CHAPTER XXVI

AMERICAN WOMEN

ENGLAND is a man's country, ruling a world-wide empire. America, aside from industry and the professions and government, is a woman's country. They control the social life, the religious life, the artistic life, the encouragement of literature, the household expenditures, the customs and manners. The upper classes of women in America now indulge less in frivolous society and give time to public welfare; the middle classes no longer rely so much on marriage but turn to clerical and industrial work; the lower classes avoid domestic service and prefer the factory.

And now they all have the ballot. So far this has not materially changed the result of elections. More votes are cast but the division of votes between candidates is about the same as before. And this is well. Too much is expected from government. Government is not civilization but is one of the indications of how high a point of civilization a people have reached. Government has little control over the conduct of life. Most of the rules and usages of the conduct of life are fixed by habit, example, and respect for the opinions of others. Government and law interferes very little with them. Primarily government is to keep order with a policeman on the corner and twelve honest men in the jury box. Government is but a reflection of the character of the people in the long run. A bad government passes away if the people are sound; it returns if they are unsound. Good government would be much easier if it confined itself to its original purpose, namely, the protection of life, liberty, and property.

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But government has extended its activities in directions which are particularly within woman's sphere more so than of man's, namely, schools, clean streets, sanitation, health department, hospitals, food profiteering, social evil, sweat shops, honest municipal government, economical government, low tariff, low taxes. Most of these pertain to city government rather than state government. Here is where women's votes and ideas will ultimately prevail over those of the men.

In national questions such as war, a navy, an army, treaties, public debts, railroads and engineering works, men's views will prevail. In savage times woman had no rights and she was the slave of man. Gradually she has been made the equal of man so far as laws are concerned, but she has not acquired and never will acquire men's characteristics required in dealing with these subjects. Her views on these subjects are apt to be wrong.

The danger is that women will go too far. Persons inexperienced in government are apt to discredit reform by reforming too much. A statute not supported by general public sentiment is not obeyed, and that discredits the law. Witness the Volstead act, which is broken all over the country. It even creates a new criminal class the bootleggers, and demoralizes the police. The fact is that the education of public sentiment is more important than the enactment of a statute, because the former leads to the latter and the latter cannot be enforced without the former. And here it is that woman's influence on government will count more than her votes at the ballot box. She influences her neighbors and her friends. Now that she has a vote her opinion is listened to. By local meetings, discussions, resolutions, and delegates to other organizations, the merit of any proposition can be threshed out. She has more time and inclination to do this than her husband. And she has an interest in good government equal to if not greater than his on municipal and state affairs. She may go wrong for a time, misled by prejudice or personal dislike or inexperience or fads. Her mistakes will be mistakes of the

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head and not of the heart. But time cures all this, if the mind is sound and the intent good. Helen Taft takes a different view. She thinks that women will be no more scrupulous than men in "playing politics," and will use political tricks and maneuvers as in their clubs, and will be grafters like the men, and some will sell their votes, but "will be enormously clever politicians because of their mingling of finesse and audacity; after they have learned their ground they may outgeneral the other sex." This is not exhilarating nor particularly reassuring. If the women adopt these tactics they will continue secondary to man as heretofore. Slowly but intelligently the women are feeling their way in their new sphere of politics. They will be influenced by their husbands, but ultimately husbands will be influenced by them. Women have been educated through the ages to gain their ends by methods of peaceful persuasion and moral strategy and not by force. A separate woman's party would be a mistake. Miss Taft is right when she says a woman's party is impractical, because women are not familiar with politics and would "accomplish nothing except mistakes" and never could or should "swing the women's vote in any one direction," and that they should work with the men so that "the defects of each group are offset by the good qualities of the other."2 And democratic institutions will be the safer for women's votes, if they are not carried away by "the man on horseback" the dictator who puts down factions and then makes himself king.

Immigrant women complicate the subject still further. Mrs. Bowlker says, "The ignorant, illiterate, immigrant women have affected to a certain extent the position of all women in America, and therefore it is impossible to comprehend fully the national position of women unless we first understand the problem of the immigrant. The foreign women constitute a very grave menace to our democracy, for they almost invariably represent one of two extreme mental types, both equally dangerous to the stability of our institutions. One type consists of individuals who

have sought refuge in America from oppression in their own country, people who have had no previous experience of selfgovernment, and have no conception of the true meaning of democracy - ordered liberty. They come to America brimming over with theories which they hope to practice in the United States; they misunderstand the meaning of the laws and institutions and customs of the country, they misinterpret these things to each newcomer; and, knowing that Liberty begins with a capital 'L,' they immediately proceed to spell it License! It is from their ranks that the labor agitators and anarchists come. The other type of immigrant comprises the opposite mental extreme, clinging ignorantly and passionately to all the ancient traditions and customs, and even to the language of the land of their birth. Their religious belief is almost invariably Roman Catholic or Jewish of the most bigoted and ignorant type, and the women if Roman Catholics are entirely under the influence of the priests. In the state of Massachusetts more than half the population is Roman Catholic, and three-quarters of the people are of foreign birth or parentage.'

But enough of politics and government. The important question is whether modern influences are making a higher type of women calculated to preserve American institutions. The old type was certainly very fine and produced a great nation. And the old type is by no means extinct. It essentially is the same today as it has been. Hobson, an English writer, says, "The strength of American womanhood lies in the better habits of comradeship and domestic equality among the great hardworking settled masses of American citizens in the farms and villages and smaller cities, where the steady pressure and the sober earnestness of daily life do not lend themselves to feminine excesses."? The new type may be more intellectual but may be more mannish and may break away from the ancient moorings of the home, the simple life and domestic habits. Men and the world are changing rapidly, and women are being drawn into the vortex.

Whether the charm and grace and principles of cultivated American women, recognized the world over, can survive these profound changes is a question, serious and far reaching. It may be well to analyze the subject a little.

In religion woman is the bulwark of the church and the church has done much for her in establishing the human institution of marriage, care of children, and morality. But the church is on the rocks. The forms, organization, and beliefs of the old religion are being outgrown. A new religion of character, the worship and practice of high ideals, based on intellect, culture, and principles is slowly being evolved. It is principle carried into practice and example. The greatness of a people consists, not altogether in its laws, art, science, literature, religion, philosophy, inventions, wealth or power, nor in its great men alone, but in the average character of its citizens. Raise this and you raise the nation. Now nowhere do people search for and rally quicker under reliable leadership than in America. A strong and trustworthy character is no sooner found than trusted. This is true worship worship of the American kind. And here the women will respond. Their instincts and intuitions always have been and always will be superior to those of men, and they are quite willing to accept leaders if those leaders are honest as well as able. The old beliefs as to the hereafter are fading away and something must be supplied to take their place, especially with women. They will work this problem out better than the men.

In the arts and sciences, in literature and inventions, the doors are wide open to women, but with many brilliant exceptions their minds are not creative. In business, manufacturing and industry, competition is too rough, cruel, and relentless for the fine qualities of the feminine mind. In medicine they do well; in law not at all.

Women have a right to have something to say about public welfare and the home and family. This would seem to be quite enough. If woman becomes mannish, her influence over man