THE ADVENT OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE

With the passage by the Senate of the proposed constitutional amendment granting equal suffrage to women, this great question comes at last before the people of the country for definite ratification or rejection. Judging by the present liberal temper of the American people, it seems entirely probable that they will be true to their best interests, and add the Equal Suffrage Amendment to the organic law of the country.

Although the extension of the franchise to women will not in all probability be fraught with any very startling political change, the result cannot be other than a steady improvement in the moral plane of American political, social, and economic life. But at the same time the foremost reason for the immediate adoption of woman suffrage appears to us to be one of principle. To allow fifty per cent of our population to contribute to the greatness of America in practically every field of endeavor, without allowing them a voice in the government is nothing less than an abridgement of liberty. The subordinate position of women, which nineteen centuries of the Christian era have only just managed to outgrow was a survival from barbaric times, when early man first discovered that he was physically stronger than his mate. The passing by the Sixty-Sixth Congress of the proposed Nineteenth Amendment marks the final step in the breaking down of this age-old prejudice, based as it is upon the bestial and pre-Adamite assumption that might makes right. We therefore hail the approaching advent of equal suffrage for women, confident that it is an indispensably necessary step in the growth of American freedom.