The Crisis
Carrie Chapman Catt
[An address delivered in Atlantic City, New Jersey,
1916]
I have taken for my subject, "The Crisis," because I
believe that a crisis has come in our movement which, if recognized
and the opportunity seized with vigor, enthusiasm and will, means the
final victory of our great cause in the very near future. I am aware
that some suffragists do not share this belief; they see no signs nor
symptoms today which were not present yesterday; no manifestations in
the year 1916 which differ significantly from those in the year 1910.
To them, the movement has been a steady, normal growth from the
beginning and must so continue until the end. I can only defend my
claim with the plea that it is better to imagine a crisis where none
exists than to fail to recognize one when it comes; for a crisis is a
culmination of events which calls for new considerations and new
decisions. A failure to answer the call may mean an opportunity lost,
a possible victory postponed.
The object of the life of an organized movement is to secure its aim.
Necessarily, it must obey the law of evolution and pass through the
stages of agitation and education and finally through the stage of
realization. As one has put it: "A new idea floats in the air
over the heads of the people and for a long, indefinite period evades
their understanding but, by and by, when through familiarity, human
vision grows clearer, it is caught out of the clouds and crystalized
into law." Such a period comes to every movement and is its
crisis. In my judgment, that crucial moment, bidding us to renewed
consecration and redoubled activity has come to our cause. I believe
our victory hangs within our grasp, inviting us to pluck it out of the
clouds and establish it among the good things of the world.
If this be true, the time is past when we should say: "Men and
women of America, look upon that wonderful idea up there; see, one day
it will come down." Instead, the time has come to shout aloud in
every city, village and hamlet, and in tones so clear and jubilant
that they will reverberate from every mountain peak and echo from
shore to shore: "The woman's Hour has struck." Suppose
suffragists as a whole do not believe a crisis has come and do not
extend their hands to grasp the victory, what will happen? Why, we
shall all continue to work and our cause will continue to hang,
waiting for those who possess a clearer vision and more daring
enterprise. On the other hand, suppose we reach out with united
earnestness and determination to grasp our victory while it still
hangs a bit too high? Has any harm been done? None!
Therefore, fellow suffragists, I invite your attention to the signs
which point to a crisis and your consideration of plans for turning
the crisis into victory.
FIRST: We are passing through a world crisis. All thinkers of every
land tell us so; and that nothing after the great war will be as it
was before. Those who profess to know, claim that 100 millions of
dollars are being spent on the war every day and that 2 years of war
have cost 50 billions of dollars or 10 times more than the total
expense of the American Civil War. Our own country has sent 35
millions of dollars abroad for relief expenses.
Were there no other effects to come from the world's war, the
transfer of such unthinkably vast sums of money from the usual avenues
to those wholly abnormal would give so severe a jolt to organized
society that it would vibrate around the world and bring untold
changes in its wake.
But three and a half millions of lives have been lost. The number
becomes the more impressive when it is remembered that the entire
population of the American Colonies was little more than three and
one-half millions. These losses have been the lives of men within the
age of economic production. They have been taken abruptly from the
normal business of the world and every human activity from that of the
humblest, unskilled labor to art, science and literature has been
weakened by their loss. Millions of other men will go to their homes,
blind, crippled and incapacitated to do the work they once performed.
The stability of human institutions has never before suffered so
tremendous a shock. Great men are trying to think out the consequences
but one and all proclaim that no imagination can find color or form
bold enough to paint the picture of the world after the war. British
and Russian, German and Austrian, French and Italian agree that it
will lead to social and political revolution throughout the entire
world. Whatever comes, they further agree that the war presages a
total change in the status of women.
A simple-minded man in West Virginia, when addressed upon the subject
of woman suffrage in that State, replied, "We've been so used to
keepin' our women down, 'twould seem queer not to." He expressed
what greater men feel but do not say. Had the wife of that man spoken
in the same clear-thinking fashion, she would have said, "We
women have been so used to being kept down that it would seem strange
to get up. Nature intended women for door-mats." Had she so
expressed herself, these two would have put the entire anti-suffrage
argument in a nut-shell.
In Europe, from the Polar Circle to the Aegean Sea, women have risen
as though to answer that argument. Everywhere they have taken the
places made vacant by men and in so doing, they have grown in
self-respect and in the esteem of their respective nations. In every
land, the people have reverted to the primitive division of labor and
while the men have gone to war, women have cultivated the fields in
order that the army and nation may be fed. No army can succeed and no
nation can endure without food; those who supply it are a war power
and a peace power.
Women by the thousands have knocked at the doors of munition
factories and, in the name of patriotism, have begged for the right to
serve their country there. Their services were accepted with
hesitation but the experiment once made, won reluctant but universal
praise. An official statement recently issued in Great Britain
announced that 660,000 women were engaged in making munitions in that
country alone. In a recent convention of munition workers, composed of
men and women, a resolution was unanimously passed informing the
government that they would forego vacations and holidays until the
authorities announced that their munition supplies were sufficient for
the needs of the war and Great Britain pronounced the act the highest
patriotism. Lord Derby addressed such a meeting and said, "When
the history of the war is written, I wonder to whom the greatest
credit will be given; to the men who went to fight or to the women who
are working in a way that many people hardly believed that it was
possible for them to work." Lord Sydenham added his tribute. Said
he, "It might fairly be claimed that women have helped to save
thousands of lives and to change the entire aspect of the war.
Wherever intelligence, care and close attention have been needed,
women have distinguished themselves." A writer in the London
Times of July 18, 1916, said: "But, for women, the armies could
not have held the field for a month; the national call to arms could
not have been made or sustained; the country would have perished of
inanition and disorganization. If, indeed, it be true that the people
have been one, it is because the genius of women has been lavishly
applied to the task of reinforcing and complementing the genius of
men. The qualities of steady industry, adaptability, good judgement
and concentration of mind which men do not readily associate with
women have been conspicuous features."
On fields of battle, in regular and improvised hospitals, women have
given tender and skilled care to the wounded and are credited with the
restoration of life to many, heroism and self-sacrifice have been
frankly acknowledged by all the governments; but their endurance,
their skill, the practicality of their service, seem for the first
time, to have been recognized by governments as "war power".
So, thinking in war terms, great men have suddenly discovered that
women are "war assets". Indeed, Europe is realizing, as it
never did before, that women are holding together the civilization for
which men are fighting. A great search-light has been thrown upon the
business of nation-building and it has been demonstrated in every
European land that it is a partnership with equal, but different
responsibilities resting upon the two partners.
It is not, however, in direct war work alone that the latent
possibilities of women have been made manifest. In all the belligerent
lands, women have found their way to high posts of administration
where no women would have been trusted two years ago and the testimony
is overwhelming that they have filled their posts with entire
satisfaction to the authorities. They have dared to stand in pulpits
(once too sacred to be touched by the unholy feet of a woman) and
there, without protest, have appealed to the Father of All in behalf
of their stricken lands. They have come out of the kitchen where there
was too little to cook and have found a way to live by driving cabs,
motors and streetcars. Many a woman has turned her hungry children
over to a neighbor and has gone forth to find food for both mothers
and both families of children and has found it in strange places and
occupations. Many a drawing-room has been closed and the maid who
swept and dusted it is now cleaning streets that the health of the
city may be conserved. Many a woman who never before slept in a bed of
her own making, or ate food not prepared by paid labor, is now sole
mistress of parlor and kitchen.
In all the warring countries, women are postmen [sic], porters,
railway conductors, ticket, switch and signal men. Conspicuous
advertisements invite women to attend agricultural, milking and
motor-car schools. They are employed as police in Great Britain and
women detectives have recently been taken on the government staff. In
Berlin, there are over 3,000 women streetcar conductors and 3,500
women are employed on the general railways. In every city and country,
women are doing work for which they would have been considered
incompetent two years ago.
The war will soon end and the armies will return to their native
lands. To many a family, the men will never come back. The husband who
returns to many a wife, will eat no bread the rest of his life save of
her earning.
What then, will happen after the war? Will the widows left with
families to support cheerfully leave their well-paid posts for those
commanding lower wages? Not without protest! Will the wives who now
must support crippled husbands give up their skilled work and take up
the occupations which were open to them before the war? Will they
resignedly say: "The woman who has a healthy husband who can earn
for her, has a right to tea and raisin cake, but the woman who earns
for herself and a husband who has given his all to his country, must
be content with butterless bread?" Not without protest! On the
contrary, the economic axiom, denied and evaded for centuries, will be
blazoned on every factory, counting house and shop: "Equal pay
for equal work"; and common justice will slowly, but surely
enforce that law. The European woman has risen. She may not realize it
yet, but the woman "door-mat" in every land has
unconsciously become a "door-jamb"! She will have become
accustomed to her new dignity by the time the men come home. She will
wonder how she ever could have been content lying across the threshold
now that she discovers the upright jamb gives so much broader and more
normal a vision of things. The men returning may find the new order a
bit queer but everything else will be strangely unfamiliar too, and
they will soon grow accustomed to all the changes together. The "jamb"
will never descend into a "door-mat" again.
The male and female anti-suffragists of all lands will puff and blow
at the economic change which will come to the women of Europe. They
will declare it to be contrary to Nature and to God's plan and that
somebody ought to do something about it. Suffragists will accept the
change as the inevitable outcome of an unprecedented world's cataclysm
over which no human agency had any control and will trust in God to
adjust the altered circumstances to the eternal evolution of human
society. They will remember that in the long run, all things work
together for good, for progress and for human weal.
The economic change is bound to bring political liberty. From every
land, there comes the expressed belief that the war will be followed
by a mighty, oncoming wave of democracy for it is now well known that
the conflict has been one of governments, of kings and Czars, Kaisers
and Emperors; not of peoples. The nations involved have nearly all
declared that they are fighting to make an end of wars. New and higher
ideals of governments and of the rights of the people under them, have
grown enormously during the past two years. Another tide of political
liberty, similar to that of 1848, but of a thousandfold greater
momentum, is rising from battlefield and hospital, from camp and
munitions factory, from home and church which, great men of many
lands, tell us, is destined to sweep over the world. On the continent,
the women say, "It is certain that the vote will come to men and
women after the war, perhaps not immediately but soon. In Great
Britain, which was the storm centre of the suffrage movement for some
years before the war, hundreds of bitter, active opponents have
confessed their conversion on account of the war services of women.
Already, three great provinces of Canada, Manitoba, Alberta, and
Saskatchawan [sic], have given universal suffrage to their women in
sheer generous appreciation of their war work. Even Mr. Asquith, world
renouned [sic] for his immovable opposition to the Parliamentary
suffrage for British women, has given evidence of a change of view.2
Some months ago, he announced his amazement at the utterly unexpected
skill, strength and resource developed by the women and his gratitude
for their loyalty and devotion. Later, in reply to Mrs. Henry Fawcett,
who asked if woman suffrage would be included in a proposed election
bill, he said that when the war should end, such a measure would be
considered without prejudice carried over from events prior to the
war.3 A public statement issued by Mr. Asquith in August, was couched
in such terms as to be interpreted by many as a pledge to include
women in the next election bill.
In Great Britain, a sordid appeal which may prove the last straw to
break the opposition to woman suffrage, has been added to the
enthusiastic appreciation of woman's patriotism and practical service
and to the sudden comprehension that motherhood is a national asset
which must be protected at any price. A new voters' list is
contemplated. A parliamentary election should be held in September but
the voters are scattered far and wide. The whole nation is agitated
over the questions involved in making a new register. At the same
time, there is a constant anxiety over war funds, as is prudent in a
nation spending 50 millions of dollars per day. It has been proposed
that a large poll tax be assessed upon the voters of the new lists,
whereupon a secondary proposal of great force has been offered and
that is, that twice as much money would find its way into the public
coffers were women added to the voters' list. What nation, with
compliments fresh spoken concerning women's patriotism and efficiency,
could resist such an appeal?
So it happens that above the roar of cannon, the scream of shrapnel
and the whirr of aeroplanes, one who listens may hear the cracking of
the fetters which have long bound the European woman to outworn
conventions. It has been a frightful price to pay but the fact remains
that a womanhood, well started on the way to final emancipation, is
destined to step forth from the war. It will be a bewildered, troubled
and grief-stricken womanhood with knotty problems of life to solve,
but it will be freer to deal with them than women have ever been
before.
"The Woman's Hour has struck." It has struck for the women
of Europe and for those of all the world. The significance of the
changed status of European women has not been lost upon the men and
women of our land; our own people are not so unlearned in history, nor
so lacking in National pride that they will allow the Republic to lag
long behind the Empire, presided over by the descendant of George the
Third. If they possess the patriotism and the sense of nationality
which should be the inheritance of an American, they will not wait
until the war is ended but will boldly lead in the inevitable march of
democracy, our own American specialty. Sisters, let me repeat, the
Woman's Hour has struck!
SECOND: As the most adamantine rock gives way under the constant
dripping of water, so the opposition to woman suffrage in our own
country has slowly disintegrated before the increasing strength of our
movement. Turn backward the pages of our history! Behold, brave Abbie
Kelley rotten-egged because she, a woman, essayed to speak in public.4
Behold the Polish Ernestine Rose startled that women of free America
drew aside their skirts when she proposed that they should control
their own property.5 Recall the saintly Lucretia Mott and the
legal-minded Elizabeth Cady Stanton, turned out of the [W]orld's
Temperance convention in London and conspiring together to free their
sex from the world's stupid oppressions.6 Remember the gentle,
sweet-voiced Lucy Stone, egged because she publicly claimed that women
had brains capable of education.7 Think upon Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell,
snubbed and boycotted by other women because she proposed to study
medicine.8 Behold Dr. Antoinette Brown Blackwell, standing in sweet
serenity before an Assembly of howling clergymen, angry that she, a
woman dared to attend a Temperance Convention as a delegate.9 Revere
the intrepid Susan B. Anthony mobbed from Buffalo to Albany because
she demanded fair play for women. These are they who builded with
others the foundation of political liberty for American women.
Those who came after only laid the stones in place. Yet, what a
wearisome task even that has been! Think of the wonderful woman who
has wandered from village to village, from city to city, for a
generation compelling men and women to listen and to reflect by her
matchless eloquence. Where in all the world's history has any movement
among men produced so invincible an advocate as our own Dr. Anna
Howard Shaw? Those whom she has led to the light are Legion. Think,
too, of the consecration, the self-denial, the never-failing constancy
of that other noble soul set in a frail but unflinching body, -- the
heroine we know as Alice Stone Blackwell! A woman who never forgets,
who detects the slightest flaw in the weapons of her adversary, who
knows the most vulnerable spot in his armor, presides over the Woman's
Journal and, like a lamp in a lighthouse, the rays of her
intelligence, farsightedness and clear-thinking have enlightened the
world concerning our cause. The names of hundreds of other brave souls
spring to memory when we pause to review the long struggle.
The hands of many suffrage master-masons have long been stilled; the
names of many who laid the stones have been forgotten. That does not
matter. The main thing is that the edifice of woman's liberty nears
completion. It is strong, indestructible. All honor to the thousands
who have helped in the building.
The four Corner-stones of the foundations were laid long years ago.
We read upon the first: "We demand for women education, for not a
high school or college is open to her"; upon the second, "We
demand for women religious liberty for in few churches is she
permitted to pray or speak"; upon the third, "We demand for
women the right to own property and an opportunity to earn an honest
living. Only six, poorly-paid occupations are open to her, and if she
is married, the wages she earns are not hers"; upon the fourth, "We
demand political freedom and its symbol, the vote."
The stones in the foundation have long been overgrown with the moss
and mould of time, and some there are who never knew they were laid.
Of late, four cap-stones at the top have been set to match those in
the base, and we read upon the first: "The number of women who
are graduated from high schools, colleges and universities is legion";
upon the second, "The Christian Endeavor, that mighty,
undenominational church militant, asks the vote for the women and the
Methodist Episcopal Church, and many another, joins that appeal";
upon the third, "Billions of dollars worth of property are earned
[and] owned by women; more than 8 millions of women are wage-earners.
Every occupation is open to them"; upon the fourth: "Women
vote in 12 States; they share in the determination of 91 electoral
votes."
After the cap-stones and cornice comes the roof. Across the empty
spaces, the rooftree has been flung and fastened well in place. It is
not made of stone but of two planks, -- planks in the platform of the
two majority parties, and these are well supported by planks in the
platforms of all minority parties.
And we who are the builders of 1916, do we see a crisis? Standing
upon these planks which are stretched across the top-most peak of this
edifice of woman's liberty, what shall we do? Over our heads, up there
in the clouds, but tantalizing [sic] near, hangs the roof of our
edifice, -- the vote. What is our duty? Shall we spend time in
admiring the capstones and cornice? Shall we lament the tragedies
which accompanied the laying of the cornerstones? or, shall we, like
the builders of old, chant, "Ho! all hands, all hands, heave to!
All hands, heave to!" and while we chant, grasp the overhanging
roof and with a long pull, a strong pull and a pull together, fix it
in place forevermore?
Is the crisis real or imaginary? If it be real, it calls for action,
bold, immediate and decisive.
Let us then take measure of our strength. Our cause has won the
endorsement of all political parties. Every candidate for the
presidency is a suffragist. It has won the endorsement of most
churches; it has won the hearty approval of all great organizations of
women. It was won the support of all reform movements; it has won the
progressives of every variety. The majority of the press in most
States is with us. Great men in every political party, church and
movement are with us. The names of the greatest men and women of art,
science, literature and philosophy, reform, religion and politics are
on our lists. We have not won the reactionaries of any party, church
or society, and we never will. From the beginning of things, there
have been Antis. The Antis drove Moses out of Egypt; they crucified
Christ who said, "Love thy neighbor as thyself" [Matt.
19:19, 22:39]; they have persecuted Jews in all parts of the world;
they poisoned Socrates, the great philosopher; they cruelly persecuted
Copernicus and Galileo, the first great scientists; they burned
Giordano Bruno at the stake because he believed the world was round;
they burned Savonarola who warred upon church corruption; they burned
Eufame McIlyane [sic] because she used an anaesthetic; they burned
Joan d'Arc for a heretic; they have sent great men and women to
Siberia to eat their hearts out in isolation; they burned in effigy
William Lloyd Garrison; they egged Abbie Kelley and Lucy Stone and
mobbed Susan B. Anthony. Yet, in proportion to the enlightenment of
their respective ages, these Antis were persons of intelligence and
honest purpose. They were merely deaf to the call of Progress and were
enraged because the world insisted upon moving on. Antis male and
female there still are and will be to the end of time. Give to them a
prayer of forgiveness for they know not what they do; and prepare for
the forward march.
We have not won the ignorant and illiterate and we never can. They
are too undeveloped mentally to understand that the institutions of
today are not those of yesterday nor will be those of tomorrow.
We have not won the forces of evil and we never will. Evil has ever
been timorous and suspicious of all change. It is an instinctive act
of self-preservation which makes it fear and consequently oppose votes
for women. As the Hon. Champ Clark said the other day: "Some good
and intelligent people are opposed to woman suffrage; but all the
ignorant and evil-minded are against it."
These three forces are the enemies of our cause.
Before the vote is won, there must and will be a gigantic final
conflict between the forces of progress, righteousness and democracy
and the forces of ignorance, evil and reaction. That struggle may be
postponed, but it cannot be evaded or avoided. There is no question as
to which side will be the victor.
Shall we play the coward, then, and leave the hard knocks for our
daughters, or shall we throw ourselves into the fray, bare our own
shoulders to the blows, and thus bequeath to them a politically
liberated womanhood? We have taken note of our gains and of our
resources! and they are all we could wish. Before the final struggle,
we must take cognizance of our weaknesses. Are we prepared to grasp
the victory? Alas, no! our movement is like a great Niagara with a
vast volume of water tumbling over its ledge but turning no wheel. Our
organized machinery is set for the propagandistic stage and not for
the seizure of victory. Our supporters are spreading the argument for
our cause; they feel no sense of responsibility for the realization of
our hopes. Our movement lacks cohesion, organization, unity and
consequent momentum.
Behind us, in front of us, everywhere about us are suffragists, --
millions of them, but inactive and silent. They have been "agitated
and educated" and are with us in belief. There are thousands of
women who have at one time or another been members of our organization
but they have dropped out because, to them the movement seemed
negative and pointless. Many have taken up other work whose results
were more immediate. Philanthropy, charity, work for corrective laws
of various kinds, temperance, relief for working women and numberless
similar public services have called them. Others have turned to the
pleasanter avenues of clubwork, art or literature.
There are thousands of other women who have never learned of the
earlier struggles of our movement. They found doors of opportunity
open to them on every side. They found well-paid posts awaiting the
qualified woman and they have availed themselves of all these
blessings; almost without exception they believe in the vote but they
feel neither gratitude to those who opened the doors through which
they have entered to economic liberty nor any sense of obligation to
open other doors for those who come after.
There are still others who, timorously looking over their shoulders
to see if any listeners be near, will tell us they hope we will win
and win soon but they are too frightened of Mother Grundy to help.
There are others too occupied with the small things of life to help.
They say they could find time to vote but not to work for the vote.
There are men, too, millions of them, waiting to be called. These men
and women are our reserves. They are largely unorganized and untrained
soldiers with little responsibility toward our movement. Yet these
reserves must be mobilized. The final struggle needs their numbers and
the momentum those numbers will bring. Were never another convert
made, there are suffragists enough in this country, if combined, to
make so irresistible a driving force that victory might be seized at
once.
How can it be done? By a simple change of mental attitude. If we are
to seize the victory, that change must take place in this hall, here
and now!
The old belief, which has sustained suffragists in many an hour of
discouragement, "woman suffrage is bound to come," must give
way to the new, "The Woman's Hour has struck." The long
drawn out struggle, the cruel hostility which, for years was arrayed
against our cause, have accustomed suffragists to the idea of
indefinite postponement but eventual victory. The slogan of a
movements sets its pace. The old one counseled patience; it said,
there is plenty of time; it pardoned sloth and half-hearted effort. It
set the pace of an educational campaign. The "Woman's Hour has
struck" sets the pace of a crusade which will have its way. It
says: "Awake, arise, my sisters, let your hearts be filled with
joy, -- the time of victory is here. Onward March."
If you believe with me that a crisis has come to our movement, -- if
you believe that the time for final action is now, if you catch the
rosy tints of the coming day, what does it mean to you? Does it not
give you a thrill of exaltation; does the blood not course more
quickly through your veins; does it not bring a new sense of freedom,
of joy and of determination? Is it not true that you who wanted a
little time ago to lay down the work because you were weary with long
service, now, under the compelling influence of a changed mental
attitude, are ready to go on until the vote is won. The change is one
of spirit! Aye, and the spiritual effect upon you will come to others.
Let me borrow an expression from Hon. John Finlay: What our great
movement needs now is a "mobilization of spirit", -- the
jubilant, glad spirit of victory. Then let us sound a bugle call here
and now to the women of the Nation: "The Woman's Hour has struck."
Let the bugle sound from the suffrage headquarters of every State at
the inauguration of a State campaign. Let the call go forth again and,
again and yet again. Let it be repeated in every article written, in
every speech made, in every conversation held. Let the bugle blow
again and yet again. The Political emancipation of our sex call[s]
you, women of, America, arise! Are you content that others shall pay
the price of your liberty? Women in schools and counting house, in
shops and on the farm, women in the home with babes at their breasts
and women engaged in public careers will hear. The veins of American
women are not filled with milk and water. They are neither cowards nor
slackers. They will come. They only await the bugle call to learn that
the final battle is on.
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