Keuka College - Kiondaga Yearbook (Keuka Park, NY)

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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

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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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24 THE COLLEGE RECORD. they never have. Should the right of voting be denied the boys on their reaching the age of twenty-one years ? The argument that the illiterate would be predominant is not true. There are one hundred thousand women who have an education to counterbalance twenty thousand illiterate women. conclusion. Therefore, since women are men's equals, since they are taxed without representation, since they have a great effect on politics, and since it is not contrary to or against the Constitu- tion, women be allowed the right to vote. — M. S. Keuka Institute, ipop. Class exercise in argumentation. THE COLLEGE SEAL. r PHE College officers have felt for some time the need of a ■ ■ new seal. The one in use up to this time has not been felt to adequately express the spirit that prevades this institu- tion. Therefore an entirely new seal, both in form and motto, has been adopted, and appears for the first time with this num- ber of The College Record. We hope the device for this new seal has been adopted in a spirit of true prophecy. If it has been so chosen, it means that not only from warm summer breezes of refreshment, and rich sunshine of prosperity shall come grace and growth and beauty, but that every winter gale that twists its branches, and every storm that thunders round its head and strains at its roots, shall only bend it into curves of strength, and send its roots to seek their holding and their nourishment deeper down, to spread their fibres in a soil where neither drouth nor flood can come. The class of 1909, Keuka College, has requested to be allow- ed to present to the College the press for the new seal, and the College wishes to express its pleasure in the spirit of loyalty and helpfulness indicated by this class gift.