Life — May 28, 1914 — page 12: what you’re looking at

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

“EalaRe A Suffrage State Blows Up T is one of the argu- ments for woman suffrage that it will give us better govern- ment. Colorado has had woman suffrage for twenty-one years and has been looked upon as the most shin- ing example of a suf- frage State. Now, in the great matter of a bitter contention hetween miners and coal companies, the government of Colorado has vir- tually broken down; a small civil war has raged between miners and militia; there has been a considerable loss of life; and great suffering, disorder and destruction of property. The governor, with the forces he could command, has been unable to enforce the laws and maintain order, and at the instance cf a thousand women gathered in the State Capitol, in a meeting hours long, las begged the President to send Federal troops into the State to take charge of the situation. The troops have been sent, and are now in charge of the late scene of war. Of course, it is asked, “Is that the sort of good government that we are to expect when women vote in the rest of the States?” _) LO AVE votes for women really nad anything to do with the dismal situation in Colorado? Listen to the Springfield Republican ying, No: If votes for women in Colorado are a failure because of the State's futile effort to perform its police functions in the strike region, what must be said of votes for men? Women have voted for State officers twenty-one years, but’ men have voted for them in Colorado almost forty years. The talk about equal suffrage having been discredited by recent events in Colorado is. silly. Manhood sutfrage is discredited fully as much. Let us not blame the women for letting those strikers and militiamen and coal operators get out of hand. tt was a man’s job and a big one. Colorado has only about eight hun- cred thousand. people and a ‘small militia force. Her police job may have been too big for her to handle. Put the responsibility where it be- longs—on the men. That is where, in matters governmental and political it will always have to rest whether women vote or not. When govern- ment blows up—suffrage government cr any other kind—the doctors that will be called in will be men, always men, with rifles and machine-guns, if necessary, as in this case. If govern- ment in Colorado broke down, it was because the men who administer it were not able enough for their em- ployment, or else because they had not the physical means to keep order. Blame them, if anyone, not the women. iT here come in two points that affect suffrage, which seem to have some pith. One is that women when they vote for governo: nd other State officers, assume a responsibility for the acts of those officers which they are not physically competent to meet. Govern- ment rests on physical force. That is a fact from which there is no escape. Women cannot get anything by phys- ical force. The militants in England are trying to, but they are not succeed- ing. The woman's force is enormous, but it is not that physical force on which government res The other point is, that if, after votes for women have been tried in a State for twenty-one years, it is dis- closed that the men who have charge of government are conspicuously un- equal to their duty, that fact consti- tutes an argument of great weight against woman suffrage. If woman suffrage results in the deterioration cf men, or even in the selection of inferior and feeble men for public service, it is lost. The responsibility for government rests on the men, but the responsibility for the men rests very largely on the women. On them rests a great responsibility for life. It is preponderantly the mothers who make the sons, and in suffrage States it will be considerably the women who select the officers of government. In just the proportion that women are unsexed the men will be unsexed. In just the proportion that women as- sume the natural duties of men, the capacity of men to assume those duties will be atrophied. R&*> Senator Helen Ring Robin- son’s story in the Independent (May rth) of the meeting of a thou- sand women in Denver at the State House to tell the governor what to do. They told him, sending a com- mittee to him with their ultimatum, and waited there till he did it. It was the right thing to do. Senator Robin- sor tells with evident pride about that meeting. It is a terrible story! Think of it! A crisis in government and a thou- sand women assembled in their Capitol to tell a governor whom their votes had elected that it was his cuty to send for Federal troops! Mrs. Robinson does not point out that if the suffragists’ hopes had already been fully realized there might have been another mass-meeting of women in the Capitol at Washington to tell the President what to do, and send an ultimatum to Aim. And perhaps women's votes would have given us a President who needed to be told Men and women never work together on a great scale on equal terms on the same employment. Where the women come in the men go out, or else lose standing and character. Sen- ator Robinson will find that she and her sisters cannot make a good job of xoverning Colorado by the use of men in such offices as the governorship. They had better fill those places themselves, i let the men find something else to do. Male and female government is a house divided against itself. It will not stand, and the cure for it when it totters will be men with guns. E. S. Martin, comicbooks.com