Are Women People? by Alice Duer Miller (good inspirational books TXT) π
They must sacrifice their beauty
Who would do their civic duty,
Who the polling booth would enter,
Who the ballot box would use;
As they drop their ballots in it
Men and women in a minute,
Lose their charm, the antis tell us,
But--the men have less to lose.
Partners
("Our laws have not yet reached the point of holding that property whichis the result of the husband's earnings and the wife's savings becomestheir joint property.... In this most important of all partnershipsthere is no partnership property."--_Recent decision of the New YorkSupreme Court_.)
Lady, lovely lady, come and share
All my care;
Oh how gladly I will hurry
To confide my every worry
(And they're very dark and drear)
In your ear.
Lady, share the praise I obtain
Now and again;
Though I'm shy, it doesn't matter,
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But it's do the country's work alone, when war takes off the men,
And it's women this and women that and everything you please,
But woman is observant, and be sure that woman sees.
Beware!In the days that are gone when a statue was wanted
In park or museum where statues must be,
A chivalrous male would come forward undaunted
And say: "If you must have one, make it of me.
Bad though they be, yet I'll agree
If you must make them, why make them of me."
But chivalry's dead, as I always expected
Since women would not let things stay as they were;
So now, I suppose, when a statue's erected
Men will say brutally: "Make it of her."
She may prefer things as they were
When they start making the statues of her.
Male PhilosophyMen are very brave, you know,
That was settled long ago;
Ask, however, if you doubt it,
Any man you meet about it;
He will say, I think, like me,
Men are brave as they can be.
Women think they're brave, you say?
Do they really? Well, they may,
But such biased attestation
Is not worth consideration,
For a legal judgment shelves
What they say about themselves.
From a Man's Point of ViewWomen love self-sacrifice
Suffering and good advice;
If they don't love these sincerely
Then they're not true women really.
Oh, it shocks me so to note
Women pleading for the vote!
Saying publicly it would
Educate and do them good.
Such a selfish reason trips
Oddly from a woman's lips.
But it must not be supposed
I am in the least opposed.
If they want it let them try it.
For I think we'll profit by it.
GloryI went to see old Susan Gray,
Whose soldier sons had marched away,
And this is what she had to say:
"It isn't war I hate at allβ
'Tis likely men must fightβ
But, oh, these flags and uniforms,
It's them that isn't right!
If war must come, and come it does
To take our boys from play,
It isn't right to make it seem
So beautiful and gay."
I left old Susan with a sigh;
A famous band was marching by
To make men glad they had to die.
DependenceThe young men said to their mother,
"Hear us, O dearest and best!
Time cannot cool or smother
The love of you in our breast;
Here is your place and no otherβ
Come home and rest."
And the mother's heart was grateful
For the love of her cherished ones,
And her labor, bitter and hateful,
She left at the word of her sons,
Till she heard far off the fateful
Voices of guns.
Their love did more enslave her;
They did not understand
That none could guard or save her
When war was on the land,
But herself, and God, who gave her
Heart and mind and hand.
PlaythingsLast year the shops were crowded
With soldier suits and gunsβ
The presents that at Christmas time
We give our little sons;
And many a glittering trumpet
And many a sword and drum;
But as they're made in Germany
This year they will not come.
Perhaps another season
We shall not give our boys
Such very warlike playthings,
Such military toys;
Perhaps another season
We shall not think it sweet
To watch their game of soldier men,
Who dream not of defeat.
MilitantsHippolta, Penthesilea,
Maria Teresa and Joan,
Agustina and Boadicea
And some militant girls of our ownβ
It would take a brave man and a dull one
To say to these ladies: "Of course
We adore you while meek,
Timid, clinging and weak,
But a woman can never use force."
A Lady's ChoiceHer old love in tears and silence had been building her a palace
Ringed by moats and flanked with towers, he had set it on a hill
"Here," he said, "will come no whisper of the world's alarms and
malice,
In these granite walls imprisoned, I will keep you safe from ill."
As he spoke along the highway there came riding by a stranger,
For an instant on her features, he a fleeting glance bestowed,
Then he said: "My heart is fickle and the world is full of danger,"
And he offered her his stirrup and he pointed down the road.
The Ballad of Lost CausesTell me in what spot remote
Do the antis dwell to-day,
Those who did not want to vote,
Feared their sex's prompt decay?
Where are those who used to say:
"Home alone is woman's sphere;
Only those should vote who slay"?
Where the snows of yester-year?
Where are those who used to quote
Nietzsche's words in dread array?
Where the ancient crones who wrote:
"Women rule through Beauty's sway"?
And those lovers, where are they,
Who could hold no woman dear
If she had the ballot? Nay!
Where the snows of yester-year?
Prince, inquire no more, I pray,
Whither antis disappear.
Suffrage won; they melt away,
Like the snows of yester-year.
Thoughts at an Anti MeetingThere are no homes in suffrage states,
There are no children, glad and good,
There, men no longer seek for mates,
And women lose their womanhood.
This I believe without debate,
And yet I askβand ask in vainβ
Why no one in a suffrage state
Has moved to change things back again?
A MASQUE OF TEACHERS(A by-law of the New York Board of Education says: "No married woman shall be appointed to any teaching or supervising position in the New York public schools unless her husband is mentally or physically incapacitated to earn a living or has deserted her for a period of not less than one year.")
CHARACTERS
Board of Education.
Three Would-Be Teachers.
Chorus by Board:
Now please don't waste
Your time and ours
By pleas all based
On mental powers.
She seems to us
The proper stuff
Who has a hus-
Band bad enough.
All other pleas appear to us
Excessively superfluous.
1st Teacher:
My husband is not really bad----
Board:
How very sad, how very sad!
1st Teacher:
He's good, but hear my one excuse----
Board:
Oh, what's the use, oh, what's the use?
1st Teacher:
Last winter in a railroad wreck
He lost an arm and broke his neck.
He's doomed, but lingers day by day.
Board:
Her husband's doomed! Hurray! hurray!
2nd Teacher:
My husband's kind and healthy, too----
Board:
Why, then, of course, you will not do.
2nd Teacher:
Just hear me out. You'll find you're wrong.
It's true his body's good and strong;
But, ah, his wits are all astray.
Board:
Her husband's mad. Hip, hip, hurray!
3rd Teacher:
My husband's wise and wellβthe creature!
Board:
Then you can never be a teacher.
3rd Teacher:
Wait. For I led him such a life
He could not stand me as a wife;
Last Michaelmas, he ran away.
Board:
Her husband hates her, Hip, hurray!
Chorus by Board:
Now we have found
Without a doubt,
By process sound
And well thought out,
Each candidate
Is fit in truth
To educate
The mind of youth.
No teacher need apply to us
Whose married life's harmonious.
(Curtain.)
The Unconscious Suffragists"They who have no voice nor vote in the electing of representatives do not enjoy liberty, but are absolutely enslaved to those who have votes."βBenjamin Franklin.
"No such phrase as virtual representation was ever known in law or constitution."βJames Otis.
"But these great cities, says my honorable friend, are virtually, though not directly represented. Are not the wishes of Manchester, he asks, as much consulted as those of any other town which sends members to Parliament? Now, sir, I do not understand how a power which is salutary when exercised virtually can be noxious when exercised directly. If the wishes of Manchester have as much weight with us as they would have under a system which gives representatives to Manchester, how can there be any danger in giving representatives to Manchester?"βLord Macaulay's Speech on the Reform Bill.
"Universal suffrage prolongs in the United States the effect of universal education: for it stimulates all citizens throughout their lives to reflect on problems outside the narrow circle of their private interests and occupations: to read about public questions; to discuss public characters and to hold themselves ready in some degree to give a rational account of their political faith."βDr. Charles Eliot.
"But liberty is not the chief and constant object of their (the American people) desires: equality is their idol; they make rapid and sudden efforts to obtain liberty and if they miss their aim, resign themselves to their disappointment; but nothing can satisfy them without equality, and they would rather perish than lose it."βDe Tocqueville: Democracy in America, 1835.
"A government is for the benefit of all the people. We believe that this benefit is best accomplished by popular government because in the long run each class of individuals is apt to secure better provision for themselves through their own voice in government than through the altruistic interest of others, however intelligent or philanthropic."βWilliam H. Taft in Special Message.
"I have listened to some very honest and eloquent orators whose sentiments were noteworthy for this: that when they spoke of the people, they were not thinking of themselves, they were thinking of somebody whom they were commissioned to take care of. And I have seen them shiver when it was suggested that they arrange to have something done by the people for themselves."βThe New Freedom, by Woodrow Wilson.
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