South High School - Tiger Yearbook (Minneapolis, MN)

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f4'5T?r7 ' ' f K. ' W1 fl - tears ! fi ' ffflhle . ff f t ' The T1tpe,1e ,,,., T 1.2019 -1 . Q! A.,-17 In 'laik CJ THE HISTORY OF SUFFRAGE BY Mas. DAVID F. SIMPSON UST three hundred years after the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers on these shores, their ideal of complete political liberty was realized, and the women, as well as the men, of this Republic became self-governing. Doubtless they would have stood aghast if they could have seen the logical con-- clusion of their great idea, for all the world at that time held the subjection of women to be a natural and righteous thing. The suffrage parades used to carry a banner truly inscribed, This comes of teaching girls to readf' The cry of Votes for Women rose with the entrance of girls into the schools equally with boys, and grew insistent when women began to enter college. There was no organized movement for suffrage until 18-1-8. Then a convention, officered by men, and presided over by men, but led and inspired by two women, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, was held at Seneca Falls, N. Y. Lucretia Mott was a Quakeress, as was the great leader who succeeded her in 1852, Susan B. Anthony. This school teacher from Massachusetts, first presented to congress, in 1878, the suffrage amendment known as the Susan B. Anthony Amendment, and it was presented regularly every year until 1919,'when it be- came the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution. Patriotically abandoning all efforts for suffrage during the Civil War, the suffragists saw at its close the ignorant negro enfranchised, and their own claims to the vote ignored. In 1869 the territory of Wyoming adopted a constitution with suffrage for women as a part of it, and her men refused to enter the Union in 1890 unless that part of their constitution was retained. Three years later Colorado granted women suffrage, and in 1896 Utah and Idaho did the same. Then, as if fearful that they had exceeded the speed limit, there were no more suffrage 'victories until Washington had one in 1910. In quick succession followed California, Kansas, Oregon, Arizona, Alaska, Montana, and Nevada. Illinois, prevented by her constitution from granting full suffrage, gave women the right to vote for all except state officers in 1913. Theodore Roosevelt at the head of the Progressive Party in 1912 made his campaign with a woman suffrage plank in his platform. Familiarity bred confidence, not contempt, for suffrage. States were converted by contact with suffrage states. Recognizing this, the suffragists put on campaigns in 1915 in four Eastern states-New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Massa- chusetts-and were overwhelmingly defeated in them all. That year Carrie Chapman Catt succeeded Anna Howard Shaw as the National president, andlto the educational work of the Association was added organization under this truly wonderful leader. Every state, and nearly every county in the country had its suffrage organization working with the National. Team work always wins. In 1917 there was a suffrage victory in New York, almost as overwhelming as had been the defeat two years before. Page 9

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,.w5,, - it ,-f af if ff , aria . The T1 er, .K ' - Q ii' WOMEN AND THE ELECTION OF 1920 BY GOVERNOR J. A. 0. PREUS O tribute which I can pay to the women voters of Minnesota will be adequate. So much of reverence for women is inborn in the minds of American men that the discussion of the woman voter is necessarily tinctured with sentiment. At the election on November 2nd, the fundamental principles on which our country was founded were an issue. The voters met the issue and decided that the constitutional basis of our country and our homes, namely, life, liberty, and the right of private property, shall be retained. In considering the questions sub- mitted, the women did so sincerely. They studied the problems before them, studied them intelligently, carefully and at great length. As a result, their vote reflected an unusually mature judgment. The thoughtful attention given by the newly franchised voters, both to state and national questions, the work which they did in the interests of the party whose cause they espoused, and their numerical strength at the polls, all demonstrated that the women of Minnesota will use the right of suffrage honestly and con- scientiously. THE NEW NATIONAL HOUSEKEEPER BY MRS. FRANK M. WARREN HE year 1920 will be marked as a new year of achievement, not only in the history of our own country, but in the history of the world. Years of constant, per- severing work on the part of the women of the nation finally brought about the adoption of the two most important amendments to our constitution, the prohibition and the suffrage amendments. The political campaign of this year of 1920 will be remembered because of the spirit of achievement which showed itself so clearly in the splendid optimism of the new citizen. She rightly defined politics as the science of government and seriously regarded the new privilege as a duty. This attitude on the part of the new citizen brought about a revival of political education and of the study of civil government, which is one of the out-standing results of the recent enfranchisement of women. The extension of the suffrage has qualities which have distinguished women as home-makers. The new voter feels that her home-making and housekeeping have been extended. All forces that affect her living conditions are now Within her control to be regulated by the ballot. She brings to her national housekeeping, the same appreciation she has always had of the value of the work of the men, fso long her partners in the homel, the same co-operative spirit, the same loyalty to principle, and the same painstaking care of details. These have been her assets in her home-making. Women are naturally conservers, builders of the home and of the nation. Her characteristics are now active, thru the ballot, in the political life of the nation. The war proved woman's capacity to Hcarry on. Political life will test it. Her influence will tell despite the fact that growth in national character and national ideals is slow. Page 8

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, .. t' :iff 1 n . .I-'l,-':4Ie.'.2.-1 V' f' 1 if - The T1 em 1: . 5 1:-.f 'F,'J ,K ' 5 'I' ' I rt 1 1 iw ii 3 N l ' L 5 Q fd X 3' 4 f f f. -. 'fliiig 7 q s . , 1 X ' 3112. :ir it tr s , , r 4, O 'rife- The same year Alice Paul led a group of women, copying the English methods, and picketed the White House. The following year Oklahoma, South Dakota and Michigan joined the suffrage ranks, and 19,000,000 women had political equality with men. The same year the House of Representatives passed the Susan B. Anthony Amendment, but Congress adjourned without the Senate concurring. All the efforts of the suffragists were now bent on passing this amendment. In lVlay, 1919, the House again passed the Amendment by the required two-thirds majority, and June 4th the Senate did the same. The suffragists succeeded in forcing twenty-nine special sessions of the legislatures to ratify, and in August, 1920, Tennessee, the necessary thirty-sixth state, ratified, and women were enfranchised. For seventy-two years many women had sacrificed time, energy, money, health, even life itself for this cause. The time was a brief one in which to accomplish so great a revolution. Their reliance was on the Might of Right, and their only arms were arguments. In this they set an example for all future revolutions to follow. WHY WOMEN SOUGHT THE VOTE BY DR. ETHEL EDGERTON HURD T is difficult for the young people of to-day to appreciate the conditions under which women lived previous to the awakening of a few, and the beginning of the long struggle for the ballot which has only just ended. Men have always been better than the laws they made, else the lives of most women would have been miserable indeed. The law gave women no property rights at all. If a young woman inherited from her father any sum of money or any real estate or other property, as soon as she pronounced the 1 will of the marriage ceremony, it all became the property of her husband, the law gave him full charge of it, and her consent to its use or disposal was not required. From that moment he had also full control of her, he owned even the clothes she wore, he could whip her if he used a whip NO larger than his thumbw, he could dictate all purchases for the use and wear of the family, just what should be served at meals, and if he chose, just how it should be cooked, he had absolute control of the children in every way-their dress, their education, everything pertaining to their growth, he could will them away so she had no control of them even after his death. She had the use after his death of one-third of his property, provided he died without a will, but she could not make a will, so at her death all property went to the children or to his people in case there were no children. A woman was not thought capable of mastering a liberal education, if she had the very elements of mathematics, and could read and write she was considered highly educated for a woman, to this must be added music and dancing at some finishing school or Female Seminary, for the more wealthy. Anything more than Page 10