CHAPTER XXIX

D.The maternity claim.Some emotional women have actually made claim to the franchise based upon the merits and dangers of maternity. This is mere nonsense. If women are not competent to vote on public affairs, their votes will be injurious to the republic; and they cannot be permitted to do themselves and others an injury merely because they have borne children. It is not enough to mean well; the female turkey means well by her chickens but she will often clumsily trample them to death if not prevented. To bear children is natural to women and is its own great reward; it is dangerous, but no more so than going to sea, and it is not proposed to give the vote to sailors to recompense them for their risk. The suffrage is not a reward; it is a function and a trust.

E.That women have interests separate from that of men.This is an absurd proposition. The social and family ties and obligations of the sexes and their interests in public matters are identical. The very existence of a woman implies the care and devotion of a father, and also the ties of family interest, family life and family love, all of which are male as well as female. The sex difference is not as other differences are, a separating influence; it is a unifying impulse;it not only unites but fuses the subjects of its action. In almost all instances the prizes achieved by the individual man, riches, ambitions, and all the rest are shared to the utmost with his women. On the other hand women never think of sharing their lives or their incomes with strangers of their sex, but always with those of their own family and blood, males as well as females, the preference if any being to the males. But though under the present system the interests of men and women are made as far as possible identical, the tendency of feminism is to separate them, with a prospect of very ill results for women.

F.Man’s alleged unfairness to women.To those who have not suffered the annoyance of having to read suffragist literature, it will seem almost incredible that even the most unscrupulous of its purveyors would accuse men of general unfairness to women. Nevertheless, they have done so repeatedly and the charge must therefore be noticed. Indeed it is well that it should be given prominence, so that people may realize the offensive character of some of the incidents of the suffrage movement. Women should always realize that they owe all they are and have to the generosity, love, foresight and ability of men. Most of the harridans and termagants, who in the suffrage agitation have displayed themselves as slanderers and insulters of men, were born and raised in houses built by men, fed and clad with material furnished by men, educated by books written by men, attended schools and colleges founded and maintained by men, or with money earned by men, are cared for by male physicians, and are now either living on the income of money amassed by men, or are employed by men, from whom they receive the salaries and instructions necessary to enable them to earn a living.

G.That women’s wages in factories and stores are too low and should be higher.No voting or legislation can permanently augment the income or comforts of any class of people, or increase women’s wages with any good effect. All wages seem low to the recipient and high to the employer. Increasedwages usually produce higher rent and higher cost of living; the increased cost of living makes marriage and home life more difficult, and from this women as well as men ultimately suffer. If women generally really believe that their incomes can be increased by voting and legislation, that of itself proves their total unfitness to meddle in government. But suppose that it were possible by legislation to materially increase the wages of factory women and store girls, what would be the ultimate result to the community? A large increase in the number of women taken out of households and put into stores and factory life. No intelligent person believes that this change would really be to the advantage of women as a class, nor doubts that it would be the result of artificially advancing wages of such women above their natural level.

H.That women should be consulted on new legislation affecting marital relations.No such legislation is needed. The marriage status of a couple is not to be regulated by law; it is controlled by social usage, by religion and by sentiment. The only really important legal provision is one dictated by nature and by custom, namely that the husband must support the family. This requirement necessarily involves the right of the husband to seek and select his own vocation, and to choose the style and place of family residence. None of these arrangements can be materially modified without breaking up the family and the state. That to destroy the family and the state is the tendency of the feminist movement no thinking man can doubt.

Some of the suffragist agitators, pretending to be moved by a sentimental tenderness for the feelings of mothers, demand that the law be changed so as to give the guardianship of children to the mother in case of separation of parents. The law as it stands rightly provides that the interests of the child in each particular case, and not the whims or desires of the parents, are to be considered as paramount in settling that matter. This is man-made law, and is much more humane and just than anything the suffragists have ever suggested.

J.That women have special capacity for municipal government because it resembles housekeeping.This argument is an unfortunate one for the suffragists, for if there is one art in which most of them are notoriously inefficient it is in housekeeping. But municipal government is a matter of administrative detail; of business methods combined with highly developed specialized, practical science, and not at all like housekeeping. As President Lowell says, “The City Government is essentially an administrative, not a legislative concern.” It is not, therefore, a fit subject for political twaddle and sentimental vaporings such as the suffragists revel in. Nor should city officials be elected by the people under any system of suffrage. They should be appointive and not elective officials; carefully chosen experts; competent to deal with matters of public health, protection against fire, liquor regulation, water supply, disposal of sewage, cleaning and maintenance of streets and bridges, wires and pipes in streets, public lighting, ferries, rapid transit, erection and maintenance of public buildings, wharves and docks, public education, treatment of disease, pauperism and crime, besides the levying assessment and collection of taxes and the financing of thousands and even millions of dollars yearly. Yet suffragists talk of “housekeeping” in cities as if it were a matter of dusting the parlor furniture and laying the table for dinner. How many of them are capable of planning for the water supply, and the disposal of the sewage of a great city, for instance? Here are matters which require to be dealt with by men of practical knowledge and force of character, and who have the wisdom derived from actual experience in finance, engineering, sanitation, medicine, surgery, pedagogics and law. To say that women as a class are equal or any way near equal to men in knowledge of these subjects or capacity to deal with them is absurd.

K.That many women have property of their own.The point of this argument lies in the question, why not a property qualification for women as well as for men? The answer is, that as already stated in this volume, the vote is not given tothe property but to the property plus the human owner, with his added endowment of experience acquired in its acquisition and care. It is proposed to limit the franchise to this class of men, as on the whole best fitted to exercise it for the benefit of the state. In the case of women, the mere possession of property does not, as in the case of men, carry with it a general presumption of business experience and ability. The class of women who own property are, no doubt, better voting material than the propertyless women; but, as a class, they have had far less business and political training than the propertied men. The great majority of propertied women are so merely by inheritance; and are but little more informed in business matters than their servants. Their tastes and predilections do not as a rule extend beyond dress, society, music and household matters. Not having themselves accumulated property, they do not understand property or business rights, and their temperaments and circumstances forbid that they shall ever understand them. Women passengers at sea have property and precious lives to be protected, yet they are never allowed even in danger to interfere in the management of the ship. Nor do individual or exceptional cases matter. Legislation must be made to fit classes, not individuals, and therefore references to George Eliot and Mme. Curie are unconvincing. Alexander Hamilton at eighteen was probably better qualified to vote than many actual voters, but that was no reason for changing the law so as to allow youths to vote. A whole class of incompetents must not be let in merely to get a few intelligent votes. The mere fact that so many women are willing that this should be done, proclaims a condition of egotistic stupidity and a lack of patriotism which is appalling. Propertied women should be content to let the propertied men vote for them for a reason similar to that which requires any one of them to give way to a physician’s orders in the case of a sick child.

WOMAN SUFFRAGE IN PRACTICE

Inthe year 1918 women were first granted complete suffrage by the great State of New York. The result has not been such as to surprise any thinking man, but it must have astonished the many credulous ones who expected political progress and reform from the fair hands of women, for it has been merely to strengthen the power of the bosses and political rings everywhere throughout the state. In New York City, where the dominant political machine is the Tammany Democratic organization, the Tammany vote which in 1917 under manhood suffrage was 314,000 sprang in 1918 to 547,000 and the Tammany majority was increased by over 100,000, reaching the high figure of 258,000. Fools build houses and wise men live in them. The female suffrage edifice, so toilfully erected day by day for the past fifty years by the feverish and ambitious hands of shrill-voiced lady agitators, is now occupied by the Tammany Ring, composed of hard-headed and experienced men. When they vacate the premises it will be to give place to a rival machine. True, it is, that women are now received into the political party fold; but as servants, not as masters. There is a female organization attachment, but it is strictly of the old orthodox Tammany brand; the vociferous new women are sent to the rear, their voices must not be too loud, there is no place in party ranks for skirted faddists, nor for women who want to lead in a “cause” or “movement.” Silence and discipline are the rules in machine organizations. Tammany and the New York Republican organization have had published a list of female associate leaders for each assembly district, about thirty-five in all. The names of great female uplifters, theleaders, as they foolishly thought themselves, are absent from these rolls, where may be read the names of those whose husbands and brothers will carefully transmit to them the orders from headquarters. Thus ends the pipe dream of the suffragette “leaders” that they would some day walk in, and take possession of the comfortable seats of the mighty. The arrogant conceit of a bunch of foolish women, who imagined themselves to be all-conquering, has received its quietus, and let us be grateful accordingly. Far better submit to the plunderings of the old rings, than to suffer from the antics and Bolshevism of the socialist suffragette combination.

Passing New York, where the evil results of woman suffrage are only just beginning to show themselves, let us look at Colorado, where it was adopted in 1892. In 1908 Helen Sumner went to that State to investigate the results of fifteen years of female voting. She was favorable to the cause and her inquisition was backed by women. The results were published by her in a book where she plainly endeavors to be impartial, notwithstanding her evident suffragette affiliations. In the hope of learning something of the moral effect of the franchise, she made thousands of inquiries, without eliciting anything favorable, except that voting made women take more interest in politics than before. Miss Sumner considered this an advantage and she puts it thus:

“Thousands vote; and to every one of these thousands the ballot means a little broadening in the outlook, a little glimpse of wider interest than pots and kettles, trivial scandal and bridge whist.” ... “A closer companionship and understanding between men and women.”

And so the government of the country must be entrusted to people whose chief interests in life are pots and kettles, scandal, and bridge whist. “Poor things,” muses Miss Sumner, “they are so lonesome, and they take no interest in cooking; let them vote, it will divert their minds.” Apparently she has no pity for the poor men folk, who must pay in high taxes and indigestion the price of this diversion. Butwhy stop at this point; the merely going to vote will only give a woman a temporary jolt, scarcely equal to matching a ribbon at the store; why not give her something more exciting; why not pass a law permitting all women to practise medicine or to drive a locomotive, or to shoe horses? Only a comparatively few would suffer, and it would give the dear women “a little glimpse of wider interest.” Or to be fair to both sexes, why not let schoolboys vote; they too might like interesting “glimpses”; and they would thus become accustomed to talk politics with mamma and sister; never mind the harm to the country, it is big and long suffering. Now, when we consider that Miss Sumner is probably a very superior woman, and that as this extract shows, she has no idea whatever of the significance or dignity of the franchise, we may judge how far her less developed sisters are from being qualified for the exercise of the vote.

Let us consider for a moment what kind of “glimpses of interest and companionship” the Colorado women get by going into politics. Miss Sumner’s inquiries did not lead her to believe that woman’s morals were injured, or her affairs neglected as a consequence of the mere act of voting. Perhaps not; that large class of either very docile or shrewd women, who march to the polls with husband or father, vote as he directs, and quickly return with him, cannot be said to have suffered much direct harm in the process; nor indeed on the other hand to have got many “glimpses of wider interest.” And yet, what of the indirect results? Is it degrading or not to act a lie publicly and solemnly, to deliberately trifle with country and conscience, as one does by voting for people of whom he knows nothing, and for legislation which he does not thoroughly understand? Is it nothing to trifle with a weighty obligation? When a citizen goes to the polls and votes, does he, or does he not, in effect represent and declare, before God and his country, that he has investigated the matter, and that his ballot represents his solemn and true conviction? And if that declaration be false, if he has no solemnor true conviction on the subject, is he, or is he not, acting the part of a perjured rascal and traitor, and can his conscience pass through that ordeal unscathed? Here is food for thought for many a male voter and for nearly all the female voters.

Miss Sumner learned out there, some interesting particulars of the “broadening in the outlook” and the new “companionship” which Colorado women get from exercising the suffrage; and the experience must have astonished some of the decent ones among them till they got used to it. Her book fairly reeks with the tainted atmosphere of female corruption; the whole woman’s movement there was steeped in moral filth. Here are her own words (p. 258):

“Politics in Colorado are at least as corrupt as in other states, and the woman of ideals who goes into political life for reform soon finds, not merely that she is working in the mire, but that she ispersona non gratawith the habitual denizens of the mire and with those persons who profit by its existence.”

Among the first fruits of woman suffrage in Colorado seems to have been the development of a big batch of female criminals. In Arapahoe County in 1900 there were 5284 fraudulent registrations of voters of which 3512 were men and 1772 women. Seventeen hundred female criminals in one county! There must have been a considerable “broadening in the outlook” for women theretofore accustomed to decent homes; and a “closer companionship” with rogues, and understanding of their devices was no doubt arrived at. In fact Colorado has been said to be the most corrupt electorate in the United States. Of its effects there United States Judge Hailett, a resident of the state, said, “if it were to be done over again the people of Colorado would defeat woman suffrage by an overwhelming majority.” It stands because politicians are cowards and unscrupulous, and Colorado like other states is ruled by politicians. It has increased political corruption in the state. In 1905 about thirty men were sent to jail in Denver and fined, and in Pueblo there were 257 indictments, all for electionfrauds. It has not diminished political rowdyism. In an article in theOutlookin January 1906, Lawrence Lewis, who studied the subject for several years in Colorado, says that since woman suffrage went into effect, there has been a continuation of the former frauds, drunkenness, fights and arrests for crimes. Referring to the notorious election knaveries committed by both parties in November 1904, the second year of female voting, he says:

“In Denver neither in November 1904 nor for twenty years has there been an election that decent citizens of either party would unhesitatingly assert was anywhere near on the square.”

He further says, that in the cities such as Denver, Pueblo, etc., a great number of fallen women vote under the control of the bosses, often under compulsion.

“It is safe to say that under ordinary conditions and under ordinary police administration, ninety per cent of the fallen women in our cities are compelled to register and to vote at least once for the candidates favored by the police or sheriff officers. But in ordinary times these women are also compelled to repeat.... A former city detective or fine collector in Pueblo has been tried, convicted and sentenced to a term of years in the penitentiary for compelling an unfortunate woman to repeat her registration. He is under further indictments for compelling the same woman to forge fictitious names by the hundreds to district registration sheets, all of which names were to be voted on election day by other fallen women from whom the fellow collected fines.”

Other similar instances are given by the writer in this same article. And he adds that:

“It would indeed appear that the average character of the actual voting body has either remained unchanged or has been slightly lowered as regards actual political intelligence and discrimination.”

Also this:

“We have practically (in Colorado) all the forms of graft and misgovernment found elsewhere. Woman’s suffrage seems to havebeen neither a preventive, an alleviator, nor a cure for any of our political ills.”

Only about one-third of the Colorado women actually vote, and a great many of them flatly and indignantly refuse to do so. Referring to an election in Colorado, 1910, Miss Seawell says:

“At the election in May, 1910, the sale of women’s votes was open and shameless. At each of the 211 voting precincts in Denver, there were four women working in the interests of the saloon-keepers. These women had previously visited the headquarters of the saloon-keepers and openly accepted each a ten dollar bill for her services. In this and other ways Mr. Barry says he saw about $17,000 paid to women voters, who apparently made no effort to conceal it, as indeed it would have been useless.... Such wholesale corruption has probably never been approximated in any city in the United States.”

Robert H. Fuller says that:

“Some of the worst election frauds ever perpetrated in this country marked the Colorado election of 1904. The character and average intelligence of the voting population, as a whole, have not improved in the states where women vote; there has been no improvement in the fitness or capacity of the elected public officials.” (Government by the People.)

Miss Seawell says that in the election case ofBonyngevs.Shafroth, in the First Congressional District of Colorado, containing the City of Denver (Second Session of the Fifty-eighth Congress, H. R. reportNo. 2705), it appeared that out of 9000 ballots in the boxes there were 6000 fraudulent ones which had been prepared by three men and by one woman. One woman poll clerk voted three times; forgeries were committed by the women; two women arranged to have a fight started so as to distract the attention of the watchers at the polls, while a third woman stuffed the ballot-boxes. Because of this exposure, Shafroth resigned.

Moral stimulus there certainly could be none in contact withthis fraud organization which goes by the name of politics in Colorado. Of mental stimulus and “broadening in the outlook” thus to be miraculously achieved by the mere process of selecting one out of two scamps for public office, Miss Sumner was reluctantly compelled to admit, that after all in actual result she found but little. Few people were able to give her any clear reason why they favored woman suffrage nor why they opposed it. It seems likely that all the mental stimulus the Colorado women ever got by entering the mire of politics, they could have obtained at less expense to their delicacy and good manners, by taking part in church fairs, golfing, gardening, playing base-ball, walking, lawn tennis, singing schools, literary societies, spelling bees, horseback riding or dancing. And if some of the precious creatures must at any rate be kept amused while the rest of us work, it would be less expensive to the state to provide these amusements at state charge than to permit them to divert their minds by playing with our national welfare, and using poor old Uncle Sam as the object on which to try their various experiments in political quackery.

Glancing over the New YorkEvening Postof August 27, 1919, the writer was interested to read that a young lady politician, convicted in 1916 of a murder during a political quarrel at Thompson Falls, the victim being one Thomas, also a politician, had been paroled from the Montana State Penitentiary. It is reassuring to know that a suffragette murderess actually risks three years confinement (softened no doubt by sympathy) in Montana, the first woman suffrage state, and the one who gave us our first lady “congressman.”

The plain truth is, that the entry of women into politics has brought no promise to the American people of any practical help in any of their real problems. The whole movement bears the stamp of crudeness and mediocrity. Its ideals and operations have been low and its leaders lacking in every quality of greatness. Part of its success is no doubt due to the love of novelty, and the inability in most minds todistinguish what is really progress from what is merely blind or foolish experiment. To many superficial people there is a fascination attached to everything which smacks of revolution; because in the past an occasional revolt has been justified, they think it is heroic and noble to take part in any political rumpus. But nothing either noble or heroic was ever in or behind the woman suffrage movement, or has ever come out of it. The really great political agitations have all produced something worth while, in orators, leaders or authorship; see, for example, the chronicles of the American Revolution or the abolition movement; even the French Revolution, in its compass from Rousseau to Napoleon, evolved some greatness to offset the mass of rubbish and infamy which it vomited forth. Its political incapables though unfit for any good constructive work were at least able to talk and write with effect; they drew attractive political pictures and proposals, and could promise and speculate in a way to arouse interest. Not so the suffragists. Among political agitators they stand supreme for dullness and stupidity. Looking at their literature one is immediately struck by its cheapness, by its utter lack of noble and patriotic sentiments, by the lack of appeal to broad and elevating motives. We have had thousands of suffragist speeches, and tons of printed literature, and after all, what have they or what has their movement offered to the nation or to the world? Nothing, absolutely nothing. The movement has not produced one idea worthy of the consideration of a well-educated and sensible man; it has apparently been motived by vanity, love of notoriety and power, and characterized by hysteria; the proposals advanced have been pilfered from socialists and other fanatics; the oratory and literature of the suffragists is characterized by flippant insincerity and unscrupulousness; progressive legislation in which they had no perceptible part is boldly claimed as their work; their leaders often display dense ignorance of the political history of the country, and a sad lack of capacity to understand sound political principles or to sympathize withanything beyond the popular smartness of the hour. The personnel of their leaders has been commonplace and uninteresting. Some of them have been sincere fanatics; most of them are political adventuresses. Dr. C. L. Dana says of the movement: “It is adopted as a kind of religion, a holy cult of self and sex, expressed by a passion to get what they want. There is no program, no promise, only ecstatic assertions that they ought to have it and must have it, and of the wonders that will follow its possession.... Measured by fair rules of intelligence testing, I should say that the average zealot in the cause has about the mental age of eleven.” (Letter to Miss Chittenden.) During the war with Germany the patriotism of many of the leaders was doubtful, and their associates suspicious. And during the progress of the whole agitation, there has been no suggestion of any effort to be made by those women or their followers to stop political graft or corruption, or to raise the standard of politics or of legislation. They have had the vote at two annual elections in the great state of New York; what do they offer there? Nothing. Who are their standard bearers and who has benefited by their vote? The most notorious boss and the most noted and powerful political machine in the world.

The strongest proof, however, of the utter unworthiness of the cause of female suffrage and the meanness of its motives is furnished by the public declarations of its female advocates. Many of these addresses are flavored with half contemptuous, half vicious and altogether impudent and vile sneers at men, and assertions of masculine inferiority, which could not have been readily displayed but by those familiar with households whose men habitually receive at home but scant respect. Those scoffs at men are accompanied by a great show of half hysterical, all gushing, admiration for the mystic excellences of contemporary women, and of contempt for those of the last generation; in fact these female reform leaders usually assume a top-lofty attitude of disdain for our ancestors generally, their work and their ideals. Each of them is of coursefilled with wonder at her own superior wisdom. One cannot help suspecting that most of this display of crudity and egotism is due to the fact that much of the suffragist work was done by newly fledged graduates of female colleges, where uppish young women, largely of the type who dislike home duties, or sometimes it is feared work of any kind, are sent by their parents either to get rid of them for a while, or because it is the thing to do, or to fit them for teaching. As from the college president down, nothing of actual life is known, or ever was known, within the college walls, where everything needed, buildings, endowments, salaries, books, instruments and sustenance, is provided by someone else, one can readily imagine the quality of the stuff expounded in these places under the pretence of instruction in sociology, politics and economics, and greedily swallowed by the extremely silly and conceited undergraduates. On leaving college, the best or most fortunate of these girls, aided by good luck or guided by wise parents, go to work at some useful occupation, and begin to get real lessons in life followed usually by still higher instruction as wives and mothers later on. Of the lazy, rattle-brained, and otherwise good for nothing, a certain percentage find their way every year into the field of female suffrage agitation. Some scraps of knowledge they have picked up in the class-room, the value of which they enormously exaggerate in their own minds, and give themselves intellectual airs in consequence. Many of them lack sense or judgment sufficient to enable them to appreciate the immense importance of the business world, the great mental capacity required in dealing with problems of commerce, manufacturing and finance, and feel a certain contempt for business people who take no part in the literary and artistic patter of the day, or who lack taste for trashy new poetry and rubbishy modern novels. The participation of this class in the “movement” is prompted partly by morbid desire to associate with men; and partly by vanity and a longing for notoriety, and for opportunity to display their own imagined powers. Fools, being afraid of no social orpolitical problems, walk in where angels fear to tread; and it is no unusual thing to see charming and prudent women reduced to meek silence by these female blatherskites, with their irrelevant harangues about primitive men, cave dwellers, man-made law, dual-sexed insects and female spiders who devour their mates. If the reader doubts that such have been of the class of female suffrage deliverances it will be because he has been fortunate enough not to have heard many of them.

Part of the success of the woman suffrage agitation is due to the use of money. Just as the accumulations of the rich are often poured by their sons into channels of profligate folly, so by their widows and daughters they are often turned into ditches of political folly. In countries like England and the United States, where large and small fortunes are constantly being accumulated by hard-working men, and large portions thereof bequeathed to female relatives, there will always be found a certain proportion of the latter who lack the wisdom to properly use their surplus cash; some waste it shamefully; some lose it to sharpers; some bestow it upon worthless and sham benevolences; some squander it to gain notoriety. One can scarcely imagine any “cause” or “movement” so absurd that, people cannot be found to believe in it, or to pretend to do so, and to subscribe to it if properly approached and tempted by visions of celebrity. For the woman suffrage agitation sums aggregating very considerable have been thus secured in England and America. With this cash a number of poorer women can be employed to do propaganda work and to perpetrate acts of lawlessness. In England they assaulted cabinet officials and others; they used dynamite, they smashed windows, they broke up public meetings by violence, they practised rowdyism and blackguardism, they attempted even murder. Here, they have allied themselves with anarchists and socialists, enemies of the republic; they have lawlessly interrupted public meetings; they publicly affronted the President at the Arlington Hotel on April 15th, 1910, a thing never before done in the history of the country; and they subsequently insulted another President, by picketing the White House in an offensive manner for weeks together. They justify this by saying that they were in earnest, and ready to suffer for the cause; and the same has been said by other fanatical criminals. Their course has been such as would have discredited even a good cause in any field but that of politics, where vile and dastardly methods are customary and considered appropriate.

Up to a few years ago the politicians were accustomed to ridicule the woman suffrage agitation, and for years made it a standing joke at the various state capitols; thus it was formerly the well known practice of the New York state legislators to deceive and humbug the woman suffrage managers by passing one of their measures in one house, with the understanding that it would be defeated in the other. But as soon as the movement began to make real headway, the politicians began to favor it, seeing the chance of advantage to themselves from that course. The only opinion those gentry fear or respect is that backed by organized force or easy money. The suffragists organized and raised immense amounts of cash; their opponents failed to do either and almost ignored the movement. Now, reasoned the politicians, should the suffrage proposals fail nothing will be lost by having supported them; and should they succeed we will have a still more credulous, corrupt and easily managed constituency than before, and may hope for the gratitude and friendship of the suffrage leaders. And now that in sixteen states women have the vote, the politicians on both sides strongly favor woman suffrage, and are one and all ready to swear everlasting devotion to the cause of woman. The presidential aspirants dare no longer oppose it. So that judging the future by the past, the cause of woman suffrage has a fair chance of winning in all or most of the states of the Union. It certainly will do so unless there be a strong organized effort to defeat its progress, of which at present no signs are visible. In the political world the most powerful forces are money and fanaticism. The effectof money is familiar to us all every day. The effect of fanaticism is equally familiar to readers of history. It produced the Mohammedan Empire, the Crusades, and the Spanish Inquisition, and assisted in the downfall of Spain; it furthered the Mormon political sway; the violent abolition of slavery; the prohibition movement; the woman suffrage agitation and Bolshevism. That female suffrage is the last important step in the downward march of the American democracy is the belief of the writer of this book. If at this point the reaction does not begin, the democratic régime in this country is doomed to final failure, and even to possible overthrow at the hands of red radicalism.

A PROPERLY QUALIFIED ELECTORATE WILL REMOVE THE CAUSES OF THE PREVALENT POPULAR DISSATISFACTION AND SERVE AS A DEFENSE AGAINST THE PRESENT MENACE OF BOLSHEVISM.

Theinstitution of unlimited suffrage is favorable to the various radical, anti-social movements which for convenience sake may here be conjointly designated as Bolshevism. It is thus favorable in three important particulars, one being a matter of principle and the two others matters of practice. The error in principle is the adoption of the theory of numbers as the sole source of political authority, in direct disregard of the just claims of property and property rights, and resultingly to the detriment of efficiency, justice and civilization. That the scheme of government by mere numbers is Bolshevik in character is plain enough. It had its origin in the French Terror which was a Bolshevik regime. It accords no direct representation or place in government to property or the rights of property; which are left to take their chance in the shuffle of politics. As long as property is deprived of its proper place in the constitution of our government and is denied representation in the electorate, it is an alien, without security for its existence; and only here by sufferance. Bolshevism, which actually deprives private property of all right to exist, goes further than unlimited suffrage which merely ignores it, but both are upon the same track, and move in the same direction. The second particular in which manhood suffrage has favored Bolshevism is by corrupting and degrading the operations of American democracy and bringing into disrepute as has been shown. And third, it has aided Bolshevism by admitting an anti-social element into the electorate and thus decreasing the offensiveand defensive power of the democratic régime, as has also been shown.

And now that we are under the menace of Bolshevism, let us for one moment consider the extent and the character of that menace. It has seized a large part of Russia; it has found a lodging in Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the United States, and threatens every democratic nation where democracy is inefficient. It is an organized and widespread attempt at the destruction of property and of all who own property; of society and civilization and of all who support society and civilization. It is not a new or a momentary phenomenon. Though operating under new names it is as old and persistent as ignorance and brutality. Over five centuries ago it appeared in England in Wat Tyler’s insurrection identical in spirit with the French Revolutionary Terror which from 1789 to 1798 ravaged France and has been the source of nearly all her subsequent misfortunes. By its violent actions and reactions it became the indirect yet certain cause of the despotic rule and constant wars of the time of Napoleon I. and of the Franco-Prussian war of 1870, which left France again almost ruined; and it reappeared in the horrors of the Paris commune in 1871. Let not the reader of moderate means and large selfishness solace himself with the thought that, should it obtain here, though our great capitalists may suffer, he will escape. The finish of capitalists is the end of capital; and the end of capital is the finish of us all. And the reader’s interest in this matter measured by the extent of his personal peril is probably nearly equal to that of any of his richer neighbors. In France in 1793 the Terrorists spared no one who was respectable. The only safety was to go in rags or to join the revolutionary army. People were slain because they were clergymen or nuns; because they were prosperous; because their friends were prosperous; because they were conservative in opinion or well dressed; because they were religious; because they were suspected of any of these things. Some of the Reds of that day were planning to butcher half of France, whenstopped by Napoleon’s timely usurpation. The Bolsheviki of today are if possible more ignorant, cruel, brutal and murderous than the French radicals of a century ago. It is their declared intention to do away with all but the laboring classes, who they say should alone enjoy the fruits of the earth. They repudiate all private property rights, and consider property owners, great and small, as public enemies. The right to own and hold private property is therefore now openly and fiercely challenged throughout the world, and the challenge must be accepted just as Germany’s challenge was accepted. The entire structure of our civilization is endangered by this attack. Without private property neither the home nor the family can exist; when private property is abolished chaos will come again.

Bolshevism has obtained a lodgment in the United States. We must disabuse our minds of the notion that this is a foreign menace which can be got rid of by deporting a hundred or a few hundred aliens a year. Bolshevism is a theory; a state of mind likely to appear in any race of people under certain circumstances. The so-called Independent Workers of the World (I.W.W.s) are largely native Americans. Under the present or any other social system including the ownership of private property, the capable, saving and industrious will have, and the others will lack; and as those who lack are frequently deficient in morals and judgment as well as in prudence and industry, there will be envy, covetousness and discontent; which being joined to a profound ignorance of economic law, will produce Bolshevism. All these elements are here in America, where the enemies of society have sometimes shown themselves in force, even in the last century; for instance, in Shay’s rebellion in Massachusetts in the year 1790. Heretofore, their numbers have been small, owing to our peculiar circumstances, notably our immense land offerings to all corners; but times have changed, and American Bolshevism is here under conditions which make it a serious menace.

Let not the reader fool himself with the prophecy that the spirit of Bolshevism will disappear from Europe with the advent of spelling books and newspapers into the homes of European laborers, artisans and peasants. Quite the contrary. As well expect good family morals to come from reading obscene literature, as expect good business or political principles to issue from most of the rubbish printed by the decadents of today. The Bolshevik leaders are often literary men. It is not the lack of spelling and reading, but the want of sound economic principles that characterizes the assassins of Society; and the only school which provides popular instruction in true economics is the school of business, which Bolshevism is determined utterly to destroy.

Neither must we count on Bolshevism dying out of itself here, for lack of congenial soil or atmosphere. People love to imagine miracles, and we hear a lot of nonsense about America’s wonderful power of assimilating foreigners; as if there was some marvelous quality in our air to change the ideas and disperse the prejudices of immigrants. The fact is, that many of the so-called American qualities are merely such human characteristics as develop everywhere under conditions of well-repaid industry. The acquisition of property operates very quickly in every country, to modify the habits and character of any man previously poor; and the real cause of the personal changes referred to under the phrase “national assimilation” is material prosperity. In this new and open country, just as in Australia and South America, there has been great opportunity to turn energy into cash; and the foreigners whom we readily assimilated were those who made money, and became very like prosperous Americans. They have been educated in the business school, and they will never be Bolshevists. But the class of immigrants who remain paupers will not be so easily converted to a doctrine which offers them nothing; and they will find leaders in the group which, though acquainted with books, is inefficient in business, unsuccessful and discontented. And the pauperized, defeated,shiftless classes of Americans are likely to turn to Bolshevism, for the same reasons as foreigners under the same circumstances. Men who are failures in life, no matter what their nationality, are not to be trusted to do justice to the successful ones, nor to vote to protect property or property rights. Wherever the principles of political economy are not understood, there is a field for Bolshevism; and they are not understood by the working classes in the United States. The propaganda of organized discontent is very active among us; and its activities are not likely to diminish. Thousands of Americans, disappointed in life, are also disappointed at seeing their government in the clutches of an oligarchy of sordid politicians. And these conditions may grow worse with the growth and expansion of industry and commerce, with the increase of legislative meddling with business, and the increasing tendency of business acting in self-protection to endeavor to improperly control legislation and politics. If nothing be done to remedy this state of things who knows how many Americans will be found to be on the side of the Bolsheviki when the time comes for a settlement of the question between us and them?

There is cause for a serious apprehension of an attack by organized Bolshevism upon our democracy if proper measures are not adopted to further protect property rights, and if the present political oligarchical misgovernment is permitted to continue unchecked. In that day it may be that in the large cities the enemies of the social order will be championed by one or two yellow newspapers, and their cause be taken up by one of the political organizations. The result might be such as to make the property classes regret their apathy. The material for an efficient radical political army already exists in the organized controllables who now manage the primaries under direction of the bosses; in the politically unattached hordes of irresponsible city voters; in the village loafers; in the immense number of irresponsible women politically and economically ignorant and easily moved to violent emotion. There are at this moment in every city in the United Stateshundreds of writers, school teachers, and college educated youths of both sexes, superficial, fluent of speech, ambitious, ready for anything; and as ignorant of economic law as a common laborer. Of such would be the leaders of the Bolsheviki movement. On the other hand the able youth of America, the well-educated, gifted young business men, those of high ideals, patriotic, disinterested, energetic; those of the class upon whom every country should rely for its working leadership in civics, are mostly unavailable to defend society in such an emergency, because they are untrained in public affairs, unknown to the public; have been kept in the rear out of sight; not permitted to seek public employment; the places they ought to fill occupied by the cheap tools of the machine; most of them indifferent to politics; despising its incidents; scarcely willing to vote. From them no quick help could be expected in such a case.

As for the political oligarchical managers at present in power, from them no aid can ever be expected in any good cause. They are mere time-servers. In fact the politician is the natural enemy of the propertied and capitalistic class. Already, there are plain indications that the universal suffrage governing oligarchy stands ready to sacrifice American property rights. For example, the Vice President of the United States once said in a public speech in the hearing of the writer that there is no natural right in children to inherit from their parents. Here is a glimpse of a politician’s heaven; where all the property in this country will be at the behest of these organized brigands. In fact, a step in the direction of confiscation of private property has already been taken, both here and in England, by the enactment of the lately invented Inheritance Tax Laws. Consider how that so-called tax can be made a ready means of Mexicanizing the nation by confiscating a large part of its accumulated capital, and by destroying at the same time much of the incentive to future accumulations. A nation which is supported by inheritance taxes is like a spendthrift living off his capital whose ultimate ruin istherefore sure. Let a large fortune pass three times through the Probate Court, which might easily happen in twenty years, and about half of it is gone in taxes, to be dissipated, squandered and stolen by politicians. The taste of blood is good to a hungry beast. After despoiling large fortunes they are already beginning to attack smaller ones. A full treasury encourages waste, and so it goes on. How many of the ne’er do wells whom universal suffrage calls to the polls, are aware or could possibly be made to realize, the value of stored up capital, or to understand that the accumulations of money called private fortunes which are thus being broken up and wasted, are the only sources from which enterprise is daily being fed, and millions of workmen and workwomen employed and paid?

Under a universal suffrage régime, government leadership in opposition to Bolshevism cannot be relied upon, and without such leadership it is doubtful if proper resistance to Bolshevism can be expected at the hands of the American people. They are utterly destitute of political power, are without organization and guidance or the material for either. They have never been able to effectually resist the bosses; politically they are a lot of sheep, accustomed to say “baa” and to follow the old bell wethers. It is probable that any party organization having control of the election and governmental machinery could speedily, if it chose, put the proletariat in possession of the government of the manufacturing states, such as New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and Illinois. In case of government ownership of transportation and intelligence utilities, the party in power might, in aid of this purpose, get control of a couple of million additional votes. After that, who knows what next? It might then be too late for us to throw off the yoke; like the French of 1793, like the Russians of today, we might find ourselves a subjugated people. People say that in the end truth and justice must triumph; but that phrase “in the end” is portentous. The end of Bolshevism might be delayed for a half century of wasteful struggle, wherein theimmediate generation and most of its belongings would probably perish.

To successfully meet the Bolshevist attacks whether made by propaganda or violence, we should thoroughly cleanse our politics and restore our government to its original high place in the respect of the people. It was said in our first chapter that the American democracy has not fulfilled its early promise of creating a government popular in the sense of good and economical public service. Had the political record of the first forty years of the Republic been equalled by that of the following ninety, it is possible that our example would have saved the world from organized Bolshevism. We may choose to shut our eyes to the story of corruption and inefficiency outlined in the foregoing pages, but the rest of the world has not failed to read it and to comment on it. Large numbers of the discontented classes of Europe have interpreted that dismal chronicle to mean the failure of democracy, and have turned to red radicalism. It is notorious that the principal leaders of Russian Bolshevism are native Russians who have lived in America; and the accounts of the falling off of democracy within this country, which were carried back home by them, and by thousands of their countrymen here, no doubt featured largely in the spread of Bolshevik doctrines there. They had heard the praises of American democracy trumpeted abroad, and they came here to see and take part in its perfect work; they found the country in the hands of sordid, corrupt and inefficient politicians, and they turned from democracy in despair. Seeing the misuse of money in our politics, they decided that the power of money should be abolished altogether. Like ourselves, they overlooked completely the fact that the real cause of the diseased condition of our American political life is not the purchasing power of money, but the existence of a purchasable electorate. Recently a man wrote to a New York daily paper, urging that the way to win immigrants to love America, was to teach them the lessons of patriotism found in American history. This patriotic writer only thought of history as found in the school treatises, and utterly ignored the fact that these immigrants are actually learning contemporary American history every day from our newspapers. He wanted them, he said, to be told of Washington, Franklin and Robert Morris. But the immigrant soon learns that not only are those great men dead, but that their successors in power are and are likely to continue to be, a lot of ignorant, greedy and unscrupulous modern politicians. As well tell the modern Greek to be satisfied with political rascality there, because Aristides the Just lived in Athens thousands of years ago.

No one can doubt that a similar feeling of political disappointment with the workings of our government, of hatred and contempt for our oligarchy of politicians, of want of faith in the honesty, integrity, ability and earnestness of those in power, is largely responsible for the progress of American socialism, for other organized protests against the democratic system and for that phenomenon frequently referred to as “popular unrest.”

Elihu Root in theNorth American Reviewfor December, 1919, refers to Roosevelt, when president about twelve years ago, as recognizing the existence of this popular dissatisfaction, that “a steadily certainly growing discontent was making its way among the people of our country” and that millions were “then beginning to feel that our free institutions were failing.” But Roosevelt was too much of a politician himself to dare to touch the real sore spot, or to propose to cut out the cancer, and neither Root nor Roosevelt, nor any other noted politician has assigned any adequate cause for the unrest of these times. The fact is that the public has come to despise in its heart a political system in which weakness and rascality are so prominent. Roosevelt went up and down, says Root, making frantic appeals for obedience to law. The American people, of whom there are millions just as honest and common-senseful as Roosevelt, know that the law must be obeyed as a practical rule of business; but they refuse to implicitly believe in the wisdom, honesty or sanctity of statutes and ordinances promulgated by an oligarchy of place-hunting politicians. There is no substantial difference between the attitude towards this oligarchy taken by the thrifty honest working class and that of the honest mercantile or professional class; they are all dissatisfied with our governmental system for the same reason; namely, because it is morally and intellectually unworthy of the American people. Jealousy of great fortunes has been mentioned as a possible cause of the popular discontent. But the bulk of the American people are not so meanly and stupidly envious as that suggestion would imply. They are no more inclined to envy a man his honestly acquired wealth than his superior health, strength, musical talent or the acquisition of a foreign language. The honest rich live plainly; they work hard and they give munificently and wisely; they are not in power; the people know it and would much prefer them to the ruling horde which now afflicts us. Roosevelt himself was in the eyes of the masses a rich man, but he was very popular and all the more so because he was known to be pecuniarily independent. The cause of the public dissatisfaction is not the doings of the rich, but the misdoings of the grafting politicians. The latter go about wondering at the cause of what they call “unrest,” when they themselves are that cause. The intelligent workers of modest incomes, farmers, mechanics, traders, professional men, clerks, etc., see with their own eyes a lot of ignorant, sordid knaves obtain undeserved public offices and honors and graft themselves into wealth, and they partly envy and completely dislike and despise the whole lot. Thence it follows that transactions between the politicians and business men of all kinds become distrusted by the public, who are ready to suspect all railroad and other corporations, all importing and manufacturing interests which are affected by legislation or governmental action, whether tariff, taxation, rate regulation or otherwise, of bribery, fraud and corruption in all transactions with government or wherein government officials are concerned. The people are also dissatisfied because the office-holding class is weak and lacking in dignity and firmness.The attitude of a public official with his ear to the ground is low and brings him into contempt. The public finds too much smartness and cleverness and too little manly pride and directness in our machine-made rulers. They find that they lack courage to do affirmative justice with due speed; that they are able to do nothing without first being assured of a majority at their backs. Their decisions are governed not by the application of principles but by a process of additions and subtractions; they are not leaders of the people but followers of the rabble. And this slavish cowardice has been increased since the votes of women are being sought by new forms of pandering. If we want the people to respect and love the government we must give them one worthy of respect and love. To ensure the loyalty and devotion of the immigrant as well as of the native, we must make our political institutions as nearly perfect as possible; we must offer for the support of the American people a government like that of the Fathers; pure, patriotic and efficient, one that can command respect as well as enforce obedience.

We have reaffirmed our belief in democracy as a method of government and have asked the rest of the world to accept it, and we are therefore called upon to point to a method for its practical operation. The only method heretofore found practical, the only one we are prepared to offer, is representative government. Unless that system can be made to work well the experiment of democracy will have been a practical failure. We are bound to see to it that this does not happen, that representative government be made a working success, that it operate with justice, efficiency, economy and humanity. That it has not heretofore operated here or in any part of the world with anything near perfect satisfaction is admitted by its strongest supporters. The friends of democracy are therefore called upon to correct the situation; in the slang of the day, “it is up to us to make good.” This is a part of the national and world work which we Americans have undertaken; it is a continuation of the enterprise of making theworld “safe for democracy.” Should it fail hereafter it will be as though it had failed in the German war, and the world would be left to Autocracy, Socialism and Bolshevism to divide between them. It is the claim of the enemies of representative democracy, who are numerous, and many of them very intelligent, that it never can be made successful; that it has failed not only in France, Italy, Spain and Greece but in Great Britain and the United States; and that its failure is due to lack of quality in the electorate, that is to say, in the mass of the population. And these critics are no doubt so far right, that whatever may be the practical shortcomings of the system of representative government they are due to that very cause. Therefore, it is plainly our business to make representative government a success by the only method practicable or possible, namely, by a reform, elevation and purification of the electorate.

Our second step in the way of preparation to meet the menace of Bolshevism is to take a definite stand for property rights, based upon the plain doctrine that our government is designed and intended to protect American civilization expressed as all civilization is expressed, in terms of property. If we did not believe that, if it were not true, then we might as well at once surrender to Bolshevism. But it is not enough that it is accepted as true by all the wise and thoughtful among us. To meet the exigency now before us we must formulate that doctrine, proclaim it, make a creed of it, and teach it to our children and to the ignorant. We cannot expect to destroy Bolshevism by merely using strong language about it. Its strength is partly due to its courage and consistency. To oppose it we must be courageous and consistent. We must meet the attack on property by arming property with weapons of self-defense. Political attack must be met by political action. When fundamentals are assailed foundations must be strengthened. We must weave property rights into the very fabric of our political life and make them an essential part of Americanism. Seven-eighths of our adult men are owners of or interested in property. They should take steps to make their rights therein absolutely secure by creating a private property electorate. Universal suffrage, manhood suffrage, and every other similar anti-social heresy should be expunged from our statute books. Manhood suffrage which formerly spelled merely thievery and plundering, now spells destruction. And female suffrage is even worse, a plain, palpable, odious and contemptible humbug and abomination, a malignant source of peril. The fight against Bolshevism can only be conducted on principles which exclude from the ballot box every form of practical inefficiency. There is no place for ignorance, dependency, and sentimentalism, feminine or other, in an efficient democracy.

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