Keuka College - Kiondaga Yearbook (Keuka Park, NY)

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22 THE COLLEGE RECORD. merit of our industrial and self-supporting homes. The gov- ernmental stamp of unequality extends to governmental pay, and women receive invariably lower salaries for equal service with men. Avenues for woman's employment are over- crowded ; from sheer necessity they have been forced to fight against prejudice and to invade men's departments. Men can can not, or will, not represent the working- woman. Men repre- sent only the ordinary interests of life, while women would, if the chance were given them, represent the interests of home. Men never have, of their own volition, granted a right to wo- man. It had only been after persistent efforts, on the part of women themselves, that any point has been gained. Take, for instance, the bills concerning woman's right of disposal of her own children and right to her own property. This shows that one class cannot represent another without doing injustice to the class represented. Women should be allowed to vote because debarring them is against the Constitution. The preamble of that noble in- strument declares that, we the people of the State of New York, grateful to Almighty God for our freedom, in order to secure its blessings do establish this Constitution. It will scarcely be denied that women are people. Women are counted in the basis of representation. What absurdity has been made of language, by the use of of words utterly without meaning, so long as women are disfranchised. Of course, the people of New York State did not establish this Constitution — only a portion of them. The opening paragraph of that grand first article of the Con- stitution, which is, in reality, our bill of rights, contains the • words : Section i. No member of this State shall be disfran- chised or deprived of any rights or privileges secured to any citizen, unless by law of the land or judgment of his peers. What does this mean ? Women are members of the United States and of the State in which they live. They have been declared so by the XIV amendment of the National Constitu- tion and by Section 1492 of the United States. Women are Still disfranchised. On what ground? Not by the judgment of their peers— that they never had in any court, nor can the words law of the land be held as disfranchising women, for

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THE COLLEGE RECORD. 2 1 All people are familiar with the great axiom of our govern- ment, Taxation without representation is tyranny. We have been taught that in union there is strength. Have we a true union, have we a representative government when one-half of the people have no voice in it ? Are not women taxed without representation ? When a woman has stock in a business deal she can vote in its direction, why not for her taxes ? There is in this Union State to-day over a billion dol- lars' worth of property owned by women. Ought they to have no vote in the government when they pay taxes ? Women ask that the government mold a constitution for our State consis- tent with its profession ; that our government be no more false to its trust, and that justice be henceforth enthroned as law. Woman should be allowed to vote because of her great in- fluence on politics. Observe what great good woman has done in school betterment in the last twenty-eight years. She has made the schools more sanitary, the teachers more efficient, the methods of instruction better. Even the lowest people de- sire to have their children's condition bettered, therefore if women had a voice in the government they would endeavor to pass law's for their children's betterment. If mothers knew politics better they could instruct their children in politics, thus making the citizens of the next generation better politicians. For years campaign speeches, of different political parties, have been remarkably free from vulgarity. Why ? Because the stump speakers have suddenly become chaste ? No, not at all. But because fully one-half of the listeners have been women. Can you not see in this a prophecy ? When you give women the ballot for a lever they will help you to level up, rather than down, the political status. Ruskin advises us when in doubt to seek great men's opin- ions. One of Plato's wisest sayings is that, in the administra- tion of a State, neither a woman as a woman, or a man as a man, has any special functions, but the gitts are equally dif- fused in both sexes. Woman should be allowed to vote because she would be the w7orking- woman's protection. Ought she not to be protected ? Consider her economic value. The suffrage as a right and a privilege for woman is urged for the protection and advance-

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THE COLLEGE RECORD. 23 the most careful interpreters of the Constitution in Art. i have declared that : These words do not mean a statute passed by the Legislature for the purpose of working wrong. The mean- ing is that no member of this State shall be disfranchised or deprived of any right or privilege, unless the matter shall be adjudged against him upon trial under course of law. By per- mitting all the people of this State, women as well as men, to elect officers who shall make and enact laws under which we must all live, for the first time the actualities of government will coincide with the Constitution. REFUTATION. The argument that women should not vote because they cannot bear arms is useless. Is not the work done by nurses such as Florence Nightingale, in Crimea, and Clara Barton, the founder of the Red Cross Society, equal to the work of the common soldier ? When women have shouldered the musket it has been to as much advantage as when men did. Consider the noble records of women who have enlisted and served as men. Take the services rendered by Jeanne D'Arc, who buckled on her sword and led her countrymen to victory. But America is a peaceful country, and if war should ari.se there are sufficient numbers of men soldiers. It is an absurd argument that it is women's place to stay at home and care for children and home. It would take the wo- man no longer to vote than it does the man. If woman's place is at home, man's is in the field or office. It is said that woman sufferage wilt destroy the homes of the State and obliterate the womanliness of the women. But this is not true. The State will have better homes and better women because it enlarges the sphere of the sex. The ballot will not unsex woman, because the constitution of women, physical and men- tal, is governed by a law as old as the universe. Women will be women, with or without ballot. The theory that not all women desire to vote is preposterous. It is not compulsory that all men vote. Why should the law be different for women ? It is a foolish argument that women should not vote because