DO YOU KNOW that the question of votes for women is one which is
commanding the attention of the whole civilized world; that woman
suffrage organizations of representative men and women exist in
twenty-seven different countries; that in this country alone there are
more than 1,000 woman suffrage organizations; that there is an
International and a National Men's League for Woman Suffrage and numbers
of local men's leagues; that the number of women who are asking for the
vote in this country is larger than the number of men who have ever
asked for anything in its entire history; that more and larger petitions
asking for votes for women have been sent to legislative bodies than for
any other one measure; that the press of this country is giving more
space to woman suffrage than to any other one public question; that the
legislatures of twenty-eight states in year 1914 entertained woman
suffrage measures; and that a bill for a woman suffrage amendment to the
United States Constitution is now before Congress?
DO YOU KNOW that the women of New Zealand and the women of
Australia possess all the political rights accorded to men?
DO YOU KNOW that the women of Finland vote in all elections upon
the same terms as men, and that since their enfranchisement in 1906,
from sixteen to twenty-five have been elected to the different
Parliaments?
DO YOU KNOW that in Norway all women have the full Parliamentary
vote, and that in 1910 one woman sat in the Norwegian Parliament, and
that numbers of women are serving as members and alternates to city
councils?
DO YOU KNOW that the women of Iceland have the full Parliamentary
franchise and that since 1902 one-fourth of the members of the council
of the capital city have been women?
DO YOU KNOW that in Sweden women have had some measure of suffrage
since the eighteenth century, that in 1862 unmarried women who had to
pay taxes were given the municipal franchise, and that in 1909, this
right was extended to all women; that, furthermore, it is only a matter
of a little time before women will have the full Parliamentary vote? The
measure has already twice passed the Lower House of the Swedish
Parliament and is known to have the support of the King and the Prime
Minister. It is opposed only by the aristocrats of the Upper House who
are against all democratic measures, but it is admitted that even they
cannot long keep back so popular a cause.
DO YOU KNOW that in Denmark all women who pay taxes and the wives
of men who pay taxes were given the municipal franchise in 1908, and
that, as in Sweden, the measure to extend to them the full Parliamentary
vote has passed the Lower House in two successive sessions of
Parliament, and that, as in Sweden, it has the support of the King, the
Prime Minister and the people in general, and is opposed only by the
aristocrats, of the Upper House who cannot long continue to stand out
against the popular will?
DO YOU KNOW that in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales women
vote in all elections except for members of Parliament; that they are
eligible an have been elected to office as mayors an members of city and
county councils and that on the Isle of Man women wh pay rent or taxes
can vote for member of the Manx Parliament?
DO YOU KNOW that in eight of the provinces of Canada - Ontario,
New Brunswick, Manitoba, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, British Columbia,
Alberta and Saskatchewan - tax-paying widows and spinsters have the
municipal vote, while in Nova Scotia married women whose husbands are
not voters are included also?
DO YOU KNOW that women have the municipal vote in Rangoon, the
capital of Burmah; in Belize, the capital of British Honduras; and in
the cities of Baroda and Bombay in British India; and that in certain
provinces of Austria, Hungary and Russia they have limited communal
franchise rights?
DO YOU KNOW that within the past year the subject of woman
suffrage has been considered in the National Parliaments of 17
countries; that the revolutionary government in China stands pledged to
woman suffrage, and that women have already voted in one province; that
in France a special commission appointed to investigate the question has
recommended that the full franchise be extended to women as rapidly as
may be deemed feasible, and that the municipal franchise be granted
immediately?
DO YOU KNOW that in our own country women have been voting on the
same terms as men in Wyoming since 1860, in Colorado since 1893, in Utah
and Idaho since 1896; that in 1910, the state of Washington voted three
to one to extend the full suffrage to women; that in 1911, California
doubled the number of voting women in this country by giving the full
suffrage to more than half a million women citizens; that in 1912, the
men of Kansas, Oregon, and Arizona voted to give votes to their women;
that in 1913, the legislature of the State of Illinois passed a measure
giving to women all the voting rights within the power of the
legislature to bestow, including presidential electors, all municipal
officers and some county and some state officers; and that the
territorial legislature of Alaska granted full suffrage to women, and
that in 1914 Nevada and Montana gave full suffrage to women?
DO YOU KNOW that wherever women have got the vote they have used
it in large numbers - larger, frequently, than the men of the same city,
state or country; that in the first election after the New Zealand women
were given the franchise, seventy-eight per cent of the women voted as
opposed to sixty-nine per cent of the men, while in subsequent elections
the proportion of both men and women voting steadily rose until now it
is about eighty per cent of the qualified persons of both sexes; that in
the equal suffrage states of our own country from seventy to ninety per
cent of the women vote, whereas in most states of the Union only sixty
to sixty-five per cent of the qualified men voters actually cast their
ballots; that in some of the equal suffrage states almost half the vote
is cast by women, although they do not nearly constitute half the
population; that in the first elections after the Washington women were
enfranchised, women's votes secured the recall of corrupt city
governments in Seattle and Tacoma; that in the first election after the
women of California were enfranchised, taking place in Los Angeles in
1911, ninety-five per cent of the women voted, outnumbering the men
voters in many wards?
DO YOU KNOW that, on the other hand, large numbers of men are
utterly indifferent to their rights as voters; that in the presidential
election of 1912, the total vote cast was only 14,720,1038, while the
number of men eligible to vote was 24,335,000: that in the presidential
election of 1909 the total vote cast was only 14,888,442, while the
number of men eligible to vote was fully 22,000,000; that in the
presidential election of 1904 the total vote was only 13,961,560 while
the total number of men eligible to vote was 21,000,000?
DO YOU KNOW, moreover, that in every state and country where the
franchise has been extended to women, the vote of the men has steadily
risen?, In Australia in the first elections in which women voted, taking
place in 1903, 53 per cent of the men eligible cast their ballots,
whereas, in 1906, 56 per cent, and in 1901, 67 per cent cast their
ballots. In our own country the vote of the men is larger in the equal
suffrage states than in most of those in which women are unenfranchised.
DO YOU KNOW that extending the franchise to women actually
increases the proportion of intelligent voters; that there is now and
has been for years, according to the report of the Commissioner of
Education, one-third more girls in the high schools of the country than
boys; and that, according to the last census, the illiterate men of the
country greatly outnumbered the illiterate women?
DO YOU KNOW that extending the suffrage to women increases the
moral vote; that in all states and countries that have adopted equal
suffrage the vote of the disreputable women is practically negligible,
the slum wards of cities invariably having the lightest woman vote and
respectable residence wards the heaviest; that only one out of every
twenty criminals are women; that women constitute a minority of
drunkards and petty miscreants; that for every prostitute there are at
least two men responsible for her immorality; that in all the factors
that tend to handicap the progress of society, women form a minority,
whereas in churches, schools and all organizations working for the
uplift of humanity, women are a majority?
DO YOU KNOW that extending the suffrage to women increases the
number of native-born voters; that for every one hundred foreign white
women immigrants coming to this country there are 129 men, while among
Asiatic immigrants the men outnumber the women two to one, according to
the figures of the census of 1910?
DO YOU KNOW that there are in the United States about 8,000,000
women in gainful occupations outside the home who need the protection of
the ballot to regulate the conditions under which they must labor; and
that the efforts of working women to regulate these conditions without
the ballot have been practically unavailing?
DO YOU KNOW that the laws of many states discriminate unjustly
against women; that, for instance, in only seventeen is a mother equal
guardian with the father over her own children; that for fifty-five
years the women of Massachusetts worked for - an equal guardianship law
and then succeeded in getting it only when a dreadful tragedy had
shocked the public into a realization of the injustice of the old law,
whereas in Colorado and in California women had themselves made equal
guardians with the fathers over their own children in the very next year
following their enfranchisement?
DO YOU KNOW that wherever women, the traditional housekeepers of
the world, have been given a voice in the government, public
housekeeping, has been materially improved by an increased attention to
questions of pure food, pure water supply, sanitation, housing, public
health and morals, child welfare and education?
DO YOU KNOW that the movement for woman suffrage is just a part of
the eternal forward march of the human race toward a complete democracy;
that in the American colonies only a very small proportion of the men
could vote; that even after the Revolution only property-holders could
vote; that it was only by slow and hard-fought stages that all men
finally won the right to vote; and that in most foreign countries the
franchise for men is still heavily loaded with restrictions?
DO YOU KNOW that the legislatures of some of the suffrage states,
the Australian Parliament, and numbers of the most representative
people, both men and women, in all the suffrage states and countries
have testified time and again in print and over their own signatures,
that woman suffrage has brought none-of the evils which its opponents
fear, but has, instead, been productive of much positive good; that it
has enlarged the outlook of women, increased their intelligence and
self-reliance, rendered homes happier, ennobled men and dignified
politics; that in all the places where women vote, the opponents, thus
far, have not been able to find a dozen respectable men to assert, over
their own names and addresses, that it has had any bad results; that
more than five hundred organizations - state, national and international
other than woman suffrage associations - aggregating approximately a
membership of over 50,000,000, have officially endorsed woman suffrage?
DO YOU KNOW one single sound, logical reason why the intelligence
and individuality of women should not entitle them to the rights and
privileges of self-government?
DO YOU KNOW that the women in twelve states and in Alaska will
vote for President in 1916?
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