Equal Suffrage
Many good women do not care to vote, and they give this as a reason why equal suffrage should not be allowed. The logic is so faulty that it really serves as a reason for the antis. A woman’s reason is often the work of the genus male ❦ An Englishman, recently arrived in New York City, stopped at the Hotel Majestic. After two days he notified the proprietor that no more circulars which came by mail should be sent to his room. “Because,” said this son of ’Appy Halbion, “I find it a task too great for my strength to acknowledge receipt of all of them, and have, therefore, decided not to accept any more.” When asked,“What’s the matter with the wastebasket?” he carefully examined that useful article and said that, so far as he could see, it was all right. “Give decisions, but never reasons,” said the wise old judge to the young judge ❦ “Your decisions will usually be right, but your reasons seldom.” Women who do not want to vote should not stand in the way of women who do. Voting is not compulsory, upon either male or female ❦ Voting is a privilege. Voting is simply the expression of your political preferences. Every one should have preferences, because they have opinions. We grow through the expression of opinions and through making decisions. Voting is deciding between this candidate and that, this policy or the other ❦ Hence, it tends to definite, logical thinking. One of the old arguments made against Woman Suffrage was that, if women were allowed to vote, they would be compelled to do jury duty, because the jurors are selected from the poll-list.This is one of the piffling reasons—“woman’s reasons.” Everything in Nature tends to adjust itself ❦ It is quite natural for women to express themselves. In fact, they always have, if history and experience are worth anything. But why they should be forbidden this particular form of political expression, only the male knows, and, in fact, to use a Hibernicism, he doesn’t. ¶ In the State of Washington, a woman can accept the subpoena to do jury duty, or she can decline it. The law, which is only crystallized custom, defers to her wishes ❦ If she simply tells the deputy sheriff, “Nothing doing!” he marks her name off the list. She is not obliged to give any reason why she does not wish to serve as a juror, any more than she is obliged to give a reason why she does not vote ❦ This seems eminently consistent, right, proper, and well within human rights. Suffrage simply is a recognition by the State that woman is a human being. Where women haveserved on juries, they have been found to be eminently attentive and anxious to view the question involved from every standpoint, and to reach a sane and just conclusion. ¶ Judge W. W. Black, of Everett, Washington, has recently said from the bench: “My experience with the ladies in the jury-box has been that the trial of the case has been expedited, and the whole proceedings marked with a dignity and decency which did not before exist ❦ And the verdicts, for the most part, were well within the legal limits, eminently just and proper ❦ I do not find that woman’s mental ability to grasp a point in law is inferior to that of man’s.”