THE MODERN
WOMAN’S RIGHTS MOVEMENT

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
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SAN FRANCISCO
MACMILLAN & CO., Limited
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THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd.
TORONTO

THE MODERN
WOMAN’S RIGHTS MOVEMENT

A HISTORICAL SURVEY

BY

DR. KAETHE SCHIRMACHER

TRANSLATED FROM THE
SECOND GERMAN EDITION
BY
CARL CONRAD ECKHARDT, Ph.D.
INSTRUCTOR IN HISTORY, UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO

New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1912
All rights reserved

Copyright, 1912,
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Set up and electrotyped. Published January, 1912.

Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing Co.—Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.

“Unterdrückung ist gegen die menschliche Natur”
“Oppression is opposed to human nature”

TRANSLATOR’S NOTE

Hitherto there has been no English book giving a history of the woman’s rights movement in all countries of the world. English and American readers will therefore welcome the appearance of an English edition of Dr. Schirmacher’s “Die moderne Frauenbewegung.” Since Dr. Schirmacher is a German woman’s rights advocate, actively engaged in propaganda, her book is not merely a history, but a political pamphlet as well. Although the reader may at times disagree with the authoress, he will be interested in her point of view.

In the chapter on the United States I have added, with Dr. Schirmacher’s consent, a number of translator’s footnotes, showing what bearings the elections of November, 1910, and October, 1911, have had on the woman’s rights question. An index, also, has been added.

Boulder, Colorado,
November, 1911.

PREFACE

The first edition of this book appeared in 1905. That edition is exhausted,—an evidence of the great present-day interest in the woman’s rights movement. This new edition takes into account the developments since 1905, contains the recent statistical data, and gives an account of the woman’s suffrage movement which has been especially characteristic of these later years. Wherever the statistical data have been left unchanged, either there have been no new censuses or the new results were not available.

The facts contained in this volume do not require of me any prefatory observations on the theoretical justification of the woman’s rights movement.[1] From the remotest time man has tried to rule her who ought to be comrade and colleague to him. By virtue of the law of might he generally succeeded. Every protest against this law of might was a “woman’s rights movement.”

History contains many such protests. The modern woman’s rights movement is the first organized and international protest of this kind. Therefore it is a movement full of success and promise. Leadership in this movement has fallen to the women of the Caucasian race, among whom the women of the United States have been foremost. At their instigation were formed the World’s Christian Temperance Union, the International Council of Women, and the International Woman’s Suffrage Alliance.

In many lands, even in those inhabited by the white race, there are, however, only very feeble beginnings of the woman’s rights movement. In the Orient, the Far East, and in Africa, woman’s condition of bondage is still almost entirely unbroken. Nevertheless, in these regions of the world, too, woman’s day is dawning in such a way that we look for developments more confidently than ever before.

In all countries the woman’s rights movement originated with the middle classes. This is a purely historical fact which in itself in no way implies any antagonism between the woman’s rights movement and the workingwomen’s movement. There is no such antagonism either in Australia, or in England, or in the United States. On the contrary, the middle class and non-middle class movements are sharply separated in those countries whose social democracy uses class-hatred as propaganda. Whether the woman’s rights movement is also a workingwomen’s movement, or whether the workingwomen’s movement is also a woman’s rights movement or socialism, depends therefore in every particular case on national and historical circumstances.

The international organization of the woman’s rights movement is as follows: the International Council of Women consists of the presiding officers of the various National Councils of Women. Of these latter there are to-day twenty-seven; but the Servian League of Woman’s Clubs has not yet joined.[2] To a National Council may belong all those woman’s clubs of a country which unite in carrying out a certain general programme. The programmes as well as the organizations are national in their nature, but they all agree in their general characteristics, since the woman’s rights movement is indeed an international movement and arose in all countries from the same general conditions. The first National Council was organized in the United States in 1888. This was followed by organizations in Canada, Germany, Sweden, England, Denmark, the Netherlands, Australia (with five councils), Switzerland, Italy, France, Austria, Norway, Hungary, etc.

As yet there are no statistics of the women represented in the International Council. Its membership is estimated at seven or eight millions. The National Council admits only clubs,—not individuals,—the chairmen of the various National Councils forming the International Council of Women solely in their capacity of presiding officers.

This International Council of Women is the permanent body promoting the organized international woman’s rights movement. It was organized in Washington in 1888.

The woman’s suffrage movement, a separate phase of the woman’s rights movement, has likewise organized itself internationally,—though independently. Woman’s suffrage is the most radical demand made by organized women, and is hence advocated in all countries by the “radical” woman’s rights advocates. The greater part of the membership of the National Councils have therefore not been able in all cases to insert woman’s suffrage in their programmes. The International Council did sanction this point, however, June 9, 1904, in Berlin.

A few days previously there had been organized as the International Woman’s Suffrage Alliance, likewise in Berlin, woman’s suffrage leagues representing eight different countries. The leagues which joined the Alliance represented the United States, Victoria, England, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and the Netherlands. Since then the woman’s suffrage movement has been the most flourishing part of the woman’s rights movement. The International Woman’s Suffrage Alliance, which was pledged to hold a second congress only at the end of five years, has already held three congresses between 1905 and 1909 (1906, Copenhagen; 1908, Amsterdam; 1909, London), and has extended its membership to twenty-one countries (the United States, Australia, South Africa, Canada, Great Britain, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Finland, Russia, Hungary, Austria, Bulgaria, Italy, Switzerland, France, Belgium, Servia, and Iceland). The first president is Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt.

The chief demands of the woman’s rights movement are the same in all countries. These demands are four in number.

1. In the field of education and instruction: to enjoy the same educational opportunities as those of man.

2. In the field of labor: freedom to choose any occupation, and equal pay for the same work.

3. In the field of civil law: the wife should be given the full status of a legal person before the law, and full civil ability. In criminal law: the repeal of all regulations discriminating against women. The legal responsibility of man in sexual matters. In public law: woman’s suffrage.

4. In the social field: recognition of the high value of woman’s domestic and social work, and the incompleteness, harshness, and one-sidedness of every circle of man’s activity (Männerwelt) from which woman is excluded.

A just and happy relationship of the sexes is dependent upon mutuality, coördination, and the complementary relations of man and woman,—not upon the subordination of woman and the predominance of man. Woman, in her peculiar sphere, is entirely the equal of man in his. The origin of the international woman’s rights movement is found in the world-wide disregard of this elementary truth.

The subject which I have treated in this book is a very broad one, the material much scattered and daily changing. It is therefore hardly possible that my statements should not have deficiencies on the one hand, and errors on the other. I shall indeed welcome any corrections and authoritative information of a supplementary nature.[3]

THE AUTHORESS.

PARIS, JUNE 3, 1909.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

THE MODERN WOMAN’S RIGHTS MOVEMENT

CHAPTER I

THE GERMANIC COUNTRIES

The woman’s rights movement is more strongly organized and has penetrated society more thoroughly in all the Germanic countries than in the Romance countries. There are many causes for this: woman’s greater freedom of activity in the Germanic countries; the predominance of the Protestant religion, which does not oppose the demands of the woman’s rights movement with the same united organization as does the Catholic Church; the more vigorous training in self-reliance and responsibility which is customarily given to women in Germanic-Protestant countries; the more significant superiority in numbers of women in Germanic countries, which has forced women to adopt business or professional callings other than domestic.[4] The woman’s rights movement in the Germanic-Protestant countries has been promoted by moral and economic factors.

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

North America is the cradle of the woman’s rights movement. It was the War of Independence of the colonies against England (1774-1783) that matured the woman’s rights movement. In the name of “freedom” our cause entered the history of the world.

In these troubled times the American women had by energetic activities and unyielding suffering entirely fulfilled their duty as citizens, and at the Convention in Philadelphia, in 1787, they demanded as citizens the right to vote. The Constitution of the United States was being drawn up at that time, and by 1789 had been ratified by the thirteen states then existing. In nine of these states (Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Maryland, New Jersey, North and South Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island) the right to vote in municipal and state affairs had hitherto been exercised by all “free-born citizens” or all “taxpayers” and “heads of families,” the state constitutions being based on the principle: no taxation without representation.

Among these “free-born citizens,” “taxpayers,” and “heads of families” there were naturally many women who were consequently both voters and active citizens. So woman’s right to vote in the above-named states was practically established before 1783. Only the states of Virginia and New York had restricted the suffrage to males in 1699 and 1777, Massachusetts and New Hampshire following their example in 1780 and 1784.

In view of this retrograde movement American women attempted at the Convention in Philadelphia to secure a recognition of their civil rights through the Constitution of the whole federation of states. But the Convention refused this request; just as before, it left the conditions of suffrage to be determined by the individual states. To be sure, in the draft of the Constitution the Convention in no way opposed woman’s suffrage. But the nine states which formerly, as colonies, had practically given women the right to vote, had in the meantime abrogated this right through the insertion of the word “man” in their election laws, and the first attempt of the American women to secure an expressed constitutional recognition of their rights as citizens failed.

These proceedings gave to the woman’s rights movement of the United States a political character from the very beginning. Since then the American women have labored untiringly for their political emancipation. The anti-slavery movement gave them an excellent opportunity to participate in public affairs.

Since the women had had experience of oppression and slavery, and since they, like negroes, were struggling for the recognition of their “human rights,” they were amongst the most zealous opponents of “slavery,” and belonged to the most enthusiastic defenders of “freedom” and “justice.”

Among the Quakers, who played a very prominent part in the anti-slavery movement, man and woman had the same rights in all respects in the home and church. When the first anti-slavery society was formed in Boston in 1832, twelve women immediately became members.

The principle of the equality of the sexes, which the Quakers held, was opposed by the majority of the population, who held to the Puritanic principle of woman’s subordination to man. In consequence of this principle it was at that time considered “monstrous” that a woman should speak from a public platform. Against Abby Kelly, who at that time was one of the best anti-slavery speakers, a sermon was preached from the pulpit from the text: “This Jezebel has come into the midst of us.” She was called a “hyena”; it was related that she had been intoxicated in a saloon, etc. When her political associate, Angelina Grimke, held an anti-slavery meeting in Pennsylvania Hall (Philadelphia) in 1837, the hall was set on fire, and in 1838 in the chamber of the House of Representatives in Massachusetts a mob threatened to take her life. “The mob howled, the press hissed, and the pulpit thundered,” thus the proceedings were described by Lucy Stone, the woman’s rights advocate.

Even the educated classes shared the prejudice against woman. To them she was a “human being of the second order.” The following is an illustration of this:

In 1840 Abby Kelly was elected to a committee. She was urged, however, to decline the election. “If you regard me as incompetent, then I shall leave.” “Oh, no, not exactly that,” was the answer. “Well, what is it then?” “But you are a woman....” “That is no reason; therefore I remain.”

In the same year an anti-slavery congress was held in England. A number of American champions of the cause went to London,—among them three women, Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Elizabeth Pease. They were accompanied by their husbands and came as delegates of the “National Anti-slavery Society.” Since the Congress was dominated by the English clergy, who persisted in their belief in the “inferiority” of woman, the three American women, being creatures without political rights, were not permitted to perform their duties as delegates, but were directed to leave the convention hall and to occupy places in the spectators’ gallery. But the noble William Lloyd Garrison silently registered a protest by sitting with the women in the gallery.

This procedure clearly indicated to the American women what their next duty should be, and once when Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton came from the gallery to the hotel Mrs. Stanton said, “The first thing which we must do upon our return is to call a convention to discuss the slavery of woman.”

This plan, however, was not executed till eight years later. At that time Elizabeth Cady Stanton, on the occasion of a visit from Lucretia Mott, summoned a number of acquaintances to her home in Seneca Falls, New York. In giving an account of the meeting at Washington, in 1888, at the Conference of Pioneers of the International Council of Women (see Report, pp. 323, 324), she states that she and Lucretia Mott had drawn up the grievances of woman under eighteen headings with the American Declaration of Independence as a model, and that it was her wish to submit a suffrage resolution to the meeting, but that Lucretia Mott herself refused to have it presented.

Nevertheless, in the meeting Elizabeth Cady Stanton herself, burning with enthusiasm, introduced her resolution concerning woman’s right to vote, and, as she reports, the resolution was adopted unanimously. A few days later the newspaper reports appeared. “There was,” relates Elizabeth Cady Stanton, “not a single paper from Maine to Louisiana which did not contain our Declaration of Independence and present the matter as ludicrous. My good father came from New York on the night train to see whether I had lost my mind. I was overwhelmed with ridicule. A great number of women who signed the Declaration withdrew their signatures. I felt very much humiliated, so much the more, since I knew that I was right.... For all that I should probably have allowed myself to be subdued if I had not soon afterward met Susan B. Anthony, whom we call the Napoleon of our woman’s suffrage movement.”

Susan B. Anthony, the brave old lady, who in spite of her eighty-three years did not dread the long journey from the United States to Berlin, and in June, 1904, attended the meetings of the International Council of Women and the International Woman’s Suffrage Alliance, was in early life a teacher in Rochester, New York, and participated in the temperance movement. She had assisted in securing twenty-eight thousand signatures to a petition, providing for the regulation of the sale of alcohol, which was presented to the New York State Legislature. Susan B. Anthony was in the gallery during the discussion of the petition, and as she saw how one speaker scornfully threw the petition to the floor and exclaimed, “Who is it that demands such laws? They are only women and children...,” she vowed to herself that she would not rest content until a woman’s signature to a petition should have the same weight as that of a man. And she faithfully kept her word. After a life of unceasing and unselfish work, Susan B. Anthony died March 13, 1906, loved and esteemed by all who knew her. At the commemoration services in 1907, twenty-four thousand dollars were subscribed for the Susan B. Anthony Memorial Fund (to be used for woman’s suffrage propaganda). Susan B. Anthony was honorary president of the International Woman’s Suffrage Alliance.

It is to be noted that a number of European women (such as Ernestine Rose of Westphalia), imbued with the ideas of the February Revolution of 1848, were compelled to seek new homes in America. These newcomers gave an impetus to the woman’s suffrage movement among American women. They were greatly surprised to find that in republics also political freedom was withheld from women.

This was strikingly impressed upon the women of the United States in 1870. At that time the negroes, who had been emancipated in 1863, were given political rights throughout the Union by the addition of the Fifteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution.[5] In this way all power of the individual states to abridge the political rights of the negro was taken away.

The American women felt very keenly that in the eyes of their legislators a member of an inferior race, if only a man, should be ranked superior to any woman, be she ever so highly educated; and they expressed their indignation in a picture portraying the American woman and her political associates. This represented the Indian, the idiot, the lunatic, the criminal,—and woman. In the United States they are all without political rights.

Since 1848 an energetic suffrage movement has been carried on by the American women. To-day there is a “Woman’s Suffrage Society” in every state, and all these organizations belong to a national woman’s suffrage league. In recent years there has arisen a vigorous woman’s suffrage movement within the numerous and influential woman’s clubs (with almost a million members) and among college women the College Equal Suffrage League, the movement extending even into the secondary schools. The National Trades Union League, the American Federation of Labor, and nineteen state Federations of Labor have declared themselves in favor of woman’s suffrage. The leaders of the movement have now established the fact that “the Constitution of the United States does not contain a word or a line, which, if interpreted in the spirit of the ‘Declaration of Independence,’ denies woman the right to vote in state and national elections.”

The preamble to the Constitution of the United States reads as follows: “We, the people of the United States ... do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” Women are doubtlessly people. All the articles of the Constitution repeat this expression. The objects of the Constitution are:

1. The establishment of a more perfect union of the states among themselves,

2. The establishment of justice,

3. The insurance of domestic tranquillity,

4. The provision of common defense,

5. The promotion of the general welfare,

6. The securing of the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.

All of these six points concern and interest women as much as men. Supplementary to this is the “Declaration of Independence.” Here are stated as self-evident truths:

1. “That all men are created equal,”

2. “That they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,”

3. “That to secure [not to grant] these rights, Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

On this last passage the Americans comment with especial emphasis: they say the right to vote is their right as human beings,—they possess it as a natural right; the government cannot justly take it from them, cannot even grant it to them justly. So long as the government does not ask the women for their consent, it is acting illegally according to the Declaration of Independence. For it is nowhere stated that the consent of one half, the male half, will suffice to make a government legal.

On the basis of this declaration of principles the American women have made it a point to oppose every individual argument against woman’s suffrage. For this purpose they frequently use small four-page pamphlets, which are issued as the “Political Equality Series” by the American Woman’s Suffrage Association. They say “It is generally held that:

1. “Every woman is married, loved, and provided for.

2. “Every man stays at home every evening.

3. “Every woman has small children.

4. “All women, when they have once secured political rights, will plunge into politics and neglect their households.”

“What is the exact state of affairs in these matters?

1. “A great many women are not married; many are widows who must educate their children and seek a means of livelihood. Thousands have no other home than the one they create for themselves, and they must often support relatives in addition to themselves. Many of the married women are neither loved, provided for, nor protected.

2. “Many men are at home so seldom in the evening that their wives could quietly concern themselves with political matters without being missed at all. And such men, seconded by bachelors, clamor most about the ‘dissolution of the family’ through politics.

3. “The children do not remain small indefinitely; they grow up and hence leave the mother. It may be true that the mother, instead of participating in political affairs, prefers to sew flannel shirts for the heathen, or prefers to read novels, but one ought at least to permit her the freedom of making the choice.

4. “The right to vote will not change the nature of woman. If she wished to leave the home as her sphere of activity, she would have found other opportunities long ago.”

Further fears are the following: 1. The majority of women do not wish the right to vote at all. To this we must answer that we cannot yet come to a conclusion concerning the wish of the majority in this respect. The petitions for woman’s suffrage always have a greater number of signatures than any other petitions to Congress. 2. Women will use the right to vote only to a limited extent. The statistics in Wyoming and Colorado prove the contrary. 3. Only women “of ill repute” will vote. Thus far this has been nowhere the case. The men guard against attracting these elements. Moreover, the right to vote is not restricted to the men “of good repute” either, etc., etc.

The American women can obtain the political franchise by two methods: 1. At the hands of every individual legislature (which would occasion 52 separate legislative acts,—48 states and 4 territories). 2. Through the adoption of a sixteenth amendment to the national Constitution by Congress.[6] Let us consider the first method. The franchise qualifications in the United States are generally the following: male sex, twenty-one years of age, American citizenship (through birth, or by naturalization after five years’ residence).

Amendments to the state constitution must be accepted by the state legislature (consisting of the lower house and the senate),[7] and then be accepted in a referendum vote by the (male) electorate. To secure the adoption of such an amendment in a state legislature is no easy task. In the first place the presentation of a woman’s suffrage bill is not received favorably; the Republicans and Democrats struggle for control of the legislature, the majority one way or the other never being large. Therefore the party leaders usually consider woman’s suffrage not on the basis of party politics. Matters are decided on the basis of opportuneness. Especially is this the case in those states where the bill must be passed by two successive legislatures. In this case, between the time of the first passing of a bill and the referendum, there is a new election, and the opponents of woman’s suffrage can defeat the adherents of the measure at the polls before the women themselves can exercise the right of suffrage.

Changing the national Constitution through the adoption of a sixteenth amendment has difficulties equally great; the amendment must pass the House of Representatives and the Senate by a two-thirds vote and then be ratified by three-fourths of the state legislatures or specially called conventions.

To the present time only two of the Presidents of the Union have publicly expressed themselves in favor of woman’s suffrage,—Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt. In 1836 Lincoln addressed an open letter to the voters in New Salem, Illinois, in which he said: “I go for all sharing the privileges of the government who assist in bearing its burdens”; and he was in favor of “admitting all whites to the right of suffrage who pay taxes or bear arms (by no means excluding females).” Garfield, Hayes, and Cleveland gave their attention to the question of woman’s suffrage; the last two supporting motions in favor of the movement. Theodore Roosevelt, in 1899, as Assemblyman in the New York State Legislature, spoke in favor of woman’s suffrage: “I call the attention of the Assembly to the advantages which a general extension of woman’s right to vote must bring about.”

In order to attain their end,—political emancipation,—the American women use the following means of agitation: petitions, the submission of legislative bills, meetings, demonstrations, the distribution of pamphlets, deputations to the legislatures of the individual states and to the Congressional House of Representatives, the organization of workingwomen, requests to teachers and preachers to comment on patriotic memorial days on woman’s worth, and to preach at least once during the year in favor of woman’s suffrage.

To the present time four states of the Union have granted full municipal and political suffrage to women (active suffrage, the right to vote; passive suffrage, eligibility to office). The states in question are Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, and Idaho. Wyoming and Utah inaugurated woman’s suffrage in 1869 and 1870, respectively, when they were still territories; and in 1890 and 1895, when they were given statehood, they retained woman’s suffrage. Colorado granted it in 1893 and Idaho in 1896. The political emancipation of woman in the State of Washington is close at hand,[8] in South Dakota,[9] Oregon,[9] and Nebraska it seems assured. In Kansas, since 1887, women have possessed active and passive suffrage in municipal elections. In the State of Illinois they are about to secure it.[10] All of these are western states with a new civilization and a numerical superiority of men.

Practical experience with woman’s suffrage shows the following: everywhere the elections have become quieter and more respectable. The wages and salaries of women have been generally raised, partly through the enactment of laws, such as laws regulating the salaries of women teachers, etc., partly through the better professional and industrial organization of workingwomen, who are now trained in political affairs. A comparison of the salaries of women teachers having woman’s suffrage with salaries in states not having woman’s suffrage shows the value of the ballot. The public finances have been more economically administered, intemperance and immorality have been more energetically combated, candidates with immoral records have been removed from the political arena. Inasmuch as women have full political rights in the four states named (six, including Washington and California), they also vote for presidential electors, and thus exercise an influence in the national presidential elections. It is the woman with good average abilities that is most frequently the successful candidate in political campaigns.

But as yet the number of women who devote themselves to a political life is not large. The women in Colorado seem to have a special ability for this. Without any consideration for party affiliations they secured the reëlection of Judge Lindsey of the Juvenile Court. Generally speaking, they have devoted their efforts everywhere to the protection of youth. At the present time the establishment of a special bureau for the protection of youth is being advocated, and a national conference to discuss the welfare of children is to be held in Washington, D.C.[11]

Because the English anti-woman’s suffrage advocate, Mrs. Humphry Ward, expressed the familiar fear that “the immoral vote would drown the moral vote,” the Reverend Anna Shaw declared at the Woman’s Suffrage Congress at London (May, 1909), that she openly challenges Mrs. Humphry Ward to produce one convincing proof for her assertion. She herself had carefully investigated the recent elections in Denver, Colorado, to ascertain how many, if any, of the “immoral” women voted, and received as answer that these women, who naturally are in a minority, generally do not vote at all; first, because they pursue their trade under false names, secondly, because most of them are not permanently domiciled and for both reasons are not entered on the voting lists; these women vote only when an influence is exerted on them from above or by persons around them.

In the State of Utah, where woman’s suffrage has existed since 1870, “the women have quietly begun and continued without a break the exercise of that power, which from the remotest time had been their right. They have concerned themselves with political and economic questions, and if they have committed any errors, these have not yet come to light. They have been delegates to county and state conventions, they have represented the richest and most populous electoral districts in the state legislature, and they serve as heads of various state departments” (state treasurer, supervisor of the poor, superintendent of education, etc.). In Colorado (with woman’s suffrage since 1893) the women have organized clubs in all cities, even in the lonely mining towns (Colorado is in the Rocky Mountains), and have informed themselves in political affairs to the best of their ability. In the capital city, Denver, a club has been formed in which busy women can meet weekly to inform themselves on political affairs. In Colorado parental authority over children prevails now (in place of the exclusively paternal). In Idaho (with woman’s suffrage since 1896) the women voters exerted a strong influence against gambling. The enfranchised women, who had a right to vote in the little town of Caldwell, had supported a mayor who was determined to take measures against gambling. The barkeepers, topers, gamblers, and ne’er-do-wells were against him. The women presented the magistrate with a petition, which was read together with the signatures. “During the reading of the names of the unobtrusive housewives who were rarely seen beyond their own thresholds, the countenances of the men became serious. For the first time they seemed to grasp what it really meant for a city to have woman’s suffrage.” The barkeepers and the gamblers got the worst of it and disappeared from the town hall. An old municipal judge said, “When have our mothers ever demanded anything before?”[12] In the same way the women of Kansas have employed their municipal suffrage since 1887.

Concerning an election in which women voted, the “Women’s Rights Movement” reports the following: “Almost all the women (about one third of the population) in Wyoming, voted” (7000 votes out of 23,000). “In Boise, Idaho, it was one of the quietest election days in the annals of the city. Everywhere the women came to the polls in the early part of the day.” “In Salt Lake City, Utah, there was no interruption of traffic, no disturbance of any kind ... the women came alone without having their husbands accompany them to the ballot-box during the noon-hour.”

Because of the unsatisfactory experiences which America has had with universal suffrage[13] as such, the woman’s rights movement had suffered also and has been retarded; but owing to the proceedings of the English suffragettes during the past three years it has been given a new impetus. In the state legislatures throughout the various parts of the country, legislative bills have, during this time, been introduced; on these occasions the women presented their demands in the so-called “hearings” (which take place before the legislature). This took place in 1908 in Rhode Island, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, New York, Illinois, South Dakota, Kansas, Oklahoma[14], Maine, Massachusetts, California, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, and Washington. In the latter state the House has just passed a woman’s suffrage amendment; if the Senate passes it, the amendment will be submitted to popular vote.[15] A very active woman’s suffrage campaign in the State of Oregon (1906) failed, owing to the opposition of the friends of the liquor interests and the brothels.[16] It is both significant and gratifying that the woman’s suffrage movement is spreading to the Eastern States; an example of this is the great demonstration of February 22, 1909, in Boston.

The woman’s suffrage societies of the various states are formed into a national league: the National Woman’s Suffrage Association, with about 100,000 members. The President is the Reverend Anna Shaw. This Association has recently drawn up an enormous petition to Congress in order to secure woman’s suffrage through federal law, and has established headquarters in Washington, the federal capital. During eleven weeks 6000 letters and 1000 postal cards were written, and 100,000 petition-blanks were distributed.

To the present time only a small number of women have sought state legislative offices; women members of city councils are rather numerous. At the present time there is a woman representative in the legislature of Colorado. The former governor, Mr. Alva Adams, alluded to her as “a bright, efficient woman,” who has introduced many bills and secured their passage. For, says the governor, “it must be a pretty miserable law which a tactful woman cannot have enacted, since the male legislators are usually courteous and kindly disposed, and disregard party interests in order to accept the measure of their female colleague.” From which we conclude that the women legislators strive especially for measures which are for the general good.[17]

In the United States there is also an “Association Opposed to Woman’s Suffrage.” Its chief supporters are found among the saloon-keepers, the habitual drunkards, and the women of the upper classes. But the American women believe “that if every prayer, every tear can be supported by the power of the ballot, mothers will no longer shed powerless tears over the misfortunes of their children.”[18]

The American women had to struggle not only for their rights as citizens, but they encountered great difficulty in securing an education. At the beginning of the nineteenth century the education of girls in the United States was entirely neglected; the secondary as well as the higher institutions of learning were as good as closed to them. Woman’s “physical and intellectual inferiority” was referred to, just as with us [in Germany]; woman’s “loss of her feminine nature” was feared, and it was declared “that within a short time the country would be full of the wrecks of women who had overtaxed themselves with studies.” To all these fears the American women gave this answer: Women, you say, are foolish? God created them so they would harmonize with man. As for the rest they awaited developments. As early as 1821 the first institution for the higher education of women, Troy Seminary, was founded with hopes for state aid. In 1833, Oberlin College, the first coeducational college, was opened with the express purpose “of giving all the privileges of higher education to the unjustly condemned and neglected sex.” Among the first women students was the youthful woman’s rights advocate, Lucy Stone. She wished to learn Greek and Hebrew, for she was convinced that the Biblical passage, “and he shall rule over thee,” had not been correctly translated by the men. In 1865 with the founding of Vassar College, the first woman’s college was established. To-day both sexes have the same educational opportunities in the United States. The four oldest universities (Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and Johns Hopkins), established on the English model, still exclude women, and do not grant them academic degrees. However, the latter point is of comparatively minor importance in its relation to the educational opportunities of women. Most of the western universities are coeducational; in the East there are special woman’s colleges. In the colleges and universities the number of women students is a little over one-third of the number of men students, but in the high schools the girl students outnumber the boys. The removal of all restrictions to woman’s instruction in the secondary and higher institutions of learning is furthering the activity of the American women in the professions. As teachers, they are employed chiefly in the public schools, in which they constitute 70 per cent of the total staff. So the majority of the “freest citizens” in the world are educated by women. The number of women teachers in the public schools is 327,151. In the higher institutions of learning there is nothing to prevent their appointment. Among university teachers (professors and those of lower rank) there are about 1000 women. Their salaries are equal to those of the men, which is not always the case in the elementary schools, since the tendency is to restrict women to the subordinate positions.[19]

The women who teach in the woman’s colleges must, in every case, possess a superior individuality. Thus a woman president of a college must possess academic training in order to control her teaching force; she must possess a deep insight into human nature in order that her educational relations with the public may be successful; she must have a knowledge of business in order to administer the property of her institution satisfactorily and command the respect of the financiers of her governing board.

Fifteen thousand American women are students in woman’s colleges, and twenty thousand in coeducational colleges and universities. In the latter, the women have distinguished themselves through application and ability so that frequently they have taken all the academic honors and prizes to the exclusion of the men. Since they can no longer be excluded on the ground of their inferiority, their superiority is now the pretext for their exclusion. But a suspension of coeducation in the United States is not to be considered. The state universities, supported with public funds, are all coeducational. The existence of non-coeducational colleges and universities in addition to state institutions is regarded as a guarantee of personal freedom in matters pertaining to higher education.

Since the public school system in the United States is in great part coeducational, the exclusion of women from conferences pertaining to school affairs and their administration would indicate that an especially great injustice were being committed. This was indeed recognized, and women were given the right to vote on school affairs not only in the five woman’s suffrage states [Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, Idaho, and Kansas], but also in twenty-three other states, in which women are without political rights in other respects. The famous deaf-blind woman, Helen Keller, was appointed to serve on the state committee on the education of the blind. In Boston trained nurses are employed to make visits to the homes of the school children. An agitation is on foot to have women inspectors of schools.

In all woman’s suffrage states special attention is devoted to educational matters. Thus the State of Idaho appropriated $2500 for the establishment of a lectureship in domestic science. From 1872 to 1900 the number of women students has increased 148.7 per cent (while the number of men students increased 60.6 per cent). Among women there are also fewer illiterates, drunkards, and criminals; in other words, women are the more moral and better educated part of the American population; and it is these who are excluded from active participation in political affairs.

The number of women lawyers is estimated at one thousand; in twenty-three states they may plead in the Supreme Court. Women lawyers have their own professional organizations.

In Ohio, women are employed in the police service; in Pennsylvania they are appointed as tax-collectors; in the city of Portland a woman was appointed as inspector of markets with police power. Women justices of the peace are as numerous as women mayors. In Oregon a woman is secretary to the governor, for whom she acts with full authority.

In all woman’s suffrage states women act as jurors. Besides these states only Illinois permits women to serve as jurors—and then only in a juvenile court.

There are said to be about 2000 women journalists. Their writings are often sensational, but in the United States sensationalism is characteristic of the profession.

Of women preachers there are 3,500, belonging to 158 different denominations. Among these women preachers there are also negresses. The women study in theological seminaries, are ordained and devote themselves either to the real calling of the ministry, social rescue work, or to the woman’s rights propaganda, as does the excellent speaker, the Reverend Anna Shaw. The women preachers who devote themselves to social rescue work usually study medicine also, so that they can first secure confidence as persons skilled in the cure of the body, and then later the cure of the soul is less difficult.

There are 7000 women in the medical profession,—more than in any other profession. The first women who studied medicine were American, Elizabeth Blackwell having done so as early as 1846. Only the University of Geneva (New York) would admit her; in 1848 she graduated there. Then she continued her studies in Paris and London, returning in 1851 to New York, in order to practice. Her first patients were Quakers. Elizabeth Blackwell and her sister Emily (Blackwell) then founded in New York the “Hospital for Indigent Women,” to which the medical schools in Boston and Philadelphia sent their graduates to obtain practical work.[20] A large number of women lawyers, preachers, and doctors are married. In 1900 the total number of women in the professions (exclusive of teaching) was 16,000. In 1900, 14.3 per cent of the female population were engaged in industries; since 1880 the number of women engaged in the professions and industries increased 128 per cent (while that of the men increased 76 per cent).[21]

Most of the technical schools admit women. There are fifty-three women architects. The Woman’s Building of the World’s Exposition in Chicago (1893) was designed by Sophia Haydn and erected under her supervision. It is not unusual for women who are owners of business enterprises to take technical courses. Thus Miss Jones, as her father’s heir, became, after a careful education, manageress of her large steel works in Chicago. The Cincinnati pottery [Rookwood], founded by women, is also managed by them. There are five women captains of ships, four women pilots, and twenty-four women engineers.

During twenty-five years, women have had 4000 inventions patented. The women of the South produced fewest inventions. But in these fields women still meet with prejudice and difficulties. In increasing numbers women are becoming bankers, merchants, contractors, owners or managers of factories, shareholders, stock-brokers, and commercial travelers. About 1000 women are now engaged in these occupations. As office clerks women have stood the test well in the United States. They are esteemed for their discretion and willingness to work. They are paid $12 to $20 a week. According to the most recent statistics on the trades and professions (1900) there were 1271 women bank clerks, 27,712 women bookkeepers, and 86,118 women stenographers.

In the civil service we find fewer women (they are not voters): in 1890 there were 14,692, of whom 8474 were postal, telephone, and telegraph clerks, and 300 were police officials. In 1900, the total number of women engaged in commerce was 503,574.

The prejudice against the women of the lower classes is still evident. Here at the very outset there is a great difference between the wages of men and women, the wages of the latter being from one third to one half lower. This is caused partly by the fact that women are given the disagreeable, tiresome, and unimportant work, which they must accept, not being given an opportunity to do the better class of work,—frequently because they have not learned their trade thoroughly. A further cause for the lower wages of women is that they are working for “pocket-money” and “incidentals,” and thus spoil the market for those who must pay their whole living expenses with what they earn. Among the women workers of the United States there are two classes,—the industrial class and the amateurs. The latter make the existence of the former almost impossible. Such a competition is unknown to men in industrial work. Mrs. v. Vorst[22] proposes a solution—to make the industrial amateurs become special artisans by means of a longer apprenticeship, thus relieving the industrial slaves from injurious competition.

Office work and work in the factories enables the American women of the middle and lower classes to satisfy their desire for independence; those who are not obliged to provide for themselves wish at least to have money at their disposal. That is a thoroughly sound aspiration. These girls become factory employees and not domestic servants, (1) because work in their own home is not paid for (the general disregard of housework drives the women striving for independence away from the house); (2) because of the absence of regularity in housework; (3) because the domestic servants are not free on Sundays; (4) because they must live with the employers. These facts are established by answer to inquiries made by Miss Jackson, factory inspector of Wisconsin.

The women employed in the stores and factories are in general paid about the same wages, $4 to $6 a week. A saleswoman, upon whom greater demands are made as to dress and personal appearance, finds it more difficult to live on these wages than would the woman employed in the factory. As pocket-money, however, this sum is a very good remuneration, and this explains why the girls of these classes, in imitation of the bad example set them by the members of the upper ranks of society, manifest such an extraordinary taste for costly clothes and expensive pleasures. In 1888, an official inquiry showed that 95 per cent of the women laborers lived at home; in 1891 another official inquiry showed that one third of the women laborers earned $5 a week; two thirds from $5 to $7, and only 1.8 per cent earned more than $12, while the men laborers earned on the average $12 to $15 a week. Women laborers are organized as yet only to a small extent (1 per cent, while 10 per cent of the men are organized). There are separate social-democratic organizations of women, formed through the Federation of Labor.

The workingwomen especially will be helped by the right to vote. In the “Political Equality Series” appears a pamphlet entitled Why does the Working-woman need the Right to Vote? In the first place she needs the right to vote in order to secure higher wages. Just suppose that the members of the typographical union were to-morrow deprived of their right to vote. Only their full political emancipation could again restore them to their former position of prestige among the working classes. This is exactly the case with the women, and they have not even reached the highly-developed organization of the typographers. A politically unfree laboring class is also unable to maintain its vocation against a laboring class possessing political rights; if the vocation is remunerative the unfree class will be deprived of it or be kept from it altogether. The oppression of the workingwomen has its effect also on men through its tendency to lower wages. Therefore at the present time the trades-unions have recognized that to organize women is in the interests of all workingmen, and while the women were refused organization forty years ago, the Federation of Labor is to-day paying trades-union organizers to induce women to become members of trades-unions. The introduction of a low rate of wages in one branch of a trade (pursued by both men and women) is always a menace to the branches that survive the reduction. The number of women engaged in the industries in 1900 was 1,315,890. The number of married women engaged in industrial pursuits is small; in 1895, an official investigation showed that in 1067 factories 7,000 workingwomen out of 71,000 were married. The chief industries in which women are employed are the textile industry (cotton), laundering, the manufacture of ready-made clothing, corsets, carpets, millinery, and fancy-goods. Women work alongside the men in wool-spinning, in bookbinding, and in the manufacture of shoes, mittens, tobacco, and confectionery.

The inability of workingwomen to exercise political rights makes minors of them when compared with workingmen, and this decreases their importance as human beings. Women cannot protect themselves against injustice, and these things put them at a great disadvantage.

The American women became involved in a lively conflict with President Roosevelt (otherwise favoring woman’s rights) concerning his gift to a father and mother for bringing twenty children into the world. The women declared in the Woman’s Journal that it is wrong to encourage an immoderate procreation of children among a population 70 per cent of which possesses no property.[23] Above all, this encouragement is not only a menace to the overworked and oppressed workingwomen, but it is inhuman, and really lowers woman to the position of a machine for bearing children.

The institution of factory inspection does not as yet exist in the whole Union. According to the report of Mrs. v. Vorst[24] the factories and the homes of laborers in the Southern States are extremely unsatisfactory. Child labor is exploited there, a matter which is now being dealt with by the National Child Labor Committee. According to this same work (the inquiry of Mrs. v. Vorst) the living conditions in the North and Central States are better, and the moral menaces to the young girl are inconsiderable. The women of the property-holding classes are attempting to do their duty toward the women of the factories and stores by founding clubs, vacation colonies, and homes for them. Within recent years the great department stores have appointed “social secretaries,” who look after the weal and woe of the employees. It would be well to have such secretaries in the factories and mills also. Since 1874 the working week of sixty hours for women in industry and commerce has spread from Massachusetts to almost the entire Union. Since 1890, night labor has been prohibited by law. The working girls have been provided with seats while at work, partly as a result of legislation and partly by the voluntary act of the employers.

In agriculture women find a profitable field of activity. Of course they are never field hands, but are employers and laborers in the dairy business, in poultry farming, and in the raising of vegetables and fruit. Women have introduced the growing of cress, cranberries, and cucumbers in various regions, and have cultivated the famous asparagus of Oyster Bay and the “Improved New York Strawberries.” In 1900, there were 980,025 women engaged in agriculture (as compared with 9,458,194 men). The number of women domestic servants in the United States amounts to 2,099,165; fifty per cent of the families dispense with servants, since they cannot afford to pay $15 to $20 a month for a servant, or $30 for a cook. Educated women, called visiting housekeepers, undertake the supervision of some of the households of the better class, aided, of course, by help in the house.

The legal status of the American women is regulated by 52 sets of laws, corresponding to the number of states and territories. The civil code is unfavorable to woman in most of the states. In the National Trade Union League (New York) the Reverend Anna Shaw declared recently that in 38 states the property laws made “joint property holding” legal, as a result of which the wife has no independent control of her personal earnings or her personal effects, e.g. her clothes. In 38 states the wife also has no legal authority over her children. For full particulars the reader is referred to Volume IV of the History of Woman’s Suffrage. To an increasing extent the women are using their right to administer their property independently, and the men are usually proud of the business ability and success of their wives.

A legal regulation of prostitution (such as prevailed formerly in England and as prevails now in Germany) does not exist in the United States. Cincinnati is the only city which in the European sense has police control of prostitution. Public opinion has successfully resisted all similar attempts. (Woman’s Journal, July, 1904.) The American Commission, which went to Europe to study the regulation of prostitution, declared that the American woman cannot be expected to sanction such an arrangement, and that, moreover, the system had not stood the test. In the police stations, police matrons are employed. The law protects the woman in the street against the man and not, as in Europe, the man against the woman.

In order to combat the double standard of morals the “Social Purity League” was formed. The membership is composed of those men and women who are thoroughly convinced that there is only one standard of morality for both sexes, since they have the same obligations to their offspring. Founded in 1886, this organization has spread since 1889 throughout the entire Union.

The “World’s Woman’s Christian Temperance Union,” the second largest international woman’s organization, originated in America. It was founded in 1883 by Frances E. Willard (her father was Hilgard, from the Palatinate). The Union has 300,000 members in the United States at the present time, and 450,000 members in the whole world. In 1906 it met in Boston. It is the determined enemy of alcohol, and gives proof of its convictions through the work of its soldier’s and sailor’s department, its committees on railroads, tramways, police stations, cab drivers, etc. This Union, as well as the “Social Purity League,” is a firm advocate of woman’s suffrage.

The emancipation of the American women is promoted through sports. If on the one hand they appreciate an elaborate toilette, on the other hand they recognize the advantages of bloomers, the walking skirt, and the divided skirt. In these costumes they play basketball, polo, tennis, and take gymnastic exercise, fence, and row. The woman’s colleges are centers of athletic life. There the girls now play football in male costume, the public being excluded. In all large cities there are athletic clubs for women, some extremely sumptuous (with a hundred-dollar fee) as well as very simple clubs for workingwomen of sedentary life.

We have seen that the legal status of women in many states is still in need of reform. All the more instructive is the survey of laws concerning women and children in the woman’s suffrage states, published by Mrs. C. Waugh McCullock, a woman lawyer, of Chicago. The wife disposes of her wages and her dowry (in Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and Idaho). Men and women receive equal pay for the same work. All professions and public offices are open to women. Women act as jurors. They have the same right of inheritance as men. Divorce is granted to either party under the same circumstances. The claims of the wife and the children under age are given a decided preference over those of creditors. Education from the kindergarten to the university is free and is open to women. The labor of women in mines is prohibited. The maximum working-day for women is eight hours. All houses of correction and institutions for the protection of women and children must have women physicians and overseers. The age of consent is 18 years. Gambling and prostitution are prohibited. Both father and mother exercise parental authority. The surviving husband is guardian of the children. The sale of alcoholic liquors and tobacco to children is prohibited. No child under 14 years of age may work in the mines. Pornographic literature and pictures are prohibited.

In conclusion I shall take several points from the lecture which Professor F. Laurie Poster held before the Political Equality League in Chicago, after the women of Chicago had waged a vigorous campaign for the right to vote in municipal affairs.

Why is the value of woman placed so low? Merely because she is more helpless than man. Children are valued even less than women because they surpass the women in helplessness. Only animals have less power of defense; therefore they have the lowest value placed on them. In the United States it has now been demonstrated that whoever possesses the right to vote is esteemed more highly than he who does not have that right. We see this in the woman’s suffrage states; here the women have made provisions not only for themselves, but for the children as well, for it is one of the fundamental instincts of woman to protect her little ones. In most of the states of the Union, however, women can help directly neither themselves nor their children. That women should be forced to struggle for these ends against the opposition of man is one of the most unfortunate phases of the whole movement.

When woman became property, a possession, the overestimation of her sexual value began. Her sex was her weapon, and her capabilities became stunted. This over emphasis of the sexual causes a great part of the most flagrant evils among civilized peoples. To-day we have reached a stage where we despise him who sells his vote. Unfortunately it is still permitted to sell one’s sex. In this roundabout way woman attains most of the good things in life. Her economic successes depend almost entirely on the resources of the man to whom she belongs. Both sexes suffer as a result of this attitude of society. Woman’s uncertain feeling, that she must concentrate her interests and responsibilities in the one who provides for the family, has created exceedingly peculiar customs and a wholly absurd code of honor for both man and woman. Thereby woman is directed to a roundabout way for everything she wishes to obtain. Whatever she wishes for herself must appear as a domestic virtue, if possible as a sacrifice for the family. Man thinks it very natural that he should do what he desires, that he should pursue his pleasures and gratify his passions, for he is indeed the one who possesses authority and does not need first to stamp his wishes as virtues. But it seems just as natural to him that the women of the family should be endowed with a double portion of piety, economy and willingness to make sacrifices,—virtues in which he is so lacking. Women are created especially for that. By nature they are better, and indeed they make great efforts to cover the faults of the offending one and forgivingly accept him again. In fact they do it gladly; it gives them pleasure, and man certainly does not wish to deprive them of the opportunity for such great joys. Therefore man is instantly at hand to warn woman when she shows any inclination toward adopting “masculine” habits. But he certainly would be more conscientious and more moral if woman no longer assumed these virtues vicariously for him. Woman must make her demands of man. For that she must be free.[25]

AUSTRALIA[26]

It is a rare thing for Europeans to have a definite conception of the Australian Commonwealth. This is the more to be regretted since this federation of republics is among the countries that have made the greatest progress in the woman’s rights movement. In no other part of the world has such a radical change in the status of woman been effected in so short a time and with such comparatively insignificant struggles.

Till 1840, Australia had been a penal colony. Since then,—after the discovery of the first gold fields,—a multitude of fortune-seekers, gold-miners, and adventurers joined the population of deported convicts. The good middle-class element for a long time remained in the minority. Certainly nobody would have believed that there existed at that time in Australia all the conditions necessary for the growth of a flourishing and highly civilized commonwealth. Nevertheless, such was the case. There were formed seven democratic states, whose people were not bound by any traditionalism or excessive fondness for time-honored, inherited customs; these people wished to have elbowroom and were determined to establish themselves on their own soil in their own way. This all took place the more easily since England gave the growing commonwealth in general an exceedingly free hand, and because the inhabitants were by nature independent. Australia was colonized by those who, having come into conflict with the laws of the old world, found their sphere of life narrow and restricted.

Because Australia to-day has only about five million inhabitants, the country is confronted only in a limited way with the problem of dealing with congested masses of people, a condition which is favorable to all social experimentation. Those in authority believe they can direct and eventually mold the development of the Commonwealth.

Sixty-five per cent of the population are Protestant; the Germanic element predominates. The women constitute not quite 50 per cent of the population. Thus in many respects the Australian colonies possess conditions similar to those prevailing in the western states of the American Union, and the results of the woman’s rights movement are in both regions approximately the same. Mrs. M. Donohue, one of the delegates from Australia, declared at the London Woman’s Suffrage Congress that her country had brought about “the greatest happiness for the greatest number.”

Naturally, the Australian governments had originally a series of material problems to solve, real problems of existence, as, for example, to find a satisfactory agricultural policy in a predominantly farming and cattle-raising country. When the economic basis of the country seemed sufficiently secure, the intellectual interests were given attention. A country which never had slavery or a feudal regime, a Salic Law, or a Code Napoleon; a country which has no divine right of kings, and is not oppressed with militarism; a country which judges a man by his personal ability and esteems him for what he is, such a country certainly could not tolerate the dogma of woman’s inferiority. Between 1871 and 1880, the school systems of the various colonies were regulated by a series of laws. Elementary instruction, which is free and obligatory, is given in public schools to children of both sexes between the ages of five and fifteen, but in most cases the sexes are segregated. In the public schools of the whole continent about 20,000 teachers are employed (9,000 men and 11,000 women). The men predominate in the leading well-paid positions. The secondary school system (as in England) is composed largely of private schools, and is to a great extent in the hands of the Protestant denominations and the Catholic orders. The governments subsidize these institutions. Girls and boys enjoy the same educational opportunities in the schools, part of which are coeducational.

The four Australian universities—Sidney (New South Wales), Melbourne (Victoria), Adelaide (South Australia), and Aukland (New Zealand)—are to-day open to women, who can secure all academic degrees granted by the philosophical, law, and medical faculties.[27]

The number of students in the universities is as follows: in Sidney, 1054 (of whom 142 are women); in New Zealand University, 1332 (of whom 369 are women); in Melbourne, 853 (of whom 128 are women). The total number of students in Adelaide and Hobart is 626 and 62 respectively, but the number of women students is not given. The educational problem is thus solved for the Australian woman in a favorable manner: she has equal and full privileges in the universities.

What are the conditions in the occupations? “All occupations are open to women,” is stated in a report which I have used.[28] But that is not entirely correct. Women are teachers, but they are not lecturers and professors in the universities. As preachers they are admitted only among the Nonconformists. There are women doctors and dentists, and in four colonies (New Zealand, Tasmania, West Australia, and Victoria) women are permitted to practice law, but they are confronted with a certain popular prejudice when they attempt to enter medicine, law, technical science, and a teaching career in the universities. The state employs women in the elementary schools; in the postal and telegraph service; as registrars (permitting them to perform marriage ceremonies); and as factory inspectors. But the salaries and wages in Australia are not always the same for both sexes. Thus, for example, in South Australia the male head masters of the public schools draw salaries of 110 to 450 pounds sterling, while the women draw 80 to 156 pounds sterling. Since school affairs are not affairs under the control of the Commonwealth, the federal law (equal wages for equal work) cannot be applied in this particular. In Tasmania[29] (where the women have voted since 1903) women are teachers in the public schools, employees in the postal, telegraph, and telephone systems, supervisors of health in the public schools, and assistants to the quarantine and sanitary boards; they are registrars in the parishes, superintendents of hospitals, asylums, prisons, etc. Public offices in the army, the navy, and the church alone remain closed to them.

It is to be noted here that Mrs. Dobson, of Tasmania, was the official representative of the Australian government at the International Woman’s Suffrage Congress held in Amsterdam in 1908.

The official yearbook of the Australian Federation gives the following industrial statistics for 1901: state and municipal office holders, 41,235 women (69,399 men); domestic servants, 150,201 women (50,335 men); commerce, 34,514 women (188,144 men); transportation, 3429 women (118,730 men); industry, 75,570 women (350,596 men); agriculture and forestry, fisheries, and mining, 38,944 women (494,163 men). In all fields, with the exception of domestic service, the men are in a numerical superiority; therefore the matrimonial opportunities of the Australian woman are favorable. For every 100 girls 105.99 boys were born in 1906; the statistics for 1906 showed a greater number of marriages than ever before (30,410). The difference in the ages of the married men and women is 4.5 years on the average; the number of children per family is about 4 (3.77).

Five Australian colonies (New Zealand, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, and New South Wales) have enacted the following laws for the protection of workingwomen:

1. Maximum working time—48 hours a week.

2. The prohibition of night work (except in Queensland).

3. Higher wages for overtime.

The eight-hour day is necessitated throughout Australia by the climate. The other provisions are perhaps not stringently enforced. Children under thirteen years cannot be employed in the factories. Socialistic regulations, such as fixing the minimum wages in certain industries, and the establishment of obligatory courts of arbitration, have been instituted in several colonies (Victoria, New South Wales, etc.).

In the beginning the English Common Law regulated the legal status of the Australian women. During the past fifty years this law has undergone many modifications. Each colony acted independently in the matter, and therefore there is no longer uniformity. In all cases separate ownership of property is legal. However, joint parental authority is legally established only in New Zealand. The divorce laws are prejudicial to women in almost all respects.

In the field of legislation the influence of woman’s suffrage has already made itself definitely felt. Each colony has its state legislature which consists of a Lower House and a Senate. Every Australian who is twenty-one years old is a voter in both state and municipal elections. (There is a property qualification only for those voting for the Senate.) In 1869 the woman’s suffrage movement began in Australia (in Victoria). The right to vote in school and municipal affairs was given to women as a matter of course.[30] The right to vote in state affairs was granted to women first in New Zealand in 1893, in South Australia in 1895, in West Australia in 1899, in New South Wales in 1903, in Queensland in 1905, and in Victoria in 1908.

When the six Australian colonies (excluding New Zealand) formed themselves into a federation in 1900, an Australian Federal Parliament was established. The women of all of the six colonies voted for the parliamentary officers on an equality with men. Here was a curious thing—the women of the four conservative colonies voted for the members of the Federal Parliament but could not vote for the state legislature.

On the basis of the documents dealing with Victoria I shall give a more detailed account of the history of woman’s suffrage in this colony. The greatest statesman of Victoria, George Higinbotham, in 1873 introduced the first woman’s suffrage bill before Parliament. This met with no success. A number of similar attempts were made until 1884. In this year there was founded the first “Woman’s Suffrage Society” in Victoria. The movement then spread rapidly, and in 1891 thirty thousand women petitioned Parliament for the suffrage in state affairs. For the time being this attempt likewise met with failure. But the political organization of the women was strengthened through the formation of the “United Council for Woman’s Suffrage.” Every year after 1895 this Council gave advice to the Lower House concerning the framing of woman’s suffrage bills, and thus enlarged its influence. Hitherto the passing of the suffrage bill had been prevented by the opposition of the Upper House (which was not chosen by universal suffrage). On November 18, 1908, the bill was finally passed by the House of Obstruction, and thus the women, who had worked for the suffrage, were finally emancipated. Since 1893, the year of the emancipation of women in New Zealand, the opponents of woman’s suffrage put off the women with the request to wait and see how the plan worked in New Zealand; in 1896 the women were asked to wait and see how the plan worked in New South Wales; in 1902 they were asked to see how woman’s suffrage worked in the federal elections. In 1908 it was possible to secure only 3500 signatures against woman’s suffrage.

In New Zealand the women have exercised active suffrage since 1893. There also, the gloomiest predictions were made when this “unprecedented” measure was adopted. There were, of course, women opponents of woman’s suffrage. Such, for example, was Mrs. Seddon, the wife of the Prime Minister of New Zealand. She said: “It seemed to me that the women ought to remain away from the tumult and riotous scenes of the polling booths. But I gave up this view. With us, the women benefited the suffrage and the suffrage benefited the women. The elections have taken place more quietly and women have indicated a lively interest in public affairs.

“Woman’s suffrage has not caused family dissensions. It has frequently happened that whole families have voted for the same candidate. In other cases different members of one family voted for different candidates. But this has not disturbed domestic tranquillity, for nowhere have family feuds been engendered by one member or another of the family boasting of the success of his candidate. The fear that the women would vote largely for Conservative candidates, through the influence of the clergy, was not realized. Already the women have twice contributed to the reëlection of a Liberal minister. Neither the Protestant nor the Catholic clergy endeavored to influence the votes of the women anywhere.” The Countess Wachtmeister, a Californian traveling in Australia, confirms this opinion, “Thanks to woman’s suffrage the respectable elements that formerly often remained away from the political arena have now again stepped to the front; they have presented successful candidates, and have begun to play an important part in the political life of the country.”

Since women have exercised the right to vote in New Zealand the following legal reforms have been enacted:

1. Divorces are granted to the wife and to the husband upon the same grounds.

2. The husband can no longer deprive the wife and children of their inheritances by means of a will.

3. The conditions of suffrage in municipal elections were made the same for both women and men.

4. The saloons are closed on election days.

5. Women are admitted to the practice of law.

6. The age of consent for girls was raised to 17.

Similar reforms were enacted in South Australia. There Mrs. Mary Lee is the leader in the woman’s suffrage movement, and founder of the “Women’s Suffrage Society.” When the woman’s suffrage bill was passed in 1895 the Prime Minister, the Minister of Public Instruction, and the Lord Mayor gave Mrs. Lee an impressive reception in the town hall; they thanked her for the untiring efforts which she had devoted to the cause, and the Prime Minister said, “Mrs. Lee is the originator of the greatest reforms in the constitutional history of Australia.” What enlightened views the ministers in the antipodal countries do have! Are they really our antiscians to such a degree?

Since 1896, the following reforms have been effected by the South Australian Parliament:

1. A modification of the marriage law (the husband must provide for the wife and children if his brutality leads to a divorce). An enlargement of woman’s sphere in the business world. Separate property rights.

2. Greater strength was given to the law compelling the father of illicit children to fulfill his pecuniary duties.

3. A severer penalty for trafficking in girls.

4. The increasing of the age of consent to 17.

5. Improved laws providing for the care of dependent children.

6. A maximum working week of 52 hours for children engaged in industry.

7. Laws suppressing pornography.

8. Laws prohibiting the sale of liquor and tobacco to children.

9. Women were appointed to the positions of inspectors of schools, prisons, hospitals, etc.

In West Australia, where women have voted since 1899, the women were admitted to the practice of law; the age of consent was raised to 17 years; and the conditions on which divorce are granted were made the same for man and woman. In Europe people still question the practical value of woman’s suffrage.

Following the establishment of woman’s suffrage in New South Wales and Tasmania, juvenile courts were introduced; New South Wales adopted a very stringent law regulating the sale of liquor (local option; no barmaids under 21 years could be employed; the sale of liquors to children under 14 years was prohibited).

Since women have voted in the elections for the Federal Parliament they have formed the Australian Woman’s Political Association. The President is Miss Vida Goldstein, of Victoria. To the Association belong woman’s suffrage leagues, woman’s trade-unions, temperance societies, woman’s church clubs, and other organizations. For the present the women will not ally themselves with any of the existing parties, since the principles of none of them correspond exactly to the programme which the women have set up. The “Political Equality League” is satisfactory in one respect (equal rights for both sexes), but goes too far in its socialistic demands.

The women have succeeded in having federal laws enacted providing that all state employees be paid the same wages for the same work, and that the legal provisions for naturalization permit woman to retain her right of self-government and her individuality. The government will propose a federal law securing uniformity in the marriage laws (laws in regard to marriage, property, divorce, and parental authority).

In all the Australian colonies women have active suffrage, but not in all cases the passive. Wherever they possess the latter they have laid little claim to it:

1. because a part of the capable women believe they can work more effectively and achieve more if they are not attached to a political party;

2. because the established party programmes very frequently embody the demands of the women;

3. because for this reason the political parties expect no special advantage from the women, and it is difficult to secure the support of the great party papers for the women candidates;

4. because the Australian elections also cost money, and the capable women are not always well-to-do.

In 1903, Miss Vida Goldstein announced her candidature for the Federal Parliament and was defeated. In the federal elections of 1906 on an average 58.36 per cent of the registered men and 43.30 per cent of the registered women voted (against 53.09 and 30.96 per cent in 1903).

In two pamphlets,—Woman’s Suffrage in New Zealand, and Woman’s Suffrage in Australia,[31]—the leading men of the youngest region of the world have given their written testimony on the practical workings of woman’s suffrage. These men are prime ministers of the colonies, public prosecutors, the ministers of the various state departments, members of the lower houses in the parliaments, high dignitaries of the Church, the editors of large political newspapers. They all make the most favorable statements concerning woman’s suffrage.

“The women have demanded nothing unreasonable from their representatives, and have always placed themselves on the side of clean politics and clean politicians.” “Woman’s suffrage has brought about neither the millennium nor pandemonium,” and the New Zealanders do not understand why it is that in other countries people “can still become agitated over anything so inherently reasonable as woman’s suffrage.”

All who wish to have the right to participate in a discussion on woman’s suffrage must first study these two books of testimonials. A mere knowledge of these facts will cause much insipid discussion to cease in public meetings.

From the French consul in Dantzig, Count Jouffroy d’Abbans, one familiar with Australian conditions, I learned the following isolated facts concerning woman’s suffrage. It has a salutary influence throughout. Women show a lively interest in political and municipal questions; for the sake of their political rights they neglect their “specifically feminine” duties so little that they come to the parliamentary sessions with knitting, embroidery, and sewing. They also engage in these feminine activities while attending the night sessions. On election days there is certainly often a cold dinner or supper. But that occurs on washing days, too, and no one has yet wished to deny women the privilege of doing the washing. It is safe to say that the Australian woman’s rights movement will not fail because of this obstacle.

GREAT BRITAIN

“England is the storm center of our movement,” declared the President of the International Woman’s Suffrage Alliance in the Amsterdam Congress. This was the conviction of the Congress, which therefore resolved to hold the next International Woman’s Suffrage Congress in London (in April, 1909). The fact is undisputed that the English suffragettes—whether one favors or opposes their actions—have made Great Britain the center of the modern woman’s rights movement. England is a European country, an old country with rigid traditions, which, nevertheless, are the freest political traditions that we have in Europe to-day. For fifty years the English women have struggled for the right to vote. In spite of the fact that their country has neither Salic Law nor continental militarism (two of the greatest obstacles to all woman’s rights movements), the English women have not as yet attained their ends. This is an indication of the tenacity of the prejudices against women in the countries of older civilizations.

The opposition offered to the political emancipation of women in England is all the more remarkable since the English women were able to exercise the right to vote on an equality with men in national elections till 1832, and in municipal elections till 1835.[32] To that time we find the same conditions prevailing in England as prevailed in the nine American commonwealths previous to 1783. This parity of circumstances is explained by the English principle of representation: no taxation without representation. In 1832 and 1835, however, the English women, who as taxpayers were qualified to vote, had the right to vote in national and municipal affairs taken from them; for the word “persons” the expression “male persons” was substituted in the election law. When this disfranchisement took place none of those concerned cried out against it. For two hundred years the women had made no use worth mentioning of the right to vote. But a part of the women, especially those of the liberal and cultured circles, saw the significance of this retrograde step.

The political struggles of general concern during the following period (such as the antislavery movement and the anticorn-law movement) furnished these women an opportunity to educate themselves in political affairs, and, like the American women of that time, they in many cases learned their political ABC by means of the same questions. Such men as Cobden, Pease, Biggs, Knight, and others were the advance guard of the political women in England. The earliest pamphlet on women’s suffrage preserved to us appeared in 1847. It is a small leaflet and says among other things, “As long as both sexes and all parties are not given a just representation, good government is impossible” (which is a paraphrase of the American principle—every just government derives its powers from the consent of the governed). The contrary view had been stated in the Encyclopædia Britannica as early as 1842 by the father of John Stuart Mill: “It is self-evident that all persons whose interests are identical with those of a different class are excluded from political representation without injury.” Certainly from such an arrangement the “representatives” will suffer no injury. That select group of intellectual women who trained themselves politically during the antislavery movement and the struggle for free trade consisted of the mothers, the sisters, and daughters of liberal politicians and academically trained men. Many of these women were themselves students and teachers. No antagonism ever existed in England between the woman’s suffrage movement and the movement favoring the education of woman.

Such were the conditions in 1866. A new election law was to be introduced in Parliament; a new class of men was to be granted the right of suffrage by the lowering of the property qualification. The women decided to present a petition to the House of Commons requesting the right to vote in national elections. The women had decided to act thus publicly because of the presence of John Stuart Mill in the House of Commons, and because of an utterance of Disraeli’s, “In a country in which a woman can be ruler, peer, church trustee, owner of estates, and guardian of the poor, I do not see in the name of what principle the right to vote can be withheld from her.” Four petitions (one signed by 1499 women, one by 1605 taxpaying women, and two more signed by 3559 and 3000 men and women) were sent to the House of Commons; and on May 20, 1867, John Stuart Mill, after he had presented the petitions, moved that the right to vote be given to the qualified women taxpayers. His motion was rejected by a vote of 196 to 73. Thereupon there were formed for systematic propaganda, woman’s suffrage societies in London, Edinburgh, Manchester, Birmingham, and Bristol; these cities are still the center of the movement. The new election law gave women a further advantage—the expression male person was replaced with the generic word “man.”[33] Since an Act of Parliament (13 and 14 Vict., c. 21) declares that in all laws the masculine expression also includes the feminine, unless the contrary is expressly stated, the friends of woman’s suffrage believed they could interpret this expression in favor of women. The attempt to do this was now made. A number of qualified women demanded that they be registered with the voters; they were determined to have recourse to the law if the government commission refused to register their votes. At this time the first public meeting of women in England was held in the famous “Free Trade Hall” in Manchester. But the courts and the Supreme Court interpreted the law against the women,—“they are disqualified neither intellectually nor morally, but legally.” Then a methodical propaganda by means of public meetings was begun; the first victory was won as early as 1869,—the women taxpayers were given the right to vote in municipal affairs in England, Scotland, and Wales.

Between 1870 and 1884, the political organization of the women was strengthened; the women of the aristocracy (Lady Amberly, Lady Anne Gore-Langton, and others) were won over to the cause of woman’s suffrage. A “Central Committee for Woman’s Suffrage” was formed, and a number of excellent women speakers (Biggs, Maclaren, Becker, Fawcett, Craigen, Kingsley, Tod, and others) spoke throughout the country. A further success was achieved when the Parliament of the Isle of Man[34] (House of Keys) gave qualified women the right to vote.

In 1884, the property qualification was again reduced through a new election law; the friends of woman’s suffrage took advantage of this opportunity to present a motion in Parliament favoring woman’s suffrage, in support of which the following statements were made: “Two million men, many of whom are ignorant and uneducated, and possess only a small plot of ground, are to be given political rights. On what principle is the same right withheld from 300,000 women who are educated and who are landowners?” This motion was lost also. In 1885 the English women, in order to make their influence felt in political affairs, formed the “Primrose League,” which supported the Conservative candidates in the election campaigns; and in 1887 was formed the “Women’s Liberal Federation,” which supported the Liberals in a similar manner. The next attempt to secure woman’s suffrage was made in 1897, but it was unsuccessful. During the Boer War woman’s suffrage receded into the background, and not until March 14, 1904, was a woman’s suffrage bill again introduced; this bill did not become law. At that time the woman’s suffrage movement was lifeless, and in a thoroughly hopeless condition. All the usual means of propaganda had been exhausted,—meetings, petitions, and personal work during campaigns made no impressions either on the members of Parliament, the government, or on public opinion. It was no longer possible to educe arguments against the right of qualified women to vote (it was not a question of universal suffrage, but, just as in the case of the men, it was a matter of granting the franchise to women holding property in their own name and earning their own living). Governments, however, wish to be coerced into granting the franchise, and the representatives of the woman’s suffrage movement were not determined enough to exercise the necessary coercion. Therefore, the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies transferred the leadership of the movement to the National Women’s Social and Political Union, whose members are known by the name of suffragettes. This transference of leadership took place during the autumn of 1905.

The suffragettes then adopted militant tactics, making the government their point of attack. This was a good stroke, for since 1905 England has had a Liberal Cabinet, and several of the ministers and over 400 of the 600 members of the House of Commons have declared themselves as friends of woman’s suffrage. “Then why don’t you grant us our political freedom?” asked the suffragettes.

The women are heads of families, they pay rent and taxes, just as the men. All their conditions of livelihood are as dependent upon the laws as are those of the men. A liberal government and liberal members of Parliament ought to be liberal towards women and grant them the suffrage. Many of these ministers and many members of Parliament owe their political careers, their election, and their influence to the practical campaign activities of women or to the woman’s suffrage movement, which they supported in order to enlarge their political influence. They have made use of the woman’s suffrage movement and now wish to do nothing in return. The fate of all woman’s suffrage bills introduced since 1870 (13 in number) proves that it is hopeless to have such bills introduced by private members. Women must turn their hopes to a bill introduced by the government. The present Liberal government needs only to treat the matter seriously; then a woman’s suffrage bill will be passed.

But the government has not treated the matter seriously; hence the suffragettes have declared war. It is their determination to fight every ministry which is not kindly disposed toward the suffrage movement.

The struggle is carried on by the following means: organization of societies; meetings throughout the country; street parades and open air meetings (especially significant are those of June 13 and 21, 1908); the employment of first-class speakers, who make concise, clear, ingenious, and stirring speeches; the raising of large sums of money (20,000 pounds, i.e. $100,000 annually; there is a reserve fund of 50,000 pounds, i.e. $250,000); the publication of a well-managed periodical, Votes for Women.[35]

The leaders are Mrs. and Miss Pankhurst, Mrs. Drummond, Annie Kenney, Mr. and Mrs. Pethick Lawrence. These and the most determined of their associates undertake to send deputations to the Liberal Prime Minister, Mr. Asquith, and to ask the question in all public meetings in which members of the Cabinet speak,—when will you give women the right to vote?

The deputations go to Parliament because women, as taxpayers, have the right to speak to the Prime Minister, who continually receives deputations of men. Since the Prime Minister does not wish to grant women the right to vote, the deputations of women are prevented from entering the Houses of Parliament by strong squads of police, both mounted and on foot; and if the women do not desist from their attempt to make known to the Prime Minister the resolutions of their meeting, they are arrested for the disturbance of the peace, the interruption of traffic, or the instigation of tumult and riot; they are arraigned in the police court and are sentenced to imprisonment in the ordinary prisons. The Liberal government stubbornly refuses to regard these women as political offenders and to punish them as such.

The woman’s suffrage advocates, who ask the Cabinet members questions in public meetings, direct their questions to both friends and opponents of woman’s suffrage. For, they inquire, of what use are our friends to us if they do nothing for us? The members of the English Cabinet have a joint responsibility for their political programme. If the friends of woman’s suffrage treat the matter seriously, they must either convert their colleagues or resign. As long as they do not do that, they are merely playing with woman’s suffrage and the women think it necessary to “heckle” them. The women who ask the questions are often ejected from the meetings in a very rough way.[36]

The suffragettes give the government conclusive proof of their political power when they oppose Liberal candidates at all by-elections and contribute to the defeat of the candidates or cause a reduction of their votes. To the present this has occurred in fourteen cases. It is due to the success of these tactics that the whole world is to-day speaking about woman’s suffrage, which has become a burning political question in England. All along the people and the press are giving greater support to the suffragettes who have the courage to brave the horrors of the London prison, and there become acquainted with the distress of the poor, the destitute, and the helpless.

During the last three or four years of the activity of the suffragettes a great number of woman’s suffrage organizations were founded: The Woman’s Freedom League (Mrs. Despard), The Men’s League for Woman’s Suffrage, The Artists’ Suffrage League, The Conservative and Unionist Women’s Franchise Association, The Actresses’ Franchise League, The Writers’ League, etc. Scotland and Ireland have their own woman’s suffrage associations.

In opposition there have been formed the National Women’s Antisuffrage Association and a Men’s League for Opposing Woman’s Suffrage (those are supported chiefly by the aristocratic circles). They declare that woman does not need the right to vote since she exercises an “enormous indirect influence”; that woman does not wish the right to vote; that her subordination is based on natural law since brute force rules the world; woman’s suffrage would result in England’s destruction, if a majority of women voters (England has a majority of women) were permitted to decide questions concerning the army and navy.

The leader of the suffragettes, Mrs. Fawcett, recently established the fact that the newly formed Association has a considerably smaller number of prominent names among its members than the organization formed two years ago, which soon came to an inglorious end. She emphasized the fact that the two important women, who at that time still favored the antisuffrage movement,—Mrs. Louise Creighton and Mrs. Sidney Webb,—have since gone over to the suffrage advocates. On the occasion of Mrs. Fawcett’s public debate with Mrs. Humphry Ward, the leader of the antisuffragists (in February, 1909), it happened that 235 of those present favored woman’s suffrage and 74 were opposed.

The argument against the brute force statement was treated in three excellent articles in Votes for Women under the title “The Physical Force Fallacy.”[37] The most influential of the English women, together with the women in the industries, the students of both sexes, the workingwomen,—in short, the intellectual and professional women are in favor of the suffragettes; and the woman’s suffrage advocates have “the spiritual certainty” that moves mountains. Let no one believe that the appeals made on the streets, the parades of the women as sandwich-men, or the noisy publicity of their tactics are gladly indulged in by the women. These actions are entirely opposed to woman’s nature. But the women have recognized that these tactics are necessary and they act accordingly because it is their duty. Such movements have always been successful.

Women do not possess the right to vote in parliamentary elections; but, if taxpayers, they can vote in municipal affairs in the whole of Great Britain and Ireland. The married women of England and Wales have a restricted right of suffrage, however: they are “persons” and therefore voters in parochial elections, in the election of poor-law administrators, and of urban and rural district councillors; but they are not regarded as “persons” and are not voters in elections for the borough and county councils. In one single case, in the County of London, by the law of 1900, married women were given almost the same rights as those exercised by married women in Scotland and Ireland.[38] The right of single or married women to hold office (passive suffrage)[39] has prevailed in England and Wales since 1869 in respect to the offices of guardians of the poor, overseers, waywardens, churchwardens,—and since 1870 (Education Act) in respect to school boards.[40] At the very first school elections women were elected, which induced women to have themselves presented also as candidates for the offices of poor-law administrators. In 1875 the first unmarried woman was elected to that office, the first married woman in 1881. In the discharge of their duties in both classes of offices the women have acted admirably. Nevertheless, the reactionary Education Act of June, 1903, took away from the women the right to hold office as members of school boards in the County of London. They can still secure administrative offices by governmental appointment, but no longer by an election. In 1888 were created the county councils for England and Wales; the county councils were at the same time organs for the self-governing municipalities. Since this law, like those of 1869 and 1870, did not specially exclude women from the right to hold office, two women, Mrs. Cobden and Lady Sandhurst, presented themselves as candidates for the office of county councillors of London. They were elected. Thereupon Mrs. Beresford-Hope, whom Lady Sandhurst had defeated, contested the legality of the election. In 1889, the Court of Appeals declared that women were eligible to public office only when this is expressly stated.[41] This decision of the Court, which was in conflict with the English Constitution, also brought about the loss of the right of the women of Scotland and Ireland to hold office as county councillors.

As a result of this judicial decision, when the new Local Self-government Act for England and Wales was enacted (1894), it was necessary expressly to state the eligibility of women (unmarried and married) to hold the minor local offices (parish, urban, rural district councillors, poor-law guardians, etc.). Article 22, however (in spite of historical precedents), excluded women from the office of justice of the peace. In 1894 the same thing occurred in Scotland, and in 1898 in Ireland.

In 1899, the attempt to secure the eligibility of women to the metropolitan borough councils (for London only)[42] failed, owing to the opposition of the House of Lords.

The law of 1907,[43] known as the Qualification of Women Act, grants unmarried women the right to hold office in the borough and county councils (councillor, alderman, mayor). Married women have this right only in the County of London; elsewhere they can merely vote for these officers.[44] On the occasion of the first elections under this act twelve women presented themselves as candidates; six were elected (one as mayor); hitherto the women had been elected only in small places, and then owing to exceptional circumstances. Whoever investigates the struggle of the women to secure their rights in the local government and studies the attitude of the men toward these exceedingly just demands will comprehend the exasperating circumstances under which the women are to-day struggling for the right to vote in the English parliamentary elections. In questions of power and of gaining a livelihood [Macht- und Brotfragen] the nobility of man can really not be depended upon.

The woman’s suffrage movement has led to the consummation of a number of legal reforms: the property laws now legalize the separation of the property of husband and wife[45]; in the United Kingdom the wife administers her own property and disposes of it, and has full control over her earnings. The remainder of the laws regulating marriage are still rather rigorous,—in England at least; the wife has no hereditary right to her husband’s property. If she economizes in the administration of the household, the savings belong to the husband. The wife cannot demand any pay in money for performing her domestic duties; the mere expenses of maintenance are sufficient remuneration, etc. In normal cases the father alone has authority over the children. It is made very difficult for a woman to secure a divorce, etc.[46]

The women that have labored so untiringly in political affairs have very naturally made it a point to promote the educational opportunities of their sex. Since 1870, the elementary school system has been regulated by the school boards, which have introduced obligatory public instruction. In these institutions the boys and girls are segregated (except in the rural districts). On an average there is one male teacher to every three women teachers in these institutions. The secondary schools are private, as in Australia. Hence it was not necessary for the English women to wrest every concession from a reluctant government (as was the case in Germany); but private initiative, combined with the devotion of private individuals, made possible in a few years the full reorganization of England’s institutions of learning for girls. This reorganization began in 1868 and led to the following results: the establishment of higher institutions of learning in all English cities (these are called girls’ public day schools, most of them being day schools. They are governed by committees consisting of the founders, the principals, and the qualified advisers). Latin and mathematics are obligatory studies in the curriculum. The schools are in close relationship with Oxford and Cambridge universities, the universities inspecting the schools and supervising the various examinations (including the examinations of the students upon leaving the schools). In England these schools are for girls only; in Scotland, girls attend similar schools which are coeducational. The number of women teachers is estimated at 8000.

Admission to the universities was secured with difficulty by the women. At first a number of women requested the privilege of attending lectures in the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Since these universities are resident colleges, it was necessary to provide boarding places for women. This was done in 1869 and 1870 in both places, through the work of Miss Emily Davies and Miss Anna Clough. Both of these beginnings developed into the women’s colleges of Girton and Newnham. Since then, St. Margaret’s Hall, Somersville Hall, and Holloway College have been established for women. These institutions correspond to the German philosophical faculties [the colleges of literature and liberal arts in the United States]. An entrance examination is necessary for admission. The course of study is three years. The final examination, called “tripos,” embraces three subjects; it corresponds to the German Oberlehrerexamen,—examinations given to candidates for the position of teachers in the Gymnasiums, the Realgymnasiums, Oberrealgymnasiums, etc. Theology, medicine, and law cannot be studied in these woman’s colleges (any more than in the American woman’s colleges). Part of the teachers live in the woman’s college buildings; part of them belong to the faculties of Oxford and Cambridge. The former are women tutors and professors.

The English colleges for women are maintained by private funds. Many women not wishing to take the “tripos” examination or to become teachers attend the university to acquire a higher education. Others prepare themselves for the degree of Bachelor of Arts, Master of Arts, or Doctor of Philosophy. These examinations are accepted by Oxford and Cambridge universities, but the women are not granted the corresponding titles, because the use of such titles would make the women Fellows of the University, which would entitle them to the use of the university gardens and parks, and to live in one of the colleges. All other universities in England, Scotland, and Ireland, with the exception of Trinity College, Dublin, admit women to all departments, accepting their examinations and granting them academic degrees.

The women’s colleges are centers of sport,—incidentally they possess their own fire department. To arouse an interest in political affairs and to develop facility in speaking, debating clubs have been organized. More than 1300 women have graduated from Cambridge, and more than 1200 from the University of London. When Mary Putnam wished to study medicine in 1868, she had to go to Paris. Jex Blake, who attempted the same thing in Edinburgh in 1869, was driven out by the students. She went to London and was there at first given instruction by the noble Dr. Anstie. As early as 1870 there was formed in London a special School of Medicine for women, to which a hospital for women was later attached, being directed and supported entirely by women physicians. To-day, 553 women doctors are practicing in Great Britain. Of these 538 have expressed themselves in favor of, and 15 against, woman’s suffrage. In England, women were first permitted to take the public examination in dental surgery as late as 1908; while the Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Irish Royal Colleges of Surgeons had admitted them long before. Women can study law in England, but as yet they have not been admitted to the bar. If this privilege were granted to women, they would have to affiliate with the London lawyers’ associations, such as the Inner Temple, the Middle Temple, Gray’s Inn, etc. Members of these organizations must several times a month attend the dinners or banquets of the lawyers. These corporate customs of the English Bar are said to exclude women from the legal profession just as similar customs have excluded them from tutorships and professorships in Oxford and Cambridge.

In spite of this, Miss Cave recently sought admission to Gray’s Inn, but was refused because she was a woman. She appealed her case to the Lords of Appeal in Ordinary, but they declared that they had no jurisdiction; the matter will be pursued further. The first woman preacher in England, a native of Germany, Miss v. Petzold, studied theology in Germany and graduated there. After her trial sermon in Leicester she was elected in preference to her male competitors. Later she accepted a call to Chicago. The Congregationalists have four women preachers; the Salvation Army over 3000. Except in those callings where personal ability is determinative, the salaries of English women are lower than those of the men. The women have a large field for their efforts in the public schools (where there are three women teachers to one man teacher). In the secondary schools for girls, instruction and control are entirely in the hands of women; their salaries are quite sufficient (the minimum being 100 pounds sterling, about $500). As we have seen, the higher institutions of learning also offer the women well-paid positions (the tutors being paid $2000, with board and lodging; the principals $2500).

The well-paid civil offices are reserved for the men. Although there are more women teachers and more female students in the schools than males, there are 244 male inspectors of public schools and 18 women inspectors; the male inspector-general is paid 1000 pounds sterling annually, the woman inspector-general 500 pounds. In the secondary schools there are 20 male inspectors and 3 women inspectors with annual salaries of 400 to 800 pounds, and 300 pounds respectively. The women teachers of the elementary schools (of whom there are approximately 111,000) draw on an average two thirds the salary of the men teachers, though they have the same training and do the same amount of work.

In spite of the fact that there are two million women engaged in industry, there are 900 male factory inspectors and hardly 60 female factory inspectors. Here again the men are paid 1000 pounds and the women only 500 pounds a year. In the postal and telegraph service the same injustice exists: the men begin with a minimum wage of 20 shillings a week, while the women are paid 14 shillings; the men increase their salaries to 62 shillings a week; the women to 30 shillings. The male telegraph operator begins with 18 shillings and is finally given 65 shillings a week; the woman telegraph operator begins with 16 and reaches 40 shillings. The male clerks of the second division of the civil service are paid 250 pounds and the women 100 annually. In 1908, the number of women employees in the postal and telegraph service of Great Britain was 13,259; the number of women supernumeraries, 30,476: total number, 43,735. The highest positions (heads of departments, staff officers) have been attained by 4 women and by 178 men.

In recent years many new callings have been opened to women living in the cities. They are engaged in the manufacture of confectionery. Prominent and wealthy women have established businesses of their own, in which fine confections are produced,—in many cases by destitute, nervous, and overworked women music teachers. Women are active as bookbinders, stockbrokers, bills of exchange agents, auditors, teachers of domestic economy, instructors in gymnastics, ladies’ guides, wardrobe dealers (the costly robes of the women of fashion are sold on commission through agents), paperers and decorators, etc.

The Woman’s Institute[47] has published a complete handbook on the occupations of women. This book does not omit the occupation of explorer, in which Mrs. French Sheldon has distinguished herself (by exploration in the interior of Africa). In London, the number of women engaged in gainful pursuits is naturally very large, many of the women being alone in the world. The women journalists and authoresses in London have been numerous enough to organize a club of their own,—the Writers’ Club, in the Strand. The number of women employed in commercial houses is very large,—450,000. The weekly wages, especially the wages of the saleswomen in the shops, are often quite moderate, 20 to 25 shillings where exceptional demands are made as to attractive dress and appearance. The women have organized the Shop Assistants’ Union. For women with this weekly wage the securing of good rooms and board at a reasonable price is a vital question. There are three apartment houses for workingwomen,—the Sloane Garden Houses, and the apartments for women in Chenies Street and in York Street. Women teachers, designers, artists, bookkeepers, cashiers, secretaries and stenographers obtain room and board here at varying rates. There are bedrooms (with two beds) for 4½ to 5 shillings a week for each person, furnished rooms for 10 to 14 shillings. The dining room is a restaurant. Only the evening meal, dinner (served from 6 to 7), is served to all at once. This meal costs 10 pence (20 cents). In Chenies Street living expenses are somewhat higher: 6 pence for breakfast, 9 pence for luncheon, 1 shilling for dinner; which is about 55 cents a day for board. For suites of two to four rooms $15 to $30 a month is charged. The Alexandra House in Kensington offers women artists similar privileges; the Brabanzon House (under the protection of the Countess of Meath) accommodates employees of the shops only. Since the English women are—fortunately—independent in spirit, these institutions lack the scholastic, monastic, or tutelary characteristics that are unfortunately found in many similar institutions on the continent.

Very few of the English women have become industrial entrepreneurs. However, they have directed their attention to agriculture as a means of earning a livelihood and have organized agricultural schools for women. Here the women engage especially in poultry raising, vegetable and fruit growing, which in England are very lucrative; England annually imports 41 million pounds’ worth of milk, eggs, poultry, vegetables, and fruits. The councils of London, Berkshire, Essex, and Kent counties support the Horticultural College for women in Swanley, Kent, which was founded privately by wealthy and influential persons. In England 100,000 women are engaged in agriculture. The demand for trained women gardeners to-day still exceeds the supply. Trained women gardeners are frequently engaged for a long term of years to teach untrained gardeners. Women are employed in the Royal Botanical Gardens in Kew and in Edinburgh. Holloway College has a woman gardener. In 1898 a model farm for women was founded by Lady Warwick in Reading. The institution began with twelve women students, who cultivated two acres of land. Within a year the number of students was quadrupled; and then eleven acres were cultivated instead of two.

The woman that wishes to learn stock feeding and dairying is sent to a special farm. The course requires two years. The Agricultural Association for Women, founded by Lady Warwick, aids the women agriculturists and finds positions for the pupils. In Great Britain there are eight public schools in which women can learn agriculture and gardening. Many county councils have established courses in gardening, to which women are admitted.

Agriculture is encouraged in England because the migration from the country to the city has increased extraordinarily. Agriculture is restricted in favor of stock raising, which gives employment to fewer laborers than agriculture. In spite of the great increase in population, the number of agriculturists has steadily decreased since 1851. On the other hand, the industrial population (and it is predominantly urban) has increased significantly. Every industrialization means a pauperization to a certain extent. It produces the army of unskilled laborers, the victims of the sweating system, who in a destitute condition are left to eke out their wretched existence in the “East Ends” of the large cities. There is no corresponding misery in the country districts. A marked industrialization therefore causes a degree of general pauperism such as is unknown in the agricultural regions of western Europe. The pursuit of gardening among women has a social-political significance. The English laboring population is estimated at 4,000,000 people, among whom the trade-union movement has made considerable progress. The English trade-union statistics of 1904 show 148 trade-unions having women members. There are all together 125,094 female members, i.e. 6.7 per cent of all organized laborers. The greatest number of these are in the textile industries (almost 100,000). The total number of women laborers in this industry is 800,000.

In the textile industry, in which women are better organized than elsewhere (there being 96,000), there existed in 1906 the preceding difference between the wages of men and women (see table, p. 84).

The organization of women laborers was first advocated by Mrs. Paterson and Miss Simcox at the trade-union congress held in Glasgow in 1875. But this organization is confronted with the same difficulties as exist elsewhere: the women believe that they are engaged in non-domestic work only temporarily; therefore they are interested in the improvement of labor only to a slight degree, and in addition are burdened with housework; while the male laborer is free when the factory closes. In almost all industries women are paid lower wages than men,—partly because those who are poorly equipped are given the lower grades of work and are not given an opportunity to do the more difficult work; partly, too, because they are women, i.e. people of the second order. Weekly wages of 5 to 7 shillings are common. Naturally, the workingwoman who is all alone in the world cannot exist on such a sum. In one industry only the women are given the same pay as the men for doing the same work,—this is the textile industry in Lancashire. Since 1847 this industry has been protected by a law prohibiting night work for women. In this industry men and women laborers are organized in the same trade-union. The standard of living of the whole body of workers is very high. There can be no doubt that the legislation for the protection of the laborers of this industry, in which the exploitation of women and children had been carried to the extreme previous to 1847, has caused the raising of the general standard of living. Without the intervention of law, exploitation would have been pursued further in this industry. So the English women have before them an example of the salutary effect of legislation for the protection of the laborers in the textile industries. Nevertheless, there is in England a faction among the woman’s rights advocates which vigorously resists every movement for the protection of women laborers; it has organized itself into the “League for Freedom of Labor Defense.” It acts on the principle that every law for the protection of women laborers signifies an unjustifiable tutelage; that the workingwomen should defend themselves through the organization of trade-unions; that the laws for the protection of women laborers decrease women’s opportunities for work and drive them from their positions, which are filled by men (who can work at night).

These fears are based purely on theory. In practice they are realized only in entirely isolated cases. The truth is that legislation for the protection of women laborers (prohibition of night work and the fixing of a maximum number of work hours a day) is entirely favorable to an overwhelming majority of workingwomen. It protects them against a degree of exploitation that they could not resist unaided because the majority of them are not organized, and have no power to organize themselves; they will secure this power only through laws protecting women laborers. A comparative international study of laws for the protection of women laborers, published by the Belgian department of labor,[49] shows that the number of women laborers has nowhere decreased, and that wages have not declined as a result.

Concerning this point Mrs. Sidney Webb says: “In most cases women cannot be replaced by men, either because the men are not sufficiently dextrous or because their labor is too expensive. What employer will pay a man 20 to 30 shillings a week when a woman can accomplish just as much for 5 to 12 shillings a week?” We shall return to this subject in discussing France.

Those women that are members of trade-unions persistently demand the right to vote; many of them intimate that through this right they expect to secure an increase in wages. Naturally the wishes of women laborers possessing the franchise will be considered very differently from the wishes of those not possessing this right. Proof of this has been given by the American woman’s suffrage states. Previous to the debates on woman’s suffrage in Parliament in 1904, a deputation of workingwomen from the potteries in Staffordshire presented the members of Parliament from that district with a petition having 4000 signatures, requesting the introduction of a woman’s suffrage bill, so that women might not continue to be excluded from all well-paid positions on account of their political inferiority. On this occasion the Hon. Mr. A. L. Emmott (member of Parliament from the Oldham district) declared that the salary of the women employees in the postal savings banks had been reduced from 65 pounds (with an annual increase of 3 pounds) to 55 pounds (with an annual increase of 2 pounds, 10 shillings). This would have been impossible if women had had the right to vote. Domestic servants are as yet organized only to a small extent, but they are well trained; they number 1,331,000.

In none of the Anglo-Saxon countries of the world is there a schism between the woman’s rights movements of the middle class and the Social-Democrats, such as is found in Germany. In each of the Anglo-Saxon countries there is a Socialist, and even an Anarchist party, but these parties do not antagonize the woman’s rights movement. The republican constitutions in America,—the more democratic institutions of society,—in general moderate the acute opposition. The absence of historical obstacles has a conciliating influence everywhere in these countries. In England, where history, monarchy, and traditional class antagonism seem to give socialism favorable conditions of growth, socialism has for a long time been hampered by the trade-unions. In other words, the English workingmen, the first to organize in Europe, had already improved their condition greatly when the socialistic propaganda commenced in England. In their trade-unions they confined themselves to the economic field; they avoided mixing economics with politics; they worked with both parties, they steered clear of class hatred, and it was difficult to influence them with the speculative ultimate aims of social democracy. It has been only in the last decade that social-democracy has made any progress in England; therefore in the woman’s rights movement middle-class women and workingwomen work together peaceably.

Of all the women in Europe the English women first became conscious of their duty toward the lower classes. In this atmosphere,—clubs and homes for working girls, and the London “College for Working Women,”—institutions such as we on the continent know only in isolated cases flourished readily. These institutions devote their attention to the girls of the lower ranks of society.

The oldest club is the “Soho Club and Home for Working Girls” in Soho Square, London, founded in 1880 by the Hon. Maude Stanley. It is open from seven in the morning to ten at night and also on Sunday. Tea can be obtained for 2½ pence (5 cents), and dinner for 6½ pence (13 cents). The admission fee is 1 shilling, the annual dues are 8 shillings. The members have a library at their disposal, and they publish a club magazine, The London Girls’ Club Union Magazine. Members of such clubs (including those outside London) have formed themselves into a union. The members of the committee—composed of wealthy and influential women—concern themselves personally with the affairs of the clubs, giving not only their money, but their time and influence. The “College for Working Women” has existed in Fitzroy Square for more than 25 years. Here are taught English, French, history, geography, drawing, arithmetic, reading, writing, singing, cooking, sewing, wood turning, and other subjects. The quarterly fee is 1 shilling (for use of the library, attending lectures, etc.), the fees for the courses range from 1 shilling and 3 pence to 2 shillings and 6 pence (31 to 62 cents) quarterly. A commission gives examinations. The institution grants scholarships and gives prizes. The number of such clubs in the whole of Great Britain is estimated at 800.

The English woman is developing a considerable activity in the sociological field. Florence Nightingale, who organized a regular hospital service on the field of battle during the Crimean War (1854), upon her return to England took steps to secure the training of educated women for the nursing profession, in which the English nurse has been the model. The most important Training College for nurses not connected with religious orders is in Henrietta Street, in London. Still this distinguished profession, which is represented in the International Red Cross Society, has not yet attained state registration of nurses,—i.e. an officially prescribed course of study concluding with a state examination.

The English midwives are vehemently complaining because the new Midwives Act will be deliberated on by a commission having no midwife as a member. The superintendent of the London Institute for Midwives has protested against this on behalf of 26,000 midwives.

Another woman, Octavia Hill, participated in the official inquiry of the living conditions of the London East End, which led to a systematic campaign against the slums. This work is at present continued in London by 31 or more women sanitary officers. They supplement the work of the factory inspectors, since they inspect the conditions under which women home-workers live. In the whole country there are more than 80 such women sanitary officers.

The home-workers are mostly women. Half of the 900,000 or more English women engaged in the manufacture of ready-made clothing are permitted to work at home. Their wages are wretchedly low. The government, which pays the men of the Woolwich Arsenal trade-union wages, is one of the worst exploiters of women (who do not have the right to vote); in the Army Clothing Works the government employs women either directly or indirectly (as home-workers through sweaters).[50]

The urgent need of widening woman’s field of labor and improving her conditions of labor is clearly stated in a lecture which Miss B. L. Hutchins delivered before the Royal Statistical Society. According to the census of 1901 there were 1,070,000 more women than men in Great Britain. In 1901, of every 1000 persons 516 were women (in 1841, only 511 were women). The longevity of women is higher than that of men (47.77 to 44.13). When the old age pensions were introduced, 135 women to every 100 men applied for aid. Only half of the adult women (5,700,000) are provided for through marriage, and then only for 20 to 30 years of their lives. Previous to marriage, and afterward, most of the women are dependent on their own work for a living. Because English women know from experience that their conditions of labor can be improved only through the exercise of the suffrage, they have adopted their “militant tactics.”

In the field of poor-relief England again has taken the lead, inasmuch as she has permitted women to fill honorary posts in the municipal administration of the poor-law. At the present time 1162 women are engaged in this work, 147 of whom are rural district councillors.

The chief reform efforts of the women were directed to the care of children and to the workhouses, through which channels private aid reaches the recipient. Still, among 22,000 guardians of the poor the number of women hardly reaches 1000. The old prejudice against women asserted itself even in this field. A “Society for Promoting the Return of Women as Poor-law Guardians” is endeavoring to hasten reform.[51]

The Englishman has the valuable characteristic of forming organizations that strive to achieve very definite, though often temporary, ends, thus giving private initiative great flexibility. Such an organization, with a limited purpose, is the “Woman’s Coöperative Gild,” founded in 1883. Its purpose is to promote the coöperative movement (as far as consumption is concerned) among women, and to show them their enormous social and economic power as consumers. Women are the chief purchasers, as they purchase the housekeeping supplies. It is to their interest to purchase through the coöperative associations that exclude the middlemen, and at the end of the year pay a dividend to the members of the associations. These associations can exercise an important social influence inasmuch as they create model conditions of labor for their employees (short working day, high wages, early closing of the shops, no work on Sundays or holidays, opportunity to sit down during working hours, insurance against sickness, old age insurance, sanitary conditions of labor, etc.). The Gild organizes women into coöperative societies, and by theoretical as well as practical studies informs the women of the advantages of the coöperative system. The movement to-day numbers 26,000 members.

In England a marked increase in the use of alcoholic liquors among women was noticed; whereupon legal and medical measures were taken to curb the evil. The most effective measure would be an attack on the drunkenness of the husband, which destroys the home.

The official report of the first English school for mothers, located in St. Pancras, London, has just appeared. This report shows that the experiment has been entirely successful. Of all measures to decrease the death rate among children, the establishment of schools for mothers is the best. During the course of instruction the young married women were recommended to organize mothers’ clubs in order to secure the necessaries of life more cheaply. The school for mothers also attempts to give the young mothers nourishing meals, which can be furnished for the low sum of 2¾ pence (about 6 cents).

In the field of morals English women have achieved a success which might well excite the envy of other countries; viz. the repeal of the law of 1869 concerning the state regulation of prostitution. The law had hardly been accepted by an accidental majority when public opinion, under the leadership of members of Parliament, doctors, and preachers, protested against the measure. Nothing made such an impression as the public appearance of a woman on behalf of the repeal of this measure concerning women. In spite of all scorn, all feigned and frequently malicious pretensions not to comprehend her, in spite of all attempts, frequently brutal, to browbeat her,—Josephine Butler from 1870 to 1886 unswervingly supported the view that the regulation was to be condemned from the legal, sanitary, and moral viewpoint. Through the tireless work of Mrs. Butler and her faithful associates, Parliament in 1886 repealed the act providing for the regulation of prostitution. Since 1875, Mrs. Butler has organized internationally the struggle against the official regulation of prostitution. On December 30, 1906, death came to the noble woman.

Conditions in England are an evidence of how much more difficult it is for the woman’s rights movement to make progress in old countries than in new. Traditions are deeply rooted, customs are firmly established, the whole weight of the past is blocking the wheels of progress. In countries with older civilization the woman’s question is entirely a question of force.[52]

CANADA

Politically Canada belongs to England, geographically it is a part of North America. The Canadian women take a keen interest in the woman’s rights movement of the United States, which is setting them an excellent example. The last congress of the “International Council of Women” met in Toronto, Canada, under the presidency of Lady Aberdeen, the present president and the wife of the former governor-general of Canada. Canada is a large, young, agricultural country with large families and primitive needs. Therefore the progress of the woman’s rights movement is less marked in Canada than in the United States and England. Throughout Canada the workingwoman is paid less than the workingman, partly because she is more poorly trained, partly because she is kept in subordinate positions, partly because, in order to find work at all, she must offer her services for less money. Even when teaching, or doing piecework, woman is paid less than man. In Canada there is as yet no political woman’s rights movement strong enough to rectify this injustice by means of organizations and laws as has been done in Australia. As yet there are no women preachers in Canada. Women lawyers are confronted both with popular prejudice and legal obstacles. The study and practice of medicine is made very difficult for women, especially in Quebec and Montreal. In New Brunswick and Ontario as well as in the northwest provinces there is a more liberal attitude toward women’s pursuit of higher education. No Canadian university excludes women entirely, but not a few of the higher institutions of learning refuse women admission to certain courses and refuse to grant certain degrees. The prevailing property laws in the eastern part of Canada legalize joint property holding (and we know what that means for woman); in the western part there is separation of property rights or at least separate control over earnings, the wife having full control of her wages. The male Canadian, when twenty-one years old, becomes a voter and has full political rights.[53] But the Canadian woman has only restricted suffrage rights. Unmarried women that are taxpayers exercise only active suffrage in municipal and school elections. Each province has its own laws regulating these conditions of suffrage.

The Copenhagen Congress (1906) of the International Woman’s Suffrage Alliance promoted the cause of woman’s suffrage in Canada very considerably. At a public meeting in which the Canadian delegate, Mrs. MacDonald Denison, gave a report of the work of the International Congress, a resolution favoring woman’s suffrage was adopted, and this was used very effectively in propaganda. This propaganda was carried on among women’s clubs, students’ clubs, debating clubs, etc. The intellectual élite is to-day in favor of woman’s suffrage. In 1907 the Canadian Woman’s Suffrage Association, supported by the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, the Women Teachers, the Medical Alumnæ, the Progressive Thought Association, the Toronto Local Council of Women, and the Progressive Club, sent a delegation to the Mayor and Council of the city of Toronto to express their support of a resolution which the Council had drawn up favoring the right of married women to vote in municipal elections. Thus supported, the resolution was presented to the authorized commission, but here it was weakened by an amendment (granting the suffrage only to married women owning property). The author of this amendment, a member of the Toronto City Council, received his reward for this kindness to the women in the form of a defeat at the next election.

Organizations favoring woman’s suffrage have been founded throughout the country (Halifax, Nova Scotia; St. John, New Brunswick). Woman’s suffrage advocates speak in mass meetings and in men’s clubs, etc.[54]

A demand for woman’s suffrage, made by the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, was answered evasively by the Prime Minister, Sir Wilfred Laurier,—the provincial parliaments must take the matter up first, then the Dominion Parliament can consider it. In the spring of 1909 the City Council of Toronto sent a petition favoring woman’s suffrage to the Canadian Parliament, and at the same time 1000 woman’s suffrage advocates called on the Prime Minister. The 1909 Congress of the International Woman’s Suffrage Alliance will undoubtedly help the Canadian woman’s suffrage movement.

SOUTH AFRICA

In South Africa, Natal was the leader in the woman’s rights movement. In 1902, through the work of Mr. and Mrs. Ancketill, the Woman’s Equal Suffrage League was organized, which endeavored primarily to interest and educate its members. Later, in 1904, public propaganda was begun. In June a petition was presented to the Lower House by Mr. Ancketill. When he presented the matter in the form of a motion, it was not put to a vote, owing to the newness of the subject. The agricultural population opposes woman’s suffrage; the urban population favors it. The woman’s rights movement is made difficult in South Africa by the following circumstances: An enervating climate “that makes people languidly content with things as they are.” The lack of educated and independent women (women teachers are state employees); the lack of a numerous class of workingwomen; difficult housekeeping, owing to the untrustworthiness of the natives as domestic servants; the peculiar position of men as taxpayers (men only pay a poll tax) and as arms bearers (all men must serve in the army).[56]

In Cape Colony similar conditions prevail. The Women’s Enfranchisement League was formed in 1907; and in July, 1907, there took place the first woman’s suffrage debate in Parliament. The woman’s suffrage societies of Natal, Cape Colony, and the Transvaal have formed an association and have joined the International Woman’s Suffrage Alliance. In Natal and Cape Colony women taxpayers exercise the right to vote in municipal affairs. The regulation of the suffrage qualifications for the Federal Parliament is being considered. The South African delegates in London (1909) expressed the fear that women would not be given the federal suffrage.

THE SCANDINAVIAN COUNTRIES

Sweden, Finland, Norway, and Denmark will be grouped together since they are so closely connected by race and culture; repetition will thereby be avoided, and clearness promoted.

All four countries have the advantage of having a population largely agricultural,—a population scattered in small groups. Clearly, the problem of dealing with congested masses of people is here absent. Everywhere there is an eagerness for education. The educational average is high. The position of woman is one of freedom, for here have been kept alive the old Germanic traditions which we [the Germans] know only from reading Cæsar or Tacitus. An external factor in hastening the solution of the question of woman’s rights was the very unusual numerical superiority of women. The foreign wars, which took the majority of the men away from home for long periods of time,—first in the Middle Ages, and then again in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,—and the fact that the Scandinavian countries themselves were afflicted with wars only to a small extent, explain the freedom of the Scandinavian women. Like the English women, they had for centuries not known the significance of war for woman. In the absence of the men, women continued the transaction of business and industrial enterprises. In the name of the feudal law and as heads of families they administered affairs, exercising rights that were elsewhere denied to women.

SWEDEN

In Sweden the woman’s rights movement is closely connected with that of the United States. The founder of the Swedish woman’s rights movement was Frederika Bremer, who in 1845 visited the United States, studying the conditions of the women there. Upon her return she encouraged the Swedish women through her novel Hertha to emancipate themselves. This took place in 1856. The government, being unable to disregard the free traditions of the past, was thoroughly in favor of the demands of the woman’s rights movement. As early as 1700, women owning property exercised the right of voting in the election of ministers. In 1843 this right had been extended to all women taxpayers. In 1845 the daughter’s right of inheritance had been made equal to that of the son’s. In 1853 was begun the custom of appointing women teachers in the small rural schools; in 1859 women were admitted as teachers in all public institutions of learning. Since 1861 women have been eligible as dentists, regimental surgeons, and organists (but not as preachers). In 1862 every unmarried woman or widow over twenty-one years of age, and paying a tax of 500 crowns (about $135), was granted active suffrage in municipal affairs. The municipal electors, inasmuch as they elect the members of the Landsthing (county council) and the members of the town councils, exercise a political influence, for the members of the Landsthing and the town councils elect the members of the two Chambers of the Riksdag, the national legislative body. On February 10, 1909, all taxpaying women (unmarried, widowed, and married) were granted the passive suffrage (except for the office of county councillor). Here is a curious fact,—married women that do not possess the right to vote in municipal affairs can still hold office!

In 1866 the art academies were opened to women, in 1870, the universities; later women were permitted to enter the postal and telegraph service. In peculiar contrast to these reforms are the old regulations concerning the guardianship of women,[57] which has been especially supported by the nobility and conservatives, and has been used chiefly to maintain the subordination of married women.

Against this condition the “Association to Advocate the Right of Married Women to Possess Property” has struggled since 1873. It secured, in 1874, the right of women to make a marriage contract providing for the separation of property.[58] This association now undertook the political education of the women voters in municipal elections; hitherto they had made little use of their right to vote (in 1887, of 62,362 women having the right to vote only 4844 voted). Thanks to the propaganda of this association, participation in elections is to-day quite general. The introduction of coeducation in the secondary schools is also due to the activity of this association, supported by Professor Wallis, who had investigated coeducation in the United States. But in the field of secondary education there is still much to be done for Swedish women,—their salaries as teachers are lower than those of men; in matters of advancement and pensions women are discriminated against, though they are expected to possess professional training and ability equal to that of the men.

In 1889 the Baroness of Adlersparre succeeded, through untiring propaganda, in securing for women admission to school and poor-law administration. To the baroness is due also the revival of needlework as an applied art, as well as the revival of agricultural instruction for women. All of these ideas she had expressed since 1859 in her magazine For the Home (Fürs Heim).

Since 1884 the center of the Swedish woman’s rights movement has been the “Frederika Bremer League,” founded by the Baroness of Adlersparre. This is a sort of “Woman’s Institute,” and undertakes inquiries, collects data, secures employment, organizes members of trades and professions, fixes minimum wages, organizes petitions, gives advice, offers leadership, gives stipends; in short, in various ways it centralizes the Swedish Women’s rights movement. In 1896 the “Association to Advocate the Right of Married Women to Possess Property” affiliated with the “Frederika Bremer League.”

The following are the facts concerning the work of educated women in Sweden: The number of elementary school teachers is about double that of the men (in 1899 there were 9950 women as compared with 5322 men). The salaries of the women are everywhere lower than those of the men. In 1908 there were 12,000 women teachers in the elementary schools, their annual salary being 1400 crowns ($375) or more.

There are 35 women doctors in Sweden, most of whom practice in Stockholm. The Swedish midwives are well trained. Nursing is a respected calling for educated women; also kinesiatrics (hygienic gymnastics), the latter being lucrative as well.

The first woman Doctor of Philosophy was Ellen Fries, who received the degree in 1883. Sonja Kowalewska was a professor in mathematics in the free University of Stockholm. Ellen Key is also a teacher, her field being sociology.

In Sweden there are two women university lecturers; one in law, the other in physics. As yet there are no women lawyers and preachers. The legislative act of February, 1909, which secures for women their appointment in all state institutions (educational, scientific, artistic, and industrial), will greatly improve woman’s professional prospects.

Sweden is not a land of large manufactories; hence there is no problem arising from the presence of large masses of industrial laborers. Since 1865 the wages of the agricultural laborers have risen 85 per cent for women and 65 per cent for men. There are 242,914 women engaged in agriculture, 57,053 in industry,—3400 of the latter being organized. There are 15,376 women employed in commerce; they are throughout paid lower wages than the men (400 to 1200 crowns, i.e. $107 to $321).

The organization of the workingwomen is not connected with the woman’s rights movement; it is affiliated with the workingmen’s movement. In this field Ellen Key has been quite active as a national educator. She is a supporter of the laws for the protection of women laborers, and on this point she has frequently met opposition among the woman’s rights advocates of Sweden (an opposition similar to that offered by the English Federation for Freedom of Labor Defense). In 1907 an exposition of home-work was held in Stockholm, similar to the German expositions.

The right to vote in national elections[59] in Sweden is exercised by landowners and taxpayers; however, only by men. Therefore there is a Swedish National Woman’s Suffrage Society, which in recent years has grown very considerably, having over 10,000 members. In the autumn of 1906 a delegation from the society was received by the Prime Minister and the King, who, however, could hold out no promise of a government measure favoring woman’s suffrage. The society then tried to influence the Parliament with an enormous petition having 142,188 signatures. This petition was presented February 6, 1907.

In 1906 and 1907 the Labor party and the Liberal party inserted woman’s suffrage into their platforms and presented bills favoring the measure. Twice (in 1907 and 1908) Parliament rejected the clause providing for woman’s suffrage. On February 13, 1909, the Swedish males were granted universal suffrage (active and passive) in national elections; at the same time Parliament tried to appease the women by granting them the passive suffrage in municipal elections. In the spring of 1909 the bill concerning woman’s right to vote in national elections (Staaf Bill) was accepted by the Constitutional Commission by a vote of 11 to 9; the Lower House also accepted it, but it was rejected by the Upper House.

The political successes of the Norwegian women have a stimulating effect on Sweden.

Prohibition has influential advocates in Sweden, and supporters in Parliament. At the request of the Swedish women’s clubs, police matrons were appointed to coöperate with the police regulating prostitution in Stockholm, Helsingborg, Trelleborg, and Malmö. At the present time a commission is considering future plans for police regulation of prostitution in Sweden.

In Sweden, where there are about half a million organized adherents to the cause of temperance, there are 77 daily papers that consistently print matter pertaining to temperance. Not only these 77 papers, most of whose editors are Good Templars, but at least 13 other dailies refuse all advertisements of alcoholic liquors.[60] In Norway, where similar conditions prevail, there are a quarter of a million temperance advocates, and about 40 daily papers that favor the cause.

FINLAND