Life — February 9, 1911 — page 26: what you’re looking at

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

>In BAe Priscilla Has a Valuable Idea EDDLING The Broadside on the streets of New York was a grand success, I haven't heard yet whether the sheet made any money for the Cause, or whether any one who bought it really read it. The main thing was that it gave our younger and prettier sisters a splendid opportunity to spend a day on the streets getting acquainted with the gen- eral public. In this case the general public con- sisted mostly of messen- ger boys and young and old men who were not too busy to stop and talk with the girls. Among the men I noticed a good deal of interest in the girls and perhaps many of them became interested in the Cause. I myself got out and tried to sell some copies, but I found that the men would for some reason pay no atten- tion to me, except that some of the coarser ones would ask me such idiotic questions as whether my mother knew I was out, and whether I wasn’t afraid to go home in the dark, The younger girls had no trouble at all in getting men to talk to. I am convinced by this experience that we older women ought to use all our influence to get young and pretty girls to become Suffragettes. We can tell them what to do and when the reporters come around we will be the ones who will be interviewed and our names will be the ones most frequently printed. I know there are some old fogy fathers and mothers who object to having their daughters used as bait by us older women, but it is easy to get the girls stimulated by the ex- citement and to believe that they are engaged in a noble work. Once arouse their spirit of womanly self-sacrifice and it will make no difference whether their parents object or not. I can imagine no more beautiful spectacle than a spirited and bright-eyed young girl of sixteen or seventeen defying her parents and going out on the streets of New York to sell copies of The Broadside. It shows the power of the Cause! LOOMY news keeps com- ing from the cowboy State of Colorado. Some of our more extra nt sisters 2 have been selling their votes y for the money they need for <LSEDp hobble skirts and long hat-pins, one politician in Denver con- trols the votes of all our dis- reputable sisters in that city and the real Suffragettes squabble so among themselves over society and club matters that their votes really count for nothing as a political force. There is serious danger that the State Constitution will be amended so that women will no longer be permitted to vote. I think it’s perfectly awful. WONDER what has happened to dear Mrs. Belmont. I haven’t seen her name in the papers more than a dozen times in the past week. I hope the poor dear hasn’t fallen ill, or, worse yet, lost her press agent. Our peerless leaders are under a continual strain in their efforts to keep before the public, and it is a duty they owe to themselves and to the Cause not to over-exert themselves. Little as they may ap pear so, they are still women, and not equal to doing the work that men do. Both Mrs. Belmont and Mrs. Blatch have done marvels for themselves in the way of publicity in the daily newspapers, but they should be careful or they may break down; and then what would become of the Cause? I WISH you would carcfully read, dear sisters, this extract from a very recent leaflet circulated by one of our peerless leaders, Lady Cook, née Tennessee Claflin. Some years ago Lady Cook was bet- ter known in America than at present, her name being usually printed in the newspapers as Tennic C. Claflin. In the days when she and Vic- toria Woodhull were female brokers in Wall Street the press teemed with lurid descriptions of them, She became a“ Lady " 57 by her marriage with Sir Tey Somebody Cook—I've f io jomebody Cook—I've forgot- ten his first name—an elderly Englishman with a fortune, so that she is able to be a liberal contributor to the Cause. This is what she says: _, Many of the men have still the hardihood or stu- pidity to deny that woman really rules. But this is because all sagacious women handle the reins so lightly that the husbands never know they hold them at ali, In obstinate cases, however, the wife must let her hand be felt. And never yet was there a marital mouth so hard but what some kind of bit could be found to subdue it. It will be wise, there- fore, of the men to capitulate at once, and no longer insist upon male superiority and male privileges. Their rule nearly over. And if, in the see-saw of human events, they should in the future be placed in a subordinate position, we must accord them more generous treatment than they have given us. We must not retaliate. On the contrary, we should re- sist all attempts to degrade them, and let equality be our motto then as now, I don’t think our peerless leader should let the truth be- come too well known. I agree with her about the influence of married women and mothers, but how about us Suffra- gettes who are spinsters or divorced women? It would never do to let men get the idea that Suffragettes are Suffragettes only because they have no men to rule and are Suffragetting only because they haven't anything really useful to do. The besotted tyrants might refuse to give us Votes for Women. Lady Cook is a British subject by marriage. It is awfully kind of her to come over here and work with us instead of staying at home with her sister Suffragettes in England. OW stupid the newspapers are. They are edited mostly by men, which naturally accounts for it. The latest example they give of it is the amount of space they devote to this Senator business up at Albany. Every day they print col- umns about it, with big headlines on their front pages. What our dear Suffragettes are doing at Albany in the way of having bills introduced and getting themselves talked about by the hangers-on of the Legislature is either not men- tioned at all or put in some brief paragraph in an obscure part of the paper next to the fortune-teller advertisements. Will not some rich sister please establish a newspaper which will print the real news? PRrIsciLta Jawnones. comicbooks.com