File #11364: "ms003_02_78a.pdf"

WHY I AM A DEMOCRAT
From An Address
By CAROLINE RUUTZ-REES
Associate National Committeewoman from Connecticut
If women who are to vote should already be
making choice of a political party, wll.at should
guide their choice? I do not think-good suffragist as I am-that they should make it merely
on the ground of a party's attitude towards suffrage. I am proud of and grateful for the splendid support the Democratic party both nationally
and in our State has given the cause nearest
my heart, but it is not because of that that I call
myself a Democrat-as much of a Democrat as
a woman is allowed to be in Connecticut. No, I
began being a Democrat for a rather .cold reason ;
I remain one for a hundred warm ones.
When I first came to our country a very young
woman, armed with a good education and en- tirely familiar with the meaning ,of the words
liberal and conservative as applied to tendencies
no less than to p.arties, I was naturally curious
as to the political parties of America. I askedhonestly-nearly every one I met where lay the
difference between Republicans and Democrats.
They told me that the Republicans were for a
high tariff. the Democrats for lowering it ;-but
that, I thought, is a temporary question of expedience, it 'does not indicate cleavage in general
policy ;-some of them murmured something
ab,;mt Centrifugal and Centripetal timdencies, and
said the Democrats believed in state-rights and
Republicans in strong federal control. This also
seemed to me not a princ_iple to live by.

most people who consider the question on its academic merits are inclined; and my belief in it and
my conviction that the benefits of Protection to
the working man were illusory, kept me a Democrat.
All such rather chilly academic convictions
faded away, however, before my slowly ripening
persuasion that the Democratic party really was
by history and theory committed to the championship of the rights of the individual, to a
real trust in the people-a tendency more or less
consistently marked from the time of Jefferson
on; the conviction too that the Republican party,
-in spite of its idealistic interlude under Abraham
Lincoln, really did inherit from its predecessors
the Whigs and from the Federalists before them
a regard for property and for private interests,
a distrust of the people, and undue trust in the
mission of the propertied and educated classes
to direct and lead in national affairs, still evident,
it seems to me, in their attitude today. In the
words of a Connecticut Democrat, "the Republicans fear the ignora!\ce of the poor, the Democrats fear the autocracy of the rich."
And when the star 0£ the Democratic party led
them to give to the country a leader second only
to ·the Republican Lincoln, cold conviction became enthusiasm. It became clear to me that the
Democratic party really believed that-in the
words of President Wilson, "the energy and initiative of the people should not be concentrated
in the hands of a few powerful guides and guardians, as our opponents have again and again in
effect if not in purpose sought to concentrate
them."
President Wilson's first administration produced much legislation of natural appeal · to
women. It was clear, in his words, that the party
"had opened its heart to social justice.'' It was
also clear that it was-in his words again-the

One thing I could understand when it was explained to me, the passionate movement against
human slavery, the passionate national feelmg
which had given birth to the present Republican
party and brought forth Lincoln, but that issue
was already settled forever. My inquiry was
about tendencies from which one might postulate
what path". either party would follow in a given
circumstance, and I was not satisfied. ·
I believed that we naturalized citizens, who
bear to our country a different and perhaps more
conscious love than others, are also able to contribute to it one thing which more fortunate native citizens cannot. I mean we bring to it a
knowledge of and a complete familiarity with
other standards through which we get a sense of
the wood and its outstanding features before the
trees become so familiar that we cease to see it.
I was struck at once by the pride that merchants seemed to take in their imported goods,
their absolute contempt for , American products,
their asquiescence in the supposed fact that
American fabrics could not be expected to be
as good as European goods. They even referred
to "cheap American stuff." Now, as I became
enthusiastic about my new country, I resented
this, especially when I found that the objects of
commerce with which I was familiar were in
fact inferior. The spur of keener competition, I
concluded in my immature mind, was what those
manufacturers needed to do their country credit
-lessened protection would help them to it.
I used to ask the men I knew what I s·n ould be
if I were a voter, because I believed in a strong
central government and also in reducing tariff
protection. "You would be a mugwump," they
said, and I did not like the sound of it and concluded then and there that I would be a Democrat. Maturer reflection inclined me more and
more toward a belief in free trade, as I believed

party "that could meet the new conditions of a
new age." The Child Labor law, the eight-hour
day for women in the District of Columbia added
to that democratic measure, the eight-hour day
for government employees, the Seaman's act, and
the laws concerned with safety at sea, the expansion of the Public Health Service make a special
appeal to women with their sex-sense of the
sanctity of life ; the agricultural extension act,
the Parcel Post, the U . S. E mployment service,
the good roads law are all, in their turn, pleasing
to our practical sex, while liberal minds are attracted by the anti-injunction act, the industrial
employees' arbitration act,. the Workman's Compensation Act, the Direct Election of Senators
and the Income Tax law.
From the beginning of his second term, from
the very time of his candidacy, indeed, when he
had the courage, as his rival had not, to deal
plainly with the so-called German-American
clique, President Wilson seems to me--by his
steady abstinence from war until our whole people were behind him; his steady prosecution of
the war; his share in the severe triumphant terms
of the armistice ; his high insistence on righteous
terms of peace--to stan<l out as the greatest man
save two our country has ever produced, to be
the shining symbol and example of what the
Democratic party should mean and stand for.
He has made clear to all the high destiny of that
party-he has put pride in the heart of all who
belong to it. He has justified their confidence in
its underlying principles, in its general aim and
direction, in its power of guiding the -nation
aright in its international no less than in its national behavior. These are some of the reasons
why I am a Democrat. •
Issued by the vVoman's Bureau of the Democratic National Co mmittee, Mrs. Ge org e
Bass, Chairman, Woodward Building, Washington, D. C.