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READY FOR THE FINAL BATTLE - CARRIE
CHAPMAN CATT 1916
The Crisis
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I have taken for
my subject, The Crisis, |
because I believe
that a crisis has come in our movement which —
if recognized and the opportunity seized with
vigor, enthusiasm, and will — means the final
victory of our great cause in the very near
future.
I am aware that some suffragists do not
share this belief. They see no signs nor
symptoms today which were not present yesterday;
no manifestations in the year 1916 which differ
significantly from those in the year 1910. To
them, the movement has been a steady, normal
growth from the beginning and must so continue
until the end. I can only defend my claim with
the plea that it is better to imagine a crisis
where none exists than to fail to recognize one
when it comes; for a crisis is a culmination of
events which calls for new considerations and
new decisions. A failure to answer the call may
mean an opportunity lost, a possible victory
postponed.
The object of the life of an organized movement
is to secure its aim. Necessarily, it must obey
the law of evolution and pass through the stages
of agitation and education and finally through
the stage of realization. As one has put it:
"A
new idea floats in the air over the heads of the
people and for a long, indefinite period evades
their understanding but, by and by, when through
familiarity, human vision grows clearer, it is
caught out of the clouds and crystallized into
law."
Such a period comes to every movement and
is its crisis. In my judgment, that crucial
moment, bidding us to renewed consecration and
redoubled activity, has come to our cause. I
believe our victory hangs within our grasp,
inviting us to pluck it out of the clouds and
establish it among the good things of the world.
If this be true, the time is past when we should
say: "Men and women of America, look upon that
wonderful idea up there; see, one day it will
come down." Instead, the time has come to shout
aloud in every city, village, and hamlet, and in
tones so clear and jubilant that they will
reverberate from every mountain peak and echo
from shore to shore: "The woman's hour has
struck."
Suppose suffragists as a whole do not
believe a crisis has come and do not extend
their hands to grasp the victory, what will
happen? Why, we shall all continue to work and
our cause will continue to hang, waiting for
those who possess a clearer vision and more
daring enterprise. On the other hand, suppose we
reach out with united earnestness and
determination to grasp our victory while it
still hangs a bit too high? Has any harm been
done? None!
Therefore, fellow suffragists, I invite your
attention to the signs which point to a crisis
and your consideration of plans for turning the
crisis into victory.
First: We
are passing through a world crisis.
All thinkers of every land tell us so; and that
nothing after the Great War will be as it was
before. Those who profess to know claim that
100 millions of dollars are being spent on the
war every day and that 2 years of war have cost
50 billions of dollars or 10 times more than the
total expense of the American Civil War. Our own
country has sent 35 millions of dollars abroad
for relief expenses.
Were there no other effects to come from the
world's war, the transfer of such unthinkably
vast sums of money from the usual avenues to
those wholly abnormal would give so severe a
jolt to organized society that it would vibrate
around the world and bring untold changes in its
wake.
But three and a half millions of lives have been
lost. The number becomes the more impressive
when it is remembered that the entire population
of the American Colonies was little more than
three and a half millions. These losses have
been the lives of men within the age of economic
production. They have been taken abruptly from
the normal business of the world and every human
activity from that of the humblest, unskilled
labor to art, science, and literature has been
weakened by their loss. Millions of other men
will go to their homes, blind, crippled, and
incapacitated to do the work they once
performed. The stability of human institutions
has never before suffered so tremendous a shock.
Great men are trying to think out the
consequences but one and all proclaim that no
imagination can find color or form bold enough
to paint the picture of the world after the war.
British and Russian, German and Austrian, French
and Italian agree that it will lead to social
and political revolution throughout the entire
world. Whatever comes, they further agree that
the war presages a total change in the status of
women.
A simple-minded man in West Virginia, when
addressed upon the subject of woman suffrage in
that state, replied, "We've been so used to keepin' our women down, 't would seem queer not
to." He expressed what greater men feel but do
not say. Had the wife of that man spoken in the
same clear-thinking fashion, she would have
said, "We women have been so used to being kept
down that it would seem strange to get up.
Nature intended women for doormats." Had she so
expressed herself, these two would have put the
entire anti-suffrage argument in a nutshell.
In Europe, from the Polar Circle to the Aegean
Sea, women have risen as though to answer that
argument. Everywhere they have taken the places
made vacant by men and in so doing, they have
grown in self-respect and in the esteem of their
respective nations. In every land, the people
have reverted to the primitive division of labor
and while the men have gone to war, women have
cultivated the fields in order that the army and
nation may be fed. No army can succeed and no
nation can endure without food; those who supply
it are a war power and a peace power.
Women by the thousands have knocked at the doors
of munition factories and, in the name of
patriotism, have begged for the right to serve
their country there. Their services were
accepted with hesitation but the experiment once
made, won reluctant but universal praise. An
official statement recently issued in Great
Britain announced that 660,000 women were
engaged in making munitions in that country
alone. In a recent convention of munition
workers, composed of men and women, a resolution
was unanimously passed informing the government
that they would forego vacations and holidays
until the authorities announced that their
munition supplies were sufficient for the needs
of the war and Great Britain pronounced the act
the highest patriotism. Lord Derby addressed
such a meeting and said,
"When the history of
the war is written, I wonder to whom the
greatest credit will be given; to the men who
went to fight or to the women who are working in
a way that many people hardly believed that it
was possible for them to work."
Lord Sydenham
added his tribute. Said he,
"It might fairly be
claimed that women have helped to save thousands
of lives and to change the entire aspect of the
war. Wherever intelligence, care, and close
attention have been needed, women have
distinguished themselves."
A writer in the
London Times of July 18, 1916, said:
"But for
women, the armies could not have held the field
for a month; the national call to arms could not
have been made or sustained; the country would
have perished of inanition and disorganization.
If, indeed, it be true that the people have been
one, it is because the genius of women has been
lavishly applied to the task of reinforcing and
complementing the genius of men. The qualities
of steady industry, adaptability, good judgment
and concentration of mind which men do not
readily associate with women have been
conspicuous features."
On fields of battle, in regular and improvised
hospitals, women have given tender and skilled
care to the wounded and are credited with the
restoration of life to many. Heroism and
self-sacrifice have been frankly acknowledged by
all the governments; but their endurance, their
skill, the practicality of their service, seem
for the first time, to have been recognized by
governments as "war power". So, thinking in war
terms, great men have suddenly discovered that
women are "war assets". Indeed, Europe is
realizing, as it never did before, that women
are holding together the civilization for which
men are fighting. A great search-light has been
thrown upon the business of nation-building and
it has been demonstrated in every European land
that it is a partnership with equal, but
different responsibilities resting upon the two
partners.
It is not, however, in direct war work alone
that the latent possibilities of women have been
made manifest. In all the belligerent lands,
women have found their way to high posts of
administration where no women would have been
trusted two years ago and the testimony is
overwhelming that they have filled their posts
with entire satisfaction to the authorities.
They have dared to stand in pulpits — once too
sacred to be touched by the unholy feet of a
woman — and there, without protest, have appealed
to the Father of All in behalf of their stricken
lands. They have come out of the kitchen where
there was too little to cook and have found a
way to live by driving cabs, motors, and
streetcars. Many a woman has turned her hungry
children over to a neighbor and has gone forth
to find food for both mothers and both families
of children and has found it in strange places
and occupations. Many a drawing-room has been
closed and the maid who swept and dusted it is
now cleaning streets that the health of the city
may be conserved. Many a woman who never before
slept in a bed of her own making, or ate food
not prepared by paid labor, is now sole mistress
of parlor and kitchen.
In all the warring countries, women are postmen, porters, railway conductors, ticket,
switch and signal men. Conspicuous
advertisements invite women to attend
agricultural, milking and motor-car schools.
They are employed as police in Great Britain and
women detectives have recently been taken on the
government staff. In Berlin, there are over
3,000 women streetcar conductors and 3,500 women
are employed on the general railways. In every
city and country, women are doing work for which
they would have been considered incompetent two
years ago.
The war will soon end and the armies will return
to their native lands. To many a family, the men
will never come back. The husband who returns to
many a wife, will eat no bread the rest of his
life save of her earning.
What then, will happen after the war? Will the
widows left with families to support cheerfully
leave their well-paid posts for those commanding
lower wages? Not without protest! Will the wives
who now must support crippled husbands give up
their skilled work and take up the occupations
which were open to them before the war? Will
they resignedly say: "The woman who has a
healthy husband who can earn for her, has a
right to tea and raisin cake, but the woman who
earns for herself and a husband who has given
his all to his country, must be content with
butterless bread?" Not without protest! On the
contrary, the economic axiom, denied and evaded
for centuries, will be blazoned on every
factory, counting house and shop: "Equal pay for
equal work"; and common justice will slowly, but
surely enforce that law. The European woman has
risen. She may not realize it yet, but the woman
"doormat" in every land has unconsciously
become a "door-jamb." She will have become
accustomed to her new dignity by the time the
men come home. She will wonder how she ever
could have been content lying across the
threshold now that she discovers the upright
jamb gives so much broader and more normal a
vision of things. The men returning may find the
new order a bit queer but everything else will
be strangely unfamiliar too, and they will soon
grow accustomed to all the changes together. The
"jamb" will never descend into a "doormat"
again.
The male and female anti-suffragists of all
lands will puff and blow at the economic change
which will come to the women of Europe. They
will declare it to be contrary to Nature and to
God's plan and that somebody ought to do
something about it. Suffragists will accept the
change as the inevitable outcome of an
unprecedented world's cataclysm over which no
human agency had any control and will trust in
God to adjust the altered circumstances to the
eternal evolution of human society. They will
remember that in the long run, all things work
together for good, for progress and for human
weal.
The economic change is bound to bring political
liberty. From every land, there comes the
expressed belief that the war will be followed
by a mighty, oncoming wave of democracy for it
is now well known that the conflict has been one
of governments, of kings and czars, kaisers and
emperors — not of peoples. The nations involved
have nearly all declared that they are fighting
to make an end of wars. New and higher ideals of
governments and of the rights of the people
under them, have grown enormously during the
past two years. Another tide of political
liberty, similar to that of 1848, but of a thousand-fold greater momentum, is rising from
battlefield and hospital, from camp and
munitions factory, from home and church which,
great men of many lands, tell us, is destined to
sweep over the world. On the continent, the
women say, "It is certain that the vote will
come to men and women after the war, perhaps not
immediately but soon. In Great Britain, which
was the storm centre of the suffrage movement
for some years before the war, hundreds of
bitter, active opponents have confessed their
conversion on account of the war services of
women. Already, three great provinces of Canada,
Manitoba, Alberta, and Saskatchawan, have
given universal suffrage to their women in sheer
generous appreciation of their war work.
Even
Mr. Asquith, world renowned for his
immovable opposition to the Parliamentary
suffrage for British women, has given evidence
of a change of view. Some months ago, he
announced his amazement at the utterly
unexpected skill, strength and resource
developed by the women and his gratitude for
their loyalty and devotion. Later, in reply to
Mrs. Henry Fawcett, who asked if woman suffrage
would be included in a proposed election bill,
he said that when the war should end, such a
measure would be considered without prejudice
carried over from events prior to the war. A
public statement issued by Mr. Asquith in
August, was couched in such terms as to be
interpreted by many as a pledge to include women
in the next election bill.
In Great Britain, a sordid appeal which may
prove the last straw to break the opposition to
woman suffrage, has been added to the
enthusiastic appreciation of woman's patriotism
and practical service and to the sudden
comprehension that motherhood is a national
asset which must be protected at any price. A
new voters' list is contemplated. A
parliamentary election should be held in
September but the voters are scattered far and
wide. The whole nation is agitated over the
questions involved in making a new register. At
the same time, there is a constant anxiety over
war funds, as is prudent in a nation spending 50
millions of dollars per day. It has been
proposed that a large poll tax be assessed upon
the voters of the new lists, whereupon a
secondary proposal of great force has been
offered and that is, that twice as much money
would find its way into the public coffers were
women added to the voters' list. What nation,
with compliments fresh spoken concerning women's
patriotism and efficiency, could resist such an
appeal?
So it happens that above the roar of cannon, the
scream of shrapnel and the whirr of aeroplanes,
one who listens may hear the cracking of the
fetters which have long bound the European woman
to outworn conventions. It has been a frightful
price to pay but the fact remains that a
womanhood, well started on the way to final
emancipation, is destined to step forth from the
war. It will be a bewildered, troubled and
grief-stricken womanhood with knotty problems of
life to solve, but it will be freer to deal with
them than women have ever been before.
The Woman's Hour has struck. It has struck for
the women of Europe and for those of all the
world. The significance of the changed status of
European women has not been lost upon the men
and women of our land. Our own people are not so
unlearned in history, nor so lacking in National
pride, that they will allow the Republic to lag
long behind the Empire, presided over by the
descendant of George III. If they possess
the patriotism and the sense of nationality
which should be the inheritance of an American,
they will not wait until the war is ended but
will boldly lead in the inevitable march of
democracy, our own American specialty.
Sisters,
let me repeat, the Woman's Hour has struck!
Second: As
the most adamantine rock gives way under the
constant dripping of water, so the opposition to
woman suffrage in our own country has slowly
disintegrated before the increasing strength of
our movement.
Turn backward the
pages of our history. Behold, brave Abbie Kelley
rotten-egged because she, a woman, essayed to
speak in public. Behold the Polish Ernestine
Rose startled that women of free America, drew
aside their skirts when she proposed that they
should control their own property. Recall the
saintly Lucretia Mott and the legal-minded
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, turned out of the World's
Temperance convention in London and conspiring
together to free their sex from the world's
stupid oppressions. Remember the gentle,
sweet-voiced Lucy Stone, egged because she
publicly claimed that women had brains capable
of education. Think upon Dr. Elizabeth
Blackwell, snubbed and boycotted by other women
because she proposed to study medicine. Behold
Dr. Antoinette Brown Blackwell, standing in
sweet serenity before an assembly of howling
clergymen, angry that she, a woman dared to
attend a Temperance Convention as a delegate.
Revere the intrepid Susan B. Anthony mobbed from
Buffalo to Albany because she demanded fair play
for women.
These are they who built with others
the foundation of political liberty for American
women.
Those who came after only laid the stones in
place. Yet, what a wearisome task even that has
been! Think of the wonderful woman who has
wandered from village to village, from city to
city, for a generation compelling men and women
to listen and to reflect by her matchless
eloquence. Where in all the world's history has
any movement among men produced so invincible an
advocate as our own Dr. Anna Howard Shaw? Those
whom she has led to the light are legion. Think,
too, of the consecration, the self-denial, the
never-failing constancy of that other noble soul
set in a frail but unflinching body — the
heroine we know as Alice Stone Blackwell. A
woman who never forgets, who detects the
slightest flaw in the weapons of her adversary,
who knows the most vulnerable spot in his armor,
presides over the Woman's Journal and, like a
lamp in a lighthouse, the rays of her
intelligence, farsightedness and clear thinking
have enlightened the world concerning our cause.
The names of hundreds of other brave souls
spring to memory when we pause to review the
long struggle.
The hands of many suffrage master-masons have
long been stilled; the names of many who laid
the stones have been forgotten. That does not
matter. The main thing is that the edifice of
woman's liberty nears completion. It is strong,
indestructible. All honor to the thousands who
have helped in the building.
The four cornerstones of the foundations were
laid long years ago. We read upon the first: "We
demand for women education, for not a high
school or college is open to her"; upon the
second, "We demand for women religious liberty
for in few churches is she permitted to pray or
speak"; upon the third, "We demand for women the
right to own property and an opportunity to earn
an honest living. Only six, poorly-paid
occupations are open to her, and if she is
married, the wages she earns are not hers"; upon
the fourth, "We demand political freedom and its
symbol, the vote."
The stones in the foundation have long been
overgrown with the moss and mould of time, and
some there are who never knew they were laid. Of
late, four cap-stones at the top have been set
to match those in the base, and we read upon the
first: "The number of women who are graduated
from high schools, colleges and universities is
legion"; upon the second, "The Christian
Endeavor, that mighty, undenominational church
militant, asks the vote for the women and the
Methodist Episcopal Church, and many another,
joins that appeal"; upon the third, "Billions of
dollars worth of property are earned and owned
by women; more than 8 millions of women are
wage-earners. Every occupation is open to them";
upon the fourth: "Women vote in 12 States; they
share in the determination of 91 electoral
votes."
After the cap-stones and cornice comes the roof.
Across the empty spaces, the rooftree has been
flung and fastened well in place. It is not made
of stone but of two planks, planks in the
platform of the two majority parties, and these
are well supported by planks in the platforms of
all minority parties.
And we who are the builders of 1916, do we see a
crisis? Standing upon these planks which are
stretched across the top-most peak of this
edifice of woman's liberty, what shall we do?
Over our heads, up there in the clouds, but
tantalizing near, hangs the roof of our
edifice — the vote. What is our duty? Shall we
spend time in admiring the capstones and
cornice? Shall we lament the tragedies which
accompanied the laying of the cornerstones? Or
shall we, like the builders of old, chant, "Ho!
All hands, all hands, heave to! All hands, heave
to!" and while we chant, grasp the overhanging
roof and with a long pull, a strong pull and a
pull together, fix it in place forevermore?
Is the crisis real or imaginary? If it be real
it calls for action — bold, immediate and
decisive.
Let us then take measure of our strength. Our
cause has won the endorsement of all political
parties. Every candidate for the presidency is a
suffragist. It has won the endorsement of most
churches; it has won the hearty approval of all
great organizations of women. It was won the
support of all reform movements; it has won the
progressives of every variety. The majority of
the press in most states is with us. Great men
in every political party, church and movement
are with us. The names of the greatest men and
women of art, science, literature and
philosophy, reform, religion and politics are on
our lists. We have not won the reactionaries of
any party, church or society, and we never will.
From the beginning of things, there have been
Antis. The Antis drove Moses out of Egypt; they
crucified Christ who said, "Love thy neighbor as
thyself" [Matt. 19:19, 22:39]; they have
persecuted Jews in all parts of the world; they
poisoned Socrates, the great philosopher; they
cruelly persecuted Copernicus and Galileo, the
first great scientists; they burned Giordano
Bruno at the stake because he believed the world
was round; they burned Savonarola who warred
upon church corruption; they burned Eufame
MacLayne because she used an anesthetic;
they burned Joan d'Arc for a heretic; they have
sent great men and women to Siberia to eat their
hearts out in isolation; they burned in effigy
William Lloyd Garrison; they egged Abbie Kelley
and Lucy Stone and mobbed Susan B. Anthony. Yet,
in proportion to the enlightenment of their
respective ages, these Antis were persons of
intelligence and honest purpose. They were
merely deaf to the call of Progress and were
enraged because the world insisted upon moving
on. Antis, male and female, there still are and
will be to the end of time. Give to them a
prayer of forgiveness for they know not what
they do; and prepare for the forward march.
We have not won the ignorant and illiterate and
we never can. They are too undeveloped mentally
to understand that the institutions of today are
not those of yesterday nor will be those of
tomorrow.
We have not won the forces of evil and we never
will. Evil has ever been timorous and suspicious
of all change. It is an instinctive act of
self-preservation which makes it fear and
consequently oppose votes for women. As the Hon.
Champ Clark said the other day: "Some good and
intelligent people are opposed to woman
suffrage; but all the ignorant and evil-minded
are against it."
These three forces are the enemies of our cause.
Before the vote is won, there must and will be a
gigantic final conflict between the forces of
progress, righteousness and democracy and the
forces of ignorance, evil and reaction. That
struggle may be postponed, but it cannot be
evaded or avoided. There is no question as to
which side will be the victor.
Shall we play the coward, then, and leave the
hard knocks for our daughters, or shall we throw
ourselves into the fray, bare our own shoulders
to the blows, and thus bequeath to them a
politically liberated womanhood? We have taken
note of our gains and of our resources and they
are all we could wish. Before the final
struggle we must take cognizance of our
weaknesses. Are we prepared to grasp the
victory? Alas, no! Our movement is like a great
Niagara with a vast volume of water tumbling
over its ledge but turning no wheel. Our
organized machinery is set for the
propagandistic stage and not for the seizure of
victory. Our supporters are spreading the
argument for our cause; they feel no sense of
responsibility for the realization of our hopes.
Our movement lacks cohesion, organization, unity
and consequent momentum.
Behind us, in front of us, everywhere about us
are suffragists, millions of them, but
inactive and silent. They have been "agitated
and educated" and are with us in belief. There
are thousands of women who have at one time or
another been members of our organization but
they have dropped out because, to them the
movement seemed negative and pointless. Many
have taken up other work whose results were more
immediate. Philanthropy, charity, work for
corrective laws of various kinds, temperance,
relief for working women and numberless similar
public services have called them. Others have
turned to the pleasanter avenues of club work,
art or literature.
There are thousands of other women who have
never learned of the earlier struggles of our
movement. They found doors of opportunity open
to them on every side. They found well-paid
posts awaiting the qualified woman and they have
availed themselves of all these blessings;
almost without exception they believe in the
vote but they feel neither gratitude to those
who opened the doors through which they have
entered to economic liberty nor any sense of
obligation to open other doors for those who
come after.
There are still others who, timorously looking
over their shoulders to see if any listeners be
near, will tell us they hope we will win and win
soon but they are too frightened of Mother
Grundy to help. There are others too occupied
with the small things of life to help. They say
they could find time to vote but not to work for
the vote. There are men, too, millions of them,
waiting to be called. These men and women are
our reserves. They are largely unorganized and
untrained soldiers with little responsibility
toward our movement. Yet these reserves must be
mobilized. The final struggle needs their
numbers and the momentum those numbers will
bring. Were never another convert made, there
are suffragists enough in this country, if
combined, to make so irresistible a driving
force that victory might be seized at once.
How can it be done? By a simple change of mental
attitude. If we are to seize the victory, that
change must take place in this hall, here and
now. The old belief, which has sustained suffragists
in many an hour of discouragement, "woman
suffrage is bound to come," must give way to the
new, "The Woman's Hour has struck!"
The long
drawn out struggle, the cruel hostility which,
for years was arrayed against our cause, have
accustomed suffragists to the idea of indefinite
postponement but eventual victory. The slogan of
a movements sets its pace. The old one counseled
patience; it said, there is plenty of time; it
pardoned sloth and half-hearted effort. It set
the pace of an educational campaign. The
"Woman's Hour has struck" sets the pace of a
crusade which will have its way. It says:
"Awake, arise, my sisters, let your hearts be
filled with joy. The time of victory is here.
Onward March."
If you believe with me that a crisis has come to
our movement, if you believe that the time
for final action is now, if you catch the rosy
tints of the coming day, what does it mean to
you? Does it not give you a thrill of
exaltation; does the blood not course more
quickly through your veins; does it not bring a
new sense of freedom, of joy and of
determination? Is it not true that you who
wanted a little time ago to lay down the work
because you were weary with long service, now,
under the compelling influence of a changed
mental attitude, are ready to go on until the
vote is won? The change is one of spirit. Aye,
and the spiritual effect upon you will come to
others. Let me borrow an expression from Hon.
John Finlay: What our great movement needs now
is a "mobilization of spirit", the jubilant,
glad spirit of victory.
Then let us sound a
bugle call here and now to the women of the
Nation: "The Woman's Hour has struck." Let the
bugle sound from the suffrage headquarters of
every State at the inauguration of a State
campaign. Let the call go forth again and, again
and yet again. Let it be repeated in every
article written, in every speech made, in every
conversation held. Let the bugle blow again and
yet again. The political emancipation of our sex calls you, women of America.
Arise! Are you
content that others shall pay the price of your
liberty? Women in schools and counting house, in
shops and on the farm, women in the home with
babes at their breasts and women engaged in
public careers will hear. The veins of American
women are not filled with milk and water. They
are neither cowards nor slackers. They will
come. They only await the bugle call to learn
that the final battle is on.
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