South High School - Tiger Yearbook (Minneapolis, MN)

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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

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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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-, 1 Q v, K- ' 1J V'h,if -x I' P J .. 1 'N ' i e! Qs The T1 QP 'ig N this was considered inelegant, indelicate, and showed great lack of refinement. No colleges were open for woman, and if she did read and broaden her mind, she was called a Blue stockingf, Certain popular letters of a clergyman to young women and girls advised in this tone: Do not appear strong either in mind or body, delicacy and dependence upon man's strength is requisite in woman -and much more of the same nature that to-day seems absolutely silly, but was then written in good faith for the upbuilding of womanhood. No woman dared speak from the platform or pulpit. The great suffrage leader, Susan B. Anthony, being a teacher, dared to rise at a teachers' meeting to make a remarkg it was shocking, and she became in consequence almost an outcast among teachers. STUDENT VIEWS ON SUFFRAGE THEIR JUST DESERT HE women have made such an advance that they will not backslide. In many instances, women have given more thought to better community life than some of our most noted men. Women are more interested in children, also. Now that these mothers have equal rights, I think they will help check the crime which is participated in chiefly by men and boys from the ages of fourteen to twenty-five years. When suffrage is considered in a broad sense, women have justly earned what they received. JOSEPH MUNSEN. SUFFRAGE AS SALVATION No one can long endure routine. This is what home making becomes if no foreign interest is introduced. Suffrage will lift women out of the mire of disinterest, selfishness, and laziness. Men have long complained that woman has made her recreation card playing, tea drinking, and keeping up with Mrs. Jones , yet when women attempt to change this condition by creating another and higher diversion, they object. Nothing will so sharpen woman's intellect. She will become a better companion of her husband, for both will have something in common outside of home and friends. Women will come to understand their husbands. Voting takes little time and is an infrequent occurrence. CHARLOTTE WINGET. SUFFRAGE AND DIVORCE No, women do not neglect their homes to vote, or to attempt political meetings any more than does the man who attends his clubs and political meetings. It is certainly more educational for the women to take part in politics than to go to bridge parties and matinees. The statement that the number of divorces would increase is unsound. ln Colo- rado, before equal suffrage was granted, the average number of divorces per year was 937. For three years following the bestowal of equal suffrage, the average number of divorces was 517. ALMA SMITH. Page I I