Part 26

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The Anti-Suffrage Association is to be congratulated on the latest contribution to its literature by Abdul Hamid, the deposed Sultan of Turkey. There is such a similarity between his opinions on woman suffrage and Mrs. Humphry Ward’s that it certainly is either a case of plagiarism or two souls with but a single thought.

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Harvard University has taken off the ban and allowed a speech on woman suffrage within its sacred walls. If the ban had remained on a little longer it would not have been necessary to take it off.

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Almost the last words of Baroness von Suttner before she sailed for home were that there never would be peace here until the women had a vote. The men could have told her that as soon as she landed in the United States.

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For many days before Easter, the dispatches said, the Cleveland suffragists trimmed hats to be sold for the “cause.” Go to! It would be utterly impossible for a woman to believe in suffrage and know how to trim a hat.

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Kansas women say that they have long been accustomed to masculine chivalry, as they have had the municipal vote for a quarter of a century; but since they got the full suffrage they are so overwhelmed with attentions from the men that they can hardly resist a political flirtation.

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Strange, isn’t it, how Government offices, public schools and the rest penalize matrimony, and then when women ask for the suffrage the opponents shriek aloud that it will destroy the desire for marriage? Doesn’t it ever occur to them that the loss of all these business opportunities might have this effect? Husbands are nice, but oh, you salary!

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Beatrice Harraden learned at a recent legislative hearing in Westminster that “the women impressed the statesmen but the statesmen did not in the least impress the women.” We have always seen this in our country but we never let the “statesmen” know it.

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The belated action of the New York anti-suffragists, in opening their little headquarters on Fifth Avenue a few days before the big suffrage parade “to offset any impression it might make,” recalls the careful housewife, who exclaimed when she saw Niagara Falls, “Oh, that reminds me—I left the kitchen faucet running!”

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It is perfectly proper for mothers of wealth and social position to employ nurses and governesses for their children; but when a business or professional woman does the same, society at large goes into hysterics over her poor, neglected offspring. If the mother is off playing bridge and attending “teas,” it is all right; but if she is away earning a salary it is all wrong.

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When women wanted to be customs inspectors the authorities said they could never, never climb the ladder on the side of a ship. Strange to say the two women who demonstrated that it could easily be done were both daughters of Presidents. It is odd how many obstacles can be placed in the way when a woman wants a job with a salary attached!

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Amherst College is to establish a chair of common sense. Great pity that college isn’t co-educational!

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“When women are elected to Congress, there will be no more secret caucuses,” says a great daily. Since when have there been any of that kind?

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School inspectors in Russia have issued an order that no married woman teacher can have more than two children. They have heard about the New York board of education and gone them two better.

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“Suffrage was begotten in Utah and Idaho by Mormonism,” says a syndicate article sent forth by the Pennsylvania “anti” association. Oh, no; it was “begotten” in Wyoming, when there wasn’t a Mormon in the Territory.