34 NORTH SHORE BREEZE and Reminder 
EQUAL SUFFRAGE NOTES 
The Manchester Equal Suffrage 
League will hold its September meet- 
ing on Wednesday evening, Sept. 9, 
at 8 o'clock, at “Mrs: Leach’s Léa 
Rooms. There will be special busi- 
ness to discuss, and refreshments. 
We regret that it has been impos- 
sible, thus far, to arrange with the 
Anti-Suffragists for a joint meeting 
in the Town hall. The date chosen 
by them conflicted with Mrs. Rus- 
sell’s rally, and this we were obliged 
to refuse. The president (Miss Stan- 
wood) will be glad to meet any ad- 
vances from the Antis. 
Miss Stanwood, president of the 
Manchester Equal Suffrage League, 
went to speak for the cause in Rock- 
land last week, This meeting was an 
out-of-doors affair, much like Mrs. 
Russell’s meeting, on a smaller scale. 
These open-air meetings are becom- 
ing quite the thing, and we may look 
for many of them next year. 
Mrs, Henry E. Russell, whose Suf- 
frage rally last week was such a great 
success, was one of the first ladies to 
take a table at the Red Cross bazaar, 
or Féte, to be held at Mrs. Robert 
Bradley’s in Beverly in October. 
Among other North Shore ladies 
who have recently came into the suf- 
frage ranks are Mrs. Amory Eliot, 
Mrs. Wm. Dewart, Mrs. Samuel 
Carr and@Mrsi-s2 V-7Rs-Crosby: 
A®PRODES TL 
Editor North Share Breeze: 
As an experienced teacher in the 
public schools, and a believer for 
many years in the fair consideration 
of the subject of “votes for women,” 
I should like to protest against the 
statement made by Mrs. Henry Pres- 
ton White, under the Anti-Suffrage 
Notes of your issue of August 28, in 
regard to the so-called ‘feminization 
of the public schools.” 
At first sight, her remarks seem 
hardly worth answering, in so far as 
they are merely a part of the typical 
alarmist program of the anti-sufrag- 
ists, whose arguments are based 
chiefly on calamity hunting, and 
dark prognostigations, for the future 
in the horrible event of their being 
asked to do their duty as citizens and 
cast their vote with their more public- 
spirited suffrage sisters. 
But I should like to protest against 
the unthinking use of the word 
“feminization.” These alarmist state- 
ments are too often based on the un- 
intelligent bandying of such catch- 
words. On all sides we hear the 
term “feminism” used indiscrimin- 
ately as a synonym for anarchy, civic 
disorder, class hatred, and similar 
evils of our time. Would it not be 
well, before using such apparently 
elastic terms in argument, to define 
them a little more precisely? 
Just what does Mrs. White mean 
by the “feminization of the public 
school?” Does she refer to the ob- 
vious fact that most public school 
teachers are women, because men 
men cannot be found to undertake 
the laborious, conscientious work re- 
quired of teachers for the ridiculous- 
ly small salaries paid by the State? 
Men are only too ready to leave this 
unprofitable field to women. But 
surely Mrs. White cannot consider it 
a calamity that these women teachers, 
whose “place is the home,” should be 
so willing to exercise their God-given 
function of educating the young in 
the school instead of the home, when 
they might be engaged in any one of 
the more profitable pursuits followed 
by men? 
And what a horrible calamity it 
would be if, as Mrs. White suggests, 
the text books should be “made over 
so that the women of history will be 
given a more prominent part (!).” 
There were women in history, then, 
even before the much-abused term 
“feminism” caused men to tremble 
for their laurels in the text books! 
Moreover, the term “militant” has 
so little bearing upon the question >t 
suffrage in America that its applica- 
tion to the leaders of the movement 
sounds a bit incongruous. But if 
“militant” doctrines are injurious fo 
the peaceful minds of school children, 
should we not omit from our text 
ANTI-SUFFRAGE NOTES 
BY MRS.. HENRY PRESTON WHITE. 
“English suffragists,’ said a mem- 
ber of the Massachusetts Anti-Suf- 
frage organization lately returned 
from abroad, “are being asked rather 
sharply if all they want the vote for 
is to uplift humanity, why they do not 
use the municipal franchise which 
they now enjoy. The housing and 
health problems of today are being 
studied at first hand by the municipal 
corporations of England, to which 
women are eligible. But they show 
little or no interest in the matter.” 
The Socialist support of the Suf- 
frage cause has been a fine thing 1s 
the women have viewed it. Now they 
are going to have a chance to learn 
of the price which the Socialists de- 
mand of them. The platform for the 
Massachusetts. Socialists which is to 
be adopted at the September conven- 
tion is right at hand. It contains the 
usual plank in favor of votes for wo- 
men but with these additions: “Full 
suffrage for all adult men and women 
and the right to vote for all aliens 
over 21 years who have resided in the 
‘state for one year and have declared 
intentions to become citizens.” 
books all accounts of “wars and 
rumors of war?” Above all, we 
should omit the history of our Amer- 
ican struggles for representation with 
taxation, and the stories of the Nine- 
teenth Century riots in England, 
when men were struggling to get the 
vote and the community was threat- 
ened with an acute attack of —mas- 
culinism, btinging free public educa- 
tion and other like horrors in = its 
train? 
Seriously, I must protest in the 
name of all clear-headed women 
against the abuse of the word femin- 
ism, a term which in itself is no more 
logical than “masculinism.” | After 
all, in the face of the present situation 
in Europe, can any of us be too sure 
that the world would suffer from a 
little more ‘feminization ?” 
(Signed) THropora HastIncs BATEs, 
ELECTRIC FANS 
For Sale or To Let 
H. J. GAY ELECTRIG CO. 
Successor to Glarke and Mills Electric Go. 
NO School Street 
Telephone: 8394 
Manchester, Mass. 
