Chapter I

THE GERMANIC COUNTRIES

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: about45,000,000.

Men: about47,000,000.

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.

In agriculture women find a profitable field of activity. Of course they are never field hands, but are employers and laborers in the dairy business, in poultry farming, and in the raising of vegetables and fruit. Women have introduced the growing of cress, cranberries, and cucumbers in various regions, and have cultivated the famous asparagus of Oyster Bay and the “Improved New York Strawberries.” In 1900, there were 980,025 women engaged in agriculture (as compared with 9,458,194 men). The number of women domestic servants in the United States amounts to 2,099,165; fifty per cent of the families dispense with servants, since they cannot afford to pay $15 to $20 a month for a servant, or $30 for a cook. Educated women, called visiting housekeepers, undertake the supervision of some of the households of the better class, aided, of course, by help in the house.

The legal status of the American women is regulated by 52 sets of laws, corresponding to the number of states and territories. The civil code is unfavorable to woman in most of the states. In the National Trade Union League (New York) the Reverend Anna Shaw declared recently that in 38 states the property laws made “joint property holding” legal, as a result of which the wife has no independent control of her personal earnings or her personal effects, e.g. her clothes. In 38 states the wife also has no legal authority over her children. For full particulars the reader is referred to Volume IV of the History of Woman’s Suffrage. To an increasing extent the women are using their right to administer their property independently, and the men are usually proud of the business ability and success of their wives.

A legal regulation of prostitution (such as prevailed formerly in England and as prevails now in Germany) does not exist in the United States. Cincinnati is the only city which in the European sense has police control of prostitution. Public opinion has successfully resisted all similar attempts. (Woman’s Journal, July, 1904.) The American Commission, which went to Europe to study the regulation of prostitution, declared that the American woman cannot be expected to sanction such an arrangement, and that, moreover, the system had not stood the test. In the police stations, police matrons are employed. The law protects the woman in the street against the man and not, as in Europe, the man against the woman.

In order to combat the double standard of morals the “Social Purity League” was formed. The membership is composed of those men and women who are thoroughly convinced that there is only one standard of morality for both sexes, since they have the same obligations to their offspring. Founded in 1886, this organization has spread since 1889 throughout the entire Union.

The “World’s Woman’s Christian Temperance Union,” the second largest international woman’s organization, originated in America. It was founded in 1883 by Frances E. Willard (her father was Hilgard, from the Palatinate). The Union has 300,000 members in the United States at the present time, and 450,000 members in the whole world. In 1906 it met in Boston. It is the determined enemy of alcohol, and gives proof of its convictions through the work of its soldier’s and sailor’s department, its committees on railroads, tramways, police stations, cab drivers, etc. This Union, as well as the “Social Purity League,” is a firm advocate of woman’s suffrage.

The emancipation of the American women is promoted through sports. If on the one hand they appreciate an elaborate toilette, on the other hand they recognize the advantages of bloomers, the walking skirt, and the divided skirt. In these costumes they play basketball, polo, tennis, and take gymnastic exercise, fence, and row. The woman’s colleges are centers of athletic life. There the girls now play football in male costume, the public being excluded. In all large cities there are athletic clubs for women, some extremely sumptuous (with a hundred-dollar fee) as well as very simple clubs for workingwomen of sedentary life.

We have seen that the legal status of women in many states is still in need of reform. All the more instructive is the survey of laws concerning women and children in the woman’s suffrage states, published by Mrs. C. Waugh McCullock, a woman lawyer, of Chicago. The wife disposes of her wages and her dowry (in Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and Idaho). Men and women receive equal pay for the same work. All professions and public offices are open to women. Women act as jurors. They have the same right of inheritance as men. Divorce is granted to either party under the same circumstances. The claims of the wife and the children under age are given a decided preference over those of creditors. Education from the kindergarten to the university is free and is open to women. The labor of women in mines is prohibited. The maximum working-day for women is eight hours. All houses of correction and institutions for the protection of women and children must have women physicians and overseers. The age of consent is 18 years. Gambling and prostitution are prohibited. Both father and mother exercise parental authority. The surviving husband is guardian of the children. The sale of alcoholic liquors and tobacco to children is prohibited. No child under 14 years of age may work in the mines. Pornographic literature and pictures are prohibited.

In conclusion I shall take several points from the lecture which Professor F. Laurie Poster held before the Political Equality League in Chicago, after the women of Chicago had waged a vigorous campaign for the right to vote in municipal affairs.

Why is the value of woman placed so low? Merely because she is more helpless than man. Children are valued even less than women because they surpass the women in helplessness. Only animals have less power of defense; therefore they have the lowest value placed on them. In the United States it has now been demonstrated that whoever possesses the right to vote is esteemed more highly than he who does not have that right. We see this in the woman’s suffrage states; here the women have made provisions not only for themselves, but for the children as well, for it is one of the fundamental instincts of woman to protect her little ones. In most of the states of the Union, however, women can help directly neither themselves nor their children. That women should be forced to struggle for these ends against the opposition of man is one of the most unfortunate phases of the whole movement.

When woman became property, a possession, the overestimation of her sexual value began. Her sex was her weapon, and her capabilities became stunted. This over emphasis of the sexual causes a great part of the most flagrant evils among civilized peoples. To-day we have reached a stage where we despise him who sells his vote. Unfortunately it is still permitted to sell one’s sex. In this roundabout way woman attains most of the good things in life. Her economic successes depend almost entirely on the resources of the man to whom she belongs. Both sexes suffer as a result of this attitude of society. Woman’s uncertain feeling, that she must concentrate her interests and responsibilities in the one who provides for the family, has created exceedingly peculiar customs and a wholly absurd code of honor for both man and woman. Thereby woman is directed to a roundabout way for everything she wishes to obtain. Whatever she wishes for herself must appear as a domestic virtue, if possible as a sacrifice for the family. Man thinks it very natural that he should do what he desires, that he should pursue his pleasures and gratify his passions, for he is indeed the one who possesses authority and does not need first to stamp his wishes as virtues. But it seems just as natural to him that the women of the family should be endowed with a double portion of piety, economy and willingness to make sacrifices,—virtues in which he is so lacking. Women are created especially for that. By nature they are better, and indeed they make great efforts to cover the faults of the offending one and forgivingly accept him again. In fact they do it gladly; it gives them pleasure, and man certainly does not wish to deprive them of the opportunity for such great joys. Therefore man is instantly at hand to warn woman when she shows any inclination toward adopting “masculine” habits. But he certainly would be more conscientious and more moral if woman no longer assumed these virtues vicariously for him. Woman must make her demands of man. For that she must be free.[25]

AUSTRALIA[26]

Total population:4,555,662.

Women:2,166,318.

Men:2,389,344.

An association of women’s clubs in each of five colonies. The Australian Women’s Political Association, embracing six colonies.

It is a rare thing for Europeans to have a definite conception of the Australian Commonwealth. This is the more to be regretted since this federation of republics is among the countries that have made the greatest progress in the woman’s rights movement. In no other part of the world has such a radical change in the status of woman been effected in so short a time and with such comparatively insignificant struggles.

Till 1840, Australia had been a penal colony. Since then,—after the discovery of the first gold fields,—a multitude of fortune-seekers, gold-miners, and adventurers joined the population of deported convicts. The good middle-class element for a long time remained in the minority. Certainly nobody would have believed that there existed at that time in Australia all the conditions necessary for the growth of a flourishing and highly civilized commonwealth. Nevertheless, such was the case. There were formed seven democratic states, whose people were not bound by any traditionalism or excessive fondness for time-honored, inherited customs; these people wished to have elbowroom and were determined to establish themselves on their own soil in their own way. This all took place the more easily since England gave the growing commonwealth in general an exceedingly free hand, and because the inhabitants were by nature independent. Australia was colonized by those who, having come into conflict with the laws of the old world, found their sphere of life narrow and restricted.

Because Australia to-day has only about five million inhabitants, the country is confronted only in a limited way with the problem of dealing with congested masses of people, a condition which is favorable to all social experimentation. Those in authority believe they can direct and eventually mold the development of the Commonwealth.

Sixty-five per cent of the population are Protestant; the Germanic element predominates. The women constitute not quite 50 per cent of the population. Thus in many respects the Australian colonies possess conditions similar to those prevailing in the western states of the American Union, and the results of the woman’s rights movement are in both regions approximately the same. Mrs. M. Donohue, one of the delegates from Australia, declared at the London Woman’s Suffrage Congress that her country had brought about “the greatest happiness for the greatest number.”

Naturally, the Australian governments had originally a series of material problems to solve, real problems of existence, as, for example, to find a satisfactory agricultural policy in a predominantly farming and cattle-raising country. When the economic basis of the country seemed sufficiently secure, the intellectual interests were given attention. A country which never had slavery or a feudal regime, a Salic Law, or a Code Napoleon; a country which has no divine right of kings, and is not oppressed with militarism; a country which judges a man by his personal ability and esteems him for what he is, such a country certainly could not tolerate the dogma of woman’s inferiority. Between 1871 and 1880, the school systems of the various colonies were regulated by a series of laws. Elementary instruction, which is free and obligatory, is given in public schools to children of both sexes between the ages of five and fifteen, but in most cases the sexes are segregated. In the public schools of the whole continent about 20,000 teachers are employed (9,000 men and 11,000 women). The men predominate in the leading well-paid positions. The secondary school system (as in England) is composed largely of private schools, and is to a great extent in the hands of the Protestant denominations and the Catholic orders. The governments subsidize these institutions. Girls and boys enjoy the same educational opportunities in the schools, part of which are coeducational.

The four Australian universities—Sidney (New South Wales), Melbourne (Victoria), Adelaide (South Australia), and Aukland (New Zealand)—are to-day open to women, who can secure all academic degrees granted by the philosophical, law, and medical faculties.[27]

The number of students in the universities is as follows: in Sidney, 1054 (of whom 142 are women); in New Zealand University, 1332 (of whom 369 are women); in Melbourne, 853 (of whom 128 are women). The total number of students in Adelaide and Hobart is 626 and 62 respectively, but the number of women students is not given. The educational problem is thus solved for the Australian woman in a favorable manner: she has equal and full privileges in the universities.

What are the conditions in the occupations? “All occupations are open to women,” is stated in a report which I have used.[28] But that is not entirely correct. Women are teachers, but they are not lecturers and professors in the universities. As preachers they are admitted only among the Nonconformists. There are women doctors and dentists, and in four colonies (New Zealand, Tasmania, West Australia, and Victoria) women are permitted to practice law, but they are confronted with a certain popular prejudice when they attempt to enter medicine, law, technical science, and a teaching career in the universities. The state employs women in the elementary schools; in the postal and telegraph service; as registrars (permitting them to perform marriage ceremonies); and as factory inspectors. But the salaries and wages in Australia are not always the same for both sexes. Thus, for example, in South Australia the male head masters of the public schools draw salaries of 110 to 450 pounds sterling, while the women draw 80 to 156 pounds sterling. Since school affairs are not affairs under the control of the Commonwealth, the federal law (equal wages for equal work) cannot be applied in this particular. In Tasmania[29] (where the women have voted since 1903) women are teachers in the public schools, employees in the postal, telegraph, and telephone systems, supervisors of health in the public schools, and assistants to the quarantine and sanitary boards; they are registrars in the parishes, superintendents of hospitals, asylums, prisons, etc. Public offices in the army, the navy, and the church alone remain closed to them.

It is to be noted here that Mrs. Dobson, of Tasmania, was the official representative of the Australian government at the International Woman’s Suffrage Congress held in Amsterdam in 1908.

The official yearbook of the Australian Federation gives the following industrial statistics for 1901: state and municipal office holders, 41,235 women (69,399 men); domestic servants, 150,201 women (50,335 men); commerce, 34,514 women (188,144 men); transportation, 3429 women (118,730 men); industry, 75,570 women (350,596 men); agriculture and forestry, fisheries, and mining, 38,944 women (494,163 men). In all fields, with the exception of domestic service, the men are in a numerical superiority; therefore the matrimonial opportunities of the Australian woman are favorable. For every 100 girls 105.99 boys were born in 1906; the statistics for 1906 showed a greater number of marriages than ever before (30,410). The difference in the ages of the married men and women is 4.5 years on the average; the number of children per family is about 4 (3.77).

Five Australian colonies (New Zealand, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, and New South Wales) have enacted the following laws for the protection of workingwomen:

1. Maximum working time—48 hours a week.

2. The prohibition of night work (except in Queensland).

3. Higher wages for overtime.

The eight-hour day is necessitated throughout Australia by the climate. The other provisions are perhaps not stringently enforced. Children under thirteen years cannot be employed in the factories. Socialistic regulations, such as fixing the minimum wages in certain industries, and the establishment of obligatory courts of arbitration, have been instituted in several colonies (Victoria, New South Wales, etc.).

In the beginning the English Common Law regulated the legal status of the Australian women. During the past fifty years this law has undergone many modifications. Each colony acted independently in the matter, and therefore there is no longer uniformity. In all cases separate ownership of property is legal. However, joint parental authority is legally established only in New Zealand. The divorce laws are prejudicial to women in almost all respects.

In the field of legislation the influence of woman’s suffrage has already made itself definitely felt. Each colony has its state legislature which consists of a Lower House and a Senate. Every Australian who is twenty-one years old is a voter in both state and municipal elections. (There is a property qualification only for those voting for the Senate.) In 1869 the woman’s suffrage movement began in Australia (in Victoria). The right to vote in school and municipal affairs was given to women as a matter of course.[30] The right to vote in state affairs was granted to women first in New Zealand in 1893, in South Australia in 1895, in West Australia in 1899, in New South Wales in 1903, in Queensland in 1905, and in Victoria in 1908.

When the six Australian colonies (excluding New Zealand) formed themselves into a federation in 1900, an Australian Federal Parliament was established. The women of all of the six colonies voted for the parliamentary officers on an equality with men. Here was a curious thing—the women of the four conservative colonies voted for the members of the Federal Parliament but could not vote for the state legislature.

On the basis of the documents dealing with Victoria I shall give a more detailed account of the history of woman’s suffrage in this colony. The greatest statesman of Victoria, George Higinbotham, in 1873 introduced the first woman’s suffrage bill before Parliament. This met with no success. A number of similar attempts were made until 1884. In this year there was founded the first “Woman’s Suffrage Society” in Victoria. The movement then spread rapidly, and in 1891 thirty thousand women petitioned Parliament for the suffrage in state affairs. For the time being this attempt likewise met with failure. But the political organization of the women was strengthened through the formation of the “United Council for Woman’s Suffrage.” Every year after 1895 this Council gave advice to the Lower House concerning the framing of woman’s suffrage bills, and thus enlarged its influence. Hitherto the passing of the suffrage bill had been prevented by the opposition of the Upper House (which was not chosen by universal suffrage). On November 18, 1908, the bill was finally passed by the House of Obstruction, and thus the women, who had worked for the suffrage, were finally emancipated. Since 1893, the year of the emancipation of women in New Zealand, the opponents of woman’s suffrage put off the women with the request to wait and see how the plan worked in New Zealand; in 1896 the women were asked to wait and see how the plan worked in New South Wales; in 1902 they were asked to see how woman’s suffrage worked in the federal elections. In 1908 it was possible to secure only 3500 signatures against woman’s suffrage.

In New Zealand the women have exercised active suffrage since 1893. There also, the gloomiest predictions were made when this “unprecedented” measure was adopted. There were, of course, women opponents of woman’s suffrage. Such, for example, was Mrs. Seddon, the wife of the Prime Minister of New Zealand. She said: “It seemed to me that the women ought to remain away from the tumult and riotous scenes of the polling booths. But I gave up this view. With us, the women benefited the suffrage and the suffrage benefited the women. The elections have taken place more quietly and women have indicated a lively interest in public affairs.

“Woman’s suffrage has not caused family dissensions. It has frequently happened that whole families have voted for the same candidate. In other cases different members of one family voted for different candidates. But this has not disturbed domestic tranquillity, for nowhere have family feuds been engendered by one member or another of the family boasting of the success of his candidate. The fear that the women would vote largely for Conservative candidates, through the influence of the clergy, was not realized. Already the women have twice contributed to the reëlection of a Liberal minister. Neither the Protestant nor the Catholic clergy endeavored to influence the votes of the women anywhere.” The Countess Wachtmeister, a Californian traveling in Australia, confirms this opinion, “Thanks to woman’s suffrage the respectable elements that formerly often remained away from the political arena have now again stepped to the front; they have presented successful candidates, and have begun to play an important part in the political life of the country.”

Since women have exercised the right to vote in New Zealand the following legal reforms have been enacted:

1. Divorces are granted to the wife and to the husband upon the same grounds.

2. The husband can no longer deprive the wife and children of their inheritances by means of a will.

3. The conditions of suffrage in municipal elections were made the same for both women and men.

4. The saloons are closed on election days.

5. Women are admitted to the practice of law.

6. The age of consent for girls was raised to 17.

Similar reforms were enacted in South Australia. There Mrs. Mary Lee is the leader in the woman’s suffrage movement, and founder of the “Women’s Suffrage Society.” When the woman’s suffrage bill was passed in 1895 the Prime Minister, the Minister of Public Instruction, and the Lord Mayor gave Mrs. Lee an impressive reception in the town hall; they thanked her for the untiring efforts which she had devoted to the cause, and the Prime Minister said, “Mrs. Lee is the originator of the greatest reforms in the constitutional history of Australia.” What enlightened views the ministers in the antipodal countries do have! Are they really our antiscians to such a degree?

Since 1896, the following reforms have been effected by the South Australian Parliament:

1. A modification of the marriage law (the husband must provide for the wife and children if his brutality leads to a divorce). An enlargement of woman’s sphere in the business world. Separate property rights.

2. Greater strength was given to the law compelling the father of illicit children to fulfill his pecuniary duties.

3. A severer penalty for trafficking in girls.

4. The increasing of the age of consent to 17.

5. Improved laws providing for the care of dependent children.

6. A maximum working week of 52 hours for children engaged in industry.

7. Laws suppressing pornography.

8. Laws prohibiting the sale of liquor and tobacco to children.

9. Women were appointed to the positions of inspectors of schools, prisons, hospitals, etc.

In West Australia, where women have voted since 1899, the women were admitted to the practice of law; the age of consent was raised to 17 years; and the conditions on which divorce are granted were made the same for man and woman. In Europe people still question the practical value of woman’s suffrage.

Following the establishment of woman’s suffrage in New South Wales and Tasmania, juvenile courts were introduced; New South Wales adopted a very stringent law regulating the sale of liquor (local option; no barmaids under 21 years could be employed; the sale of liquors to children under 14 years was prohibited).

Since women have voted in the elections for the Federal Parliament they have formed the Australian Woman’s Political Association. The President is Miss Vida Goldstein, of Victoria. To the Association belong woman’s suffrage leagues, woman’s trade-unions, temperance societies, woman’s church clubs, and other organizations. For the present the women will not ally themselves with any of the existing parties, since the principles of none of them correspond exactly to the programme which the women have set up. The “Political Equality League” is satisfactory in one respect (equal rights for both sexes), but goes too far in its socialistic demands.

The women have succeeded in having federal laws enacted providing that all state employees be paid the same wages for the same work, and that the legal provisions for naturalization permit woman to retain her right of self-government and her individuality. The government will propose a federal law securing uniformity in the marriage laws (laws in regard to marriage, property, divorce, and parental authority).

In all the Australian colonies women have active suffrage, but not in all cases the passive. Wherever they possess the latter they have laid little claim to it:

1. because a part of the capable women believe they can work more effectively and achieve more if they are not attached to a political party;

2. because the established party programmes very frequently embody the demands of the women;

3. because for this reason the political parties expect no special advantage from the women, and it is difficult to secure the support of the great party papers for the women candidates;

4. because the Australian elections also cost money, and the capable women are not always well-to-do.

In 1903, Miss Vida Goldstein announced her candidature for the Federal Parliament and was defeated. In the federal elections of 1906 on an average 58.36 per cent of the registered men and 43.30 per cent of the registered women voted (against 53.09 and 30.96 per cent in 1903).

In two pamphlets,—Woman’s Suffrage in New Zealand, and Woman’s Suffrage in Australia,[31]—the leading men of the youngest region of the world have given their written testimony on the practical workings of woman’s suffrage. These men are prime ministers of the colonies, public prosecutors, the ministers of the various state departments, members of the lower houses in the parliaments, high dignitaries of the Church, the editors of large political newspapers. They all make the most favorable statements concerning woman’s suffrage.

“The women have demanded nothing unreasonable from their representatives, and have always placed themselves on the side of clean politics and clean politicians.” “Woman’s suffrage has brought about neither the millennium nor pandemonium,” and the New Zealanders do not understand why it is that in other countries people “can still become agitated over anything so inherently reasonable as woman’s suffrage.”

All who wish to have the right to participate in a discussion on woman’s suffrage must first study these two books of testimonials. A mere knowledge of these facts will cause much insipid discussion to cease in public meetings.

From the French consul in Dantzig, Count Jouffroy d’Abbans, one familiar with Australian conditions, I learned the following isolated facts concerning woman’s suffrage. It has a salutary influence throughout. Women show a lively interest in political and municipal questions; for the sake of their political rights they neglect their “specifically feminine” duties so little that they come to the parliamentary sessions with knitting, embroidery, and sewing. They also engage in these feminine activities while attending the night sessions. On election days there is certainly often a cold dinner or supper. But that occurs on washing days, too, and no one has yet wished to deny women the privilege of doing the washing. It is safe to say that the Australian woman’s rights movement will not fail because of this obstacle.

GREAT BRITAIN

Total population:41,605,220.

Women:21,441,911.

Men:20,163,309.

English Federation of Women’s Clubs. Woman’s Suffrage League.

“England is the storm center of our movement,” declared the President of the International Woman’s Suffrage Alliance in the Amsterdam Congress. This was the conviction of the Congress, which therefore resolved to hold the next International Woman’s Suffrage Congress in London (in April, 1909). The fact is undisputed that the English suffragettes—whether one favors or opposes their actions—have made Great Britain the center of the modern woman’s rights movement. England is a European country, an old country with rigid traditions, which, nevertheless, are the freest political traditions that we have in Europe to-day. For fifty years the English women have struggled for the right to vote. In spite of the fact that their country has neither Salic Law nor continental militarism (two of the greatest obstacles to all woman’s rights movements), the English women have not as yet attained their ends. This is an indication of the tenacity of the prejudices against women in the countries of older civilizations.

The opposition offered to the political emancipation of women in England is all the more remarkable since the English women were able to exercise the right to vote on an equality with men in national elections till 1832, and in municipal elections till 1835.[32] To that time we find the same conditions prevailing in England as prevailed in the nine American commonwealths previous to 1783. This parity of circumstances is explained by the English principle of representation: no taxation without representation. In 1832 and 1835, however, the English women, who as taxpayers were qualified to vote, had the right to vote in national and municipal affairs taken from them; for the word “persons” the expression “male persons” was substituted in the election law. When this disfranchisement took place none of those concerned cried out against it. For two hundred years the women had made no use worth mentioning of the right to vote. But a part of the women, especially those of the liberal and cultured circles, saw the significance of this retrograde step.

The political struggles of general concern during the following period (such as the antislavery movement and the anticorn-law movement) furnished these women an opportunity to educate themselves in political affairs, and, like the American women of that time, they in many cases learned their political ABC by means of the same questions. Such men as Cobden, Pease, Biggs, Knight, and others were the advance guard of the political women in England. The earliest pamphlet on women’s suffrage preserved to us appeared in 1847. It is a small leaflet and says among other things, “As long as both sexes and all parties are not given a just representation, good government is impossible” (which is a paraphrase of the American principle—every just government derives its powers from the consent of the governed). The contrary view had been stated in the Encyclopædia Britannica as early as 1842 by the father of John Stuart Mill: “It is self-evident that all persons whose interests are identical with those of a different class are excluded from political representation without injury.” Certainly from such an arrangement the “representatives” will suffer no injury. That select group of intellectual women who trained themselves politically during the antislavery movement and the struggle for free trade consisted of the mothers, the sisters, and daughters of liberal politicians and academically trained men. Many of these women were themselves students and teachers. No antagonism ever existed in England between the woman’s suffrage movement and the movement favoring the education of woman.

Such were the conditions in 1866. A new election law was to be introduced in Parliament; a new class of men was to be granted the right of suffrage by the lowering of the property qualification. The women decided to present a petition to the House of Commons requesting the right to vote in national elections. The women had decided to act thus publicly because of the presence of John Stuart Mill in the House of Commons, and because of an utterance of Disraeli’s, “In a country in which a woman can be ruler, peer, church trustee, owner of estates, and guardian of the poor, I do not see in the name of what principle the right to vote can be withheld from her.” Four petitions (one signed by 1499 women, one by 1605 taxpaying women, and two more signed by 3559 and 3000 men and women) were sent to the House of Commons; and on May 20, 1867, John Stuart Mill, after he had presented the petitions, moved that the right to vote be given to the qualified women taxpayers. His motion was rejected by a vote of 196 to 73. Thereupon there were formed for systematic propaganda, woman’s suffrage societies in London, Edinburgh, Manchester, Birmingham, and Bristol; these cities are still the center of the movement. The new election law gave women a further advantage—the expression male person was replaced with the generic word “man.”[33] Since an Act of Parliament (13 and 14 Vict., c. 21) declares that in all laws the masculine expression also includes the feminine, unless the contrary is expressly stated, the friends of woman’s suffrage believed they could interpret this expression in favor of women. The attempt to do this was now made. A number of qualified women demanded that they be registered with the voters; they were determined to have recourse to the law if the government commission refused to register their votes. At this time the first public meeting of women in England was held in the famous “Free Trade Hall” in Manchester. But the courts and the Supreme Court interpreted the law against the women,—“they are disqualified neither intellectually nor morally, but legally.” Then a methodical propaganda by means of public meetings was begun; the first victory was won as early as 1869,—the women taxpayers were given the right to vote in municipal affairs in England, Scotland, and Wales.

Between 1870 and 1884, the political organization of the women was strengthened; the women of the aristocracy (Lady Amberly, Lady Anne Gore-Langton, and others) were won over to the cause of woman’s suffrage. A “Central Committee for Woman’s Suffrage” was formed, and a number of excellent women speakers (Biggs, Maclaren, Becker, Fawcett, Craigen, Kingsley, Tod, and others) spoke throughout the country. A further success was achieved when the Parliament of the Isle of Man[34] (House of Keys) gave qualified women the right to vote.

In 1884, the property qualification was again reduced through a new election law; the friends of woman’s suffrage took advantage of this opportunity to present a motion in Parliament favoring woman’s suffrage, in support of which the following statements were made: “Two million men, many of whom are ignorant and uneducated, and possess only a small plot of ground, are to be given political rights. On what principle is the same right withheld from 300,000 women who are educated and who are landowners?” This motion was lost also. In 1885 the English women, in order to make their influence felt in political affairs, formed the “Primrose League,” which supported the Conservative candidates in the election campaigns; and in 1887 was formed the “Women’s Liberal Federation,” which supported the Liberals in a similar manner. The next attempt to secure woman’s suffrage was made in 1897, but it was unsuccessful. During the Boer War woman’s suffrage receded into the background, and not until March 14, 1904, was a woman’s suffrage bill again introduced; this bill did not become law. At that time the woman’s suffrage movement was lifeless, and in a thoroughly hopeless condition. All the usual means of propaganda had been exhausted,—meetings, petitions, and personal work during campaigns made no impressions either on the members of Parliament, the government, or on public opinion. It was no longer possible to educe arguments against the right of qualified women to vote (it was not a question of universal suffrage, but, just as in the case of the men, it was a matter of granting the franchise to women holding property in their own name and earning their own living). Governments, however, wish to be coerced into granting the franchise, and the representatives of the woman’s suffrage movement were not determined enough to exercise the necessary coercion. Therefore, the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies transferred the leadership of the movement to the National Women’s Social and Political Union, whose members are known by the name of suffragettes. This transference of leadership took place during the autumn of 1905.

The suffragettes then adopted militant tactics, making the government their point of attack. This was a good stroke, for since 1905 England has had a Liberal Cabinet, and several of the ministers and over 400 of the 600 members of the House of Commons have declared themselves as friends of woman’s suffrage. “Then why don’t you grant us our political freedom?” asked the suffragettes.

The women are heads of families, they pay rent and taxes, just as the men. All their conditions of livelihood are as dependent upon the laws as are those of the men. A liberal government and liberal members of Parliament ought to be liberal towards women and grant them the suffrage. Many of these ministers and many members of Parliament owe their political careers, their election, and their influence to the practical campaign activities of women or to the woman’s suffrage movement, which they supported in order to enlarge their political influence. They have made use of the woman’s suffrage movement and now wish to do nothing in return. The fate of all woman’s suffrage bills introduced since 1870 (13 in number) proves that it is hopeless to have such bills introduced by private members. Women must turn their hopes to a bill introduced by the government. The present Liberal government needs only to treat the matter seriously; then a woman’s suffrage bill will be passed.

But the government has not treated the matter seriously; hence the suffragettes have declared war. It is their determination to fight every ministry which is not kindly disposed toward the suffrage movement.

The struggle is carried on by the following means: organization of societies; meetings throughout the country; street parades and open air meetings (especially significant are those of June 13 and 21, 1908); the employment of first-class speakers, who make concise, clear, ingenious, and stirring speeches; the raising of large sums of money (20,000 pounds, i.e. $100,000 annually; there is a reserve fund of 50,000 pounds, i.e. $250,000); the publication of a well-managed periodical, Votes for Women.[35]

The leaders are Mrs. and Miss Pankhurst, Mrs. Drummond, Annie Kenney, Mr. and Mrs. Pethick Lawrence. These and the most determined of their associates undertake to send deputations to the Liberal Prime Minister, Mr. Asquith, and to ask the question in all public meetings in which members of the Cabinet speak,—when will you give women the right to vote?

The deputations go to Parliament because women, as taxpayers, have the right to speak to the Prime Minister, who continually receives deputations of men. Since the Prime Minister does not wish to grant women the right to vote, the deputations of women are prevented from entering the Houses of Parliament by strong squads of police, both mounted and on foot; and if the women do not desist from their attempt to make known to the Prime Minister the resolutions of their meeting, they are arrested for the disturbance of the peace, the interruption of traffic, or the instigation of tumult and riot; they are arraigned in the police court and are sentenced to imprisonment in the ordinary prisons. The Liberal government stubbornly refuses to regard these women as political offenders and to punish them as such.

The woman’s suffrage advocates, who ask the Cabinet members questions in public meetings, direct their questions to both friends and opponents of woman’s suffrage. For, they inquire, of what use are our friends to us if they do nothing for us? The members of the English Cabinet have a joint responsibility for their political programme. If the friends of woman’s suffrage treat the matter seriously, they must either convert their colleagues or resign. As long as they do not do that, they are merely playing with woman’s suffrage and the women think it necessary to “heckle” them. The women who ask the questions are often ejected from the meetings in a very rough way.[36]

The suffragettes give the government conclusive proof of their political power when they oppose Liberal candidates at all by-elections and contribute to the defeat of the candidates or cause a reduction of their votes. To the present this has occurred in fourteen cases. It is due to the success of these tactics that the whole world is to-day speaking about woman’s suffrage, which has become a burning political question in England. All along the people and the press are giving greater support to the suffragettes who have the courage to brave the horrors of the London prison, and there become acquainted with the distress of the poor, the destitute, and the helpless.

During the last three or four years of the activity of the suffragettes a great number of woman’s suffrage organizations were founded: The Woman’s Freedom League (Mrs. Despard), The Men’s League for Woman’s Suffrage, The Artists’ Suffrage League, The Conservative and Unionist Women’s Franchise Association, The Actresses’ Franchise League, The Writers’ League, etc. Scotland and Ireland have their own woman’s suffrage associations.

In opposition there have been formed the National Women’s Antisuffrage Association and a Men’s League for Opposing Woman’s Suffrage (those are supported chiefly by the aristocratic circles). They declare that woman does not need the right to vote since she exercises an “enormous indirect influence”; that woman does not wish the right to vote; that her subordination is based on natural law since brute force rules the world; woman’s suffrage would result in England’s destruction, if a majority of women voters (England has a majority of women) were permitted to decide questions concerning the army and navy.

The leader of the suffragettes, Mrs. Fawcett, recently established the fact that the newly formed Association has a considerably smaller number of prominent names among its members than the organization formed two years ago, which soon came to an inglorious end. She emphasized the fact that the two important women, who at that time still favored the antisuffrage movement,—Mrs. Louise Creighton and Mrs. Sidney Webb,—have since gone over to the suffrage advocates. On the occasion of Mrs. Fawcett’s public debate with Mrs. Humphry Ward, the leader of the antisuffragists (in February, 1909), it happened that 235 of those present favored woman’s suffrage and 74 were opposed.

The argument against the brute force statement was treated in three excellent articles in Votes for Women under the title “The Physical Force Fallacy.”[37] The most influential of the English women, together with the women in the industries, the students of both sexes, the workingwomen,—in short, the intellectual and professional women are in favor of the suffragettes; and the woman’s suffrage advocates have “the spiritual certainty” that moves mountains. Let no one believe that the appeals made on the streets, the parades of the women as sandwich-men, or the noisy publicity of their tactics are gladly indulged in by the women. These actions are entirely opposed to woman’s nature. But the women have recognized that these tactics are necessary and they act accordingly because it is their duty. Such movements have always been successful.

Women do not possess the right to vote in parliamentary elections; but, if taxpayers, they can vote in municipal affairs in the whole of Great Britain and Ireland. The married women of England and Wales have a restricted right of suffrage, however: they are “persons” and therefore voters in parochial elections, in the election of poor-law administrators, and of urban and rural district councillors; but they are not regarded as “persons” and are not voters in elections for the borough and county councils. In one single case, in the County of London, by the law of 1900, married women were given almost the same rights as those exercised by married women in Scotland and Ireland.[38] The right of single or married women to hold office (passive suffrage)[39] has prevailed in England and Wales since 1869 in respect to the offices of guardians of the poor, overseers, waywardens, churchwardens,—and since 1870 (Education Act) in respect to school boards.[40] At the very first school elections women were elected, which induced women to have themselves presented also as candidates for the offices of poor-law administrators. In 1875 the first unmarried woman was elected to that office, the first married woman in 1881. In the discharge of their duties in both classes of offices the women have acted admirably. Nevertheless, the reactionary Education Act of June, 1903, took away from the women the right to hold office as members of school boards in the County of London. They can still secure administrative offices by governmental appointment, but no longer by an election. In 1888 were created the county councils for England and Wales; the county councils were at the same time organs for the self-governing municipalities. Since this law, like those of 1869 and 1870, did not specially exclude women from the right to hold office, two women, Mrs. Cobden and Lady Sandhurst, presented themselves as candidates for the office of county councillors of London. They were elected. Thereupon Mrs. Beresford-Hope, whom Lady Sandhurst had defeated, contested the legality of the election. In 1889, the Court of Appeals declared that women were eligible to public office only when this is expressly stated.[41] This decision of the Court, which was in conflict with the English Constitution, also brought about the loss of the right of the women of Scotland and Ireland to hold office as county councillors.

As a result of this judicial decision, when the new Local Self-government Act for England and Wales was enacted (1894), it was necessary expressly to state the eligibility of women (unmarried and married) to hold the minor local offices (parish, urban, rural district councillors, poor-law guardians, etc.). Article 22, however (in spite of historical precedents), excluded women from the office of justice of the peace. In 1894 the same thing occurred in Scotland, and in 1898 in Ireland.

In 1899, the attempt to secure the eligibility of women to the metropolitan borough councils (for London only)[42] failed, owing to the opposition of the House of Lords.

The law of 1907,[43] known as the Qualification of Women Act, grants unmarried women the right to hold office in the borough and county councils (councillor, alderman, mayor). Married women have this right only in the County of London; elsewhere they can merely vote for these officers.[44] On the occasion of the first elections under this act twelve women presented themselves as candidates; six were elected (one as mayor); hitherto the women had been elected only in small places, and then owing to exceptional circumstances. Whoever investigates the struggle of the women to secure their rights in the local government and studies the attitude of the men toward these exceedingly just demands will comprehend the exasperating circumstances under which the women are to-day struggling for the right to vote in the English parliamentary elections. In questions of power and of gaining a livelihood [Macht- und Brotfragen] the nobility of man can really not be depended upon.

The woman’s suffrage movement has led to the consummation of a number of legal reforms: the property laws now legalize the separation of the property of husband and wife[45]; in the United Kingdom the wife administers her own property and disposes of it, and has full control over her earnings. The remainder of the laws regulating marriage are still rather rigorous,—in England at least; the wife has no hereditary right to her husband’s property. If she economizes in the administration of the household, the savings belong to the husband. The wife cannot demand any pay in money for performing her domestic duties; the mere expenses of maintenance are sufficient remuneration, etc. In normal cases the father alone has authority over the children. It is made very difficult for a woman to secure a divorce, etc.[46]

The women that have labored so untiringly in political affairs have very naturally made it a point to promote the educational opportunities of their sex. Since 1870, the elementary school system has been regulated by the school boards, which have introduced obligatory public instruction. In these institutions the boys and girls are segregated (except in the rural districts). On an average there is one male teacher to every three women teachers in these institutions. The secondary schools are private, as in Australia. Hence it was not necessary for the English women to wrest every concession from a reluctant government (as was the case in Germany); but private initiative, combined with the devotion of private individuals, made possible in a few years the full reorganization of England’s institutions of learning for girls. This reorganization began in 1868 and led to the following results: the establishment of higher institutions of learning in all English cities (these are called girls’ public day schools, most of them being day schools. They are governed by committees consisting of the founders, the principals, and the qualified advisers). Latin and mathematics are obligatory studies in the curriculum. The schools are in close relationship with Oxford and Cambridge universities, the universities inspecting the schools and supervising the various examinations (including the examinations of the students upon leaving the schools). In England these schools are for girls only; in Scotland, girls attend similar schools which are coeducational. The number of women teachers is estimated at 8000.

Admission to the universities was secured with difficulty by the women. At first a number of women requested the privilege of attending lectures in the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Since these universities are resident colleges, it was necessary to provide boarding places for women. This was done in 1869 and 1870 in both places, through the work of Miss Emily Davies and Miss Anna Clough. Both of these beginnings developed into the women’s colleges of Girton and Newnham. Since then, St. Margaret’s Hall, Somersville Hall, and Holloway College have been established for women. These institutions correspond to the German philosophical faculties [the colleges of literature and liberal arts in the United States]. An entrance examination is necessary for admission. The course of study is three years. The final examination, called “tripos,” embraces three subjects; it corresponds to the German Oberlehrerexamen,—examinations given to candidates for the position of teachers in the Gymnasiums, the Realgymnasiums, Oberrealgymnasiums, etc. Theology, medicine, and law cannot be studied in these woman’s colleges (any more than in the American woman’s colleges). Part of the teachers live in the woman’s college buildings; part of them belong to the faculties of Oxford and Cambridge. The former are women tutors and professors.

The English colleges for women are maintained by private funds. Many women not wishing to take the “tripos” examination or to become teachers attend the university to acquire a higher education. Others prepare themselves for the degree of Bachelor of Arts, Master of Arts, or Doctor of Philosophy. These examinations are accepted by Oxford and Cambridge universities, but the women are not granted the corresponding titles, because the use of such titles would make the women Fellows of the University, which would entitle them to the use of the university gardens and parks, and to live in one of the colleges. All other universities in England, Scotland, and Ireland, with the exception of Trinity College, Dublin, admit women to all departments, accepting their examinations and granting them academic degrees.

The women’s colleges are centers of sport,—incidentally they possess their own fire department. To arouse an interest in political affairs and to develop facility in speaking, debating clubs have been organized. More than 1300 women have graduated from Cambridge, and more than 1200 from the University of London. When Mary Putnam wished to study medicine in 1868, she had to go to Paris. Jex Blake, who attempted the same thing in Edinburgh in 1869, was driven out by the students. She went to London and was there at first given instruction by the noble Dr. Anstie. As early as 1870 there was formed in London a special School of Medicine for women, to which a hospital for women was later attached, being directed and supported entirely by women physicians. To-day, 553 women doctors are practicing in Great Britain. Of these 538 have expressed themselves in favor of, and 15 against, woman’s suffrage. In England, women were first permitted to take the public examination in dental surgery as late as 1908; while the Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Irish Royal Colleges of Surgeons had admitted them long before. Women can study law in England, but as yet they have not been admitted to the bar. If this privilege were granted to women, they would have to affiliate with the London lawyers’ associations, such as the Inner Temple, the Middle Temple, Gray’s Inn, etc. Members of these organizations must several times a month attend the dinners or banquets of the lawyers. These corporate customs of the English Bar are said to exclude women from the legal profession just as similar customs have excluded them from tutorships and professorships in Oxford and Cambridge.