30 NORTH SHORE BREEZE and Reminder 
ANTI-SUFFRAGE NOTES 
An interesting Anti-Suffrage, 
Anti-Socialist rally under the aus- 
pices of the Men’s Anti-Suffrage 
league was held Saturday, May first 
at eight o’clock in Fanieul hall, Bos- 
ton. The Hon. John A. Sullivan 
presided, Mrs. A. T. George and T. 
Mitchell Galvin were among those 
who spoke. 
It will be of interest to the readers 
of the North Shore Breeze to hear 
that Mrs. William Lowell Putnam 
spoke on “Motherhood” at the regu- 
lar Friday afternoon meeting of the 
Anti-Suffrage association, 685 Boyls- 
ton st., Boston. Mrs. Putnam’s talk 
was particularly significant because 
of the approach of Mother’s Day, 
Sunday, May second. Following 
Mrs. Putnam’s talk Miss McCeary 
spoke on Anti-Suffrage and Mrs. 
Felix Fox, Mrs. Georgie K. Lassell 
and Miss Marion Fox entertained 
musically, 
Candy, cake and home-made pre- 
serves were on sale, and the cordial 
welcome which is ever present at the 
Anti-Suffrage rooms was extended 
to all. 
—C. E. O. 
The Manchester Branch 
Massachusetts Anti-Suffrage associa- 
tion held a large meeting Tuesday ; 
afternoon at the home of Mrs. Harry 
W. Purington, School street, when 
Miss Edith Melvin of Concord was 
the speaker of. the afternoon. Miss 
Melvin gave a concise and compre- 
hensive address, speaking first of the 
reasons for the founding of an Anti 
organization. The accepted theory 
seems to be that “silence. gives con- 
sent,” and it was to prevent this 
theory from becoming current with 
regard to the suffrage question that a 
society in opposition was founded. 
Miss Melvin spoke of the large num- 
ber of Anti-Suffragists in the Com- 
monwealth, and made mention of the 
Drury bill, which would have given 
every woman of voting eligibility an 
opportunity to express her opinion. 
The suffragists were greatly opposed 
to the bill and worked against it. 
Some of Miss Melvin’s statistics 
were very enlightening, especially on 
the statement that woman suffrage is 
“bound to come.” Michigan was con- 
sidered quite a suffrage strongho. | 
during the campaign of 1913, and in 
the whole state there were only two 
papers, which were anti-suffrage. 
Nevertheless, the question was de- 
feated by 96,144. Suffrage was de- 
feated in Ohio by 87,455 in 1912, by 
182,905 in 1914. There are 1,131,000 
women over 21 years of age in Mass- 
of the: 
achusetts, and in their 50 years of 
agitation the suffragists have enroll- 
ed only 55,000 members (including 
mien and minors), while in 20 years 
the anti-suffragists have obtained a 
membership of 31,160 women of 
voting age, which number is, of 
course greatly augmented by the 
Junior league and the Men’s league. 
The total number of women voters 
in the United States is 700,000, while 
there are in Massachusetts alone, 
1,131,000 woman of voting age. 
Miss Melvin expressed her belief 
in the need of an improved rather 
than an increased, but different elec- 
torate. She quoted the dissatisfac- 
tion which a prominent man suffrag- 
ist of Boston has expressed with the 
suffrage methods. He seriticized 
severely the laxity on the part of the 
suffragists, which allowed 16 year 
old girls to sell suffrage papers and 
to accost men with a request that 
they vote pro-suffrage on the streets. 
Miss Melvin dwelt somewhat on 
the question of the fitness of men 
and women for their widely differ- 
ing, but cooperative, duties in life. 
The men to be the providers and pro- 
tectors, and the women to be the 
home makers and the keepers, is the 
normal and ideal mode of living. 
A good citizen is developed, 
through an understanding of the 
meaning of personal honor, and of 
the fundamentals of life, and not by 
the right to cast a ballot. Female 
suffrage does not seem to have work- 
ed toward the purification of politics, 
prohibition, or the abolition of child 
labor, judging from conditions in 
those states where woman has the 
ballot, as constrasted with man-suf- 
rage states. In San Francisco there 
are today 35,000 saloons, and -many 
public dance halls of a not altogether 
desirable character are springing up 
about the Exhibition grounds. The 
four women, who are in the Colo- 
rado legislature voted for the much- 
discussed race-track law. Suffragists 
make their appeal to the industrial 
women of the country, by describing 
the benefits the ballot will bring to 
wage-earners, but, Miss Melvin said, 
economical conditions control labor 
conditions without regard to politics. 
Massachusetts has a 54-hour a week 
law for woman workers, a maternity 
law, and a minimum wage law, and 
was, moreover, the first state in the 
Union to have any of these provi- 
sions for women workers. There is 
also an eight-hour a day law for 
boys and girls under 16 and 18 years. 
Ours is the only state where the 
wages of a woman factory worker 
cannot be cut down on account of 
broken machinery. 
EQUAL SUFFRAGE NOTES. 
We can learn certain lessons from — 
the Anti-Suffrage meeting held in. 
Faneuil Hall, Boston, on the evening 
of May tst. In the first place, over 
$1000 was spent on this one little 
meeting, so we can easily see what 
tremendous sums the Antis are pre- 
pared to spend on their whole cam- 
paign of opposition. (And all Waste!) 
Suffragists cannot afford to spend so” 
much money (in proportion), be- 
cause the great bulk of their mem-_ 
bers are working people and profes- 
sional people, — including writers, 
teachers, scholars, scientists and 
other thinkers,—and the _ so-called 
“interests” do not help us, but work 
against us.  Suffragists must—and 
will—make work, sacrifice, enthu- 
siasm and truth over-balance the 
wealth of the Antis and the Inter- 
ests. But the second lesson is more 
encouraging, for, in spite of this be- 
ing the one “big” spring rally of the 
Antis in Boston, and tremendously 
advertised, it was not a big meeting 
and a good proportion of the audi- 
ence must have been Suffragists, 
judging by the applause and laughter 
which came in the wrong places! A 
Boston newspaper man said that the 
artificial 
emblem of the occasion were typical 
of the artificiality of the whole meet- 
ing and of all the Anti arguments ; he 
also called it a “cold storage meet- 
ing.” And a prominent business man 
of Boston said that the Antis must 
be hard up if they had to get ‘Mr. 
John Sullivan and Mr. T. M. Galvin 
to speak for them. They are! There 
was not one representative person 
among the speakers. But Mrs. 
George of Brookline is an able speak- 
er and she is too clever a woman not 
to know that many of her statements 
were false. She and other Antis 
know as well as we do that Equai 
if it does, why has Socialism not 
come in the Suffrage states and coun- 
tries? If Woman Suffrage is anti- 
Christian, how is 
tarian Church and many priests and 
ministers of the Catholic, the Epis- 
copal, the Baptist and other churches 
have endorsed Suffrage? And that 
in all our churches the women are 
sixteen to one man? The Antis know 
better, but they continue to repeat 
these silly and outrageous statements 
in hope of frightening ignorant peo- 
ple. It reminds us of the saying, 
“But you can’t fool all the people ail 
of the time!” It remains to be seen 
whether the bogus fears of the Antis 
and the money of the Interests will 
triumph next November. 
—L. R. S. 
a | 
May 7, 1915 
red roses which were the — 
it: thatethen Dries 
