History of Woman Suffrage/Volume 6/Appendix
APPENDIX.
NEBRASKA MEN'S ASSOCIATION OPPOSED TO WOMAN SUFFRAGE.
To the Electors of the State of Nebraska:
At a meeting of men lately held in the city of Omaha the following resolution was unanimously adopted: "Resolved, That it is the sense of this meeting that a Manifesto be prepared, issued and circulated, setting forth the reasons for our opposition to the pending constitutional amendment providing for equal (woman) suffrage and requesting the cooperation of the voters of the State, and that such Manifesto be signed by all the men present."
We yield to none in our admiration, veneration and respect for woman. We recognize in her admirable and adorable qualities and sweet and noble influences which make for the betterment of mankind and the advancement of civilization. We have ever been willing and ready to grant to woman every right and protection, even to favoritism in the law, and to give her every opportunity that makes for development and true womanhood. We have a full appreciation of all the great things which have been accomplished by women in education, in charity and in benevolent work and in other channels of duty too numerous to mention, by which both men and women have been benefited, society improved and the welfare of the human race advanced. We would take from women none of their privileges as citizens but we do not believe that women are adapted to the political work of the world.
The discussion of all questions growing out of the social and family relations and local economic conditions has no direct relationship to the right of women to participate in the political affairs of government. The right of suffrage does not attach of right to the owners of property, for, if so, all other persons should be disfranchised. It is not a fundamental right of taxpayers, for a great body of men are not taxpayers, and nine-tenths of the women who would become voters, if woman suffrage were adopted, would be non-taxpayers. It is not an inherent right of citizenship, for the time never was in the whole history of the world when the franchise was granted to all citizens.... Franchise is a privilege of government granted only to those to whom the Government sees fit to grant it. As a law-abiding people men and women alike should recognize once and for all that the right of suffrage is not a natural or inherent right of citizenship but can only come by grant from the Government. (Legal authorities quoted.]
We must also recognize that woman suffrage is inconsistent with the fundamental principles upon which our representative government was founded and to accept it now involves revolutionary changes. The framers of the Federal Constitution, a body of the wisest men the country has ever produced, did not recognize or provide for woman suffrage. No one of the original thirteen States which adopted it provided in their constitutions for woman suffrage. True it was permitted in New Jersey from 1776 to 1807, a period of thirty-one years, when it was taken away by statute, by reason of unsatisfactory conditions and results. After the close of the Civil War, the southern States which had gone into rebellion were admitted back into the Union under constitutions limiting suffrage to men. These precedents in our governmental history were never departed from until in recent years.
The greatest danger to the Republic of the United States today, as it always has been in governments where the people rule, is in an excitable and emotional suffrage. If the women of this country would always think coolly and deliberate calmly, if they could always be controlled and act by judgment and not under passion, they might help us to keep our institutions "eternal as the foundations of the continent itself"; but the philosophers of history and the experience of the ages past and present tell us in unanswerable arguments and teach us by illustrations drawn from actual experience, that governments have been overturned or endangered in periods of great excitement by emotional suffrage and the speech and writings of intolerant people. . . .
Open that terrible page of the French Revolution and the days of terror, when the click of the guillotine and the rush of blood through the streets of Paris demonstrated to what extremities the ferocity of human nature can be driven by political passion. Who led those bloodthirsty mobs? Who shrieked loudest in that hurricane of passion? Woman. Her picture upon the page of history is indelible. In the city of Paris, in those ferocious mobs, the controlling agency, nay, not agency but the controlling and principal power, came from those whom God had intended to be the soft and gentle angels of mercy throughout the world. . . .
It has been said that if woman suffrage should become universal in the United States, in times of great excitement arising out of sectional questions or local conditions this country would be in danger of State insurrections and seditions and that in less than a hundred years revolutions would occur and our republican form of government would come to an end. The United States should guard against emotional suffrage. What we need is to put more logic and less feeling into public affairs. This country has already extended suffrage beyond reasonable bounds. Instead of enlarging it there are strong reasons why it should be curtailed. It would have been better for wise and safe government and the welfare of all the people if there had been some reasonable standard of fitness for the ballot.
During the intense feeling and turbulent conditions growing out of the Civil War, suffrage was so extended that many of the southern States were turned over to the political control of those not sufficiently informed to conduct good government. It has taken half-a-century of strenuous effort to correct that mistake. The granting of universal woman suffrage would greatly increase the existing evil and put it beyond the possibility of correction except by an ultimate revolution.
We hear it frequently stated that there is no argument against woman suffrage except sentiment. We can reply with equal force that there is no argument for woman suffrage except sentiment, and that often misguided and uninformed. Some suffragists insist that if woman suffrage became universal "it would set in motion the machinery of an earthly paradise." It was a woman of high standing in the literary and journalistic field who answered, "It is my opinion it would let loose the wheels of purgatory.". . . Suffragists frequently ask the question, "If we want to vote why should other people object?" If it is wrong they should not ask it any more than they should ask the privilege of committing a crime. If it is a wrong against the State every other man and woman has a right to object and it is their duty to object. . . .
There are spheres in which feeling should be paramount. There are kingdoms in which the heart should reign supreme. That kingdom belongs to woman — the realm of sentiment, the realm of love, the realm of gentler and holier and kindlier attributes that make the name of wife, mother and sister next to the name of God himself, but it is not in harmony with suffrage and has no place in government.
We submit these considerations in all candor to the men of this State. Ultimately the decision of this question at the polls is a man's question. We ask your cooperation. . . .
Omaha, July 6, 1914.
- Joseph H. Millard, ex-U. S. Senator and president Omaha National Bank. (Largest creditor of Willow Springs Distillery.)
- John A. McShane, ex-Congressman and retired capitalist.
- John Lee Webster, lawyer, representing Omaha Street Railway.
- Luther Drake, president Merchants' National Bank.
- John C. Cowin, prominent lawyer.
- William F. Gurley, prominent lawyer.
- William D. McHugh, lawyer representing Standard Oil Company.
- Frank T. Hamilton, president Omaha Gas Co. and officer Street Railway Co.
- William Wallace, former cashier Omaha National Bank.
- John A. Munroe, vice-president Union Pacific Railway Company.
- Frank Boyd, employee Omaha National Bank.
- Gerrit Fort, Union Pacific Railway official.
- Joseph Barker, insurance official.
- Edward A. Peck, general manager Omaha Grain Elevator Company.
- Henry W. Yates, president Nebraska National Bank.
- Milton C. Peters, president Alfalfa Milling Co.
- William H. Koenig, of firm of Kilpatrick & Co., dry goods merchants.
- W. H. Bocholz, vice-president Omaha National Bank.
- Fred H. Davis, president First National Bank.
- Benjamin S. Baker, lawyer.
- L. F. Crofoot, lawyer for Omaha Smelting Co. and Chicago & Milwaukee R. R.
- E. E. Bruce, wholesale druggist
- George W. Holdrege, manager Burlington & Missouri River R. R. Co.
- Fred A. Nash, President Omaha Electric Light Co.
- Nelson H. Loomis, General Attorney Union Pacific R. R.
- Edson Rich, assistant attorney Union Pacific R. R.
- Frank B. Johnson, president Omaha Printing Co.
- Thomas C, Byrne, president Wholesale Dry Goods Co.
- Rev. Thomas J. Mackay, Minister All Saints' Church (Episcopal).
- Rev. John W. Williams, Minister St. Barnabas' Church (Episcopal).
This Manifesto with the signatures is given almost in full because in language and in the business interests of the signers it is thoroughly typical of the open opposition to woman suffrage. The other classes who were opposed — the “machine” politicians, the liquor interests and those directly or indirectly connected with them — for the most part worked more secretly.