Judge, 1917-08-04 · page 17 of 28
Judge — August 4, 1917 — page 17: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This 1918 *Judge* magazine page by Anna Cadogan Etz satirizes anti-suffrage arguments using irony and absurdist examples. **Main arguments presented:** 1. **Women proved useful in wartime** — France abandoned frivolous female education when women's labor became essential, proving women weren't actually "superfluous." 2. **Male hypocrisy on voting age** — Denmark, Iceland, and Britain required women voters to publicly declare their age (a social taboo), yet no such requirement existed for men. The satire highlights how suffrage opponents invented arbitrary barriers. 3. **The nurseryman's contradiction** — A prominent nurseryman praised women's superior rose-cultivation (learned during war) yet wouldn't grant them political rights, exposing the illogic of denying suffrage based on supposed incapacity. 4. **Militarists and pacifists both opposed women voters** — Yet Jeanette Rankin's actual Congressional vote against war showed women *could* engage in serious political judgment, contradicting both groups' claims. The cartoon (bottom) shows a station scene, likely illustrating women's wartime public participation. The page systematically dismantles suffrage opponents' reasoning through concrete examples.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Found Useless in War Time si (0 teach girls to talk on all subjects, T but not really to know anything about them; to fill their time and furnish their minds agreeably; to omit Latin and philosophy which might make them think; to teach them psychology, but not its language; to have them learn for the sake of learning and not of using:”” this was the system of secondary educa- tion for girls in France which went on the junk pile when everything was thrown overboard that stood between France and victory. The acid test of war branded the super- fluous woman as a superfluous human being, and millions of people are wonder- ing why she was ever wanted anywhere or anytime. Democracy Is in the Saddle T° ALL those persons who believe that woman suffrage is a spent wave, going not coming, we offer this piece of information culled from a Detroit paper. When the vote came off that gave Michigan women the right to vote for President, one of the “‘yeas” was a man long famous for his implacable hostility to the mere idea of women in politics. And in the general amazement at his vote “no one was more surprised than himself.” The point to sadden the lover of things- as-they-have-been rather than things-as- they-had-better-be is that the urge and the surge of the votes for women move- ment has so gripped the imagination of legislators that they mount the band wagon automatically leaving their cher- ished anti-democratic principles trailing in the mud behind. Democracy is in the saddle. One More Disconsolate TH lady who hates like poison to tell her age is finding this an uncomfort- able world. Lips no matter how youth- ful in bloom, via the lip stick, have been forced by the military census to ‘‘fess up” the truth that they would hide. It is not alone in America that the would-be youthful female is finding life a hard pill. Denmark said to its women, “Want to vote, do you? All SUFFRAGE FACTS AND FANCIES by Anna Cadogan Etz right. Admit that you are thirty-five and you can vote for members of the highest branch of the legislature.” Ice- land also put up an equal or even higher handicap. Then along came Great Brit- ain and said “thirty.” The plight is this: If a woman votes, she is compelled to tell her age. If she doesn’t, then the neighbors more than insinuate that she is staying away from the polls just to avoid admitting it. The druggists should organize to pro- tect women in the exercise of an im- memorial right. The demand for arti- ficial bloom bids fair to wane. Why waste time and money trying to look like twenty-five, if one must own up to forty or be arrested? God Moves in Mysterious Ways How peculiar must be the wheels that go round in the head of a man who is willing to concede political rights to women who raise roses better than men—a right that he never in his life would admit—should be given to women who raise children better than men. Yet such a man is reported to exist in the person of a prominent nurseryman. RCTLWNT Upon finding that the roses he imported from France were improved since war had thrust the business of rose growing into the hands of women, he threw his hat in the ring and cried, “VOTES FOR WOMEN!” The Real Reason “C)F COURSE women aren't fitted for political life,” said the militar- ists of the United States as they watched Jeanette Rankin vote against war. “Of course women aren’t fitted for political life,” said the pacifists of Canada as they watched the Council of Women of Alberta give a smashing majority for conscription. It is quite a matter of course that the Man from Everywhere, if women fail to vote according to his pet convictions, announces that women show by so doing, that they are unfitted to vote at all. Now the Man from Everywhere would be ashamed to own it and probably doesn’t even know it, but it is a fact that if women vote to suit him he is for woman suffrage, and if they don’t, he is agin’ it, and that is almost, but not quite, the whole story. Station Master—The 3:40 is thirty minutes late, ma’am. Breathless Woman—Dear me! So much time is wasted by passengers being on time for trains! comicbooks.com