  Speaker 1: safe and progressive government by the people. There is no
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  Speaker 1: other alternative. Three women have had a corrective influence in
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  Speaker 1: department after department of society, and the only one pronounced
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  Speaker 1: a filthy Meyer is politics, where they have not been
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  Speaker 1: For the problem of leading government by majorities through the
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  Speaker 1: mayer to the ideal which certainly lies ahead, is one
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  Speaker 1: which women should share with men looking backward. However, it
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  Speaker 1: is not resentment at the long scroll of men's biological
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  Speaker 1: inhibitions and political blunders unrolled in the suffrage struggle. That is,
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  Speaker 1: for suffragists. The final picture. The final picture fills with
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  Speaker 1: the men and the groups of men, Republican men, democratic
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  Speaker 1: men with a vision of real democracy luring their souls,
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  Speaker 1: who in the political arena fought the good fight for
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  Speaker 1: and with suffragists. Their faith in and loyalty to the
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  Speaker 1: suffrage cause, their herculean efforts, their brilliant achievements, their personal sacrifices,
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  Speaker 1: leap out from the record, compellingly writing down all else.
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  Speaker 1: On the outside of politics, women fought one of the strongest,
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  Speaker 1: bravest battles recorded in history. But to these men inside politics,
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  Speaker 1: some Republicans, some Democrats, and some members of minority parties.
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  Speaker 1: The women of the United States owe their enfranchisement. And
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  Speaker 1: if we have made to hear a case for our
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  Speaker 1: assertion that American politics was an age long trap for
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  Speaker 1: women's suffrage, we hope that we have not failed to
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  Speaker 1: make as well a case for these higher grade American
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  Speaker 1: politicians who rescued women's suffrage from that trap and urged
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  Speaker 1: it forward to its goal. End of Chapter thirty two