Woman Suffrage by Federal Constitutional Amendment | Page 3

other elections by act
of their Provincial Parliaments.[A] By such enactment the Isle of Man,

New Zealand, Finland, Norway, Iceland and Denmark gave equal
suffrage in all elections to women.[A] By such process the Parliaments
of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta gave full provincial suffrage to
their women in 1916. British Columbia referred the question to the
voters in 1916, but the Provincial Parliament had already extended all
suffrage rights except the parliamentary vote, and both political parties
lent their aid in the referendum which consequently gave a majority in
every precinct on the home vote and a majority of the soldier vote was
returned from Europe later. By parliamentary act all other Canadian
Provinces, the Provinces of South Africa, the countries of Sweden[A]
and Great Britain have extended far more voting privileges than any
woman citizen of the United States east of the Missouri River (except
those of Illinois) has received. To the women of Belise (British
Honduras), the cities of Rangoon (Burmah), Bombay (India), the
Province of Baroda (India), the Province of Voralberg (Austria), and
Laibach (Austria) the same statement applies. In Bohemia, Russia and
various Provinces of Austria and Germany, the principle of
representation is recognized by the grant to property-holding women of
a vote by proxy. The suffragists of France reported just before the war
broke out that the French Parliament was pledged to extend universal
municipal suffrage to women. Men and women of high repute say the
full suffrage is certain to be extended by the British Parliament to the
women of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales soon after the close of
the war and already these women have all suffrage rights except the
vote for Parliamentary members. These facts are strange since it was
the United States which first established general suffrage for men upon
the two principles that "taxation without representation is tyranny" and
that governments to be just should "derive their consent from the
governed." The unanswerable logic of these two principles is
responsible for the extension of suffrage to men and women the world
over. In the United States, however, women are still taxed without
"representation" and still live under a government to which they have
given no "consent." IT IS OBVIOUSLY UNFAIR TO SUBJECT
WOMEN OF THIS COUNTRY--WHICH BOASTS THAT IT IS THE
LEADER IN THE MOVEMENT TOWARD UNIVERSAL
SUFFRAGE--TO A LONGER, HARDER, MORE DIFFICULT
PROCESS THAN HAS BEEN IMPOSED BY OTHER NATIONS

UPON MEN OR WOMEN. American constitutions of the nation and
the states have closed the door to the simple processes by which men
and women of other countries have been enfranchised. An amendment
to our Federal Constitution is the nearest approach to them. To deny the
benefits of this method to the women of this country is to put upon
them a PENALTY FOR BEING AMERICANS.
[Footnote A: See Appendix A for dates and conditions.]
2. EQUAL RIGHTS DEMANDS IT.
Men of this country have been enfranchised by various extensions of
the voting privilege but IN NO SINGLE INSTANCE were they
compelled to appeal to an electorate containing groups of recently
naturalized and even unnaturalized foreigners, Indians, Negroes, large
numbers of illiterates, ne'er-do-wells, and drunken loafers. The Jews,
denied the vote in all our colonies, and the Catholics, denied the vote in
most of them, received their franchise through the revolutionary
constitutions which removed all religious qualifications for the vote in
a manner consistent with the self-respect of all. The property
qualifications for the vote which were established in every colony and
continued in the early state constitutions were usually removed by a
referendum but the question obviously went to an electorate limited to
property-holders only. The largest number of voters to which such an
amendment was referred was that of New York. Had every man voted
who was qualified to do so, the electorate would not have exceeded
200,000 and probably not more than 150,000.[A]
[Footnote A: Suffrage in the Colonies. New York Chapter. McKinley.]
The next extensions of the vote to men were made to certain tribes of
Indians by act of Congress; and to the Negro by amendment to the
Federal Constitution.
At least three-fourths of the present electors secured their votes through
direct naturalization or that of their forefathers. Congress determines
conditions of citizenship and state constitutions fix qualifications of
voters. In no instance has the foreign immigrant been forced to plead

with a vast electorate for his vote. The suffrage has been "thrust upon
him" without effort or even request on his part. National and State
constitutions not only close to women the comparatively easy processes
by which the vote was extended to men and women of other countries
but also those processes by which the vote was secured to men of our
own land. The simplest method now possible is by amendment of the
Federal