File #11521: "WomenShouldVote.pdf"

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JANE ADDAMS

Reprinted b:r penniooioa from The Laclieo Home Jourl\lll

NatioDal AmericaD Womu Suffrare AuociatioD
108 f1FTH AVENUE

NEW~YORX

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Why Women Should Vote
By
J ANE ADDAMS

For many generations it has been helieved that woman's place is within the
walls of her own home, and it is indeed
im po~sib l e to imagine th e time when he-r
duty there shall be ended or to forecast
any social change which c;hall release
her from that paramount obligation.
This paper is an attempt to show that
many women to-day are failing to discharge their duties to their own households prope rly simply because they do
not percei,·e that as society grows more
complicated it is necessary that wo man
shall extend her sense of responsibility to
many things outside of her own home if
she would conti nue to preserve the home
in its entiretv. One could illustrate in
many ways. ·A ,,-oman's simplest duty,
one would say, is to keep her house clean
and wholesome and to feed her children
properly. Yet if she lives in a tenement
house, as so man y of my neighbors do,

winter overcoats and cloaks which have
heen sent from infected city sweatshops.
That their mothers mend their stockings
and guard them from •·taking cold" is not
a sufficient protection when the tailoring
of the family is done in a distant city under conditions which the mother cannot
possibly control. The sanitary regulation
of sweatshops by city officials is all that
can he depended upon to prevent such
nccdle~s destruction. \Vho shall say that
women are not concerned in the enactment and enforcement of such legislation
if they would preserve their homes?
En'n \n">men ·who take no part in public affair:- in order that they may giYe
them.;;clvcs entirely to their own families,
sometimes going so far as to despise
those other women who arc endeavoring
to secure protective legislation, may illus1ralc this point. The Hull-House neighborhood was at one time suffering from
a typhoid epidemic. A careful investigation was made by which we were able to
establish a very close connection between
the typhoid and a mode of plumbing
which made it most probable that the infection had been carried by flies. Among
the people who had been exposed to the
infection was a widow who had lived in
the ward for a number of years, in a comfortable little house which she owned.
Altlwugh the Ttal i:::n immigrants were
4

closing in all around her she was not
willing to sell her property and to move
awav until she had finished the education
of 11er children. In the mean time she
held herself quite aloof from her Italian
neighbors and could never be drawn into
any of the public efforts to protect them
by securing a better code of tenementhouse sanitation. Her two daughters were
sent to an Eastern college; one June,
when one of them had graduated and the
other still had two years before she took
her degree, they came to the spotless little house and to thei r self-sacrificing
mother for the summer's holiday. They
both fell ill, not because their own hom<.'
was not clean, not because t heir mother
was not devoted, but because next door
to them and also in the rear were
w retched tenements, and because the
mother's utmost efforts cou ld not keep
the infection out of her own house. One
daughter died and one recovered but was
an invalid for two years following. This
is, perhaps, a fair illustration of the futility of the individual conscience when
woman insists upon isolating her family
from the rest of the community and its
interests. The result is sure to be a pitifu l fai lure.
One of the interesting experiences in
the Chicago campaign for inducing t he
members of the Charter Convention to
5

recommend municipal iranchi:.e for
women in the pro' isions of the new charter was the unexpected enthusiasm and
help which came from large groups of
foreign-born women. The Scand in avian
women represented in many Lutheran
Church societie!' said quite simply that in
the old country they had had the municipal franchise upon the same basis as men
since the se' enteenth centurY; all the
women living under the British Gon:rnmcnt. in England, .\ustralia or Canada,
pointed out that Chicago woml'n were
asking now for what the British women
had long had. But the most unexpected
response came irom the ioreign colonies
in which women ha(l neYer heard such
problems discus~ed and took the prospect
of the municipal ballot as a simple device
-whi c h it is- to aid them in their dai 1 struggle with adverse city conditions.
The Italian women said that the men engag-ed in railroad construction were away
all summer and did not know anything
about their household difficulties. Some
of them came to liull-House one day to
talk o\·er the possibility of a public washhouse. They do not like to wash in thr.ir
own tenements; they had never seen a
washing-tub nntil they came to America.
and find it \'Cry difficu lt to use it in the
restricted space of their little kitchens
and to hang the clothes within the house
6

to dry. They say that in the Italian villages the women all go to the streams together; in the town they go to the public
wash-house : and washing, instead of being lon ely and disagreeable, is made
pleasant by cheerful conversation. It is
asking a great deal of these women to
change suddenly all t heir habits of living ,
and their contention that the tenementhouse kitchen is too small for laundry
work is well taken. If women in Chicago
knew the needs of the Italian colony they
would realize that any change bringing
cleanliness and fresh air into the Italian
household would be a very sensible and
hygien ic measure. It is, perhaps, asking
a great deal that the members of the City
Cou nci l should understand this, but surely a comprehension of the needs of these
women and efforts toward ameliorating
their lot might be regarded as matters of
mun icipal obligation on t he part of voting
women.
The same thing is true of the Jewish
wome n in their desire for covered markets which have always been a municipal
provision in Russia and Poland. The
vegetables piled high upon the wagons
standing in the open markets of Chicago
become covered with dust and soot. It
seems to these women a violation of the
most rudimentary decencies and they
sometimes say quite simply: "If women
7

had anything to say about it they would
change all that.''
Tf women follow onlv the lines of their
traditional acti,·ities ' here are certai n
primary duties which belong to eyen the
most conserYati,·e women. and which no
one woman or group of women can adequately discharge unless they join the
more general movements look ing toward
social amelioration th roug h legal enactment.
Th<' first of these. of which this article
has already treated, is woman's responsibility for the members of her own householci that they may be properly fed and
clothed and surrounded by hygienic conditions. The second is a responsibility
for the education of children: (a) that
they may be prO\·ided with good schools :
(b) that they may be kept free from
vicious inAuences on the street; (c) t hat
when working they n. ay be procc:~ceu by
adc(]uatc child-labor legislation.
(a) The duty of a woman toward the
schools which her children attend is so
obvious that it is not necessary to dwell
upon it. But e,·en this simple 'obligation
cannot be effecti,·eh· carried out without
some form of social organization as the
mothe rs· school clubs and mothers' con··
gresses testify, and to which the most
conservative women belong because they
feel the need of w ider reading and dis-

a

cus ion concerning the many problems of
childhood.
It is, therefore, perhaps
natural that the public should ha,·e been
more willing to accord a Yote to women
in school matters than in anv other. and
vet women haYe ncYer been· members of
Board of Education in sufficient numbers to infl nence largely actual school
curricnli. If th ey had been kin dergartens, domestic science courses and school
playgrouncls would be fa r more numerous than thev arc. ~Tore than one woman
has been con.vinced of the need of the ballot by the futility of her efforts in persuading a business man that young children need nurture in something besides
the three r's. Perhaps, too, only women
realize the influence which the school
might exert upon the home if a proper
adaptation to actual needs were considered . An Italian girl who has had lessons in cooking at th e public school wi ll
help her mother to connect the en tire
family with American food and household
habits. That the mother has never baked
bread in Italy-only mi:...ed it in her own
house and then taken it out to the village
oven-makes it all the more n<'cessary
that her daughter should understand the
complications of a cooking-stove. The
same th ing is true of the girl who learns
to sew in the public school, and more
than anyth ing else, perhaps, of t he gi rl

a

9

who rec('i ,·es the first simple instruction
in the care of little children. that .:;ki llful
care which e\'erY tenement-hou~c babv
requires if he is to be pulled through his
second summer. The o nh· lime, to mv
knowledge, that lesson<; 'in th e care
children were given in the public schools
of Ch icago was one summer w he n t he
vacation schools "·ere hcing managed by
a volunteer hodv of women. The instruction was eagerl)r received by the Italian
g irl s. who had been '' little mothers'' to
younger chi ldren ever since they could
remember.
i\s a result of this teaching I recall a
young g-irl who carefully explained to her
Italian mother that the reason the babies
in Italy we re so healthy and the babies
in Chicago were so sickly was not. as her
motlwr had always firmly ins isted, because her babies in Ital y had goat's milk
and he r habies in America had cow's
milk, but because the milk in J taly was
clean and the milk in Chicago was dirty
She said that when you milked your own
goat before the door you knew that t he
milk was clean, but when you bought
milk from rhe grocery st ore after it hacl
been carried for many miles in the country. "you couldn't tell whether or not it
was fit for the baby to drink until the men
from the Cit v Hall, who had watched it
all th e way,· said that it was all right."

of

10

1

She also informed her mother that the
"City Trail wanted to fix up the milk so
that it cou!dn 't make the babv sick, but
that they hadn't quite enoug-11 YOtes for
it yet." The Italian mother believed what
her child had been taug-ht in the big
school; it seemed to her quite as natural
that the city should be concerned in pro·
vidin~ pure milk for her younger ch ildren
as that it should provide big schools and
teachers for her older chi ldren. She
reached this na'iYe conclusion because she
had neYer heard those arguments which
make it seem reasonable that a woman
should he gi,·en the school franchise, but
no other.
(b) Dut women are also beginning to
realize that children need attention outside of school hours; that much of the
petty Yire iT' cities is merely the love of
pleasure gone wrong, the overrestrain ed
boy or girl seeking improper recreation
and excitement. It is obvious that a little study of the needs of children, a sympathetic understanding of the conditions
under which they go astray, might sa,·e
hundreds of them. \\Tomen traditionallv
haYe had an opportunity to observe th-e
plays of children and the needs of youth.
and yet in Chicago, at least, they had
done singularly little in this vexed problem of juvenile delinquency until they
helped to inaugurate the Juvenile Court
11

moYement a dozen years ago. The J uvenile Comt Committee. made up larg-ely of
women, paid t he sala r ies of t he probation
officer~ connected with the court for the
first six years of its existence, and after
the sala r ies were cared for hy the county
the same organization turned itself into a
Juvenile Protective LcagtH.', and thrott!?;h
a score of paicl officers arc doing valiant
scn·icc in minimizing some of the dangers
oi city life which boys and girls encounter.
This Protective League. however, was
not formed until the women had had a
civic training th roug-h thei r semi-official
connection with the Jll\·enile Court. Tl:is
is, pcrhap , an illustration of our inability
to see t he duty "next to hand'' unt il we
have become ale rt through our knowledge of conditions in connection with the
la rger duties. \ Ve would all agree that
social amelioration must come about
through the efforts of many people who
are moved th ereto by the compunction
and stirring of the individual conscience.
hut we arc only beginning to understand
that the indiv idual conscience will respond to the special challenge largely in
proportion as the individual is able to see
the social conditions because he has fe lt
respon:.ihle for their improvement. Bcca use this body of "omtn assumed a public responsibi lity t hey have seen to it that
12

every series of pictures displayed in the
five-cent theater is subj\·ctcd to a careful
cen::;orship before it is produced. and
tho~e series suggesting- obscenity and
criminality ha\'e been practically eliminated. The police department has performed this and mam· other duties to
which it was oblivions. before simply because these women have made it realize
that i l is necessary to protect and purify
those places of amusement which are
crowded with young people every night.
This is hut the negati\'e side of the policy
pur~ued by the public authorities in the
fifteen small parks of Chicago, each of
which is provided with halls in which
young people may meet nightly for social
gatherings and dances. The more extensiv ely the modern cil\· endca,·ors on
the one ·hand to control a·nd on the other
hand to provide recreational facilities for
its young people the more necessary it is
-that women should assist in their direction and extension. After all, ::t care for
wholesome and innocent amusement is
what women have for many years assumed. \Yhen the reaction comes on the
part of taxpayers women's votes may be
necessary to keep thecity to its beneficent
obligations toward its own young people.
(c) As the education of her children
has been more and more transferred to
the school, so that even children four
13

year~ old go to the kindergarten, the
woman has been left in a household of
constantly-narrowing interests. not on ly
because the children are awa\', but also
hecausc one industry after another is slipping from the household into the factory
r::,·er since steam po\\'er has been appliecl
to the processes of weaYing and sp inning
woman's traditiona l work has bC'en carried on largely outside of the home. The
clothing and household linen art• not only
spun and woven. but alsn n~ually sewed.
by machincr.v: the preparation of many
food-. has al<;o passed into the factr1ry and
neressarih· a certain number of women
ha' c hee1i obliged to follow their work
there, although it is doubtful. in "'Pite of
thl' large number of iactory girls, whether
women now are doing as large a proportion of the worlcl's work as thev used to
do. l:l'cause manv thousands· of those
working in factories and shops arc gi rls
between the ages of fourteen and twenty·
two there is a necessitv that older women
should be interested
the conditions of
indu~try. The very fact that these girls
arc not going to remain in industry permanently makes it more important that
some one should see to it that they shall
not be incapacitated for their future family life because they work for exhausting
hours and under insanitary conditions.
Tf woman's sense of oblig-ation had cn-

in

14

largecl as the indu!'trial conditions
changed she might naturally and almost
imperceptibly
have inaugurated the
movements for social amelioration in the
line of factory legislation and shop sanitation. That she has not done so is doubtless due to the fact that her conscience
is slow to recognize any obli gation outside of her own family circle, and because
she was so absorbed in her own household that she failed to see what the conditions outside actuallv were. lt would be
interesting to know' how far the con·
sciousness that she had no vote and could
not change matters operated in this direction. After all. we see only those things
to which our attention has been drawn,
we feel responsibility for those things
which are brought to us as matters of re.....,...., .:ihilitv. Tf <:onscientious wom<'n were
..:oti V III CCd ··cnac 1t was a civic duty to be
informed in regard to these grave industrial afiairs, and then to express th e conclusions which they had reached by depositing a piece of paper in a ballot-box,
one cannot imagine that they would shi rk
simply because the action ran counter to
old traditions.
To those of my readers who would atmit that although woman has no rig-ht to
shirk her old obligations, th at all of these
measures could be secured more easily
through her influence upon the men

of

15

her family than through the direct use of
the ballot. I should like to tell a little
~tory. 1 ha,·e a friend in Chicago who is
the mother of four sons and ihe grandmother of twelve grand:>ons "ho are
'oters. She is a woman of wealth, of secured ocial position. of sterling character
and clear intelligence, and may, therefore.
quite fairly be cited as a ··woman of influence." Upon one of her recent birthdays, when she was asked how s he had
kept so young, she promptly replied: "Becat•se l have alwavs advocated at least
one unpopular cause.'' It may have been
in pursuance of this policy that for many
vears she has been an ardent ach·ocate of
free silver, although her manufacturing
family are all Republicans! [ happened
to cal l at her house on the day that Mr.
l\T cKinley was elected Pr<.:sident against
1\lr. Bryan for the first time. I found my
friend much disturbed. She said somewhat bitterly that she had at last discu,·ered what the much-vaunted influence
of woman was worth; that s he had implored each one of her sons and grandsons, had entered into endless arguments
and moral appeals to induce one of them
to represent her convictions by voting for
Bryan! That, although sincerely devoted
to her, each one had assured her that his
con victious fo rced him to vote the Republican ticket. She said that all s he had
16

been able to secure was the promise from
one of the grandsons. for whom she had
an especial tenderness because he bore
her husband's name. that he would not
YOte at all. He could not vote for Brvan.
but 011t of respect for her feeling- he would
refrain from voting for l\fcKinley. 1\ly
friend said that for many years she had
suspected that women cuuld influence
men only in regard to those things in
which men were not deeply concerned.
but \\'hen it came to persuading a man
to a \\'Oman's Yiew in affairs of politics or
business it was absolutely useless. I con·
tended that a woman had no right to persuade a man to vote against his own convictions: that I respected the men of her
family for following their own judgment
regardless of the appeal which the honored head of the house had made to their
chivalric devotion. To this she replied
that she would agree with that point of
view when a woman had the same opportunity as a man to register her convictions bv vote. I believed then as I do
now, tliat nothing is gained when independence cf judgment is as~ailed by "influence," sentimental or otherwise, and
that we test advancing ci,•ilization somewhat by our power to respect differences
and by our tolerance of another's honest
conviction.
This is. perhaps, the attitude of many
17

bn~y "·omen who would be g-lad to u~e
th<' ballot to further public measures in
which thev are interested and ior which
tht·y have-been working for years. 1t offend!> the taste of such a woman to be ohligul to use indirect "influence" when she
i~ an:nstomed to well-bred, open action
in other afYa.irs, and she verv much resents the time spent in pcrsna(ling a voter
to tak<.' her point of view, and possibly
to give '1P his own. quite a~ honest and
valuable as hers. although different be··
canst' resulting from a tot<.lly differ<>nt
e'\periencc. Public-5pintcd women who
wi,h to US\' the ballot. as [ know them,
do not wish lo do the work of nH.'n nor
to take O\'er men's affairs. They simply
want nn opportunity to do their own
work and to take care of those affairs
w hich naturally and historica lly belong t0
wnmcu, but which are constantly being
nvrrlnoked and slighted in our politkal
institutions.
In a complex community like the mNIern citv all poims of view need to be
n·pre.-cntcrl; the resultants of diverse experit•nccs need to be pooled if the commnnit\' \\'Ould make for sane and balanced
progrrss If it '"otdd meet fairly each
probkm as it arises. whcthtT it be connected \\"ith a freight tunnel having- to do
la rgely with business men, o r with the
increasing death r ate among ch ild ren ttn18

der fi ,·e years of age, a problem in which
women are vitally concerned, or with the
question of more adequate street-car
t ransfers, in which both men and women
might be c;aid to be equally interested, it
must not ignore the judgments of its entire adult population.
To turn the administration of ou r civic
affairs wholly over to men may mean that
the American city will continue to push
forward in its commercial and industrial
development, and continue to lag behinc\
in those things which make a city healthful and beautiful. After all, woman's traditional function has been to make her
dwelling-place both clean and fair. Ts
that dreariness in city life, that lack of
dome~ticitv which the humblest farm
dwelling presents, due to a withdrawal of
one of the naturally cooperating forces?
Tf women have in any sense been responsible for the gentler side of life which
softens and blurs some of its harsher conditions, may they not have a duty to perform in our American cities?
In closing, may I recapitulate that if
woman would fulfill her traditional responsibility to her own children; if she
would educate and protect from danger
factory children who must find their
recreation on the street; if she would
bring the cultural forces to bear upon our
materialistic civilization; and if she
19

would do it all with the dignity and directness fitting one who carries on her
immemorial duties, then she must bring
herself to the use of the ballot-that
latest implement for self-government.
May we not fai rly say that American
women need this implement in order to
p reserve the home ?

20

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