THE WOMEN AND POLITICS
They Are too Prone to Worship a Name—Most Are Republicans.
They Should Understand the Rudiments of Politics for They Have Grave Responsibilities.
It is much more difficult for a woman to change her political opinions than for a man to do so.
And that is the reason that, while a majority of the men in the country are now democrats, the majority of women remain republican.
Elliot Shepard, the editor of the New York Mail and Express, and a man who is the victim of a sort of convulsive form of patriotism, is forever asking: "Are not the loyal citizens of a republic naturally republican?"
To such a question nine-tenths of the women would instinctively reply, "yes."
When Cassius said that Brutus was as good a name to conjure with as Cæsar, he was mistaken, as the sequel showed. And the democrat who imagines that democracy will "raise a spirit" as soon as republicanism, is wrong.
It will not. The difference lies in the word. For two generations women have said: "I am a republican," very much with the same accent that they have said: "I am a Christian."
Republicanism stands for so much with women. It is indissolubly commingled with certain sentiments. It represents, chiefly, the liberation of the American slave. In the civil conflict, there were not, so far as women were concerned, any political or industrial questions. There was only to them one colossal question of humanity, and the legions of the federal army were as the army of the Lord. It took all of the high fervor of their hearts to sustain them in that horrible hour. Had the question involved seemed to them, for a moment, to have been anything but one of the loftiest principle, they would have faltered. As it was they turned their eyes to God, and through those long nights in which they laid in their widowed beds and imagined each sickly horror of pestiferous camp and sanguinary field they mingled prayers with tears and found the courage to endure. Deep in their sentient heart the brand of war stamped its red mark; and the wounds they bore were bitter as those made by whistling minie and bursting shell. And so it comes that it seems to a woman that when she says, "I am a republican" that she virtually says; "I am one who stood for liberty; through great suffering, I was staunch; I am true to the flag of our indivisible republic."
In matters of the heart it is difficult for women to alter their faith. A man must be a brute a very long time before he can convince the woman who loves him that he is such. And the republican party must stand for systematized spoilation much longer than it has before democracy, or any other political faith, will win women to a difficult apostacy.
There is a complex sort of woman, made artificial by over-luxury, who is governed by prejudice, and who favors existing conditions because they favor her. You would not, for instance, expect the princess of Wales, who accepts a sort of sublimated alms from the protesting people of England, to accede to the postulate of John Burns, that every man should be made to earn the money he enjoys. But the vast majority of women have, like children, a beautiful and clear sense of justice, which makes them see and acknowledge the rights of things quite regardless of consequence.
Such women would desire to stand for whatever political party most nearly represented the cause of justice: and if they could once be persuaded that the republican party had become identified with all that is most aggressively selfish in modern life; that it stood for an accentuation of social inequalities; that it had freed the purchased slave only to create an industrial serf, I feel sure they would no longer cling to a name—for a name is a thing that may have many meanings.
I am not among those who think that the political opinions of women are of no consequence. I almost hesitate to endeavor to mention the reasons why their political opinions seem to be of consequence, because there are so many reasons. To begin with, every child says sooner or later:
"Mamma, what are we? Are we republicans or democrats?" And if the answer is "democrats," the chances are ten to one that the first ballot that boy casts will be for a democratic president. Besides, a woman has a subtle but undeniable influence with the men with whom she is associated, and particularly with the man with whom she is associated most intimately. The American man likes himself and his wife to be in close sympathy. And if his wife will not come around to his way of thinking he generally goes around to her's—as all American women know, though they do not usually consider it politic to admit so much. Another reason is that the women almost always decide what newspapers shall come into the house. So well do newspapers understand this that many of them make a direct effort to please women, knowing that their approval means success. The paper being in the house it will, of course, be read by the men. And the political opinions of those men will almost inevitably be influenced, more or less, by the political coloring of the journal. The selection of a paper by a woman will naturally depend not a little upon her political affiliations. And once more the importance of her opinions becomes apparent.
In any such popular enthusiasm as that which made its hundreds of thousands of converts to the people's party, the influence of one impassioned and good woman might be able to entirely change the political complexion of a whole neighborhood. In the people's party platform many of the principles are of the sort that lend themselves to the fine sentimental enthusiasm in which women like to indulge. And it is sometimes a relief to men to divorce themselves from the obtrusive machinery of politics and work for an idea alone. A woman can persuade a man to do this. And when to his increasing self-respect—which his the natural outcome of such a course—is added the eloquent approval of some woman whose approval is dear to him, that man is apt to espouse the party that has the highest ideals. Therefore, I say, emphatically, that women have no right to be lax in their political principles. Their responsibilities are too large. Their influence is too wide. It is not impossible that the really astonishing vote polled by the people's independent party is largely due to the ardent advocacy of women, who have recognized in its philosophic abstractions a quality which directly appeals to them.
It is not in the least my purpose to enter into the advocacy of any political party. I am, myself, an admirer of the greatest part of the platform of the independent party, and am obliged to admit that I think that one of the reasons the democratic party seems more desirable than the republican is because the republican party labors under the disadvantaged of having recently been in power. The democrats have at present the virtue of not having been tempted. That their principles seem to stand for something more nearly like justice, and cosmopolitanism and progress than the republican principles, it seems apparent. But women are apt to ask:
"What will the democratic party do? At the end of four years will it be easier for a man to receive the full of all he earns? Will the price of land be less fictitious; or taxes more equitable; or will the relations between the nations be more friendly; or commercial competition be allowed to regulate itself by natural laws?
Women do not generally share the wild alarm of the aggressive politician who sees the party he is opposed to get in power. They have an eternal faith in the preservation of the republic regardless of partisan rule, and the smiles of their children seem no less sweet even after they have become convinced that it is not the foreigner who pays the tax.
And I believe the women are right in a way. It is quite true that the majority of the people of this country are not likely to knowingly stand for anything which will endanger the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness of the people of this country.
But I firmly believe that a political party may, without realizing it, stand for a policy which will certainly defraud many men of the pursuit of happiness, and to a degree deprive them of liberty. I believe that it is merely a mathematical proposition that in a country where the amount of money per capita is $12—as the populists say—or even $24—as the republicans maintain, that there cannot be millionaires without being paupers.
If Charles Crocker's heirs have $40,000,000 the heirs of a great many other men will not have enough to pay for the necessities of life. It is not that they do not possess the earning ability. It is absolutely because the money is not in circulation with which to pay them. It is because of such fortunes as those of William Waldorf Astor—$150,000,000, my friends—that some men must be unemployed, or, if not unemployed, must go without an equable proportion of money.
I insist that women have a moral responsibility resting upon them to know these things. They should stand for whatever political party that seems most likely to place a penalty upon greed and unearned wealth. They should advocate a tax that will be graduated to fit the income; they should stand for that form of taxation which will make it possible for any industrious man to buy a home; they should stand for that party which favors the minting of sufficient money to keep pace with the earning capacity of the country.
There are many of these questions which women will be able to understand better than men, because they are quicker to realize the abstract justice of things, and to advocate them with a disregard for temporary consequences.
They are not so anxious to be considered "practical." I have noticed that when a man wishes to be particularly unfair that he calls it being practical.
Practicality is often another name for greed. The real practicability is that which recognizes the colossal truth that a man cannot injure his neighbor without injuring himself. In that simple axiom lies the essence of all statesmanship. Let it be observed with the full comprehension of this intellectual and scientific fact and in the black past will vanish the armed legions of men trained in the art of killing; along with them will go the hateful religious strifes which, even here in this seemingly peaceful town, have so torn the hearts of men that the papers have not dared to even mention the subject, lest a match should be thrown into the powder. Let men and women but realize that none cannot injure his neighbor without injuring himself, and sanitation will become another religion; commerce will be conducted with equity; the "market" will cease to be a mammoth jugglery; the railroad man and the farmer will lie down together like the lion and the lamb, and the Herr Mosts and the Astors—dangerous men both of them—will give place to the men who earn what they have, and who understand the meaning of that beautiful word, the commonwealth.
I heard a woman say the day of the recent election:
"No, I'm not going to vote for the members of the board of education. I don't think women can understand politics. The men know little enough about it, but I think the women know less."
She didn't look a stupid woman, either.
Now the truth is that there is no subject which God has yet permitted man to mine from the vast mountains of knowledge that a woman cannot understand if she tries.
It seems so pitiful that it should be necessary to say that!
In a few years more there will be no necessity for such a remark. From the colleges all over this land are coming women who know the exaltation of learning. Will not these women, born in the freest country under the sun understand the questions relating to the commonwealth as well as the sodden peasant of Europe, dulled with the tool that enslaves? I do not grudge these wretches the franchise we bestow on them. So far from that, I believe if America belongs to any one it belongs to them and that this country can never serve a higher purpose than when it bids them welcome and bestows on them the power of self government.
Not only can we understand politics, but it is our moral and our intellectual duty to do so. For we have an influence in its formation. Those persons who say they have no use for politics are very shallow. For "history is past politics, and politics present history." Have I quoted that correctly?
I am making no particular plea for suffrage. I might as well make a plea for the rising of the sun tomorrow morning.
Universal suffrage will come some time, but there is no hurry about it, and there seem to be other questions much more vital which will consume attention for many years to come. Besides, the women are not yet ready for it. And one of the things they must do before they are ready is to get out of this fetish worship, this blind and unquestioning devotion to names.
They must learn to explain what they mean when they say:
"I am a republican."
Every obstacle goes down before the women of the present century. A few years ago they had inefficient education in a few schools. Now they are possessed of equal facilities for education with men. A few years ago ten or twelve occupations were open to them. Now there are over 350 in which they may honorably engage. A few years ago they bore large families of children to see them die at a horrible rate, or grow up in poverty and ignorance. Now the cultured women understand the subject of the breeding of children from a scientific point of view, and have reduced the mortality astonishingly.
Then to imagine that one would dare be ignorant of or indifferent to governmental concerns!
Do not, dear women, be discouraged at the terms you hear used. Do not tremble before such terms as "compensatory taxes," and the "fluctuations of the market," and the "sub-treasury fallacy." They sound a little mysterious, but the mystery is all in the sound; and the whole thing is a pleasing and light mental diversion compared with the dull and lifeless problems we have all conquered in the text books.
I'm not urging you to become agitators, and neglectors of babies, and loud-voiced harpers on tiresome and impossible reforms, but I'm asking you to formulate your ideas and not be so vacuous.
ELIA W. PEATTIE.Omaha World-Herald, 20 November 1892, 13
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