requirements which would bar out the women of their family. This reason would also make it impossible to carry a State Amendment, which would have to be acted upon by the individual voters. Since we have universal suffrage for men, nothing less is possible for women. No educational test could be imposed more severe than the ability to read a few sentences from the Constitution, and a taxpaying requirement would have to be very slight indeed. Would a man or a woman necessarily be a more intelligent and responsible voter if able to meet these tests? There are people in the professions who do not pay taxes, and there are others without any education who know under what kind of conditions they wish to work and to rear their families. "The crimes against the ballot box" are not committed by the ignorant and the poor, but very often they are instigated by the rich and carried out by shrewd, intelligent political "bosses," nor is it by any means only the poor and the ignorant whose votes are for sale. What we need to secure a more desirable electorate than we have at present is a higher standard of civic virtue and a better appreciation of the value of a vote, and this is needed quite as much by the rich and the educated as by the poor and illiterate. NEW YORK CITY. IDA HUSTED HARPER, Editorial Chairman National Leslie Suffrage Bureau. WE ARE INDICTED SIR, A copy of the December number of THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW and one of the WAR WEEKLY came to hand according to your enclosed letter, and I write of my unwillingness to add these journals to my reading list and venture to offer one or two reasons. I do not share in the REVIEW's evident bitterness toward President Wilson and Colonel House, though I am willing to accept all it says in criticism of Secretary Baker. In particular, I am opposed to its advocacy of militarism, its endorsement of Secretary Daniel's plan for a great navy, when we ought to be planning for a lesser force than we have. It seems to favor universal military service and general preparation for war. I have a son, a university man and a minister, who resigned his congregation to enter the ranks as a private in the infantry. He was killed in battle and we shall never see him in this world. I am sure he did not leave all and give up all that we should adopt the system against which he fought. If we should adopt the ideas of the REVIEW, Germany would win in principle, even though she lost in the actual conflict. . . Our son thought that he was giving his life for humanity, for the rights of the common man and the freedom of all men What a tragedy it would be if our victory should result in a triumph of the Tories of the Allied nations, the exploiting of the common people by Big Business, and the Prussianizing of America! W. J. COLEMAN. Pittsburgh, Pa. |