32.


The Woman Voter


Thus there is not the slightest chance that the enfranchised women
of Protestantdom, once they become at ease in the use of the ballot,
will give, any heed to the ex-suffragettes who now presume to lead
and instruct them in politics. Years ago I predicted that these
suffragettes, tried out by victory, would turn out to be idiots. They
are now hard at work proving it. Half of them devote themselves to
advocating reforms, chiefly of a sexual character, so utterly
preposterous that even male politicians and newspaper editors laugh
at them; the other half succumb absurdly to the blandishments of
the old-time male politicians, and so enroll themselves in the great
political parties. A woman who joins one of these parties simply
becomes an imitation man, which is to say, a donkey. Thereafter
she is nothing but an obscure cog in an ancient and creaking
machine, the sole intelligible purpose of which is to maintain a
horde of scoundrels in public office. Her vote is instantly set off by
the vote of some sister who joins the other camorra.
Parenthetically, I may add that all of the ladies to take to this
political immolation seem to me to be frightfully plain. I
know those of England, Germany and Scandinavia only by their
portraits in the illustrated papers, but those of the United States I
have studied at close range at various large political gatherings,