Judge — August 25, 1917 — page 19: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The Real Family Menace’ HE suffragists never liked to be T associated with free love. Susan B. Anthony was just too busy to love anybody or anything but votes for women. Elisabeth Cady Stanton’s love was hitched to a large family of children and was not free to roam. But never- theless, woman suffrage has always had to fight the association. It has always been running around the corner to avoid being mixed up with the smashing of family ties. Among the many kindly services to suffrage rendered by the war is this grue- some statistic: Three million illegitimate children have been born in Germany since the war began, and in some towns almost half the children haven't a legal father to call their own. The poor things have nothing but a mother. No longer will the suffrage propaganda have to conceal its divorcees in the black clo: No longer will it have to refuse the services of women who can’t prove that they lived happily with their hus- bands. For has it not been shown that it is not woman suffrage and democracy that destroys the family, but war and autocracy? A Tempest in a Teapot PROSE a certain high official in suf- frage circles and said, “ There is alto- gether too much talk about waste in the kitchen. Only 20 per cent. of the food crop lands in the kitchen anyway. Let men rectify the big leak due to Mr. Mid- dleman before they begin hammering so lustily at the little leak due to Mrs. Homemaker.” Then uprose the Food Potent- ate of all the Allied World and in stern tones he reproached “that woman” with putting a spoke in the wheel of prepared- ness. He admitted that he did not think that she was on the German pay roll, but aside from that he seemed able to sce no signs of patriotic health in her. Suspicious suffragists whispered together, “He is an anti, I bet my boots.” = It appeared a discouraging mess. SUFFRAGE FACTS AND FANCIES Then uprose the editor of a big metro- politan daily and the suffrage atmosphere cleared. He not only imputed undue haste to the Food Dictator, but suggested that the lady being a mere woman would “doubtless keep her temper and reiterate her essentially sound point.” Votes for Women Lags in Congress HE motto in Washington during the spring drive for preparedness has seemed to the critics to be, “Let us do right now the things that England has found expedient after three years.” But the suffs noted a big blot on the escutcheon of perfect imitation. It lay in the fact that at the very time the House of Commons was speeding on its way, a Dill to enfranchise six million women, the Rules Committee of the House of Representatives was haggling over the question of letting the suffra- gists have a committee to consider only votes for women. All the congressmen from all the equal suffrage states joined in petitioning the committee in favor. The President of the United States wrote the chairman in its favor. The suffragists spoke plainly, “You have a committee for Indians and there are a hundred suffragists to one red man. You have a committee for the disposition of uscless papers. , gentlemen, aren’t the suffragists as important as waste by Anna Cadogan Eiz paper? If not? then why bother to enter a world war for democracy?” The logic, of course, was with the suffs. It usually camps right there. But often it is of less value to them than waste paper to Congress. And what the congressmen were said to be thinking while the women pleaded was, “If we appoint a woman suffrage committee then at last we shall know what to do with Jeannette. We can make her chairman.” Quite the Contrary VER in India the press got much excited over a deputation of Indian women to the Viceroy, and the headlines ran: ‘An Extreme and Unprecedented Event.” In America it seemed a queer thing to get excited about, that the inarticulate Indian woman had at last found that she had a tongue and that it was perfectly Proper to use it in public. For in Amer- ica, the press counts that day lost whose low descending sun reports no deputation of women to a public official, and, as to speaking in public, the “extreme and unprecedented thing” would be for them to stop. A Lesson in Preparedness HEN the news came that a woman suffrage bill in Nova Scotia had gaily run the gauntlet of the Legislature and no man had said “Nay” then suffrage roosters emerged and beamed on the public eye from the front page of the suf- frage press. But when later came the sad tale that everything was all off because the bill was defective, did not in fact make a careful enough toilet for the great occa- sion, then the roosters folded their wings and silently stole back to the dusty shelf in the dark corner. And the lesson for the suf- frage world was this: Never get caught napping. Powder your nose always as though victory was bound to happen. For i these days it is always possible. comichooks..