THE LADY POLITICIAN
Without taking thought I have avoided the conscience of the modern woman, which is a very sensitive, diligent, and unhappy conscience. I seem to have lost step with my sex. No one honors more than I do the sincerity of their purpose to reform, improve, and save the world. But I mistrust their judgment. I particularly mistrust their power to achieve their own wills. We have always been dominated in mind and conduct by men. We have never been free moral agents, nor even immoral ones. Cast your eye about and you will always see the string some man pulls to move the puppet we are.
However it may appear to others I do not know, but to me women seem to be more completely under the dominion of men than ever before. The difference is that formerly we were managed or mismanaged by our husbands and fathers; now it takes a whole political party to turn us about and use us for their honor and glory; but they do it. If any one calls attention to the amendments and laws we have been instrumental in getting on the statute books, I call your attention to the fact that the state of the individual woman is not changed. The wife signs away her property as usual if the husband needs it. The mothers have less influence than ever before upon the character and conduct of their sons. The only political influence they have is by adding themselves obediently in subordinate positions to the great political parties. Never were there so many handmaidens to politicians in this world. It is a less elevating service than being a down-trodden ‘widow indeed’ who was required to wash the feet of saints--presumably male saints. They are now atoms of public life, but men control public opinion. So watch the atoms spin.
The trouble is we can pass no amendment to the Constitution that will change our own nature.
How well I understand the predicament of that young woman delegate to the Democratic convention recently held in New York!
No one will deny the frequent assertion made through the press that the women delegates in this convention were an admirable body of women, but those who are most familiar with the attributes of what men call admirable women will have their very grave doubts about whether they had any more to do than they were told with the final choice and nomination of John W. Davis as our presidential candidate, which was the very creditable performance of what appeared at one time to be a convention decidedly discreditable to the great party it represented.
If the women in it had been equal to the emergency, they might at least have insisted upon a physical examination of the contending candidates. This would have eliminated some of the contestants quietly and decently, as we bury the dead, without so much scandal and with less than half the expense incurred in getting rid of them. Right now we do not know whether the livers and kidneys of Coolidge and Davis are sound. But when we consider the casualties in the White House due to electing men depleted in health and vitality, this is as important an issue before a nominating convention as any plank in their respective platforms. More than half these give way anyhow later on under pressure. But when the man himself is sickly the chances are ten to one he will not survive the intolerable burdens he has assumed, and this is always a national tragedy.
The ineffective person is always the shrewdest critic of those who strive, however blindly, to achieve. I seem to belong to that class, but I am so located for the sake of discretion, not for purpose of criticism. I do a bit of haphazard voting now and then for the purifying of my purely conventional conscience, much as one recites a prayer without believing the Lord hears his petition. I know the cards have been stacked and the successful candidate for that office has been predestined. So I never fash myself into a state of enthusiasm or animosity over an election.
The most significant evidence I have of the political importance of women is the change in the character of my own mail. Formerly it consisted entirely of letters from admiring readers or indignant readers of my books, or from those kind private folk who are one’s dearest friends, even if one never beholds their faces. They write by way of clasping hands with you or exchanging confidences with you. But now if a political campaign opens, I suppose every woman receives as many letters as if she had written a particularly appealing book. Every candidate from the coroner type to the more iridescent eloquent type who wants to be a congressman or senator writes to solicit our votes.
These are remarkably dull letters, couched in the embarrassed language of an awkward man writing to a respectable woman, whom he really does not like, inviting her to vote for him. To me it seems a frightful waste of postage, especially when the thing bears a picture of the aspiring author. Yesterday I had such a letter, ornamented with the printed likeness of one who is running for the office of health commissioner in this State, a man so grossly fat that he has practically no lines in his face by which a thought might be expressed. My idea of a health commissioner would be a lean man with a vital athletic expression.
But my political psychology may be wrong. It is possible that an obese commissioner might be moved to preach a healthful gospel of abstinence and a balanced ration. My impression is that they are all glittering generalities so far as the health of the people is concerned, and that the lady demonstrators who travel like missionaries through all the counties teaching girls to can and cook hold the health of the next generation in their frail but diligent hands. Nobody elects them. They get appointed by hook or crook and do valiant service.
In short, I have reached the eye-opening age when a personal letter from the noblest statesman of them could not move me to any real interest in his fate.
Why should one vote? At the present moment the highest official in this state is candidate for reëlection without opposition. Personally, he bears a faintly pathetic resemblance to Lord Byron. And quite the contrary is true of him. He is not a poet. He is totally lacking in that quality which inspired Byron, banished, to lead an insurrection in a foreign country against despotism. And we cannot banish him! I have understood that he is an eminently respectable family man, which really contributes little to his eminence as a public servant. He can lead a prayer meeting accompanied by the amen chorus of the best brethren, but he cannot lead a people.
The instinct for personal liberty mentioned a while ago has also led me to avoid participating in the activities so popular and so ably conducted by the various women’s organizations. Place yourself within reach of the executive committee of any up-and-doing group of women, and find out how much time or strength you have left to spend upon your own affairs! If you are a social climber, they will give you prominence in exchange for as much faithful service as you are capable of rendering. If you desire recognition, which is the complimentary name of publicity, you may have it as a reward for devoting yourself to some department of public service for the benefit of mankind, or for children, or for charity.
If by some fluke of circumstance you have earned distinction, they can use you for the good of half a dozen causes so completely that you will never have another half hour to devote to your own cause. Henceforth you will be identified with their achievements. You will not have one laurel left on your brow which does not belong to womanhood at large. If you belong to that ever-increasing volume of women who crave self-expression, they can provide more ways for you to express yourself than if you were a mere Christian wife and the mother of ten children. They are using up more wasted feminine energy than any other power company known to civilization.